In the following hands-on blood-spewing experience with this next-generation first person shooter from the same folks that brought you Shadowgun, you’ll see zombies. You’ll see so many zombies that your head will explode. We’ll be showing off this game Dead Trigger THD, developed by Madfinger Games in collaboration with NVIDIA for their Tegra 3 quad-core processor, on the newest device to utilize that architecture, the Google Nexus 7 tablet.
If you’ve played Shadowgun, you’ll feel right at home with Dead Trigger. You’ve got essentially the same controls, the graphics are extremely similar, and the amount of fun you’ll have here is at least as high as it’s been in that non-zombie game. Here you’ll have a host of new weapons, a much more terrifying environment, and zombies. Understand this if you understand nothing else: there’s lots of zombies in this game. Lots of once-dead people who are now out to eat your brains.
You’ll see water and fluid effects like you’ll find nowhere else, similar to what’s been shown in the THD (Tegra High-Definition) version of Shadowgun. You’ll also see variable lighting as well as volumetric fog and some excellent rag doll physics all around. And lots and lots of blood.
NOTE: also be sure to have a peek at the tablet in this post in our Google Nexus 7 Review. Then have a peek at this game in the TegraZone and/or the Google Play app store right this second for the impossibly inexpensive price of $0.99 USD. It’s impossible not to grab. Grab it right now.
The next blockbuster comic book film headed to theaters this summer is The Amazing Spider-Man, and we got the opportunity earlier this month to speak to none other than the friendly neighborhood super-hero himself: Andrew Garfield. As part of a press junket in New York City that included everyone from Emma Stone to Martin Sheen [our talk coming up later this week], including the director Marc Webb as well, it was Garfield who came off as the single most jolted and excited cast or crew member involved. Have a read on how Garfield jumped into the role of Peter Parker and his superhero alternate identity Spider-Man below, and don’t forget to keep your mask on!
Be sure to check out our first look at The Amazing Spider-Man from earlier this month as well. We’ve also got a talk coming up that will let you dive deep into the world visual effects on the film this week. For now though, head on down to Andrew Garfield’s take on the whole experience!
[Q] Hi Andrew, first off, congratulations on everything.
[Andrew Garfield] Oh thanks. On my life, hah. I do have a very blessed life, thank you.
[Q] I wonder if you could talk about the difference between doing low-tech stagecraft [such as with Death of a Salesman] and this, a huge blockbuster?
[AG] It’s not much different, actually, weirdly enough. In terms of how I approached it, my only intention was to honor the character. That goes for Biff Loman as well as Peter Parker/Spider-Man. That was everything to me. So, my approach was the same – just from my heart and guts. I got very upset and stressed out and wanted to do a good job, as is my way. And that’s kind of it. I mean, there were certain things that were challenging about both, of course.
You know, the repetition of going through trauma every night on stage is a killer and your body doesn’t know it’s not real, even if your mind does. So, your body is in a lot of pain and your heart is in a lot of pain. But it’s worth it. I will always think about that theatre experience all my life. I will hold it very, very close to me.
Garfield poses with cast members in NYC for The Amazing Spider-Man earlier this month.
[AG] And then with this movie, the technical aspects – the only thing that was kind of a challenge was that it was difficult to get into a rhythm because of the 3D cameras. The new technology was difficult for everyone involved. They take a lot of care and delicacy, so it meant that we were stopped occasionally. I love just going and going and going and keep it rolling, keep it rolling and screwing up and screwing up and screwing up, then occasionally you accidentally get something right and you won’t know how. That’s kind of how I like to work. And that’s why I loved working with David Fincher because he does so many takes. I discovered how that kind of painful exactness really suits me, so that was cool.
[Q] In this film you use the mechanical web-shooters. Did any of them actually work – did anything happen [when you activate them]?
[AG] Um… hah…. do I lie or not… um, no, it was a nice exercise in imagination, and that carjacker scene we had the ah – that was all improvised, that scene, so I had this idea that I could draw the Spidey image over the guy’s crotch, and I think at one point they had that in there and they took it out. (I thought it was kind of cool.) But no, to be able to have that imagination do whatever you want and know that they could add it in in post was kind of liberating so I could shut that door on that guy as many times as I want, I could web him in the face, I could web a long shot – It was kind of fun. But difficult, because if it was real, it would have been awesome if it was real.
[Q] I interviewed Andy Armstrong about the swinging rigs that he built and he talked about all the training you put in to actually be able to get up there and swing yourself. What was the experience like in actually using those rigs and actually being able to get up there and swing?
[AG] Thanks for the question – any mention of Andy Armstrong and my heart swells. He kind of turned into a father figure for me on this film and remains that way. He… I can’t… I will write a book about him one day. He… his team are the safest group of hands you could ever hope to meet, and passionate, supportive, loving – it’s a tribe that he has. And he was generous enough to allow me to be a part of that tribe. I got no special treatment and it was amazing for that very, very, very reason.
He’s a real person and he likes real people and we had an amazing time. He pushes me, you know, there were things I was scared about and like any good father he kind of told me: ‘Go beyond. Go beyond what you think you can do, ’cause you might surprise yourself.’ So for that reason it’s kind of a spiritually overwhelming sort of experience to work with him, and of course that combines with that sensation, that physical sensation that I wanted to do since I was 3, probably what everyone in this room has wanted to do since they were 3 years old: I got to live that for a second. I’m eternally grateful to everyone at Sony Pictures for allowing me to.
[Q] Have you received any feedback from Toby McGuire about your portrayal of the character, and if so, how did you take it?
[AG] Ah… to my knowledge he hasn’t seen the movie, but I got feedback from the casting – when I got cast he sent an email to Matt Tolmach immediately that was very, very generous, and made me feel like I could take the torch in confidence and that I had that support in him. He didn’t need to do that, it tells you something about his person. We’re all part of that family, that Spider-Man family.
[Q] How would you describe the wonderful work that Spider-Man does in regards to him being called a vigilante?
[AG] What’s cool about this movie is that he discovers… he discovers the power of what he’s created. He doesn’t create this… he doesn’t create this symbol with any kind of high-mindedness, he creates it so he can protect himself. Because he’s searching for his uncle’s killer. And I think that he is a vigilante for a period of this story, of this particular story. And I think it’s true for any teenager who goes through that amount of tragic events to have those impulses – to kick out, and rebel, and use their powers in a way that you’re not thinking responsibly. They’re not even thinking at all.
