CrunchGear

LG Fathom launching soon, shows up in Best Buy for $100 bucks a pop
TC Disrupt Hackathon gallery
The four reasons Lost will go down in history as a bad TV show
CrunchDeals: Final 15 Buscum Ducis BDIs for $149 each
An insider’s look at Ford’s virtual reality design tools

LG Fathom launching soon, shows up in Best Buy for $100 bucks a pop

Posted: 22 May 2010 09:33 PM PDT

Oh, LG Fathom; like the HTC HD2, you’re one of Windows Mobile 6.5’s last hurrahs — a final spirited cry as the hawks circle over head. Packing a 1Ghz processor, a full touchscreen and slide-out QWERTY keyboard, it’s a solid piece of hardware prematurely plagued to obsolescence by a dying operating system. Ah well.

On the upside, you’ll be able to get this thing for (relatively) cheap. One of our sources just sent over a shot of an LG Fathom shelf tag freshly printed from Best Buy’s inventory system, price and all.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>

TC Disrupt Hackathon gallery

Posted: 22 May 2010 01:30 PM PDT

There are more dudes sitting at laptops here than I’ve seen in… well, at least since I left Seattle. But there are also some enterprising builder types taking advantage of the toys and junk gadgets donated to the Hackathon. They’re putting together noise machines, marker critters, and some other stuff I really can’t identify. I took some pictures. Here they are.

The four reasons Lost will go down in history as a bad TV show

Posted: 22 May 2010 09:35 AM PDT

Lost will wrap up this Sunday. It’s about time, too. At least the story is actually ending, rather than drifting along until the show is canceled because of bad ratings. But still, I feel like there are too many loose ends that will not be answered tomorrow.

This isn’t a sign of a clever mystery. It’s simply bad storytelling and so I submit to you the four reasons why Lost is actually a terrible TV show and not deserving of all the attention it got over the last six seasons.

Here’s the obligatory *Spoiler Warning* tag although there is no way you’ll be able to avoid Lost news next week so you might as well get over it now.

1. A main antagonist was never established

Remember the first two seasons? The barefooted Others were the baddies. Then the Dharma Initiative and Ben took over that role as The Others switched sides. Then we learned that the Dharma Initiative were really just nerdy hippies and Charles Whidmore took over as the bad guy by trying to kill everyone on the island. But wait, he’s just another one of Jacob’s pawns and the real bad guy is ol’ Smokey who previously seemed like the island’s janitor.

Critical viewers have always questioned whether the end-game was known when the show started. While I’m sure the writers knew the overall story arc from the beginning, they probably didn’t know how much fluff was needed to fill in seasons. After all, the core business model of TV networks is to get viewers to watch the commercials and successful shows are generally dragged-out to con people into watching said ads.

2. Story arcs never ended

The key to long-running TV shows are simultaneous story arcs. Ideally one arc should be wrapping up while another is in full swing with the next one clearly on the horizon. Lost never wrapped up any story arc, instead left viewers hanging while distracting them something wildly off-topic. Sometimes, like with the story of Walt, the arc would seem to be nicely wrapped up but then out of nowhere, it was clear that wasn’t the case.

Clearly Lost’s writers and creators were trying something new. They bucked nearly every traditional TV show guideline and created something that seemed on the surface as something totally different. The result was something different but doesn’t relate to good storytelling.

3. Lost never really fit into any genre and so missed a huge opportunity

Sci-fi shows are for nerds, only housewives watch dramas, women hate action shows, but yet Lost tried to appeal to all three demographics without fully committing to one.

Sci-fi/fantasy shows are all about mythology and science. The writers could have created this rich and deep storyline that told the tale of good vs evil in a totally new way, complete with new symbols and analogies. The writers could have created another Matrix. But they didn’t. Instead it’s a story about a glowing well that turns people into smoke monsters that for some reason will unleash all hell if it’s let off this mystical island.

Lost was an action drama in the beginning. This was probably by design as both males and females got something out of it. But quickly it turned into a quasi-drama by showing these people’s crappy lives before they got on the plane. We learned Kate was a killer, Jack’s a dick, Sawyer’s a lazy con man, and Eko’s a drug runner. But the personal flashbacks only lasted one episode and we had to endure everyone else’s backstories before it would cycle back around to a particular character’s.

In between these random backstories is when the real action would take place. But just when it was getting good, the trademark Lost tone would crescendo in and the story would jump from the island to watching Jack track down his dad in Australia. Each episode was 20% island happenings, 40% backstory, and 40% commercials.

We now know for sure that the extensive backstories were there to simply justify Jacob’s selections, but surely there had to be a better way to mix up it up a bit.

Of course each viewer probably wanted Lost to be a different show than it was. I would have like a more sci-fi-orientated theme. Others, however, maybe wanted more of the Kate-Jack-Sawyer love mess.

4. So many questions

There are too many unanswered questions that were raised over the last six seasons. Many previous story arcs like the whole Dharma Initiative are now seemingly trivial. A person really could watch the first two seasons and the last and get the whole story. Most everything that happened in between was just fluff.

Why does the island move?
Who made the huge four-toed statue?
Why does it only have four toes?
Why is the island a super-magnet?
Where did Jacob’s and Smokey’s step-mother come from
Who taught Jacob the secrets of the island?
How did the Dharma Initiative construct massive complexes?
How did the Dharma Initiative learn about the island?
How could Richard travel off the island?
Why did Smokey need Locke’s body when there are plenty of corpses around?
Why does the island heal some people and not others?
Why couldn’t Dharma women get pregnant on the island?
Why can’t Smokey just fly over the sonar fence?
Why does a ring of ash protect against Smokey?
Why does Smokey spare some people?
How does Walt figure into the end-game?
What’s the significance of the numbers and how are the connected to Jacob?

