25Dec/110

Rumors of Apple iPad 3 to be released on February 24 2012

FocusTaiwan reports (via 9to5Mac) that Apple pushing its manufacturing partners to meet deadlines that would allow the company to launch the iPad on Steve Jobs' birthday, February 24th.

According to the report, workers at several iPad component suppliers as well as manufacturing partner Foxconn will have limited time off during the usual Lunar New Year holiday. The Lunar New Year holiday itself falls on January 23rd next year, with workers generally receiving a number of other days off from work around that date.


Sources have been reporting a variety of rumored dates for an iPad 3 introduction, with some claiming a debut in the March-April timeframe while others have pointed to a February launch being in the works.

Apple last year launched new MacBook Pro models on Jobs' birthday, although that unusual Thursday introduction was likely a convenient coincidence driven by the debut taking place during the Presidents Day holiday week.

[original via macrumors.com]

11Nov/110

iPhone 5 Prototype Hands-On: Fake or Real?

(via macrumors) Business Insider now reports that it has received word from a source who has claimed to have had access to an iPhone 5 prototype and offered some details on the device. We've been told this by an industry source who has been right about future Apple products in the past.

It has not been verified yet, but there are some leaked details, which are of course just rumors:

- 4-inch screen
- Aluminum back
- Capacitive home button
- "Flatter" form factor
- Much faster than current hardware, but poor battery life
- 10-megapixel rear camera
- Siri prototype known as "Assistant", which had been the rumored name for the feature until its introduction

There are quite some good deals on the Apple iPhone 4S on ebay, an introduction of the iPhone 5 would let the price of the "older" models drop significantly (talking about the Osborne Effect)

3Nov/110

Canon launches the C300 cinema camera: a competitor for Red Scarlet and Arri Alexa?

Canon recently unveiled its C300 cinema camera at Hollywood's Paramount Studios, in front of a huge crowd. Cameras such as the Arri Alexa and RED EPIC dominate the digital filmmaking world - the Canon C300 aims at people that are into professional DSLR Video and want to take a step further.

It will cost somewhere in the range of $20,000. It contains a Super 35mm CMOS sensor and delivers up to 4K resolution with the outfit's new "top-end" EF zoom lenses, which come in four flavors: two 14.5-60mm lenses and two 30-300mm. And the lenses keep on coming, with three EF prime lenses in 24mm, 50mm, and 85mm variations. That CMOS sensor offers 1920 x 1080 pixels for the reds and blues and 1920 x 2160 for greens.

Mobius - 1080p HQ from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

18Oct/110

Canon announces new flagship DSLR: 1Dx with improved Video capabilities

Canon announced the company’s newest flagship professional DSLR today, the 18 megapixel full-frame Canon 1Dx. The 1Dx will sit atop Canon’s model line as an update to both the Canon 1Ds and the 1D Mark IV, and is expected to debut for $6800 body-only in March 2012.

The 1Dx will feature dual DIGIC 5 processors, which Canon claims offer approximately 17 times more processing power than the previous generation DIGIC 4s.

Those looking for an upgrade to the 5D Mark II for video capture may find a friend in the 1Dx, as it is capable of 1080/30p/25p/24p HD video capture, with options for 720/60p/50p as well. The image sensor has been designed with video in mind, meaning that downsampling errors and the resultant moire effect should be significantly reduced. The file system’s 4GB limit has also been worked around, with an automatic file splitting functionality enabling up to 29 minute and 59 seconds of continuous video capture.

The camera also supports two methods of SMPTE-compliant timecode embedding, Rec Run and Free Run, to ease syncing up multiple cameras in post. The 1Dx will also support both intraframe (ALL-i) and interframe (IPB) compression, to aid post-production and editing workflows, depending on need. The camera also offers manual audio level control both before and during video capture with the internal monaural mic or an external stereo microphone.

