Posts Tagged ‘Avatar’
James Cameron’s ground-breaking film, Avatar, has received nine Academy Award nominations
A lifelong fascination with science fiction and the ocean has driven “Avatar” director James Cameron’s career, he told the TED2010 conference Saturday.
“The ocean is so rich with amazing life,” he said beginning a session called “Wisdom,” the final one of the conference. “Nature’s imagination is so boundless compared to our own human imagination.”
Cameron said some thought his filming of “Titanic” was about the opportunity to depict “Romeo and Juliet” on the doomed ship. In fact, he said, “Secretly I wanted to dive to the wreck of the Titanic.”
He did wind up exploring the wreck and said he saw amazing forms of underwater life. Cameron was struck by the comparison between deep ocean exploration and space travel; in both cases there’s a search for alien creatures and no hope of rescue if you can’t get back yourself. “I completely closed the loop between being a science fiction fan as a kid and doing this stuff for real.”
TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, is a nonprofit that hosts conferences which attract an influential audience and prominent speakers, including Bill Gates this year and last year. TED makes its talks available for free on the web.
Cameron’s ground-breaking film, Avatar, has received nine Academy Award nominations and is the highest-grossing film ever (without taking inflation into account).
A late addition to the program, he told the audience of 1,500 and hundreds of others watching remotely that he decided in his teens to become a scuba diver but lived in a little village in Canada 600 miles from the ocean. He became certified as a diver in a YMCA pool across the border in Buffalo, N.Y., but didn’t get to start exploring the ocean until he moved to California two years later.
In the past 40 years, Cameron has spent 3,000 hours underwater, with 500 of that in submersibles.
Cameron says he’s learned a lot about science, but even more significantly he has learned lessons about leadership.
He says he asked himself why he tackled exploration. “You’re doing it for the challenge, the thrill of discovery and the strange bond that happens when a small group of people form a team,” Cameron said. “In that bond you realize the most important thing is the respect that you have for them and they have for you.”
In the four years he spent making “Avatar,” he said he tried to apply that same lesson.
“Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own,” he said. “Don’t put limitations on yourself. Other people will do that for you…failure has to be an option in art and exploration because it’s a leap of faith.
“In whatever you’re doing, failure is an option, but fear is not.”
BitTorrent’s Top 10 Movies Pirated Last Week
Ever wonder what movies people are illegally downloading?
TorrentFreak has released a list of the top 10 most downloaded movies over BitTorrent last week.
Top of the list is Sherlock Holmes, followed by the DVD screener of Daybreakers and the Men Who Stare At Goats in third. Nice to see that Couples Retreat has fallen down to number seven (from fourth place last week). The general news team consensus is that it’s pretty awful.
Check out the full list below! Also, let us know which ones you’ve seen and if we should avoid them; I don’t want to have another Couple’s Retreat experience again anytime soon. Paying ten bucks to see bad movies just plain hurts. Following are them:
Sherlock Holmes, Daybreakers, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Zombieland, The Book of Eli, Avatar, Couples Retreat, The Informant, 2012, This is It
Internet Users to feel Physical Contact while Chatting Soon
Internet chatting could soon turn more humane as users will be able to reach out and hug one another- thanks to a new wearable robotic device that creates the sensation of physical contact.
The iFeel-IM device is capable of distinguishing nine emotions including joy, fear, interest, guilt and anger
Created by Japan-based scientists, the device simulates sensations such as heartbeats, hugging, stomach butterflies and spine tingles among those wearing it.
Dzmitry Tsetserukou, an assistant professor at Toyohashi University of Technology in Japan, described how his iFeel-IM robotic device was designed to add a human touch to the ethereal world of cyberspace.
“We are steeped in computer-mediated communication – SMS, e-mail, Twitter, Instant Messaging, 3-D virtual worlds – but many people don’t connect emotionally,” the Telegraph quoted him as saying.
“I am looking to create a deep immersive experience, not just a vibration in your shirt triggered by an SMS. Emotion is what give communication life,” he added.
Designed after five years of research, the new device – whose name stands for I Feel Therefore I Am – consists of a complex collection of sensors, motors, vibrators and speakers woven into a series of straps.
Alena Neviarouskaya created the software that can decode emotional messages embedded in written text, triggering the appropriate touch response within the robot.
The device can distinguish nine emotions including joy, fear, interest, guilt and anger with 90 per accuracy resulting in corresponding physical sensations such as squeezes and increased warmth in the user.
While the scientists wanted to add a mechanism for sexual desire, they opted against it to avoid distracting from its emotion-based focus.
The creation was among a string of futuristic interactive devices showcased at the first two-day Augmented Human International Conference held in the French ski resort Megeve.
Reminiscing the Hollywood blockbuster Avatar, the new robot was tested during the conference on the three-dimensional environment Second Life, where on-line personas gave and received hugs physically felt by their human controllers.