AT&T’s CEO, Randall Stephenson, yesterday said that Apple would be introducing a 3G version of the iPhone next year. Given the faux pas of other CEOs with some relationship to Apple, it’s worth noting that this is not an official…
A Hamburg court has adjourned until Monday, 3rd December, Deutsche Telekom’s appeal against Vodafone’s injunction which prevents T-Mobile from selling the iPhone only on its own network, tied to a two-year contract. So, there’s at least one more weekend for…
News reports suggest that the iPhone has been well received in France, with over 2,000 people reportedly attending the launch party at the new Champs-Elysee Orange store in Paris. The first iPhone customer was 25-year-old Simon Treille, who said of…
Written by deputydog
there’s a relatively easy way to give the audience a chill during a film: slip in a shot of a deserted city centre, a city centre that’s notoriously busy in real-life, the scene preferably culminating in the camera panning out to prove the crew didn’t just manage to clear 10ft of road for 5 seconds.
it’s a guaranteed talking point. look at vanilla sky: the film was bordering on atrocious but the one thing that always gets mentioned (apart from cameron crowe losing his grip) is the ‘how the fuck did they manage to clear times square?’ bit. if i was a director i’d have a deserted city scene in every film, regardless of the movie’s plot.
here are my 5 favourite goosebump inducing ‘empty’ scenes.
5. philadelphia - twelve monkeys, 1995 (imdb)
the opening shot of terry gilliam’s top-notch ‘twelve monkeys’ is superb, bruce willis’ character coming above ground in a post-apocalyptic philadelphia to be faced with a world deserted but for wild animals roaming the streets. gilliam’s crew were given a corner of the city hall to work with, built a lip around the area to hide surrounding traffic and added snow to make it feel ‘more desolate’.
4. los angeles - omega man, 1971 (imdb)
‘omega man’ was the 2nd film based on the novel ‘i am legend’, the 1st being ‘last man on earth’ and the 3rd being ‘i am legend’, to be released in a few weeks. after coming to terms with the fact that a huge set would be too costly the producer realised prior to filming that l.a. was surprisingly quiet early in the day at weekends so all of the deserted city scenes were shot at that time of the week. the scene below even includes a pan-out for added despair and the echoes of ringing payphones.
3. madrid - abre los ojos, 1997 (imdb)
the gran via in madrid was completely closed off to film the scene below, the inspiration for vanilla sky’s big budget version in times square. it may not have the flashing billboards and an a-list star to run down the street like a maniac but the street’s architecture more than makes up for it. this clip is actually the first 10 minutes of the film, the initial 3-4 minutes being the ‘deserted’ section.
2. manhattan - vanilla sky, 2001 (imdb)
this remake of ‘open your eyes’ was largely disappointing, this scene being the best part of it. the crew were given 3 hours to shoot the times square sequence early on a sunday morning and crowe was determined not to use cg to remove any signs of life. the whole process included lenghty discussions with the new york mayor’s office, the new york film commission and the police department. the result is incredible.
1. london - 28 days later, 2002 (imdb)
it took 6 days to shoot the ‘deserted’ sections of this brilliant film on mini-dv cameras, the crew only able to get permission to close off entire streets in london for minutes at a time, and the effort was worth it. for the empty motorway scenes, they even managed to persuade the traffic police to close off a 10 mile stretch of the m1 for a very short period of time. warning: the clip below has been subjected to a shit soundtrack by the youtube user. turn the volume down.
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So by now you’ve heard about a little multi-touch device called the iPhone right? And you’re well aware that Nokia is set to deliver their new S60 Touch Interface and likely a few new touch-screen devices sometime in 2008. Well, according to Richard Windsor, a London-based analyst with Nomura, Nokia could see “delays or holdups” in its smartphone strategy if Apple decides to unleash its army of lawyers in defense of its over 200 iPhone-related patent filings. (Note: that’s “filings” not patents granted for intellectual property.) According to Mr. Windsor, “I think Apple will likely view Nokia as infringing on its user interface patents.” Having said that, he further speculates that Apple and Nokia will likely end up in a settlement by 2009 in order to avoid a lengthy Qualcomm vs. Nokia battle in the courts. Of course, in a system whereby laggards and leaders attempt to gain or maintain competitive advantage through lawsuits and lobbyists rather than the innovations of their own engineers, anything goes. And yeah, we know there are a lot of ifs in there. Still, don’t forget that Apple failed to defend the “look and feel” of its Mac OS in court against Microsoft back in the Windows 2.0 days, and Nokia’s been making touchscreen devices for years, not months like Apple. So, lesson learned or big trouble in little Espoo, what say you? We’re guessing the latter if that demonstration device (on the right) is ever released.