[AG] I think that whole section is Peter running away from his feelings – Peter running away from the pain, the guilt, and putting it in something physical, and sweating it out. And when he comes home to Aunt May it’s sort of very difficult to be seen in that way and to see yourself in that way. So yeah, I think there is a period where he’s acting out on those kinds of impulses, and he accidentally discovers that he’s created something bigger than him, and that can be used for good. I think it – it was important for me that he started with a heroic impulse, he, without the physical powers doing things with it.
And that was always how I felt growing up, I felt like I was a dog and I felt like I was a skinny kid and – now I’m not obviously, I’m a just like, huge bruiser. So I got over that problem. Now I just realize that being skinny is ok, you know? I always feel I should have been bigger for that reason, because if I actually told you that, I guess – although for example like everybody played rugby, and I played rugby, and I was good at it but I got concussed all the time because I was a weakling, So that’s something I would identify with for Peter, you know, he always just felt stronger on the inside than he did on the outside.
And there’s nothing better than seeing a skinny guy beat the crap out of big guys. So that was just kind of important for me.
[Q] You say in a lot of interviews how much just Spider-Man truly meant to you as a child growing up and this end result now, and [Marc Webb] has mentioned that you wrote a personal note to him that really moved him. I’m wondering if in your long history with Spider-Man you – can you tell us what it was like to meet Stan Lee for the first time and how that ranked as far as maybe like nerve-racking experiences inclusive with things like auditioning for this role which is nerve-racking enough?
[AG] Yeah, yeah, I’ve been at this for the past two years, it seems like, every day there’s been something that like has made me have to suppress shaking. So, but Stan Lee was a weird one because… he wasn’t real. He’s too iconic to be real. So it wasn’t like I was in a room with a human being, it was like I was in a room with a wax figure, you know? I was at Madame Tussauds.
It… It made no sense. I wasn’t nervous, I was just like… I was one of those annoying people who is like *makes open faced gawking expression* And he was just like… *waves hand in front of face* ‘I’m here…’ And he’s amazing, he’s everything that you think he is.
[AG] He came on set, so I met him in the makeup trailer once, and then he came on set again and he did this amazing cameo in the library… It was just, it was just beautiful because when you really truly understand what he’s given to us… he’s given so many kids hope, and joy, and you cannot thank enough for that. It was like being in a room with Mickey Mouse, you know, it was bizarre. So I wasn’t actually nervous, in a weird way. That was the one day I wasn’t actually nervous.
[Q] You’ve said you want to audition for every part that you want. Why is it that you feel you have to audition? Is it a challenge, and what do you get out of it?
[AG] Sometimes there are actors who reach a certain level of notoriety or visibility where they don’t need – they may get offered roles based on their monetary value or the idea that they will bring in an audience. They may not be right for the part or they may not serve the story in the way that they should. I’m not saying that I’m in that position, I’m just saying that that is something that I fear.
Like, here’s a weird analogy: if you’re in a pool hall and you’re playing pool and you have to put in 50 cents every time, you’re going to enjoy that game because you paid for it. But if you figured out a way to jimmy the thing and you can get a free game of pool out of it, you’re not going to care so much about the game.
There’s something in that about feeling like you’ve earned something as opposed to just being handed something. And luckily I haven’t experienced that. I’ve had to work for everything that I’ve been a part of, and there’s just something satisfying about it because you know that they looked at everyone and that you are the right person for that particular story at that particular moment. I guess there’s something about staying grounded and humble, and making sure that you appreciate everything you have as well.
[Q] You had one of the most memorable introductions at Comic Con [as seen in the video above]. Why did you choose to go that full confessional route? Did you feel like you needed to or were you driven to and you thought that was the right audience?
[AG] It wasn’t really thought out. I was compelled, for many reasons I think – if I analyze it. I am terrified to take on this role because it means so much to me, so I know how much it means to other people. And I think it has something to do with actors being on stage… I wanted to be on the ground. I wanted to be in the audience watching the panel. I didn’t want to be in the panel. That’s where I thought I just belonged more, so I guess I just kind of extended that idea.
I kind of wanted to do the whole speech in the mask, just out of sheer protection, you know? There is something odd about the separation between actors and the audience that I don’t really care for. That’s why I love theatre so much. That’s why I loved the great show that was here in New York called “Sleep No More”, which is all audience participation. You basically walk around and you’re immersed in the experience, and there’s no separation from the actors and the audience.
I don’t know – I’m not really answering your question. I just wanted to feel connected to the fans in a real way because I’m a fan first and foremost. It just felt like the right thing to do. It was a scary thing because who knows what would have happened. But it just felt like an opportunity to have fun as well.
[Q] What did you do to make sure you got the part of playing a teenager right – not necessarily a teenager who develops powers? Is there research that you did?
[AG] agree that the teenage element is incredibly vital to this particular superhero and this person, this character. The fact that he goes through the same stuff I went through, that’s why I love him so much. Because I thought if I was him. That’s why everyone feels like he’s him because he’s all of us. He really is.
So the teenage thing, I don’t know. I did spend time in Queens hanging out with teenagers and a lot of recording the voice and intonation and picking up phrases that I might not be aware of or a general attitude. That malaise and the awkward shyness – every aspect.
There was a great book I found for inspiration called “Teenage”, which is a book of photographs. I wouldn’t buy it because it’s too expensive, but actually the marketing department at Sony bought it for me very, very generously as a gift. I saw the price and I’m like, ‘You guys are crazy! Thank you so much.’ But it’s awesome. The energy of the photos in that is what I wanted to capture. It’s tongue on tongue.
[AG] It’s just head out the window, that need to express, that need to kick the walls down irrationally.
Which, when you combine that with being a superhero, that is kind of exciting. There’s that scene on Gwen’s bedroom floor where she’s nursing me and we have an intimate, kind of heavy moment of like she’s terrified I’m going to die and I’m terrified of what I’ve done to my mentor. At the end of that scene it’s – ‘Let’s just get out of here. We’ve got to get out of here.’
In a previous version – we shot a lot more – we have a date night where it’s expressive and free and teenage and romantic and silly. But that feeling is something that I really wanted to capture, especially in those moments between Gwen and Peter.
So, “Teenage”. Check out that book. It’s too expensive. Find someone who has it and look at the pictures. You’ll be like, ‘Oh god – I remember that feeling.’
[Q] Can you compare and contrast kissing scenes with killing scenes and doing romance as opposed to doing death-defying action on screen?
[AG] They’re all pretty scary things. Hah. Yeah, they’re all pretty scary. I actually felt more safe when I was swinging around because you have a very, very strong safe pair of hands holding you up. In the romantic scenes, I’m free-falling in a way, as they should be. They have to be spontaneous and free and terrifying, because that’s what first love is.