Canon's all new full-frame CMOS sensor ensures that video footage captured on the EOS-1D X will exhibit less moiré than any previous Canon model, resulting in a significant improvement in HD video quality. A desired feature for many documentary filmmakers using Canon DSLRs was to enable recording beyond the four gigabyte (GB) file capacity and the EOS-1D X is the answer. The new camera features automatic splitting of movie files when a single file exceeds 4GB. The new file splitting function allows for continuous video recording up to 29 minutes and 59 seconds across multiple 4GB files; no frames are dropped and the multiple files can be seamlessly connected in post production, providing filmmakers the recording time they want in the same convenient DSLR form factor. The camera records Full HD at 1920 x 1080 in selectable frame rates of 24p (23.976), 25p, or 30p (29.97); and 720p HD or SD video recording at either 50p or 60p (59.94). SD video can be recorded in either NTSC or PAL standards.

The Canon EOS-1D X also includes manual audio level control, adjustable both before and during movie recording, an automatic setting, or it can be turned off entirely. A wind filter is also included. Sound can be recorded either through the internal monaural microphone or via an optional external microphone through the stereo mic input.

The Canon 1Dx offers USB transfer, but will also sport a wired gigabit Ethernet port for stable wired transmission of video and still images at up to 1000BASE-T transmission speeds. That should allow not only faster transmission of files, but longer, more practical connection solutions for professionals. For on-camera storage, the 1Dx will eschew SD storage in favor of dual Compact Flash cards.

The low-light capability of the EOS-1D X is evident in its incredible ISO range and ability to photograph in extremely low-light conditions. Adjustable from ISO 100 to 51,200 within its standard range, the new model offers a low ISO 50 setting for studio and landscape photography and two high settings of 102,400 at H1 and 204,800 at H2, ideal for law enforcement, government or forensic field applications.

(via usa.canon.com)

11Jul/110

Apple to Release Updated MacBook Air and Mac Pro & Mac OSX Lion 10.7 on July, 14th

According to 9 to 5 Mac and Macrumors, the "reliable tipster 'Mr. X'" has revealed that Apple will be releasing new MacBook Air and Mac Pro models this week alongside OS X Lion. While Mr. X has not offered a specific release date, it appears that Apple may be targeting this Thursday, July 14th for the hardware launch alongside OS X Lion.

Macbook air mac pro lion 1

New hardware also means new kexts for the hackintosh community and possibly also price drops on refurbished Mac Pro systems and refurbished MacBook Air models.

9Jul/116

Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID system for high-speed data demands: 6x3TB for a total of 18TB (mod)

[Edit 23.12.2011] CAUTION! People trying the below mentioned modification of the Promise Thunderbolt reported issues and data loss. Please consult the Promise Support if you are planning to do modifications or already did!

[UPDATE] with the announced Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000 4000GB(4TB), 5K4000 as well as the 4TB Seagate Barracuda XT a total of 24TB could be reached when modding the Promise Pegasus just replacing the 2TB drives it comes with. 5TB HDDs are reported arriving in January 2012. Read our updated Article: Caution with Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID 6x3TB (18TB) or 6x4TB (24TB) modification. 6x5TB (30TB) possible as of January 2012?


The Promise Pegasus is the most "promising" hardware for enthusiasts and pro users, since it offers really fast transfer speeds, even topping the OCZ Vertex 3 SATA 6Gbps internal SSD on Macbook Pro computers.

Delivering over 800MB/s of disk performance, Pegasus is compatible with Mac systems with Thunderbolt

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Compare the Promise Pegasus R4 (4x 2TB) and the Promise Pegasus R6 (8x 2TB). Of course, if you want to pimp your pegasus, you can replace the internal drives with different ones.

