INOX Cinemas, one of the largest multiplex chains in India, officially launched India’s first ‘ScreenX‘ theatre in Malad yesterday. Part of the “INOX Malad” multiplex at the Inorbit Mall in Malad, ‘ScreenX’ is a proprietary technology from Korea that offers a 270-degree immersive viewing experience by using the side-walls of the auditorium in combination with the main screen.
Stephen Shankland, reporting for CNET:
The teams behind the Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge browsers have banded together to improve extensions, the add-ons you can download to customize the software. That should mean your extensions will work better and come with a better security foundation to protect you from malware.
On Friday, the teams unveiled a discussion and development forum at the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, dedicated to developing standards for extensions. The forum, the WebExtensions Community Group, gives engineers a place to build a unified and more secure core foundation for extensions.
At WWDC 2020, Apple introduced the WebExtension API for Safari on macOS Big Sur — an effort to enable cross-platform browser extensions. However, I’m yet to see a change in the Safari extensions ecosystem because of that. Here’s hoping this new WebExtensions Community Group brings about a change.
Ranjeet Jadhav, reporting for Mid-Day:
A young tiger that walked all the way from Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary in Vidarbha to Gautala Autram Ghat Sanctuary of Aurangabad, covering a 330 km road distance, appears to have made the sanctuary its home. Exclusive camera trap pictures accessed by mid-day show the tiger frequenting a watering hole in the sanctuary.
and
In June 2019, a tiger named Walker 1 which was fitted with a radio caller started walking from Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary in Yavatmal where it was born and reached Dnyanganga Sanctuary in December 2019, travelling through eight districts of Maharashtra and Telangana. Forest department officials were able to track its movement till February 2020 till its radio collar was removed. It is said that the tiger walked for close to 3,000 km, the longest journey made by a tiger fitted with a radio collar. After the removal of the collar, there has been no information of where Walker 1 might be.
I wish the report said why the collar was removed and by whom.
Black Panther is the latest spectacle in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and has been getting rave reviews from everyone who’s seen it. I’ve seen the film twice so far, of course on the first two days of the film’s opening on Feb 16th in India. I loved it! It’s not an extraordinary masterpiece like some are calling it — rather, it was a very refreshing change from the typical Marvel affair for me. The film has flaws, but if we’re to look at it as a film, I loved it. Don’t worry, this isn’t another review that’s going on to praise the culture, the colors, the costume, or the VFX of the film. Instead, I’m going to be talking about the Title Sequence of Black Panther.
If you’ve seen the film, the Title Sequence is what we get to see towards the end of the film, right before the credits start rolling. This Title Sequence is, to me, the best part of the entire film.
Black Panther’s Title Sequence was surreal, and a visual masterpiece. The whole thing was crafted with incredible motion graphics and transitions and set to an amazing track by Kendrick Lamar & SZA. It’s a fascinating display of bright and bold colors, energetic camera work and transitions, smooth motions and everything comes together to take you through a summary of what happens in the film. A major reason why I even went in to watch a second screening of the film with my wife was so that I could sit through the Title Sequence yet again in all its glory. It was simply outstanding!
This Main On End Title Sequence of Black Panther was crafted and brought to life by a small team of incredibly talented people at an NYC-based studio called Perception. Founded in 2001, Perception has worked on and contributed their remarkable work towards several films, not just in Title Sequences, but also in User Interfaces, Experience Design, and other material. Many, if not all of the fascinating displays and user interfaces seen in Shuri’s laboratory in the film are crafted by Perception.
At the center of Black Panther’s story is Vibranium — a Wakandan metal that practically powers all the technological advancements in the country. Perception decided to base the Main on End Title Sequence on Vibranium — rather, vibranium shavings.
Perception’s Chief Creative Director John LePore says:
The idea was to have small shavings of vibranium— like dust or sand that would morph or reassemble into various three-dimensional shapes and forms, all by being actuated by sound waves. The vibranium sand has a great physical quality to it, which works really well with the blend of technology and spirituality seen in Wakanda. We also considered the sense of touch that we’ve lost with touchscreens or holograms to be a holy grail for interaction.
This form of Vibranium appears in several scenes in the film, and most notably, is also used for the opening prologue that tells the story of Wakanda and its history. Perception worked on the pre-vis for the opening prologue too, while the final animation was done by Storm VFX.
I am absolutely in awe by the work done by Perception, so it didn’t come as a surprise that the studio has also done the title sequences for two other Marvel films — Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-man: Homecoming. Perception also has films like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Captain America: Civil War, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Iron Man 2 and The Avengers to their credit.
[All images in this post are via Perception]
Mike Isaac, reporting for The New York Times:
The lawsuit, filed by WhatsApp in the Delhi High Court, seeks to block the enforceability of the rules that were handed down by the government this year. WhatsApp, a service owned by Facebook that sends encrypted messages, claimed in its suit that the rules, which were set to go into effect on Wednesday, were unconstitutional.
Yes, Facebook is evil, but the current Indian Govt. is riding the same boat. It’s good to see WhatsApp challenging these ridiculous new rules (may even be unconstitutional), and I hope other companies join the suit.
That said, this doesn’t absolve WhatsApp from their new Privacy Policy changes. Scumbags.
Chris De Jabet, writing on the 1Password blog:
We learned from customer feedback that some people would make a vault named Archive and move these items there, and others were storing those items in the Trash. While both solutions work, neither was ideal. That’s why we’re rolling out the new Archive feature in our latest updates.
For the longest time, I’ve had an ‘Archive’ vault in 1Password to hold old items that I no longer used, but still wanted to store in 1Password to reference. Items such as old server passwords, accounts from sites that are now dead or moved, random secure notes, etc. were all moved to this ‘Archive’ vault. I can finally delete that vault now that 1Password has native support for the Archive.
Thibault Meunier, writing on the Cloudflare blog:
We want to get rid of CAPTCHAs completely. The idea is rather simple: a real human should be able to touch or look at their device to prove they are human, without revealing their identity. We want you to be able to prove that you are human without revealing which human you are! You may ask if this is even possible? And the answer is: Yes! We’re starting with trusted USB keys (like YubiKey) that have been around for a while, but increasingly phones and computers come equipped with this ability by default.
Let’s face it, CAPTCHAs are annoying. I may have clicked on thousands of little photos of traffic lights so far, and it’s been an annoyance every single time.
If you have a YubiKey, you can try out the flow on https://cloudflarechallenge.com — a test website setup by Cloudflare.
I’d love to see where this initiative goes.
The BMC said it is starting six more vaccination centres today. Matoshri Sports Club at Sundar Nagar HP (JVLR), BMC Community Hall (Jogeshwari), Aadhar Kendra (Vile Parle), Gadkari HP Videocon Atithi (Chembur), Yoga Kendra (Ayodhya Nagar), and Najambaug (Dongri) are the centres. Apollo Spectra in Deonar and Saifee Ambulance in Bhendi Bazar are two private vaccination centres that will also start today.
We really need more vaccination centres for 18-44 north of Jogeshwari