More Geo-Games: Ship Simulator on Google Earth

More Geo-Games: Ship Simulator on Google Earth: "

At Google I/O 2008 the Google Earth API was released. It brought Google Earth's 3D capabilities to the web (with the help of browser extensions). Since that release they've started supporting Macs. One really nice part of the Google Earth API is the ability to create games in the 3D world. One of the sample apps was the game Milk Truck. Since the release there have been some games, but now the day before Where 2.0 there's a new one that been released.

Frank Taylor of the Google Earth Blog just posted about Ships, a new ship simulation plugin that uses the API (Frank's movie review). It's one of the Plugins he's going to dissect in his Google Earth workshop at Where 2.0 tomorrow (use whr09rdr for 20% off that last-minute registration).

PlanetInAction.com has released the first version of a fantastic free simulation game which leverages the browser-based Google Earth plugin as the primary graphics engine. The game is called 'Ships' and lets you take the helm on ships - barges, cargo ships, container ships, and even a cruise ship (the QE 2). Everything is in 3D, you can drive the ships anywhere in the world, there are sound effects, physical modeling, and realistic visual effects that makes this a wonder to behold. Not only that, but the author - Paul van Dinther - has created some great camera tools to make it easier for people to follow the action and see the sights. This is the best example of the Google Earth API I've seen to date.

Ships uses the Google Earth API, Flash 8.0, and Javascript. He also used Soundmanager 2 for sound effects, and SketchUp for the 3D models. Not everything is physically modeled (the anchor doesn't stop the boat).

Google Earth and its API are ripe for this type of game play. Google maps is the UI for the PS3's Last Guy (Radar post). However, after seeing creations like this I am going to hold out for Last Guy on Google Earth. While I'm asking the internet for things, I'd love to see a Katamari Damacy on the 3D plugin. In the meantime I'll have to make due with these Frank-Taylor-endorsed Satellite Debris Simulator and Paragliding games.

We still haven't seen the 3D API rear its head on Google's own site -- I/O 2009 is next week, perhaps there? I think that when that occurs more users will download the extensions and sites will have an incentive to implement the API and there will be a chance of me getting Katamari Damacy.

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O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/

Unlock Mac OS X apps’ hidden features: Safari, iTunes, iCal, Mail, and more

Unlock Mac OS X apps’ hidden features: Safari, iTunes, iCal, Mail, and more: "Most Mac applications have preferences, enabling you to fine-tune certain elements..."

MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/

Arts & Letters Daily (19 May 2009)

Arts & Letters Daily (19 May 2009): "How did Arthur Conan Doyle, medical man steeped in science and creator of a super-rational detective, fall for so much mumbo jumbo?... more

"

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/

Win over Nadal gives Federer momentum (AP)

Win over Nadal gives Federer momentum (AP): "A victory over Rafael Nadal in a clay-court final has Roger Federer feeling good about his chances heading into the French Open. It's not the first time. Federer broke a sluggish Nadal once in each set for a 6-4, 6-4 win Sunday that earned him a second Madrid Open trophy. It was the second-ranked Swiss player's first title of 2009."

Yahoo! Sports - Tennis News - http://sports.yahoo.com/ten

Wolfram|Alpha Fails the Cool Test

Wolfram|Alpha Fails the Cool Test: "Wolfram|Alpha is the nerdy kid the other kids only talk to when they need help with a physics exam, not a rival to the cool, well-rounded brainiac Google.
"

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Man out of hospital after ATV accident

Man out of hospital after ATV accident: "A 25-year-old man was treated at a Portland hospital after crashing an all-terrain vehicle on the 500 block of Raleigh Drive near Dillard Saturday."

News Review - News - http://www.nrtoday.com

NYTimes Reader Shows Graceful Future of Online News

NYTimes Reader Shows Graceful Future of Online News: "The New York Times releases a new application for reading its news and filing in its crosswords. It's elegant and easy-to-use. It's also the future of online news reading.