There are so many more questions. It’s sad, really. Lost had the makings of a great show but there are simply too many loose ends for them all to be wrapped up tomorrow. It’s a good rule of thumb that if a show needs a question and answer session after its finale, then the writers didn’t do their jobs properly.

[Awesome vintage Dharma ads by Hot Meteor]

CrunchDeals: Final 15 Buscum Ducis BDIs for $149 each

Posted: 22 May 2010 08:43 AM PDT

Our buddy Sven at BD is offering his final 15 BDI watches at a considerably discount – $149, about $70 off the regular price. We reviewed the piece, a quartz with custom styling by Sven himself, back a few years ago. Beautiful watches at a great price.

Sale Page

An insider’s look at Ford’s virtual reality design tools

Posted: 22 May 2010 07:22 AM PDT

Ford, like most modern manufacturing companies, is utilizing virtual reality tools at all levels of development. Gone are the days of designers and engineers hunching over drafting tables in a smoke-filled room, working on blueprints for what will next be molded out of clay.

These days development is done on 20-foot ultra-high resolution displays with real world testing done in a virtual world. Designers can experience nearly every aspect of a future vehicle before any physical piece is constructed. Ford even employs virtual tools for the manufacturing phase to maximize efficiency there as well.

I recently got a close look at a bunch of these tools and processes. I was granted access to everything from Ford’s gigantic full vehicle motion simulator to the gigantic video wall. These are some impressive toys.

Powerwall

Imagine a large room with a single computer workstation and a 20-foot screen as its display. That basically Ford’s Powerwall. It’s a place where designers to executives to auto dealers can gather and get a high-res look at Ford’s current and future lineup.

It’s a simple concept with Sony 4k projector connected to just a single high-end workstation, but the results are spectacular. Designers are no longer tied down to their cubicles and can explore their work in larger-than-life dimensions using AutoDesk & AutoStudio CAD programs to creating spectacular animations in Maya.

The Powerwall rooms are also equipped for worldwide collaboration and any one of them can host virtual meetings with the other seven Ford Powerwall studios found across the globe.

(Sorry for the pics. It’s nearly impossible to show the sheer scale of this screen. Use your imagination and picture those images 20-feet wide and you’ll get the idea.)

Programmable Vehicle Models

Much of a vehicle’s testing is now done virtually, a processes that helps streamline development while keeping cost down. Ford utilizes numerous tools for virtual testing with the PVM at the heart of the process. It immerses the tester in a virtual world assisted by the physical presence of a configurable vehicle sled.

This testing sled is a complex platform that’s able to match the physical dimensions of nearly any vehicle. Once the physical properties are set, a tester sits in the sled wearing a head-mounted virtual reality display equipped with reflective spheres to enable 1-1 movement mapping. A pair of gloves with the same IR-visible balls helps complete the illusion.

The goal here is to allow designers and engineers the ability to test out their designs without building a full-scale working model. Nearly everything from seating position to steering wheel position to blind spots can be evaluated and worked out.

The same lab also houses the so-called CAVE — Cave Automated Virtual Environment. This 3D environment is designed not so much for the ergonomics like in the PVM, but rather for style and craftsmanship. Four rear projectors generate 3D images on three sides and above the tester. The 3D glasses are equipped with motion-tracking sensors to further complete the environment.

It really has a WOW-factor. Once you don the glasses and sit in the single elevated seat, it really gives the feeling of being in the vehicle.

VIRTTEX

Ride testing is key to any vehicle’s development. It can be expensive constructing prototypes that do not function right or are simply wrong. This is where the VIRTETEX simulator comes in.

A 24-ft dome houses a full-size vehicle — in this case a Taurus X crossover — that’s connected to a series of computers. Hydraulics, five projectors, and a bunch screens then immerses drivers in a virtual world.

The benefits are nearly endless. No more expensive and potentially dangerous test vehicles as the system can simulate most of the driving dynamics of a compact car or full-size truck. Testing and polling can be done in a controlled environment without any variables. And it’s just so cool. Imagine playing Burnout Paradise or Grand Turismo in this thing. The Ford engineers said they’ve never broke out the games but you know the six blade servers with high-end Nvidia graphic cards that powers the displays are just screaming for a bit of downtime.

Virtual Manufacturing

Ford’s virtual tools even extends to the manufacturing arm of the company. Motion-capturing technology allows a team of developers to test-build vehicles early on. This allows the company to ensure that manufacturing line workers will not run into any issues.

Full-body motion capture suits are used to generator baseline manufacturing tolerances. The end result is that many manufacturing tasks are now designed so both a 6-foot male and a 5.2-foot female will be able to do preform the same task. If the man’s big hands can install a tiny plug deep in an engine compartment than so can the female’s smaller hands.

This drives down the high-cost of manufacturing later on. The company can plan out a line workers exact tasks before the vehicle ever hits the assembly line.

On Ford’s openness

The more interesting story, at least to me, is Ford’s open access to all these tools. Our access wasn’t something I sought out. We were invited along with other outlets to view all these tools. That’s something many companies would never do and when some actually open their doors, everything but the specific subject matter is covered by a conveniently-placed white sheet.

Of course we had to sign a confidentiality agreement just in case we saw any unannounced vehicles, but that’s normal and fine by me. Ford basically opened their door and said to a bunch of curious journalists, “Come on in, take a bunch of pictures of our design tools, and ask our engineers any questions you have.” Apple could learn a thing or two from this type of access and transparency. It’s refreshing.