First love is the scariest thing to ever go through and the most exhilarating. You’ve got so much to lose. So they were actually more frightening than swinging through the buildings, in a weird way. And especially because it’s Emma, and she’s terrifying.
[Q] Could you talk about the physical transformation you had to go through, the training, and the stunt coordinating? Was there a particular moment you’re really proud of?
[AG] It’s so nice to be able to look at a movie and feel ownership. It’s a really nice thing to be able to feel that, because of Andy’s trust and his encouragement of me. There was something specific that I wanted to do with the physicality that wasn’t just a guy in a suit throwing kicks and punches and saying cheesy lines.
[AG] I wanted it to be a “Spider-Boy” in the way that if we ground this film in reality, then what happens when spider DNA is running through your bloodstream? What happens to the teenage boy who is fidgety and nervous and can’t really keep still? He discovers that he can now have patience, like a spider.
[AG] There was another scene that they cut out which was awesome, which is me and when the Chinese thing goes in the trashcan when I’m on the computer, but I was doing something with all my limbs – doing different things – and they melded two shots and I thought it was really, really cool. I was moving a lamp with my left, I was typing with my right foot, I was eating Chinese, and I was reaching for something behind me, and it didn’t get in the movie. Maybe I’ll cut my own movie on bits that I like. *laughter*
So, yeah, that was really fun.
[AG] And there was a lot of great physical stuff that made it, like for instance the scene where I get all the food out of the fridge. The kind of spatial awareness that you have in this film is like, ‘Peter doesn’t move like that. Peter doesn’t glide like that before the spider bite.’ And the way he’s moving around the space, he’s kind of walking by the wall as opposed to walking straight through the room. He’s kind of got his back to the wall.
That kind of thing is fun to play with, but then of course the training is horrible. Like the physical training changed my body because I’m a lazy guy. I’m vain, but I’m not vain enough to care about the gym. And Armando Alarcon was my trainer and he’s a fantastic trainer and a terrible person. *laughter*
I have very confused feelings about Armando. Wherever he is, he knows that. He’s hiding from me because he will be murdered one day. No, but we had a great time. I was thankful for him. He kept me on an even keel all the way through, and that combined with the whole stunt team was a pretty awesome experience.
[Q] Did you have any issues with the costume that you were aware of at all, were you wearing it out in public, anything like that?
[AG] You know, I had many issues with that costume. *laughter*
But every actor who plays a superhero is like, ‘the costume sucked.’ Like, we should just get together to talk about it because it’s so inappropriate to talk about in public. It’s like – how dare we complain? We’re the ones that get to wear it. It’s the dream.
But, it was so terrible. No – Let me just put it this way: the fantasy of wearing those costumes is really awesome. We should just enjoy that.
Catch our whole Spider-Man series of interviews as the week goes on right here on SlashGear, and don’t forget to hit our Entertainment portal for more big-ticket film action through the future as well. Finally, don’t forget to check out The Amazing Spider-Man as it hits theaters July 3rd here in the USA!
Today we’ve got our hands on the HTC DROID Incredible 4G LTE from Verizon, a device that’ll be out in stores on the fifth of this month. This device represents HTC’s efforts to bring most of the greatness from the HTC One series over to Verizon for their 4G LTE excellence in a relatively small form factor. You’ve got a 4-inch LCD qHD display – the same one as exists on the HTC One S, coupled with a 1.2 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor from Qualcomm and a price of $149.99 after $50 mail-in rebate – have a peek at it up close below.
This device works with Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich and has HTC’s own newest user interface on top, that being Sense 4.0 as well. This device looks and feels rather similar to the HTC Rezound, aka the highest definition smartphone on the market, and comes with its own lovely egg-like shape as well. Have a peek at our full review of the HTC Rezound and come back for a much more compact version of said device here.
Above you’ll see our newest hands-on with the device, our first look having been back earlier this year at CTIA 2012 in New Orleans. Things having changed much since then, this device still looking the same on the inside and outside, with what appears to be no significant software modifications inside either. On another note, the only difference between this and an HTC One device – HTC One S, HTC EVO 4G LTE, HTC One X, is the HTC ImageSense chip.
What you’ve got here is the next in a line of rather successful “Incredible” devices from Verizon’s DROID lineup. With HTC’s addition of the fantastic Snapdragon S4 – the same processor also sitting in the rest of the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S III line, mind you, HTC and Verizon likely have another winner on their hands. Have a peek at the hands-on photos above and below and prepare for a full review this week!
Earlier this month we got the chance to shoot some questions at several of the stars and crew of The Amazing Spider-Man, one of these talks being with Emma Stone, who played comic legend Gwen Stacy in the film. She spoke about how she got to know the character Gwen only after having spoken about playing Mary Jane as well as how the big change in working on her first big-name effects film is really in the press tour action. Have a peek at this un-cut interview below.
[Question] What first drew you to this role, this famous role [of Gwen Stacy]?
[Emma Stone] At first I had met Laura Ziskin really early on, just about two weeks after it was announced, [but] for Mary Jane [rather than Gwen Stacy]. And I had always wanted to play Mary Jane. Mary Jane was so great. Then a couple of months went by and he called back and he said we’d like to to audition for the part of Gwen Stacy.’ I was like ‘erm, well, I don’t know who Gwen Stacy is.’ – Because I hadn’t read the comic books growing up. So I looked into the story of Gwen and I just fell in love with Gwen’s story because it is so incredibly epic and tragic and incredible in the way that it affects Peter moving forward with Mary Jane who was another character that I love, obviously, who was enormous. So I took the opportunity to audition, and met Andrew at the audition and got to act with him for the first time. “I hadn’t read the comic books growing up. So I looked into the story of Gwen and I just fell in love with Gwen’s story because it is so incredibly epic and tragic…”
He is one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with, I instantly knew how much I could learn from him and that really, really drew me. That challenge, rising to meet him every day was something really exciting and was a huge learning and growing experience for me, so it was a combination of things.
[Q] When you read the script and first realized that she’s not just the damsel in distress – she’s a big part of saving the day in this, were you more interested in doing the part when you realized you’d be a very strong woman?
[ES] I was cast before I read the script.
[Q] Well were you happy then when you did realize that, then –
[ES] Yeah, yeah, I read the sides, and Sargin had written the sides, who is a genius, wrote Ordinary People and Paper Moon so he’s not too shabby of a writer. And she had felt that way in sides – there was a heartbreaking scene where was an exchange with them that was really sweet, the dinner table scene, that was all kind of in there when I read the sides, so I instantly knew that it was something very different. Obviously he’s such a brilliant writer – I didn’t even know it was written by him, but I was like ‘god these are well written scenes.’ I really, really liked her from those sides.
