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World Of Intelligent Systems

15-year-olds are showing us the way forward My children expect the world to be centered around their technology needs. They expect to receive services how and when they want them. Transport is their own car or Uber, and products come to them when they want them. They see everything as a service highly connected to their needs. This is a radically different view of the world than previous generations held, amplified by events of 2020 and the shift to millennials—and those even younger—as the core of the world’s workforce. We expect our systems to sense and measure everything, from taking blood oxygen levels from the wrist to predicting when you should refill your refrigerator. Your car may be able to drive itself and, in near real time, deliver ongoing data from the driver and vehicle to the manufacturer, who then updates settings—based on feedback from your most recent drive—about best adjustments to the suspension or handling. This won’t make you the Formula One driver and world cha...
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Remember when Jane Fonda revolutionized exercise in a leotard and leg warmers?

Remember when Jane Fonda became the queen of 1980s at-home exercise? Released in 1982, "Jane Fonda's Workout" is one of the bestselling VHS tapes of all time. Following on the heels of her New York Times bestseller of the previous year, "Jane Fonda's Workout Book," the home video helped galvanize the actor's aerobics empire, which held strong throughout the '80s and into the '90s. With VHS tapes, books, LPs and those long-forgotten videodiscs, Fonda showed us why we didn't need the gym to get fit, laying the groundwork for the hugely profitable home video industry at the time -- not to mention the explosion of the fitness industry today. As gyms and in-person classes have shifted to living room workouts due to the coronavirus pandemic, Fonda's ballet-inspired classic routine has been thrust back into the spotlight and touted as standing the test of time. (She's even taken to TikTok to revive the workout and promote her climate...

Here’s Why Taylor Swift Is Fighting With A Utah Theme Park

Singer Taylor Swift escalated a feud with Evermore Park in Pleasant Grove, Utah, this week after the theme park sued the singer for copyright infringement over her Evermore album, alleging in a new lawsuit that the fantasy park has been illegally performing Swift’s music for years without proper licensing. Evermore Park is a self-described “experience park” in Utah themed to a European-style fantasy village with performers playing “fantasy characters,” which shares a name with Swift’s Evermore album released in December. The park filed a federal lawsuit against Swift, her TAS Rights Management company and merchandise company Taylor Nation on Feb. 2, alleging the singer had violated the company’s “Evermore” trademark through her album and accompanying merchandise. Swift’s Evermore products are “counterfeit” because they violate the park’s trademark on specific items, the park alleged, also pointing to how Swift described the album using the term “escapism”—which Evermore Park’s ...

Art Direction for Hollywood movies using Blender

Jonathan Opgenhaffen is an experienced Art Director at Framestore, in London, with experience in design supervision (pre and post production), concept art, and visual effects. Skilled as both a creative supervisor, concept designer, and technical artist. Jonathan has worked for 15 years in companies such as Double Negative, Rainmaker London, Indestructible Production etc. Now, he works as Art Director at Framestore, well known for visual effects, creating extraordinary images and scenes for some of Hollywood’s biggest pictures, collecting every possible industry award along the way. Jonathan worked on The Midnight Sky, Project: Power, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Avengers: Infinity Wars, Pacific Rim: Uprising, and Wonder Woman to name a few. After you read the interview, we suggest to check Jonatha’s ArtStation profile and his amazing works one by one. They are beautiful and created (also) with Blender 3D. Do you use Blender both in your professional works and your personal one...

Toonz Media Group Launches ‘MyToonz’ OTT Platform

Toonz Media Group has launched MyToonz, a new OTT platform for kids and family entertainment. Developed to create a safe and engaging entertainment destination for kids and families in the digital landscape, it is the first of its kind of platform to be introduced by an India-based entertainment company. The app is now available to consumers across multiple platforms including iOS, Android, and Android TV Playstore, as well as the Roku Video-on-Demand platform, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV. It is available in India to Airtel subscribers using the Airtel Xstream app and in Latin America, Africa, and Asia via mobile tech services company U2opia Mobile. “MyToonz will be a space where the whole family can come together to enjoy world-class content,” explained Toonz Media Group CEO P. Jayakumar. “We have envisaged MyToonz as the go-to destination for kids to watch safe, fun, and nutritious content, which will be available in multiple global languages. All MyToonz programming is compliant ...

