Quick Review: Jot Mini
Adonit has been hard at work after the successful launch of their Jot stylus. (read the review here). They’ve recently introduced two new additions to their touch screen stylus line; Jot Mini and Jot Flip and they have one more in development which is supposed be a pressure sensitive version of the same design; Jot Touch. 
Jot Mini as the name declares is the smaller version of Jot, but it’s not just the size that has shrunk, the precision disk is smaller too which makes the experience much better. Seems Adonit has applied what they’ve learned from the earlier version and Jot Mini feels more responsive, however, when it comes to tapping it doesn’t always register and requires more pressure.
It’s well built and beautifully designed. There’s clip machined right into the piece which adds to the elegant of the stylus but it’s not very practical as the angle of 
the cut is too sharp and the mouth is so narrow making attaching and removing it very difficult unless it’s been used on a very thin material (hard to use on your jeans!)
Overall Jot Mini is a very good addition to the competition and it has already replaced my Bamboo and Jot Pro! I do hope Adonit will do more with Jot Touch as I think the precision disk can still become a little thinner and more durable and they should include at least one spare disk with each product.
The New iPad; A Missed Opportunity?
The new iPad was Apple’s BIG chance to continue keeping their position at the top of the tablet market and perhaps guaranteeing it will stay that way before Windows 8 comes out. Regardless of W8 being a success or a flop, there will be a big shift in the tablet computers market as pretty much all the companies competing will put out a device running Redmond’s latest. From what we’ve seen so far W8 will marry the touch interface with an option to access the classic windows desktop interface, a very attractive concept, the idea that will sell enough devices to shake Apple’s dominance. So did Apple release the right product given the upcoming battle? Not even close!
Focusing on the wrong upgrades!
Retina Display
Don’t get me wrong! This is a stunning display! Just imagine holding 2048 x 1536 resolutions, 3.1 million Pixels in your hands! That’s fantastic, necessary? Nope! You can barely tell the difference at the first glance! Did we even need a bump in resolution? Not really! Maybe Full HD but there’s not much multimedia content available for this resolution and even if it did, it won’t be that impressive on a 9” display.
CPU and Graphics Processor
Still the same CPU but an upgraded quad core GPU which is mainly there to handle the retina display! There’s no big performance improvement between iPad 2 and the new iPad when it comes to online surfing, gaming and day to day use.
Camera
Ok! by now everyone knows using your iPad to take photos is not the best idea! But having the camera for video calling is of course required so any upgrade in that department is welcomed, but why the front camera is not improved?! With all the faster internet connections Apple surely we can have added a HD front facing camera for a better Face Time experience!
4G Data
It’s great to have the latest mobile connection technologies, but many countries don’t even support 4g yet! but it’s a good upgrade nonetheless.
What should they have focused on instead?
Design
Product design is without a doubt one of Apple’s main strengths, so why releasing the same design again? A thinner, lighter and more portable device would have guaranteed iPad 2 owner’s upgrade as well as expanding Apple’s reach to Androiders! Something attractive that leaves you with no doubt whereas now all Apple’s done is leaving people with questions and second guessing wehtehr they should upgrade.
Hardware
A Quad Core cpu to stay at top of the hardware race. The technology is there so why hang on to the dual core? Apple tends to provide a good balance between and the Hardware and Software and usually ignore the hardware race but this time it was different, they should have foreseen the future better and make a device that will stand the aftermath of W8. The most desired SD card reader and HDMI output would have been a great addition too. We know apple will never add USB or Stylus support! But this is something that they could have done.
Battery Life
iPad’s current battery life is great, can easily last a day but this is the area where apple could again make a huge jump and leave the completion behind, instead all they’ve done is trying to keep the same 10hrs which has caused the new device to become slightly warmer perhaps the side effect of the retina display.
When iPad came out I gave it a few months to see how the reviews will turn out and when I finally got it I was very happy with my experience and thought this is a great bridge between my desktop and phone. When iPad 2 came out I was very excited and got it right away! The hardware upgrade was the key factor for me and again I was pleased with the product. When the new iPad was released however, for the first time I had no desire what so ever to get it! It took me just three weeks to find time to go check it out and it was disappointing and really made me wonder whether if Steve Job was still alive had he done the same? On the other hand, I’m looking forward to Windows 8 slate and the opportunities that Microsoft will bring to the table. Where Apple failes to hear customers voice, Microsoft usually listen!