Emma Stone in the photo-call during the NYC Press Junket earlier this month with other members of the cast and crew.
[Q] Whenever someone talks about Spider-Man you hear the words ‘Iconic’ and ‘Much-Beloved’, it seems like he’s a hero that so many people idolize, especially young boys – from a female perspective, what do you think it is about Spider-Man that makes him such a beloved super-hero?
[ES] Well he’s the only teenage super-hero, which is major, because a lot of the time when people start reading comic books, you are a kid or a teenager, so he’s the most identifiable, instantly, you can relate to him. Not to mention: he’s bullied, which is huge, for a girl or a boy, I think everyone has experienced something along those lines. And the fact that he is bitten by this spider, and this kind of wish fulfillment comes true – that he’s able to fight back to the bullies that he wasn’t able to before, is symbolism for kids. “The fact that he is bitten by this spider, and this kind of wish fulfillment comes true – that he’s able to fight back to the bullies that he wasn’t able to before, is symbolism for kids.”
They have so much power within them to… speak out, to stand up for themselves, to stay unique, and to stay true to who they are – as Peter does. He finds those elements within him with or without his powers. Which is what I think in this movie spurs Gwen and Peter’s first interaction which when he’s standing up for a kid that’s being bullied and takes that fall for a kid who’s being humiliated in front of a group of people. He has these heroic qualities long before he becomes an actual super-hero.
So yeah, I think that’s why it’s been so resonant and has been for 50 years and will continue to – even to having Barack Obama having him be his biggest inspiration in pop culture.
[Q] In addition to Spider-Man being so iconic, Gwen Stacy is pretty iconic herself. You said you went through and did some research on her and looked into her story. That was very apparent on-screen where everything down to her iconic thigh-highs, her look, and the feel of the character, seemed to come right off the comic book page. How much of that was your own preparation, and how much of it was stuff that you worked with Webb and the others with on?
[ES] Well costumes were done by Kym Barrett who’s fantastic – we worked together to, kind of, make sure Gwen felt like Gwen – that also made sense in the real world. And obviously I’m a lot less voluptuous than Gwen unfortunately, so, it didn’t really go to those heights. But you know, the signature headband, and the thigh-highs, and the coats; all of that was important to stay present, down to the makeup. Ve Neill was incredible and, hair and makeup we really tried to attain that as well, to keep her realistic and, you know, still keep her earthbound. I’m not, by no means a supermodel, or like an unattainable looking person, so that element of Gwen was a bit different from the comic books in some ways because she was such a beauty queen in the comics and I’m more… next door.
[ES] So that we worked on, and in terms of her as a character, it was just a hodge-podge of different versions of Gwen. I know she’s not very hippy-ish in this, and I don’t think she will ever be birthing Norman Osborn’s twins, I don’t think that’s going to be happening, or moving to London. So we tried to keep some of that moxie in there, and some of that self-assuredness, and she’s the daughter of a police chief, she’s the oldest daughter, so there’s that responsibility thing that kicks in when she thinks her father could die everyday. And I think it’s important that she took on that energy of being in charge, for her family, like she could be there should something happen. And then she unwittingly is drawn to a man who is in the same position. [She’s got an] Electra complex thing going on.
[Q] Your character Gwen is a scientist / physicist, I was wondering how familiar you are in that field, does that interest you at all?
[ES] That’s a great question because I was home-schooled and wasn’t really exposed to anything like that. My aunt and uncle are both scientists that worked for Merck and they had a hand in creating a cervical cancer vaccine – so they’re both incredibly intelligent, fantastic minds, you know. I’d always been fascinated by what they did, and I myself – this is going to sound a little bit strange – but I had really, really bad acne a couple years ago, really bad, and it was during a really stressful time period so I went online and tried to find what causes this kind of thing. The course of production and how things change in your body, and medical power – and they took us to these labs, this is the first time in my life that’d I’d been really angry about not going to college because I went to these labs and I, was, fascinated.
[ES] And I knew what they were talking about, we looked at bio-photonics and what happens when cortisol fires off in your brain, and – the same thing that causes acne can also cause diabetes and they’re proving that stress is a link and I was learning about regeneration and we were injecting axel models and we were seeing how they remove their arms and studying regeneration. We looked at stem cells that they’ve wired to beat like a human heart. And they’re finding ways to do this stuff and I was fascinated! I was like ‘what do I need to do to intern?’ ‘You need to be a college graduate.’ And I was like ‘but I know what you’re talking about! I can learn’ and it made me so upset, it’s like the Peace Core, you have to be a college graduate and I was like ‘f*ck!’
It sucks – ‘I can learn, I swear!’ And so now I’ve gone on my tangent about the word “smart” which has really been bothering me for the past year – I don’t like the word “smart” anymore because what does smart mean? Does it mean you’re able to learn or does it mean that you’ve graduated college? I didn’t graduate college: doesn’t mean I’m not smart.
So I really really, I got so interested in biology. One of the most exciting parts of this process was learning about medicine and regeneration and stem cells and all of it just expanded my mind in so many ways so now I’m gonna take biology class. And now what’s amazing is you can do it at home! …Doesn’t mean I’m not smart… “One of the most exciting parts of this process was learning about medicine and regeneration and stem cells.”
[Q] Dennis Leary was in here earlier and he said that at one point in filming, Marc Webb told him he’d have to step it up because you and Andrew were so good. A lot of people have been raving about your improv skills and I was just wondering what some of the improv moments were in this film? And also – do you think you could convince Andrew to do Saturday Night Live?
[ES] Pfff, you’re telling me – yeah, I can’t convince Ryan Gosling but I’m working on Andrew. I guess some of my favorite improv moments were the hallway scene… which was written, but there were a lot of moments that we got to add in the scene where we’re like asking each other out, but not.
[ES] And then there was that awful, that was just such a hammy bit, they let me go off the cuff to keep Dennis out of my room. So I, of course, when you give me an inch, it’s not good. So I was like ‘what is the one thing that would keep a dad out of his teenage daughter’s room’ – anything related to that. Anything related to hormones. I knew in an instant, from my own life experiences that you can just be like ‘sorry, its just that i…’ ‘OK alright, I’ll let you go!’ Dad’s don’t want to talk about that.
[Q] One of the iconic lines and great themes of Spider-Man is ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. Now that you’ve won the Trailblazer award, is that something you can relate to in your personal life? Responsibility with your stardom?
