Do you accept bitcoins?

Bitcoins?

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency. Peer-to-peer (P2P) means that there is no central authority to issue new money or keep track of transactions. Instead, these tasks are managed collectively by the nodes of the network.

Uhm.. What?

Alright, here's a video that made me pretty clear of what it is and how it works (would be a wall of unreadable text if i did an attempt of trying to explain it to you, lol. ;

It's not very easy to describe it but i think they did it pretty well. I really like that there's a possibility of adding your bitcoins on a usbstick and give it a chartal feel.

The mining is also fun but you probably won't make more money than you spend on the electricity for your computer, but theres only 21 million bitcoins to be mined so they get rise in value after some time, so start downloading the bitcoin client here oh and also.. BTC (Bitcoins) are only handed out 50 at a time and you are battle-ing for it with a couple of other users, so it's a gamble to get it, and it could be pretty frustrating without a high-end pc, so i recommend mining in a mining pool (like this one), you will share a block with more people and the profits will be shared, for more steady payouts!

The bitcoin value, changing every hour.

Nothing is real!

You've probably seen some movie's with very realistic cg (computer graphics) before, but i bet you never seen something as amazing as this!

Silestone -- 'Above Everything Else' from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

This impressive work is done by Alex Roman, a 3d artist from Spain. I've never seen something so realistic before, this is the créme de la créme of CG for sure!

Also check out his other solo project "The Third & The Seventh", which is atleast as good as the commercial you saw above. I bet this took thousands of hours to render this all out, but that doesnt match up to the result, wow i'm still amazed!

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

ps: If you dont believe it, check out his composition breakdown!

Cloud computing, the next big thing?

I've always been a fan of new technology and was very very stoked when I heard about OnLive; a gaming-on-demand game platform that uses cloud computing. Now where I'm so excited about is the use of a technology called cloud computing, but what exactly is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like electrity.

(Source: wikipedia)

Alright, its actually pretty simple, instead of letting your computer do all the work, now remote servers will handle everything and stream it to you over the internet, this means you can run very intensive software on a very cheap or old computer that normally would need a very expensive one! This is amazing for us cg-artists, where we dont have to get behind our workstations to do heavy rendering or modelling but now can do all of this on our laptop, netbook, or even an iPad! (the last one will slow down your productivity by 1000% but hey, you get the point :-P).

Now there's OnLive with a gaming cloudservice and also bring out their own "microconsole"; which is almost nothing more than a ethernet port, 2 usb ports, hdmi out, a headphone jack and a power plug. The console is capable of handling 1080p resolution with a steady 60fps framerate, and can even handle 3d output. OnLive has a broad range of gaming and software developers lined up already that are willing to stream their games for a little fee, for a list of featured games, you can check them here

The OnLive Miniconsole, indeed very mini!

But OnLive isn't the only one in the cloud computing market, no, Gaikai is taking almost the exact same approach and have a couple very interesting titles lined up to be streamed, and perhaps even a little more interesting than the titles from OnLive. Where on OnLive you pretty much only gotta do it with older (singleplayer) titles for now, Gaikai comes hard with two very popular mmorpg's; World Of Warcraft and Second Life, and other popular games like The Sims 3.

Gaikai also is more interesting due that they offer their cloud service on the web with just 1 click and no extra plugins needed, while with OnLive for the pc you need to download their application, so playing games in your school or at work could be an issue with OnLive.

U can try both for free* already, you can try multiple games on OnLive by registering here and downloading the OnLive application, login and see the most interactive menu ever! (see picture on the right), It's so amazing to scroll down through the different screens where you see other players playing different games, luckily my 3 year younger brother wanted to play with me and we both played a multiplayer game of Alien vs predator (a trial version of 30 minutes), and its works perfect! The framerate wasnt the best for a shooter even though we have a pretty good connection here, but it still played very smoothly. Gaikai also have a couple of demo's available, they are a tad slower then OnLive but you dont have to download anything and can play it right from the site, the quality is decent but not very great but its playable but not recommended in full screen. I listed them below so u can try them out! (could only find these direct links):

* Play Mass effect 2
* Play Dead Space 2
* Play Sims 3
* Play Spore
* Play Second life

Please note you will atleast need a internet connection of around 5MB!

All in all I think cloud computing is a great step into the future of playing games and doing other (heavy) computing, and if the renting and buying fees are not too much, it might aswell reduce quite some piracy. Computers keep getting compacter too and it's good too know i won't have to upgrade my pc and laptop every 2 years but can now do alot of things on a $200 netbook! The only downside as of now is that there are still some people with crappy (read below 5mb) internet connections but i'm sure the majority already have 10mb or above, and it will only get faster in the next years. Hope u enjoyed this article!

Johnny_Arcade

Sharing the best acoustic sessions

Hello people,

When i'm bored i occasionally get on youtube to search for new bands and epic (acoustic) sessions of favorite bands. Theres nothing better than finding an awesome song that you put on repeat for atleast half an hour. After knowing and hearing so many bands i kind of got the feeling there are no more good bands to listen to, until i found the channel watchlistentell! Song after song were brilliant and i felt like i had to share it with other people, so here are some example songs what's on there, if you listened them all also check out themahoganysessions and burberryacoustic for more great acoustic performances!

watchlistentell's channel

If you know more channels please share it in the comments!
Thanks and enjoy!

Dam surfing!

I got this in my e-mail inbox today, and i really felt like i had to share it with you all!

Haha, 2 guys going out surfing on a dam, soo epic! Skip to 2:30 for action. I really want to do this sometime, but sadly i dont think it's possible in my country (Holland). Nonetheless an epic video i wanted to share!

Gratispremium.info, real or scam?

Hello people,

While browsing on the interwebs I've stumbled upon a site where they promise you can earn free accounts for games or membership simply by giving out a refferal link to your friend and for every hit you get a "poäng"; swedish(?) for points. With these points you can choose rewards (ea 5 hits would get you a month of spotify premium, 30 hits for a minecraft account).

"The site, with your poäng count at the top and the reward list at the bottom"

The first thing i found odd was the amount of clicks needed to get rewards, seeing there are no ads on the site. I shared my refferal link and without minutes i had my first 5 hits, whered i was able to choose the first reward "Spotify premium 1 month". I immediately clicked on redeem, why bother trying to gather more hits when you first want to know if its actually legit? Guess what, right away i got the famous survey screen with the most annoying surveys possible; I dont want an subscription on f*cking ringtones or fill in a 1 hour survey to win a car you won't win and as a bonus free spam in your inbox for life! You know what they say, if it's too good to be true, it probably is, and thats whats going on here too.

"Survey list you get after pressing redeem"

I gotta be honest, i havent been past the survey menu, but gave up on it already and marked it as fake. I havent heard from anyone yet that it works and my bet is, i probably won't see it either, if i'm wrong, tell me in the comments and i will take it all back, but my suggestion is that you shouldnt waste your time on this!

THIS IS FAKE!

Good night,

Johnny_Arcade