John Carter: A Disappointed Smile!
I never had high expectations from John Carter and that says something about the poor marketing surrounding the movie. Seems there was a strong force within Disney spreading that this film will not do well. They took this as far as announcing losses while the movie was and is at the moment on the theatres! What kind of a strategy is That to write a movie off and killing any chances of returning some of the investment by stabbing them on the back like this? If I was the director I would take this very personally! But what about the movie? Is it really as bad as they make it sound?
Well, yes and no! This is just another addition to a very long list of the movies that had good potentials but suffered from poor script and lacked enough sophistication to impress the audience both visually and intellectually! The film studios have the tendency to “dumb down” the movies so it will appeal to everyone! Or this is what they believe, however, if inception thought us anything, not only the general audience will and can keep up with more complex stories, they will truly enjoy it! So why do we still need to do this? Like in JC when he explains how was alive and not dead which brought the audience nothing but a sarcastic laughter! The concept and the core story is good, but the script, the dialogues and the overall story telling is so very poor and get you thinking whether this film had a director at all!?
The visuals overall are very impressive. A lot of nice VFX works by the London houses mainly double negative, nothing ground breaking or new but decent nonetheless. However, I noticed some disturbing issues with the fine details such a keying that was way off in cases possible due to the tight deadline perhaps! I hope! The colour grade of the Mars was very strange as well, too yellow for a red planet! Couldn’t they just grade the sand a little bit?! (Mars was taken of the title because Disney believed having this in the title will push away the audience not interested in Sci-Fi movies! Stupid! But even if that’s true should you lie to your audience and pretend otherwise?)
Andrew Stanton who comes from a very successful and creative background failed not to only to bring his favourite childhood comic book to life but to present himself as a director that had learned from this experience. He remained very arrogant and completely ignorant to the budget of the movie claiming he doesn’t care! As if that proves anything (Listen to Kermode’s review on BBC radio 5 and Director’s interview ) and cleared all the good memories I’ve had from Wall.E and Finding Nemo! I definitely won’t be on the line to watch his next movie and the same goes for next Disney’s release!
The movie wasn’t without its moments and good humour here and there and you leave the theatres with a disappointed smile on your face wishing they had done better with all these likeable characters and the charming story.
Green Tea Frappuccino
A hot day in Beijing, in San Li Tun, I had Green Tea Frappuccino for the first time! And began an obsession which lasted for the rest of my stay with having at least one per day if I could get my hands on any! It tasted so refreshing with just the right balance of sweetness and rich taste of green tea. Wherever I was going seeing a Starbucks sign had become an invitation impossible to reject! But after returning to UK sadly this didn’t exist in Starbucks menu!
After few months, a few weeks back we finally decided to try making one! Getting hold of the recipe wasn’t too difficult as this seemed to be a highly popular drink and people writing about it all over the world! Here is what we used in ours:
1-Green Tea Powder
2-Starbucks Vanilla Syrup
3-Cream
4-Ice
5-Milk
The process of making this is really easy and as you can see in the video below it’s really a matter of few minutes! And then you are hooked!
A Day at Brunel
Last Thursday I did a presentation at Brunel University, with my friend Vince, on Framestore. It’s been more than a year since I’ve joined Framestore and has been a fantastic experience so far.
This was my first time at Brunel and having done my Bachelor at Kingston and Masters at Bournemouth, the first thing I noticed was the size of the campus! Seemed pretty big! We had a quick tour of some of the facilities first such as the green screen room, performance capture studio and the sound room and were very impressed with the infrastructure and their equipment. Having access to Red Cameras, jeeps and dolly can certainly elevate the quality of students’ projects and in turn helping them putting better show reels together. I tried to find some of their student projects work afterwards which was a very difficult task and I simply couldn’t!
We started the presentation by introducing Framestore and the main departments, and then with more focus on 2d pipeline, R&D and effects. I think it went pretty well and I do hope we provided students with some insight into industry and give them some sort of direction to follow in the remaining years of their degree.
Having been a student myself not long ago I fully understand the difficulties of obtaining some information regarding to the career opportunities and what’s required to get there and I’m always more happy to share what I’ve learned with others. VFX industry in the UK is still growing and I think there’s still so much potential and it’s up to the studios at this point to help the educators train the next generation of artists with good background and knowledge in science and fine arts.
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