[ES] I don’t in any way, shape, or form think that I’m any type of a role model, or anything like that, but for whatever reason, when you’re put into a public place, you have to figure out what that purpose is in your life, why that may have happened, or what you can possibly do with something like that. And I’m not political, and I’m not going to talk about those kinds of things, and I know that that’s never going to be my job as an actor to be championing any specific cause, except for originality. That’s the one thing that I identify with as maybe my responsibility, per-say.
And I know it’s not my responsibility and I know all of that, but there’s something that came with – getting a Revlon contract, actually, and I thought – why in the world would I be approached for a beauty campaign? Because I’d always been the funny girl. And that’s not to put myself down, that was just always the way that my brain worked.
And I thought about Diane Keaton for L’Oreal and Ellen Degeneres for Cover Girl and how sometimes real beauty gets to be celebrated. Like what’s inside is what counts, and so you can still feel beautiful and you can still put makeup on but because it makes you feel good, and not for anybody else. And that was something that I was like ‘if I had an opportunity to reach people or reach young girls in a way that makes them feel like what they are is enough,’ and what those parts of their personality that set them apart and make them original, if they feel good about that, in any way, if that affects one person, then that’s a game changer. That’s something that I’m proud to be helpful in any way in – of looking real, or being a real person.
Obviously I have a stylist, that puts me in clothes like this, and I have a hair and makeup artist that’s doing things like that – so there’s all of that going on too, and I’m not eloquent right now, at all, but yeah I do feel a slight, not responsibility, but a privilege, to be able to speak to younger girls and hopefully make them feel like it’s ok to be themselves.
[Q] Why do you feel that Peter was attracted to Gwen other than, you know, she’s a beautiful blond with courage and other qualities – what’s that all about?
[ES] I think that elements of Gwen and Gwen’s family line are things that Peter didn’t necessarily have. Just a sense of stability – I know Aunt May and Uncle Ben are a very stable environment for him, but Peter has abandonment issues, I mean he was left when he was 5, so there’s something where he doesn’t feel he can be totally honest with Aunt May and Uncle Ben because they never stay on the subject, you see that when Peter comes in and Uncle Ben says ‘sorry we don’t talk about this.’ He doesn’t feel comfortable expressing the pain to them, and he sees someone steady in Gwen and someone who can understand what it’s like to lose a father on a daily basis – as you see in that bedroom scene where she doesn’t know if he’s gonna come home every day, so she feels that sense of abandonment as well and I think they find an incredible – they’re so different – but they also relate on love of learning, and things like that and I think he can see something in Gwen that becomes a confidant that he can trust.“I know Aunt May and Uncle Ben are a very stable environment for him, but Peter has abandonment issues.”
[Q] Piggybacking off of that question – we’ve seen you playing a highschooler in love before, in Easy A and Superbad, but this story felt different, it felt young, it felt goofy, it felt sweet – how did you approach this love story and what traits from love people in love inspired you to put into this movie?
[ES] Well in Superbad and Easy A – in any movie that I’ve done, there hasn’t been a love story like this, I mean Superbad with Seth, that’s kind of a totally different thing that’s like ‘oh he’s cute’ and in Easy A it’s like ‘oh Woodchuck Todd, he’s cute’ but they’re focused on their own story, really, in most of the movies that I’ve been a part of. This kind of swept me off my feet because she truly is really in love with him. And I think the approach was – I wanted again to feel that experience of “first love” before you know what it feels like to get your heart completely shattered, or that “life or death” love where you’re like ‘I KNOW WHAT LOVE IS’ – you know that, except where in the circumstances where it actually is life or death.
So I wanted to feel that again, I wanted to unlearn and go from the very beginning of where ‘oh my god there’s an attraction to another human being in a way that I’ve never felt that before’, that uncomfortable *ugch*, I wanted to feel that again. So it was a matter of unlearning, of really becoming 17 again and letting yourself be 17 in this moment, it’s fun! You guys should try it! It’s pretty cool! It’s pretty cool to feel that way.
[Q] How would you describe the difference between working on a film like Easy A where there’s no visual effects whatsoever and moving up to this where it’s, first, a completely different thing where it’s a blockbuster film, but it’s also a major effects film? Especially in regards to 3D?
[ES] My character wasn’t as involved in the special effects – my storyline was really very human, so it actually didn’t feel all that different other than the days where I had to swing – which was fun. Or the days on a bluescreen, which when you’re acting with another person, you can be in a cardboard box, it just tests your imagination. But in terms of shooting in 3D the only big difference was, the only thing different was that it takes a little bit longer because you need two cameras, and the camera is huge and reflective. “It’s nice to know that even when you’re shooting a movie like this that you approach the character the same way.”
So it’s like acting with a mirror right next to you, which is very bizarre. If you’ve ever had a conversation with a mirror right next to you, you keep catching yourself and it’s just awful. But then you get used to it, and it’s a little bit better. But it’s nice to know that even when you’re shooting a movie like this that you approach the character the same way, and you’re trying to tell the… tell the truth, all the time, about who that person is and what they’re feeling. So it’s comforting that under any circumstance no matter what the budget that that remains the same.
THIS feels different. The PRESS feels different. This is where it really strikes you that you’re in Spider-Man.
[Q] In regards to the first trilogy and MJ, was there any pressure for you to make Gwen’s first kiss as memorable as it was with MJ in the first film? That became a very iconic moment in the film.
[ES] I know, and obviously there’s no comparison there. Of course I thought about it, because… I just did, I thought about the kiss but I, you know, just trusted them to write it, so it was just what they wrote, we just kind of went with what they wrote.
[Q] Did they purposefully make that a little nod to Indiana Jones?
[ES] I think it’s cool because Peter kind of reminds me a little bit of that mischievous Indiana Jones character, but yeah, that’s a little, a little tango move.
[Q] Marc said earlier that he cast the chemistry between Andrew and you, and you said earlier that Andrew is one of the best actors that you’ve ever worked with – how would you explain the chemistry between the two of you?
[ES] Can one explain chemistry?
[Q] I knew you were going to say that for some reason.
[ES] It’s hard because with any person in life that I’ve had chemistry with I don’t know exactly what it is, and that’s why they do chemistry tests for movies. Because even if they’re not playing a love interest, even if they’re playing parents or best friends, sometimes it either just clicks or it just doesn’t, it doesn’t matter how good the actors might be. So it really isn’t definable, it really is just what they call it. It’s something else entirely, it’s just some soul thing, I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.
[Q] Could you tell us what Marc Webb brought to this film as he wasn’t the obvious choice given his background.
