Yeahhhh, PodCamp Toronto 2009 Unconference has been announced. We (Ryerson University) are hosting it for the 3rd year in a row….woohoo. I’ll be doing some crazy live video streaming again this year using my wireless Axis webcam. It’ll be two days of total mayhem/fun, so join us all in Toronto…..It’s Free, you’ll most likely freeze your bum and you get free food/knowledge .

More info on Podcamptoronto.org….

Yep, throw out your punny megapixel this and that camera. Time to check out Gigapixel. Head over to Xres.com and check out their gigapixel panorama’s from around the world. They are absolutely mind blowing. The two images above should give you an idea what we’re talking about. The amount of detail is astounishing. If you’re really impressed and want to do your own gigapixel images, you can. Gigapansystems.com is trying to democtratize this field by providing a cheap ($279) robotic paning head that would allow you to produce these type images. I ordered mine today .

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth: ATMC Physics Professor Gaurav Khanna and Principal Investigator Chris Poulin have created a great step-by-step guide that shows you how $4000 and a bit of elbow grease can get you a nice supercomputer cluster. They use Fedora Core 8 distribution, due to the prevalence of Fedora and its Cell SDK (3.0) compatibility

Wow, have a look at the picture of Manhattan above. It’s of a new function google introduced yesterday on it’s Google Earth platform, full textures for the 3D buildings. It only works for New York for now, but pretty soon all you need would be google earth and a link from your computer to your visual cortex and no more touristy trips for you .

Yep, you heard right……First they pulled out of NAB (last year) and now Mac World. Why you ask?….well in their own words:

Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.

I don’t know, but I personally feel that it was atleast partially due to these very shows that Apple is enjoying the popularity it is now. For me, there were two times each year that I would clog up the net — along with millions of other — and watch the keynotes…..Mac World and WWDC. I wonder how long until they’ll turn WWDC into a virtual conference run entirely from Infinite Loop……

Last night we all met at Tim Hortons across from City Hall and went over to Nathan Phillips Square to shoot the show. We were hassled by the security who claimed that since we were using tripods (dahhh, it’s dark out and I want to shoot fireworks buddy) we must be professionals, and since professionals made money from their prints they were not allowed to shoot the City Hall from the public grounds in front of it, unless they had a permit. Anyways, I spent the night playing cat and mouse with these guys/gals and got the shots anyways. I wish I had their Email’s so I could send them a copy….permit this little boy/girl . You can find the full set of pictures here.

So I just came back from California a couple of days ago — La Jolla to be more exact — and I already wish I was back there. There is something to be said for warm winters . Anyways I just finished going through the pictures from this year and found out that I hadn’t posted the ones from last year…..must’ve been something in last years eggnog. They have all been shot on the beach in front of La Jolla Beach Hotel. Anyways, here is a link to the 2008 set and here is one for 2007 set.