"

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Hacking Primes in Mathematica

Hacking Primes in Mathematica: "

If this is too esoteric, skip it. I couldn't figure out anywhere else to put it.

This morning, Tim Bray tweeted about a post on prime numbers and Benford's law. To cut the esoterica short, one of the big problems in prime numbers is that people don't know how they're distributed. This post suggests that Benford's Law describes the distribution of the first digit of prime numbers. One of the comments asked an important question: is this really just an artifact of base 10? Math really doesn't 'know anything' about bases, so if this idea doesn't generalize to bases other than 10, it doesn't mean much.

That challenge was a bit hard to ignore. A bit of futzing with Mathematica later, I got it. Here's a graph of the distribution of prime numbers in base 36, for primes less than 36^5 (about 60 million, 3.5 million primes):
primes.tiff

Here's the code (somewhat improved from the code that generated the graph)--only 5 very Lisp-like lines. For an explanation of the math, see the original article.

With[{base = 36, ades = 5, a = 1.1}, nprimes := PrimePi[base^ades];  
 alpha := 1/(Log[base^ades] - a); 
 gbl[ d_] := ((d + 1)^(1 - alpha) - d^(1 - alpha))/(base^(1 - alpha) - 1);  
 ListPlot[{Table[100*gbl[digit], {digit, 1, base - 1}] , 
 (100/nprimes)* Sort[Tally[Table[IntegerDigits[Prime[n], base][[1]], {n, nprimes}]]][[All, 2]]}]]

Sal Mangano, who's writing our Mathematica Cookbook, inspired the last improvement--now, rather than taking about two minutes to compute and sort primes up to 36^5, it takes a few seconds. That's why he's writing the book, not me.

This certainly isn't rigorous math, from the standpoint of proving anything about the distribution of prime numbers. Just some fun hacking--it's great to have a mathematical language in which you can say 'Give me all the primes less than 32^5 and sort them by their first digits in base 36'--in about that much space.

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O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/

New Age of Discovery

New Age of Discovery: "The Wall Street Journal In a 21st-century version of the age of discovery, teams of computer scientists, conservationists and scholars are fanning out across the globe in a race to digitize crumbling literary treasures.In the process, they're uncovering unexpected troves of new finds, including never-before-seen versions of the Christian Gospels, fragments of Greek poetry and commentaries on "

Zeta Woof - http://grdurand.com/blogger/

Speed up iPhoto '09 operations on some Macs

Speed up iPhoto '09 operations on some Macs: "A simple tip could speed up iPhoto operations for those with older hardware and/or large iPhoto libraries.
To disable the item counts, open iPhoto’s preferences, and on the General tab, uncheck the ‘Show item counts’ box."

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

10 Best Head-Scratching Stories, Explained

10 Best Head-Scratching Stories, Explained: "

2001: A Space Odyssey

Monoliths instigate evolutionary leaps forward—monkey to human, computer to AI, human to hippie-dippy starchild.

The Wall

Pink's father dies. His teachers abuse him. His mom smothers him. His wife leaves him. He's paranoid and isolated. Fame is no respite.

Ulysses

Two drunkards meander around Dublin like Odysseus in the Aegean. Bloom's wife is cheating on him. Everyone poops.

Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth

Jimmy relives his granddad's life. He finally meets his father, who then dies. Superman can't save him.

Blade Runner

Deckard is a replicant but doesn't know it. Gaff knows but doesn't retire Deckard. Even fake memories make us human.

Ziggy Stardust

Earth will be destroyed in five years. Ziggy is a Martian rock star who sings the news. He prophesizes the coming of a starman. Starman bad.

Mulholland Drive

The first two-thirds are a masturbatory fantasy after Diane orders a hit on Camilla (the characters from the last one-third) and shoots herself.

Infinite Jest

Terrorists are chasing the world's most entertaining movie. Addiction—to drugs, entertainment, tennis, whatever—is a bitch.

Like a Prayer

White dudes attack woman. Black man jailed. Witness Madonna prays to black Jesus and dreams he lives. She snitches. Prisoner freed.

