The demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are audio-visual presentations that run in real-time on a computer. The main goal of a demo is to show off programming, artistic, and musical skills.
The demoscene first appeared during the 8-bit era on computers such as the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Atari 800 and Amstrad CPC, and came to prominence during the rise of the 16/32-bit home computers(Mainly the Amiga or Atari ST). In the early years, demos had a strong connection with software cracking. When a cracked program was started, the cracker or his team would take credit with a graphical introduction called a “crack intro” (shortened cracktro). Within a year or two,[1] the making of intros and standalone demos evolved into a new subculture independent of the software (piracy) scene.
Prior to the popularity of IBM PC compatibles, most home computers of a given line had relatively little variance in their basic hardware, which made their capabilities practically identical. Therefore, the variations among demos created for one computer line were attributed to programming alone, rather than one computer having better hardware. This created a competitive environment in which demoscene groups would try to outperform each other in creating amazing effects, and often to demonstrate why they felt one machine was better than another (for example Commodore 64 or Amiga versus Atari 800 or ST).
Demo writers went to great lengths to get every last bit of performance out of their target machine. Where games and application writers were concerned with the stability and functionality of their software, the demo writer was typically interested in how many CPU cycles a routine would consume and, more generally, how best to squeeze great activity onto the screen. Writers went so far as to exploit known hardware errors to produce effects that the manufacturer of the computer had not intended. The perception that the demo scene was going to extremes and charting new territory added to its draw.
Recent computer hardware advancements include faster processors, more memory, faster video graphics processors, and hardware 3D acceleration. With many of the past’s challenges removed, the focus in making demos has moved from squeezing as much out of the computer as possible to making stylish, beautiful, well-designed real time artwork – a directional shift that many “old school demosceners” seem to disapprove of. This can be explained by the break introduced by the PC world, where the platform varies and most of the programming work that used to be hand-programmed is now done by the graphics card. This gives demo-groups a lot more artistic freedom, but can frustrate some of the old-schoolers for lack of a programming challenge. The old tradition still lives on, though. Demo parties have competitions with varying limitations in program size or platform (different series are called compos). On a modern computer the executable size may be limited to 64 kB or 4 kB. Programs of limited size are usually called intros. In other compos the choice of platform is restricted; only old computers, like the 8-bit Atari 800 or Commodore 64, or the 16-bit Amiga, or Atari ST, or mobile devices like handheld phones or PDAs are allowed. Such restrictions provide a challenge for coders, musicians and graphics artists and bring back the old motive of making a device do more than was intended in its original design.
Check out these images captured from miniature HD cameras attached to birds! Filmmaker John Downer explains:
‘What we had to do was strip down the highest-quality, but smallest HD camera available. We had to engineer it so it was basically a circuit board, a chip, a lens, and batteries.’
Amazing news! The Instagram Socialmatic concept camera is going to become a reality!
The camera will come with WiFi, Bluetooth, 16GB of storage, and an internal printer for instant prints.
What is Demoscene?
Ikea’s released the manual for that cardboard digital camera!
It’s called the KNÄPPA.
Scientists have designed a car seat which can recognise the ‘bottom-print’ or the way people sit to identify the driver. Scientists at the Tokyo’s Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology have designed the chair which measures 360 pressure points to build a 3D profile of how a person sits.
The discovery could replace car keys and the researchers say it could even be used in offices instead of computer passwords. Scientists say that the system is 98 percent accurate.
It’s a simple matter of fitting pressure sensors inside a normal car seat - so it could be in production cars as early as 2014. The team says that the bottom-scan is actually less intrusive than other forms of biometric scans, such as the face recognition currently in use by Britain passport control.
I regret nothing.
Popphoto has an interesting article about US military photographers. The picture above is of a Nikon D700 with a Nightstalker II night vision system by Tactical Solutions LLC
If you’ve been to Google lately, you may have noticed the little bar at the top is now black with a reddish-orange accent. I love it, and I thought it was just the start of a transition into a new style for Google.
Turns out, it’s the transition into Google+.
If you don’t know what that is, Google it. It’s the start of the Google social network, and it looks absolutely amazing. The feature that has me most all-up-in-a-tizzy is Circles. You group all your friends into separate Circles, so that when you share something, only the people you want to see it, can. I can accept friend requests from the weird people I don’t want to have on my social network, but might have to see in real life, without having to worry about them seeing everything I do online.
You should really go check out the little intro page for it. No seriously. do it. It’s got all sorts of really fun little interactive demos. If the actual product is as nice as that marketing page, we’re in for a real treat.
The Future.
Holding a Program in One's Head
This is exactly how I program. I noticed this method of thinking in math class in high school. I would work furiously on a problem, not paying any attention to anything other than the problem until it was finished. I was keeping the problem in my head. If I had to stop and explain what I was doing to someone, I never could. All that was in my head was a broad, top layer view of the problem and I couldn’t explain that to anyone.
So basically I’m an awesome programmer.