Watch: AFI Movie Club Celebrates Honoree ‘Soul’ with Tina Fey & Pete Docter

AFI Awards celebrates Disney-Pixar’s Soul today (Sunday, Feb. 21) with brand-new content featuring actress Tina Fey and director Pete Docter. Fey accepts the AFI Awards honor on behalf of the creative ensemble and introduces the film to the AFI Movie Club audience, while Docter takes the audience “Behind the Scene” and talks about the influence of jazz and appreciating both music teachers and performers in the film. “Soul is a modern movie miracle. This ambitiously imaginative burst of life finds the spark of spirituality in American cinema – and delivers it to audiences of all ages in equal parts entertainment and enlightenment. Pete Docter and his talented team at Pixar tackle issues of the highest plane – death, regret, acceptance – and place their answers in the talented voices of Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey. The alchemy that results invites audiences to look to the future without fear – and to find the joy in their soul.” – The American Film Institute AFI Movie Club‘s (www.afi.com/m...

2021 Dental 3D Printing Guide: All You Need to Know

Over the course of the past decade, the dental industry has been revolutionized by 3D printing . Several different applications of have been developed, from fixing broken teeth to making flossing easier. Printing is done both in the dentist’s office and in labs, and it brings a new level of speed and ease to old procedures. In dental 3D printing, prosthetics and orthodontics have to be printed with extreme precision to ensure a perfect fit. Such accuracy is only possible through resin-based printing, such as stereolithography (SLA) and digital light processing (DLP) printers. In these technologies, printed layers of resin are solidified (cured) by a light source: a laser in SLA printers and a projector in DLP. Recently, another technology, called PolyJet, has started being used by some manufacturers, with simpler processes and superior results. 3D printing in dentistry and orthodontics is relatively new, but it’s already impressively large and is constantly growing and developing. Th...

Module teams for core Blender development

  Blender is growing fast. With the success of the   Blender Development Fund   and industry support, it’s important to make sure that the blender.org project organization remains future proof. Numerous activities around Blender are now performed by full-time employees or people working remotely on a grant. Together, they take care of many core development projects and topics such as improving code quality, documentation, developer operations and support. All very important, but how do these efforts relate to work done by other contributors or by volunteers? In the past months, I have been working with the Blender Institute crew to tackle our growing plans (and pains). When a team gets bigger you need operations management, coordinators, and human resources specialists. We need a definition of developer roles such as principal engineers, seniors, and product designers. And we need to define how projects are being organized in general.   After reviewing popula...

Sunsetting Blender Network in 2021

  On March 31st 2021, Blender Network will terminate its operations. All ongoing memberships will be cancelled and have their last payment refunded. The Blender Foundation Certified Trainer program (BFCT), which was already on hold, will also stop. The blendernetwork.org domain (and all URLs) will redirect to blender.org. No data will be preserved on the blendernetwork.org server, which will be discontinued. Originally presented by Ton Roosendaal as a  whitepaper in 2010 , Blender Network’s mission was to facilitate the provisioning of services and support, connect users and promote professional Blender businesses. This mission has been carried out by the blendernetwork.org platform, providing visibility and business opportunities to several hundred individuals and organizations. However, the incredible growth of the Blender community and the rise of social media have greatly reduced the need for a Blender-backed platform to provide legitimacy and visibility to profess...

Big Blender Projects For 2021

Let’s leave 2020 behind and look forward to a new year, and new projects at Blender.  To recap: in 2020, Blender saw huge developments, both technically and creatively. There were no less than four releases, including one Long-Term Support release. On the Studio side, a new Open Movie called  Sprite Fright  was greenlit, and is currently in the early stages of production.  And this year, there are a bunch of other innovations coming up. Here, we share just a few.  Everything Nodes This is a blockbuster project. By the time it’s matured, there will be whole new ways to create within Blender. As the name suggests, Everything Nodes allows you to use nodes to make almost all aspects of your projects, procedurally. Think of how nodes are currently used to craft shaders and materials, but then vastly expanded.   So… why should you  want  to make everything with nodes?   Well, this approach means that flexibility and granular control get...