Sometimes I just need some visual stimulation. This custom toy fits the bill; part of Ultraman’s “Tin Robot” showing at the recent Trexi show in New York. I found this over on Vinyl Pulse (Link). Great site.

And for the branding people that stop in here from time to time, be sure to take a look at the “Case Study” examples over on the Trexi site.

{Image source: Vinyl Pulse}

As I commented on the Core77 entry where I saw the news, this really isn’t a surprise. The Google Earth forum was full of comments when I visited it some weeks back and 99.99% of what I read were questions about SketchUp. The question in my mind is: how will Google integrate SketchUp into it’s virtual planet and will improvements to GE be forthcoming (especially in the area of textures)?

Anyway, you can read the official announcement on the SketchUp site for yourself (Link).

Videogame news site IGN brings word of NaturalMotion’s new videogame physics-based animation system called “euphoria”. From the IGN news blurb (Link):

Using euphoria, developers can escape the need to pre-program character reactions. Instead, the engine will take into account multiple variables like physics and degree of force to determine how an in-game model should react, making for distinctive results every time.
…
Based on NaturalMotion’s Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS) technology, euphoria allows for A.I. to act as though they possess a central nervous system.

IGN may be wondering which videogame titles will use NaturalMotion’s technology but I’m wondering a) what PLM systems might license it or b) which proprietary PLM systems will see an opportunity for them in the videogame arena.

via Blue’s News

Hey, if the mainstream media is going to keep posting articles about “gold pharming”, I may as well point people to them. Besides, sometimes there’s a bit of information in an article that’s unique. Sometimes.

The latest MSM to report on this is Red Herring (I didn’t even know that magazine still existed). If you’re interested in either current videogame socio-economic issues or, like me, are interested in the future of work, you might want to check out the Red Herring article, “Digging for Videogame Gold” (Link).

And in case you missed my earlier post (reLink) regarding a discussion over on Terra Nova, you might enjoy both the comments and the video.

via Blue’s News

Wired has news of a very cool development in the materials world: artificial nacre. From the Wired article (Link):

A team of researchers in the Materials Science Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has managed to imitate the complex structures found in ice and mollusk shells, and the ultra-strong material could lead to everything from stronger artificial bone to airplane parts.

I keep surfing over to the RepRap blog and seeing devices that look more and more like regular old injection molding machines and can’t help but wonder if there isn’t something off in this approach. This kind of news just reinforces that feeling that there might be a better process.

Cool stuff.