“Pixel Bender” ? Really ?

[Fill in my excuse for not posting in such a long time]. There’s so much to tell, hence the weird title. Let’s start of with todays news; Adobe renames Hydra to Pixel Bender. They actually did it….now…it might be me…but wasn’t Hydra a way cooler name then “Pixel Bender” ? At least we’ll be able to make Bender references all the time now…adding to nerd-status. The cool thing ? Bender’s brain is a MOS6502 … the same cpu which for instance, also powered the best machine of all times.

Puppet Interview

So, moving on from that news. Over the last months I’ve done several interviews. I was reluctant to post them, but come to think of it, why ? You are reading this page so you’re at least interested in what I have to say. The best interview as of yet was with Gideon, one of the worlds best designers. In all honesty, “jet-lagged” as I was, I wasn’t at my best, so these interviews might entertain you more; Joshua Davis, Hugh Elliot, Moock&Gmunk, Seb-Lee Delisle.

FITC & rePhlex and Flash Player 10

Of course, all of this was recorded at the FITC Toronto 2008 conference. First off all, thanks to the FITC Organisation…you guys did an awesome job. The conference had an excellent vibe … (except for that annoying drunk dude at the front door on Tuesday…you know who you are), and I had a great time hanging with you all. I did a sold-out workshop on day 1, day 2 a panel, with Adobe’s Justin, Richard, Lee, Joa from Hobnox and Mr. Paperworld: Trevor.

On day 3 I did my session…I was shocked to find the room literally packed with people….and was somewhat nervous throughout some moments in my session, but as it seems by the feedback, people really enjoyed it. The reviews I found in my incoming links are at least very positive.During this session I also got to talk about rePhlex again, my new toy project. rePhlex is meant to be a lightweight, realtime image processing and syncing/eventing library for site/example and demo purposes. It’s been overgoing some heavy changes and refactoring…you’ll all just have to wait a bit more.

Another thing I really enjoyed doing in my session was that I was allowed to show some hydra Pixel Bender running inside Flash Player 10. Yes….you missed a sneak of Flash Player 10′s awesome power.

On day 4 of the conference I had a taped conversation with Keith Peters, which, next to the obligatory joke he made at my cost, to get back at me for sleeping a bit to long, we both hoped won’t bore you too much…you put to actionscript / math / graphic nerds on a couch…what do you think happens ?

I saw some sessions myself, but was really unlucky with my taste vs the schedule. Things I can quickly remember seeing; Seb-Lee Delisle, Mario Klingemann, Keith Peters, Robert Hodgin, Erik Natzke and many others. Robert’s session (the last of the conference) absolutely blew me away. And I do love Radiohead!

So, that would wrap up FITC Toronto (and Amsterdam too).

Upcoming Conferences

I’m looking forward to speak at this months Multimania. In June there’s going to be FITC Chicago…later on this year many more, amongst which for instance; Singularity 08. I’m really unlucky to have to miss out on this years FlashBelt…..hope you all have a good time there anyway.

Goodbye Earthmine ! Hello new works ?

As some of you, attending one of my sessions or workshops earlier this year might know, most of my commercially available time went to the Earthmine project. That work ended for me last week and after working on one project for such an extended period of time (7 months+) and some rest, I’m now really looking forward too and open for new jobs and work..I’m not sure what I’ll do yet and am still contemplating on what I really want to do as the “next” thing. In the mean time I’ll be working on smaller freelance jobs. And if you have something you’d like me to work on….ping me.

Playing with Hydra and image algorithms

Another post coming up today will explain some more. With my work on rePhlex and Hydra, I’m having a blast doing image manipulation algorithms….one of my experiments was image dithering and half-toning…with as a result a new open source project. More on that in my next post…which will appear on the all new and revamped AXNA / Adobe Feeds! Welcome back !