Donnie Darko

Parallel universe opens. Its pending collapse threatens our own. Donnie sacrifices himself to save us.

"

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Army Dreams: Super-Strong, Laser-Proof, Genius G.I.s

Army Dreams: Super-Strong, Laser-Proof, Genius G.I.s: "Today’s G.I.s are lucky if they get radios when they go on patrol. But by 2030, their uniforms will be packed with nano-antenna arrays, capable of communicating with drones and satellites. The soldiers will all be Hulk-strong, and Spider-Man-agile, thanks to their exoskeletons. ‘Neural prosthetics’ will make them battlefield geniuses. Naturally, their nanofiber uniforms will be all-but-impervious to bullets and lasers, too.
"

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Share any folder via a built-in Web server

Share any folder via a built-in Web server: "Use a hidden built-in Web server to quickly and easily share any folder of files via a Web browser."

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Photo to Movie 4.2.4 - Create a movie by zooming/panning over a photo. (Shareware)

Photo to Movie 4.2.4 - Create a movie by zooming/panning over a photo. (Shareware): "

Photo to Movie 4.2.4

Photo to Movie enables you to create a movie by zooming and panning over a photo. It presents a simple interface to specify the starting and ending frames and generates full quality QuickTime or DV Stream files (compatible with iMovie).

You can use Photo to Movie to:

• Graphically select the starting and ending frames
  
• Select the position and zoom of the starting and ending frames
  
• Preview the starting and ending frames as you edit them
  
• Preview the entire movie during editing
  
• Drag desired images directly into the configuration window
  
• Drag and drop photos directly from iPhoto
  
• Set the length of the exported movie
  
• Export NTSC 29.97 fps 720x480 4:3 video suitable for iMovie
  
• Export PAL 25 fps 720x576 4:3 video suitable for iMovie
  
• Export movies to QuickTime or to DV Stream
  
• Import DV Stream directly into iMovie
  

WHAT'S NEW

Version 4.2.4:

• Added option to show or open rendered file in Finder after rendering for QuickTime files.


• Fixed bug with timeline updates when making certain changes to key frames.


• Fixed bug where the 'missing image' indicator would not always be properly drawn.


• Fixed UI drawing bug in Make Movie dialog.

REQUIREMENTS

Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

DEVELOPER

LQ Graphics, Inc.

DOWNLOADS

45448

DOWNLOAD NOW (10.5'MB)

More information

"

MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php

Bee Docs Timeline 2.6 - Create eye-catching 3D timelines. (Shareware)

Bee Docs Timeline 2.6 - Create eye-catching 3D timelines. (Shareware): "

Bee Docs Timeline 2.6

'Runner-Up Best Mac OS X Leopard Application' -- Apple Design Award 2008
'The 3D timelines look absolutely stunning' -- MacWorld
Create timeline charts that inspire with Bee Docs' Timeline for Mac OS X!

Bee Docs' Timeline 3D Edition presents full screen, interactive, three dimensional timeline charts. Full motion 3D Timelines can be sent to Apple's iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, or Keynote presentation software with a single click or exported to High Definition video formats.

Stunningly Beautiful Timelines -- Film makers, museum curators, professors, novelists, grad students, and business leaders use our software to create elegant timelines. Join them and create your masterpiece today!

WHAT'S NEW

Version 2.6

• NEW (3D): Option in QuickTime export to include transparent backgrounds


• NEW: Automatic importer for 'The Hit List' task manager


• NEW: Option to reduce file size of PDF exports (automatic for e-mail export)


• IMPROVED (3D): Line quality improvements in 3D presentation and export


• IMPROVED: Smaller file sizes for saved timeline documents


• IMPROVED (3D): File caching during movie exports are more efficient and secure


• IMPROVED: Minus character replaced with en dash for date ranges


• IMPROVED: Events that show the same start and end date due to date formatting are now displayed without range

REQUIREMENTS

Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

DEVELOPER

Bee Docs

DOWNLOADS

19901

DOWNLOAD NOW (10.1'MB)

More information

"

MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php