Machinima Info Barf #7

Been busy and have not done one of these in awhile, so the links accumulated.

Time to purge.

Welcome to the future. Grab some popcorn, this one is long.

Previous Info Barfs (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6).

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Robots:

There seemed to be a lot of news about robots recently.
Artificial boy built.
According to defensetech.org, the first armed drone in Iraq has killed (the MQ-9 "Reaper").
More ED209 news from Iraq.
Is Iraq to be the playground for the military industrial complex R&D divisions?

eSports:

Shocking news, the WSVG is cancelled. I guess they could not compete with CGS.
CGS to give out $1 million in prizes.

Contests:

Amazon and Microsoft team up to allow up to 1000 indie film developers the ability to get their film pressed on to HD-DVD and available from Amazon.

Machinima news:

Oxhorn talks about advertising.
Anthony Bailey posts about the origins of the word machinima.
Adobe is entering real time 3D animation at least as a research project (and ray-tracing). I always wondered when some of the big players would start to enter this turf.
Shaping Youth talks about machinima.
Casual WoW lists some machinima guides.

Machinima/Video Clips:

Thes two clips mentioned at Frames Per Second magazine from the 2006 Japan Media Arts Festival are fascinating. The first is Oh Hisse is by Hikaru Yamakawa and is either a celebration of rigidity, conformity, and the human machine, or is maybe a rejection of it, I haven't decided yet. Very Japanese. The second is Mix a Miniascape by Tomonori Hayase which has a cityscape constantly disassembling and reassembling as the viewer passes through it. Very cool (and must have taken a lot of work).
Speaking of lockstep, this human powered animation video is impressive.
Rubberdada episode #2 is released (rubberdada.com). This is just BIZARRE and sure to cause controversy. Juvenile, violent, immature, and yet strangely fascinating as it deals with topics like racism (episode #1 mentioned here). Think of South Park. They definitely seem to hate clowns.
More from the CRC Machinima Collection shot in SL. #1, #2.
This video of a system that allows users to create shadow puppets wherein extra animations are added in real time is very cool.
More Shadow Puppets.
Basho is a very impressive thirteen minute Japanese machinima (with English subtitles) made in Second Life with classic ninjas, shoguns, and the fate of a kingdom in hand at SL-machinima.com. Nice to see some hand-to-hand combat (English translated site; Metacafe trailer).
Someone liked the new GTAIV trailer so much, they remade it using GTAIII San Andreas (too bad the game is delayed till next year).
There's an epic machinima made in Halo called Trinity. I have not watched all of it.
Does what happen in Facebook stay in Facebook? Beware your personal bitstream and who's reading it.
Hallow3en is back with another musical machinima using U2's Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me.
OneJovialSim's Bjork based machinima Akin.
Someone's trying to escape their world. Do they succeed? Infiltrator.
Afonso Cuaron and Naomi Klein's trailer for The Shock Doctrine.
Animation Ramblings lists some iClone examples.
List of Siggraph shorts.

Video Games:

Remember when the specs for Microsoft's Xbox360, Sony's PS3, and the Nintendo Wii were released. Remember how everyone said Nintendo didn't know what it was doing and that it obviously couldn't compete in the high tech arena. Guess who's laughing now as the Wii outsells both the Xbox360 and the PS3, even after being released a year after the Xbox360. Never underestimate the company behind the plumber power Mario.
Neuromatrix is an educational video game where you enter a neuroscience facility and track down the nanobots invading the brains of the scientists within. Made by Morphonix. Check out the video introduction.
There was a report from the Eve Online economist and an interview on Slashdot. It would be nice to see reports from Second Life, WoW, and other MMOGs.
Artificial worlds to be artificial intelligence incubators. Now if only they can obey directions like "no, say it with more emotion".
Artificial worlds are the future of commerce.
The marines are using virtual worlds as training simulators.
VastPark is a virtual world content creation system. Site.
Next week, virtual worlds will do my laundry and wash the windows.

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

Steam is a digital content delivery platform developed by Valve. Not only are a wide variety of games available, but apparently steammovies.com has been registered by Valve. If you've seen the recent videos Valve has made for Team Fortress 2 you will realize that high quality video can be delivered via Steam, either for free or after paying (via credit card).
Overman lists some free filmmaking tools. Other freeware/shareware lists specifically for Mac and more general tools here. More DIY list from The Workbook Project.
Revver has paid out $1 million to content creators to at least 25 000 people (the winners are the Diet Coke and Mentos people at $50 000). It may not be MySpace, which just seems to keep picking up new shows, but it is definitely a site to consider.
Speaking of which, NewTeeVee discusses what makes an online hit.
Brand Worlds 3D production for Flash and the web.
3D holographic display developed. Now when can I play Tank War Europa on it.
More 3D image creation using plasma balls.
SciVee brings science to the world of internet video.
IndyMogul talks about Reverse Shot, a film quarterly that goes into detail about film and cinema. Check out this extensive article on "the cut".