[ES] I think that Marc, clearly, I mean from 500 Days of Summer, you can tell that Marc cares about love, and he cares about humanity, and that was incredibly important for this movie. He prioritized the relationships just as much as the action. And I know he had a million voices in his ear – there’s a lot of opinions all the time, and he would come in on Sundays to work on the scenes with us, and break them down and build them all the way back up until we got the same scene that was written on the page but we had analyzed it to death. He was incredibly kind and willing to work on that relationship, so from my experience, I was very grateful that he came from that background.
[Q] I was wondering if they rigged you up for that big swing or if most of that was CGI?
[ES] Which?
[Q] When he took you on, kind of that…
[ES] Oh yeah yeah yeah! Yeah, we swung. We were swingin’.
[Q] Are you afraid of heights or were you..
[ES] No, it was awesome, I really loved it, yeah. Thankfully I’m not afraid of heights, it would have been horrific, it would have been awful actually because you’re so out of control. But no, I loved it – other than the bruising – I loved it. Artists do bruise, you guys. Yikes.
Don’t forget to catch The Amazing Spider-Man starting July 3rd in the USA!
This week as the fuzzy teddy bear toting R-rated Seth MacFarlane movie Ted comes out, we got the chance to interview Jenny Fulle of The Creative-Cartel, the group responsible for overseeing the visual effects for the film. As it is with many of the films The Creative-Cartel works with, Ted presented them with the challenge of creating a set of effects that were top-notch with a budget that was less than your everyday average blockbuster effects film would present. The result was no less than a perfectly legitimate looking transformation of MacFarlane to the body of a toy bear stuffed into a comedy with essentially no other visual effects to speak of. It had to look real, and it certainly does.
[Question] Ted is a movie that take a real-world set of characters and tosses in a character that isn’t technically real. Could you speak on what techniques you used to make that happen?
[Jenny Fulle] In our early meetings with Seth MacFarlane, who obviously also is the director of Ted, he actually wanted to be Ted. And he was afraid to do this, he didn’t want it to be cartoony, he wanted it to be real. He wanted it to be a real teddy bear that he could infuse his character into to bring it alive. So he knew when he was going in that he wanted to do motion capture in some fashion, some form or another in addition to doing Ted’s voice.
So what our challenge was, was with our budget and our timeframe for getting it done was – how could we get Seth and his mannerisms and his voice and all that, get that into Ted. And not break the bank and not run the schedule over. So what we ended up working with was the Xsens suit, the motion capture suit – it’s basically a situation where you can go with a suit or you can go with straps, and we opted for the straps so Seth wouldn’t have to be in a unitard all day long. And what we would do is we would set that up on set. So that while he was doing the voice, the lines back and forth with the actors, he could also be in the suit. We could be capturing his motion and we could then capture that and we could then feed that to the animators who could edit it in post.
Above: Seth MacFarlane sans the motion capture gear.
[Jenny Fulle] We really focused on motion capture from his waist up – because he has a lot of mannerisms with his hands and he rocks back and forth and moves backwards and forwards and stuff like that. What we would also do is keep a high-definition camera on his face. That way we could also capture a visual representation of what he does with his eyebrows and when his eyes go wide and that sort of thing. We would then give that to the animators so they could just manually take that look and apply it to the bear.
“He didn’t want it to be cartoony, he wanted it to be real.”
[Q] That’s interesting – is there then a separate camera on his face at the same time as the main camera on the set?
[JF] Yeah so, he’s the director, so he’s also on the set on the set as the director and he sits behind the camera. So we put him in a suit behind the camera and sometimes we would have an over-sized bench for him to sit on that would match [the scene being filmed.] He would have a monitor where he could see the bear in the scene, he could kinda see what was going on, he could see placement, we would have eye-line set up for Mark Wahlberg and Seth so that they could both be doing their own things. And we would have the reference camera that was a high-definition camera on Seth that was behind the motion picture camera. So we were capturing all this stuff behind the scenes as we were filming with the cinematic camera that was capturing Mark.
[Q] What literally was on-set with Mark? Was it just a stuffed bear the whole time, or what did that end up being?
[JF] We had a stuffed bear that we used for reference – we used it for reference for the actors and for our lighting. And then when we shot the actual plate for it, most times we would have this little rod thing that we made for Ted’s height that had two little eyes on it. So then as they were shooting a scene, Mark could look at the eyes and knew roughly were Ted was – then we would go in and remove that and put in the CG bear.
[Q] Which camera models are used throughout the film?
[JF] We used the Genesis for the film and on our stuff we had a Sony EX3.
[Q] The visual effects in this film appear to be centered around (or entirely contained within) the bear – did you work on anything outside of the bear in the film?
[JF] It’s not a “visual effects” sort of movie so it’s really that, really just the bear – anything the bear interacts with has to be CG, there are some fight scenes where we add a little bit here or there but for the most part it is the bear.
[Q] I understand you also worked on Ghost Rider [Spirit of Vengeance] – could you describe the difference between working on a movie like that where it has quite a few effects shots compared to this where there really isn’t a lot of effects shots.
[JF] At The Creative-Cartel what we’re really good at is getting films that are very ambitious in what they want to achieve, but their budgets are a little bit more modest. So we’re constantly forced to think outside of the box and think of new and creative ways to get things done – which is really fun. Ted was an example of that, we used the motion capture and sapped as much as we could to kind of lighten our load for what we had to do in post production.
“We’re constantly forced to think outside of the box.”
In Ghost Rider we had to also deliver stereo. You can’t really deliver a conversion on fire when it’s close and medium shots and close and medium shots because it ends up looking flat. You can’t really convert and keep that kind of volumetric 3D look with particle stuff like fire. So on Ghost Rider that was the biggest challenge for us – how do we deal with that – and we ended up delivering a hybrid pipeline so that we shared work between our conversion vendor and our main visual effects vendor so shots weren’t constantly going back and forth so that we didn’t have any duplicative work which often happens in conversion. And we were able to do our conversion early so we could deliver the left-eye/right-eye to visual effects so they could do the stereo renders for Ghost Rider. A lot of – 50% of Ghost Rider is rendered in stereo even though it was shot in 2D.
We stay creatively and artistically agnostic in who we use so we’re able to work with different people on each show who are best suited for the type of work and for the filmmaker. Because you can have an Academy Award winning visual effects supervisor and if he doesn’t share the director’s vision or if they don’t get along in some way, it’s like oil and water and it just doesn’t work. So we steer clear of that so we can tailor and cast every show with the right people.