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Over the weekend, security researchers announced a vulnerability in QuickTime’s handling of the RTSP streaming protocol, and Windows-only exploit code is already circulating. The flaw allows attackers to craft specially formatted RTSP responses that cause a buffer overflow, and as a result they can execute arbitrary code in the context of the logged-in user. Unfortunately, there are plenty of ways to get someone to click a malicious RTSP link, including sending it in email or including it on a website. While Symantec notes that IE and Safari for Windows appear to be resistant to the exploit code, opening a malicious RTSP link in current versions of Firefox or in QuickTime Player would allow the exploit to run.
For now, there is no Mac version of the exploit (cold comfort to the millions of iTunes for Windows users); hopefully there will be a QuickTime security patch on both platforms before any additional exposure occurs. Rich Mogull at TidBITS has some helpful tips for securing your network, including blocking the RTSP protocol both at the firewall and for outbound connections via Little Snitch.
Update 10:30 am Thursday: Commenter Moulles points out that a cross-platform exploit for the RTSP flaw, which could target either PCs or Macs, has now been published.
One of my great Dock tricks (and I use the term ‘trick’ loosely), no longer works in Leopard. The old ‘put a folder in the Dock and get a hierarchical menu’ trick has been obsoleted by Stacks. Stacks are pretty, I’ll give Apple that, but they aren’t as useful to people who have lots of Documents or Apps on their Macs. Good thing for Quay 1.0 has now been released and my hierarchical menus are back!
Not only are they back, but they’re better than ever. Quay allows you to set the way the menu is sorted, the size of the icons on that menu, and the look of the Dock icon. Another thing worth noting is that ‘Quay folders’ appear on the right side of the Dock separator, as they should, and Quay itself doesn’t have to be running in order for these ‘Quay Menus’ to work.
The developer notes that no undocumented APIs are used, and the Dock isn’t hacked in anyway. Quay costs €7, and there is no free trial (if you want more than one Quay folder though, you have to pony up the cash).
A lot has changed in the video production realm over the past year, and thankfully, Apple’s recent Final Cut Express 4 addresses these new advancements in camcorder capture and post-production technology. It’s been a full year and a half since Final Cut Express 3.5, and there’s a number of notable updates and enhancements that make the latest version 4 worth a look.
Thankfully, Jeff Carlson at Macworld gives us a nice look at some of the new additions in Final Cut Express 4, which was released less than two weeks ago. The software now includes AVCHD support, mixed video format timeline functionality, 50 new FxPlug plug-ins, the new ability to import iMovie ‘08 projects, and more. Give his advance look a read to learn more about this important inclusions. Sounds like this one will be worth the update. Expect a full review from the Macworld folks soon.
Google has announced that the next version of Google Desktop (we’ve written about Google Desktop before) will allow users to run Google Gadgets alongside Mac OS X Widgets in the Dashboard. This new functionality should be available tomorrow.
I don’t use Google Desktop or Gadgets, and rarely use Dashboard widgets, so I just can’t get excited about this. However, I know they each have their devotees, so those among you have something to look forward to tomorrow.
I used the original Boot Camp beta last year just to see it work. I applied the subsequent updates, but haven’t tinkered with it since.
Today, I received an email from Apple that reads, in part:
“…With the introduction of Leopard, the Boot Camp Beta program has ended. The Boot Camp Beta software will expire on December 31, and Apple won’t offer further updates of Boot Camp Beta for Mac OS X Tiger.“
There’s your warning, Tiger users. The Boot Camp beta expires December 31st. Upgrade to Leopard or run unsupported. You don’t want that, of course. Windows needs all the support it can get.
Thanks to everyone who sent this in.