Internally Promise uses a PMC Sierra PM8011 8-port SAS-2 RAID controller. This is an 8-lane PCIe Gen 2 controller with eight SAS/SATA 6Gbps ports. On the R6 obviously only six of those ports are functional. The PM8011 has an embedded 600MHz MIPS processor and is paired with 512MB of DDR2-533. (via Anandtech)

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Possible replacements and hacks for the Promise Pegasus:

* replace the internal hard drives with SSD drives: at the current date this still has stability issues. We are waiting for updated drivers or a response from Pegasus about the current freezes and issues with SSD drives. If you really have to test it out, make sure you get 6Gbps SSD drives. 2.5inch drives will also fit in the caddy.

* replacing the internal drives with 3TB drives: this is a confirmed and stable way of pimping your pegasus drives. Pegasus comes with 2TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 drives, so make sure you are getting 3TB drives from the same brand. We can recommend the Hitachi 3TB 7200RPM drive, but also we can confirm the Pegasus runs with the Western Digital 3 TB SATA II Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive and the SEAGATE Barracuda XT 3 TB SATA 6.0 Gb-s 64 MB Cache. Just keep in mind, not to mix up brands: you should get 6 times the same hard disk for the most stable system.

* replacing the internal drives with SAS 6Gbps Hard Disks: while this would render the promise pegasus a real pro system that is rock stable, drives should be used, that offer a compatible SAS-connector. Since SAS-drives are generally compatible to SATA-connectors, we can generally recommend the Seagate Constellation ES.2 3 TB Internal Hard Drive SAS 600 7200rpm 64MB

Conclusio: The Promise Pegasus is a fast solution for great read/write speed plus the extra feature of having the possibility to daisy-chain more Pegasus devices together, to increase the space when needed. Compared to the Data Robotics DROBO PRO System, it only offers 1-drive fail (1 drive can get corrupted, if 2 fail your data is lost) while the DROBO offers dual drive redundancy. Also, the DROBO PRO supports different sized drives, while you can only put drives of the same size (and it is recommended to also only use the exact same drive models) in the Promise Pegasus.
Overall, nanofunk is recommending the Pegasus R4 and R6, because of its faster speed and possibilty to enhance the system. Since we had our DROBO PRO replaced twice (the unit itself was faulty) we are currently fully in favor of the Promise Pegasus.

27Feb/110

Coded Cultures: Creative Practices out of Diversity (Springer Wien/ New York Edition Angewandte)

Coded Cultures: New Creative Practices out of Diversity (Edition Angewandte)

A fresh book, discussing creative practices of the fields of media arts ("art with media" and "art through media") in europe and asia (mostly japan). To quote the official press statement: "International Authors from Europe and Asia explain the impact of codes and cultures on society". The book is available on Amazon EUROPE and the US Amazon site.

23Nov/094

Max/Msp for Live with Ableton Live 8.1 Final REVIEW (max for live)

This is a review of „max for live“ using Ableton Live 8.1 FINAL and max/msp 5.1 on a Mac OSX 10.5.8 Core2Duo Intel MacBook Pro. As I am a frequent user of all kinds of visual DSP systems for quite a while now: pure data (PD), max/msp, vvvv, nord modular OS, etc. - so I am quite dazzled what max for live has to offer. (Read the full Entry to see the Review)

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Instruments, Audio Effects, Midi Effects - but of course, this is not all of the cake. Imagine you can create user-interface elements however you please and also assign MIDI to that interface parts. This brings Ableton Live huge steps forward: the possibility to extend ableton to include a full featured audiovisual prototyping environment and to interface with the world: be it sensors, webservices or other Ableton Live installations.

9Nov/092

Beta: Ableton Live 8.1 with Max/Msp for Live

How cool is that? registered users of Ableton Live and Max/Msp can sign up for the beta program of Max for Live (it's actually only a click, much different from Google Wave ;)
The only problem is: you need to own Ableton Live and Cycling74's Max/Msp 5 (which i actually do).
For now you can watch the Video from the Ableton Site, until i can post some hands-on-pictures and a full review (to be available in the next days).