[Q] Comparing this project to blockbuster hits like Lord of the Rings with the CG character Gollum, were you expected to reach that level and outdo it, or are we at a point in the film world where something as impressive as that is just expected?
[JF] I think it depends on who your audience is. We still have these movies (that I’m not going to name because my friends work on them) that are geared towards kids, and you can get away with a lot more in terms of how photo-real they need to be because kids are more able to easily suspend their belief in reality. For Ted though, our audience is obviously a lot older audience, it’s an R-rated comedy, so we were always really clear in Seth’s directive that it had to be photo-real. You had to forget that you were looking at a visual effect. So you needed to – within the first five minutes of the film – buy that this teddy bear is real. And he just happens to talk and do all these things.
“For our film we needed to hit the top bar.”
So I feel like – to answer your question specifically – I think it’s dependent on what the film is for what level of realism you need to achieve. I think for our film we needed to hit the top bar. If it didn’t look real all the time, the audience that’s being targeted for Ted would be distracted by the fact that the bear didn’t look real.
Catch TED in theaters across the country this weekend, and make sure you’re ready to giggle!
It’s the iPhone’s five-year anniversary, and I’m proud to say I was there from the start. In fact, I was number eight in the line outside the New York Cube Apple Store, camping out for nearly five days to be one of the first to get my hands on the new smartphone. Spending that time wasn’t just about recording history from the front line, but also taking part in an historical event. The iPhone has long been treated as a watershed moment in smartphones, and it’s fair to say that in its shadow just about all of the devices that came before it fell well short in more than a few ways. I knew, after handling a whole lot of smartphones prior to the iPhone, that this one device would change the entire mobile industry for the better.
As far as I know, that excitable queue was the first of its kind, and possibly the largest “iCamp” for any single device. It certainly changed the way gadget anticipation was perceived in the industry. Apple always gets credit for the quality of its hardware and design, and the ease of use of its software, but the company’s strategy with the iPhone has arguably been the most significant diversion from the industry status-quo.
One device in the line-up; one device per year. “One size fits all” in some ways, but – with the advent of the App Store – a near-infinite number of ways to personalize your iPhone. Developers, carriers and consumers flocked to it, more so when the iPhone spawned the iPad and spread its dominance to the tablet market.
The iPhone hasn’t had it easy, though, and Apple has fought hard to maintain its ease of use amid advancing features, to streamline its industrial design, and to variously lead and react to the evolutions of the mobile marketplace. Along the way more than 315 million iOS devices sold of which nearly 220m iPhones of five generations have been sold worldwide.
Through the years, we’ve continued to track and report on the iPhone as well as iOS, as they’ve matured into a platform that has forced competitors like Microsoft, RIM and Nokia into reinventing their businesses. For RIM, it’s obvious that they’re in trouble, while five years on Microsoft is still trying to get Windows for phones into the mainstream. Think for a moment about Palm: gone. Nokia, once the dominant force: given up on Symbian and thrown in, with no small degree of desperation, with Microsoft.
In the end, though, it doesn’t so much matter whether you’re a fan of the iPhone or of another platform. Strong competition and innovation in the mobile space – new features, refining those we have to make them more flexible and more usable, and delivering advanced technology in a way that makes it approachable and unintimidating – is something that benefits everybody with a mobile device. The smartphone segment five years ago was naive and lacked direction; iPhone shook that complacency to its core, and we’re still seeing the repercussions today.
Now iOS 6 is nearly upon us, and the rumors around the iPhone 5 are coming thick and fast. It’s bound to be contentious and, if I were a betting man, I’d put money on it being a sales success too. Each year Apple manages to do something which has the industry smacking its head, wondering why it didn’t collectively spot that possibility. For 2012, the talk is of bringing mobile payments to the mainstream, and a deepening of Siri’s potential as the voice-control system steps up to take equal place next to the touchscreen paradigm Apple revolutionized.
Knowing what I know now, would I have camped out for nearly a week just to be among the first to get my hands on the iPhone? Hell yes, and I wouldn’t even think twice about it. Happy anniversary iPhone; here’s to the next five years. http://slashgear.com/apple/
This week Google has introduced a new component to their search and location-aware ecosystem in the mobile realm called Google Now. This system sits at the heart of Android, with your ability to access it sitting right in your lock screen. Google Now is effectively an add-on to the Google Search experience, adding a selection of “cards” that show you where you are, how you’ll be getting to the next place you’re going, and where you might very well want to go.
To access Google Now, you’ve only to access it from your lockscreen or to tap on the Google Search widget or app icon. From here you’ll find that you’ve got a lovely and super simple search bar at the top that’s ready to accept all typed or spoken voice commands as well as search terms. The real magic of course is in the cards that sit below the search bar before you do your search.
Above you’ll see the Nexus 7 connecting to this service via the lockscreen – in the hands-on video below you’ll see the Galaxy Nexus working with Google Now.
These cards include Weather, Public Transit, Places, Traffic, Flights, Sports, Appointments, Translation, Currency, and Time Back Home. The last item on this list is something you’ll have to program, it simply needing to know when you’ll want to see a map back home – and it’ll need you to mark where your home is, but just once. Appointments are connected to your Google Calendar, Translation and Currency appear when you go to a foreign country, and Sports show the scores of your favorite teams.
Flights is a card that’s able to track your flight information, how late you’ll be, and how long it’ll take you to get where you’re going. The same is true of Traffic and Public Transit, these connecting to Google Maps and Navigation to bring you the information you need, while Weather and Places are the most common cards as they’ll almost always be active to bring you information on the place you’re physically at.
Once you’re done with the info these cards can bring you, you can head straight back up to the search bar where results will spill over the cards to bring you deeper into the web.
Stick around as we continue to bring on the heat via our I/O 2012 and Android portals all week!
Google’s IO 2012 keynote has been and gone, and while the developer event as a whole isn’t over, you can certainly tell where the focus is by what made it onto the opening agenda. I’d already laid out my expectations for IO over at the Google Developers Blog, but there have been some surprises along the way too.
Jelly Bean was the obvious inclusion, and Google balanced its enthusiasm about the new Android version from a technological perspective – with encrypted apps and the perfectly named “Project Butter” for smoothing out the UI – with features that will make more of a difference for end-users. The new notifications system should make a major difference to Android usability, meaning you spend less time jumping between apps, while the Google Voice Search should present an interesting challenge to Siri.
I’ll need to spend some proper time with “Google now” before I can decide whether it brings any real worth to the table. Proper understanding of context is sorely missing from the mobile device market- our handsets can do no shortage of tasks, but they still wait for us to instruct them – though there are potentially significant privacy concerns which I think Google will likely be picked up on sooner rather than later.
