Now that Disney owns both Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm (and Star Wars therein), the company has begun taking liberties with its wares, speaking this week with ABC about the possibility of a Star Wars-themed television show. This is hardly unprecedented, as the Marvel Comics television adaptation of the secret organization behind The Avengers hit the […]
On Wednesday there’s an enormous animation art auction in L.A. that includes some gorgeous pop culture history. It will include original animation cels from Fleischer Studios, concept art from Disney legend Mary Blair, and an original production drawing from Winsor McCay’s classic 1914 film Gertie the Dinosaur. There’s even some 1970s and 1980s Jetsons art that should pique the interest of any retrofuture fan. But there’s one thing noticeably absent among the Jetsons pieces: any production cels from the 1962-63 iteration of the show
Are you still reeling from the disturbance in the Force when you heard that Disney has purchased Lucasfilm, and with it, word that a seventh film of the Star Wars franchise is in the works? Well, assuming Disney would make a great job out of it, there is hope yet. Still, there is a massive number of Star Wars material to make use of by Disney, be it for games or movies, and the latest bit of news surrounding Star Wars would have something to do with games. Apparently, Disney has already registered a slew of domain names that are related to an upcoming project known as Star Wars: Attack Squadrons.
Who knows, it could very well be a game-and-cartoon movie series tie in, no? The registrations by Disney has more or less covered all possible variations of “Star Wars: Attack Squadrons,” and some of them include StarWarsAttackSquadrons.com, StarWarsAttackSquadrons.org, StarWarsAttackSquadrons.net, SWAttackSquadrons.com, attacksquadron.org, attacksquadrons.com, and attacksquadrons.us among others. Do you prefer it to be a game, movie, or cartoon?
Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It | Disney Registers Star Wars: Attack Squadrons Domain Names original content from Ubergizmo.
Disney’s forte would be their cartoons – and one thing about cartoons that we know of would be this; they come with extremely attractive eyes. Disney has come up with a new technology that they call Papillon, which happens to be a bundle of optical fibers that have been printed with the Papillon 3D printing tech. Using this particular technique, researchers realized that they are able to project an image on one end of the bundle, while making it appear at the other end. In a nutshell, the Papillon technology enables displays of emotions in physical toys as well as robots which will be able to match those that are often found in cartoons and animated shows.
For instance, when one character is in love with another cartoon character, you will see a literal heart appear in the eyes, or a dollar sign that denotes greed. Papillon’s technology has been touted to deliver an incredible amount of accuracy that enables the aforementioned displayed images to appear without looking distorted. Disney’s very own research webpage mentioned, “Papillon is based on a set of algorithms that implements classic Fibonacci spirals and Voronoi tessellation for efficient packing of fibers on a surface of an eye and in the bundle. This allows creating arbitrary curved display surfaces while minimizing visible artifacts, such as light distortions on the edges of the eye. The resulting technology is effective in designing compact, efficient displays of a small size and shape that can have a broad range of applications.”
Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It | Disney’s Papillon Tech Offers Robots Come With Expressive Eyes original content from Ubergizmo.
The Daily Roundup for 07.25.2013
Posted in: Today's ChiliYou might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Some toys look like they’re about ready to come to life and stab you. And if Disney has anything to do with it, we’re going to see even more toys with creepy, lifelike faces in the future, thanks to a new technology called Papillion that 3D-prints eyes onto toys, robots, and other interactive characters.
When Nintendo first announced that the Nintendo Wii would feature motion control, Sony and Microsoft camps laughed at Nintendo, touting that this is just a gimmick that will die off pretty soon. I guess Nintendo did have the last laugh […]
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If you’re hoping to get some more tactile feedback out of augmented reality environments, the folks at Disney Research have devised the AIREAL system that could end up doing just that. The team is showing off the project at SIGGRAPH’s Emerging Technologies space, so we made sure to stop by for a look and feel. As quick refresher, the technology reacts to the user’s gestures by churning out a vortex of air to provide tactile feedback in real space — thanks to an almost entirely 3D printed enclosure and a smattering of actuators and depth senors. In the demo we saw, hovering our hand just over a display summoned a butterfly.
Once it landed, that small bit of air offered up the physical sensation that it was actually touching us. As we moved closer to a virtual open window, wings went a flutter and the whole sensation increased a bit. Sure, what we saw was a fairly simple use scenario, but there are aspirations for this to enhance gaming experiences and other augmented environments (likely within the confines of a Disney park, of course) with the addition of haptic feedback. Looking for a bit more info? Consult the video after the break for just that.
Gallery: Disney Research AIREAL hands-on
Filed under: Misc
Just as software made it relatively easy for ordinary folks to animate fun cartoons on a computer, software is on its way to making it easy for ordinary folk to animate real-life figurines—like the 3D-printed cyber tiger strutting its stuff in this video.
NTT docomo is going to release the Disney’s official smartphone “Disney Mobile on docomo F-07E” manufactured by Fujitsu on July 31.
There are a lot of Disney related designs on the smartphone, for example, the castle and Tinkerbell on the back side lights up and Micky Mouse appears. Also, you can enjoy Disney contents for free.
It has 4.7 inch screen, 1.7GHz Quad Core CPU, Xi, 64GB ROM, and 2GB RAM built-in, and it is compatible with waterproof/dustproof, mobile wallet, One-seg, infrared data communication, and finger print sensor.
Size: 131mm×65mm×10.8mm
Weight: 145g
OS: Android 4.2
Battery life: About 62hours
Charging time: 160minutes
Battery capacity: 2600mAh
Display: 4.7 inch TFT, 720x1280p