The Nexus 7 is a double-hitter of a device, the tablet response not only to concerns that Android developers were opting out of slate-scale app creation, but to Amazon’s strongly-selling Kindle Fire. $200 is a very competitive price, without cutting on specifications, and Jelly Bean comes with all the bells and whistles you need for a tablet OS.
Of course, OS support wasn’t what let Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich down, it was the significant absence of any meaningful tablet application support from third-party developers. The Nexus 7′s low price should help get test units into coders’ hands, at least, though it will take more than a fanfare this week to decide whether Android can catch up on larger screen content with Apple’s iPad.
As for the Nexus Q, I’ll take some more convincing on that. $299 is a lot for a device that also needs an Android phone or tablet in order to work, and Google’s awkward presentation didn’t do a particularly good job of explaining why you’d rather have a Nexus Q than, say, an Apple TV, a Sonos system, or even just a cheap DLNA streamer.
The big surprise today was Google Glasses. Sergey Brin’s “surprise” interruption of the IO presentation, sporting Project Glass himself and then summoning a daredevil army of similarly-augmented skydivers, stunt bikers, abseilers and others onto the stage was a masterstroke of entertainment, and you could feel the enthusiasm and excitement in the auditorium. That the segment ended with a pre-order promise – albeit one at a not-inconsiderable $1,500 – was a suitably outlandish high-point, though we’ll have to wait until early 2013 to actually see Google make good on those investments.
Google Glasses are a long way off. More pressing is how the Nexus 7 holds up to the Kindle Fire (and, though it may not be quite a direct competitor, the iPad) and how quickly manufacturers can get Jelly Bean out to existing devices. Google may be putting a new system of early Android update access into place to speed that process for future iterations, but it looks to have come too late for Jelly Bean updates. We’ll have more from Google IO 2012 over the rest of the week.
It’s time for the inevitable comparison between the newest tablet on the market, the Google Nexus 7, and the dominant device in this category: the iPad. While the comparison might seem like the obvious thing to do, it’s much more sensible to compare to the Amazon Kindle Fire – and before we get too deep into the specifications on either end, you need to know: Google is in a much better position right this second than Amazon. While the Kindle Fire has been a relatively giant force on the market over this past holiday season, it’s had nothing on the iPad’s market share in the entire time it’s been on the market. As for the Nexus 7, you’ve got a beast that’s ready and willing to be a competitor for both tablets.
The Google Nexus 7 is a tiny little beast of a tablet – where the iPad is an iconic piece of machinery, the Nexus 7 seems to be a bit more of a solid set of elements pounded together with a hammer into a device that’s meant to be perfect for the several specific purposes it was made for. The Nexus 7 was made to be a device with which you download and consume media from the Google Play store – movies, television shows, music, books, and magazines – and of course games. The iPad, on the other hand, was made to be a companion for you in all situations where the iPhone is too small.
As far as a simple specs comparison, you’ve go the following. And keep in mind we’re using the 3rd Generation iPad, aka the Retina Display iPad: Screen Size: iPad 9.7-inch 2048 x 1536 pixel LED-backlit IPS (264 ppi) / Nexus 7 7-inch 1280 x 800 pixel LED-backlit IPS (216 ppi) Device Size: 7.31″ x 9.5″ x 0.37″ / 7.8″ x 4.72″ x 0.41″ Processor: Apple A5X / NVIDIA Tegra 3 Cameras: 5-megapixel iSight camera, VGA front-facing camera / 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera Connectivity: AT&T and Verizon 4G LTE, Wi-fi / Wi-fi only (at the moment) Internal Storage Size: 16, 32, 64GB / 8GB, 16GB Battery: 11666 mAh / 4325 mAh Media: iTunes Store / Google Play Store Color Options: White, Black / White/Black combo, Black
Additional elements: iPad: Bluetooth 4.0, 30-pin dock connector port, accelerometer, magnetometer, ambient light sensor, gyroscope, GPS, AirPlay mirroring to Apple TV.
Both of these devices have been pushed as heroes for their respective pusher’s app and media stores, and both devices are certainly going to get their fair share of 3rd party accessory support (if they haven’t already.) The Nexus 7 has the bonus – if you can call it that – of having several hardware/software companies with vested interests in its success: Google, ASUS, and NVIDIA. The iPad, on the other hand, has quite a few 3rd party supporters, with developers aiming apps at the one device specifically as well as Apple’s attention squared solely upon it for its software.
The price is going to be a giant factor for you if you plan on heading out to purchase a tablet today. The starting price of the Nexus 7 is just $199 while the iPad, in the iteration we’re looking at here and above, starts at $499. The iPad is an iPad, and there’s no replacement for that. The Nexus 7, also, is the only Google tablet in the position that it’s in at the moment as well with the backing of three companies in the way you’re seeing this week, and having a real push from Google (as heard in the keynote today – see our I/O 2012 portal for more) for hacking.
Have a peek at the photos and video above and below for a bit more hands-on action and be sure to let us know what you think of this battle asap! Also hit up our Android portal and Apple portal for the most awesome portal battle of all!
This week we’ve gotten our first look at the Nexus Q, a device that’s made to be Google’s “first social streaming media player.” This device has been revealed in its final form at Google I/O 2012 where attendees will all be given the device for free in their very own Developer Pack. This device is made to be a hub, running Android, for all of your Android devices to connect to and push media galore to your home audio system and/or HDTV.
You’ll see the following hands-on demo video working with the Nexus 7 tablet, another piece of equipment revealed by Google this year also as part of the Developer Pack. This device is made to be the perfect companion for Google Play and all of its many bits of media in a way that requires not only a speaker system, but another Android device as well.
What you’ve got here is a magical looking undeniably heavy little spherical device that’s got half a sphere dedicated to turning the volume up and down (as well as a few other functions) that’s accented with a bit of color-changing action as well. This device connects to a series of audio and video outputs including 4-channel speaker-system devices and 1080p HDMI devices as well. You’ll be able to have several devices adding songs or videos to a list or you can control the device with one device on its own.
The whole device has a capacitive touch sensor for muting as well as off/on, you’re working with a Texas Instruments OMAP4460 (dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU and SGX540 graphics core) inside, and both 1GB LPDDR RAM and 16GB NAND flash memory under the hood.
Have a peek at the hands-on video and photos above and below and also check out our Google I/O 2012 portal for more Google developer action all week! Also hit up our Android portal for all kinds of developer news throughout the week and the future as well!
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
