Postpanic's CG film imagines what Voyager 1 sees on the edge of the solar system

PostPanic director Mischa Rozema's new short film, Stardust, is a story about Voyager 1 (the unmanned spacecraft launched in 1977 to explore the outer solar system).

The probe is the furthest man-made object from the sun and witnesses unimaginable beauty and destruction. The film was triggered by the death of Dutch graphic designer Arjan Groot, who died aged 39 on 16th July 2011 from cancer.

The entire team at Amsterdam-based creative company PostPanic pushed themselves in their own creative post techniques to produce a primarily CG short film crafted with love.

The film's story centres on the idea that in the grand scheme of the universe, nothing is ever wasted and it finds comfort in us all essentially being stardust ourselves. Voyager represents the memories of our loved ones and lives that will never disappear.

From a creative standpoint, Rozema wanted to explore our preconceived perceptions of how the universe appears which are fed to us by existing imagery from sources such NASA or even sci-fi films. By creating a generated universe, Rozema was able to take his own 'camera' to other angles and places within the cosmos.

Objects and experiences we are visually familiar with are looked at from a different point of view. For example, standing on the surface of the sun looking upwards or witnessing the death and birth of a star  - not at all scientifically correct but instead a purely artistic interpretation of such events.

"I wanted to show the universe as a beautiful but also destructive place. It's somewhere we all have to find our place within," says Rozema. "As a director, making Stardust was a very personal experience but it's not intended to be a personal film and I would want people to attach their own meanings to the film so that they can also find comfort based on their own histories and lives."

Rozema turned to his regular audio partner, Guy Amitai, to create the music for the film.

"I approached Guy to make the music because I trust him and knew he would instinctively understand what I wanted to communicate with this film,' he says.

Their long-term collaboration over the years helped them explore different musical approaches before finally settling on a musical journey featuring analogue instruments.

"Once we started working on this project and I told people about Stardust and what Arjan meant to us all, the offers started pouring in," says Amitai. "Musician friends and friends-of-friends all wanting to join in and record even the smallest parts. It was an incredibly emotional and personal journey for us all – not something you can professionally detach yourself from."

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Microsoft's CEO is wrong about Office for iOS: Here's why

Rumors have been floating around for some time that Microsoft is hard at work developing Microsoft Office apps for iOS—or more specifically for the Apple iPad. Speculation about Office for iOS has grown following the launch of Office 2013 and the new Office 365, but Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appears to have squashed that dream for the time being.

When asked about progress on Office apps for iOS, Ballmer responded,  "We do have a way for people always to get to Office through the browser, which is very important." While that may be technically true, I disagree with Ballmer that it satisfies the need. I've been a champion of Office for iOS since the iPad first came out. Here are three reasons Microsoft needs to release native Microsoft Office apps for iOS and Android:

Use on multiple devices is part of the value of Office 365.

1. Not compatible with Office on Demand

One of the benefits of subscribing to Office 365—as opposed to simply purchasing Office 2013—is that it includes a feature called Office On Demand. Office On Demand enables you to log in from any Windows 7 or Windows 8 system and work with streamed virtual versions of the full Office applications. Unfortunately, Office On Demand doesn't work with iOS or Android.

2. Office Web Apps aren't the same

In dismissing the idea of Office for iOS, Ballmer implies that using Office Web Apps from the iPad browser delivers a sufficient experience. Facebook and LinkedIn each had a similar stance regarding the iPad, but eventually came around. While it is technically possible to interact with Office Web Apps through the browser, a native app delivers a far superior experience.

My experience in trying to use Office Web Apps from an iPad left quite a bit to be desired. Microsoft has addressed some of the major issues, and Office Web Apps have gone from dysfunctional to tolerable, but they're still severely crippled compared to the real Microsoft Office applications. If Microsoft's OneNote, SkyDrive, and Lync apps for iOS are any indication, the rest of the Microsoft Office would greatly benefit from having dedicated apps.

3. Microsoft is conceding a huge market
In the years that have passed since the iPad was first introduced, a variety of alternatives have sprung up to fill the Microsoft Office void. Apple's iWorks apps (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote), and third-party apps such as DocsToGo and QuickOffice deliver a similar set of capabilities, and promise at least some degree of compatibility with Microsoft Office file formats.

None of those products offers the same comprehensive set of features as Microsoft Office, but they'll all get the job done. Many alternative apps also provide broader integration with the local file storage on the iPad, as well as third-party cloud storage services such as Box, Google Drive, Dropbox, and SugarSync.

As I said almost a year ago: "The bottom line is this—Microsoft's virtual monopoly of the PC market is fading. Even if it's wildly successful with smartphones and tablets it will never have a dominant share of the mobile market. Ignoring iOS and Android means leaving millions of users without Microsoft Office, and eroding the relevance of the Microsoft productivity suite."

To rephrase it from a more current perspective, Microsoft has a vested interest in maintaining and building the audience for Microsoft Office, but it is faced with a shifting tech landscape where traditional PCs—the purview of Microsoft Windows—are losing momentum. It needs to encourage customers to embrace the Office 365 subscription model, but there is less incentive to do so if users will still be forced to spend additional money to purchase a secondary office suite for their iOS or Android mobile device.

There are reports that Microsoft and Apple have been at odds over Apple's cut of app sales, or in-app purchases. If that's true, the statement by Ballmer might just be bravado—posturing in an effort to get Apple to negotiate.

The problem with that theory is that Apple doesn't need Microsoft or Microsoft Office. Microsoft, however, does need Apple—and it will be a huge mistake if Microsoft fails to deliver native apps for iOS.

Mr. Ballmer, working with Office via the browser on a mobile device is simply not good enough. Office for iOS is very necessary.

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New Linux distro will target disabled users

There are more than a billion people around the globe living with some sort of disability today, yet software in general and operating systems in particular are just beginning to address their computing needs.

Microsoft's Windows 8 reportedly brought with it some accessibility improvements, and now a new project on the Linux side aims to take such efforts even further with a brand-new Linux distribution specifically targeting disabled users.

"I want to build a Linux operating system focused on accessibility," explains developer Jonathan Nadeau in his Sonar Project campaign page on Indieogogo. "Not just for blind and low vision people, but for people who struggle with dyslexia and learning disabilities as well as accessibility for people with low motor skills and quadriplegics."

'We are being left behind'

There are roughly 360 million blind and low vision people in the world, for example, but 90 percent of them live in developing countries. Eighty percent of those in the United States are unemployed. Meanwhile, the average cost of proprietary accessibility software is around $900, Nadeau explains.

"How are they supposed to afford this?" writes Nadeau, who is himself blind as a result of a 1992 car accident. "The faster technology moves, the farther we are being left behind."

There have been some advances in the Linux world over the years, to be sure. The GNOME Accessibility Project has already been under way for some time, for example; Fedora Linux has also published an accessibility guide.

Then, too, there have been offerings like Vinux, which is aimed at the blind and visually impaired. There have also been Linux screen readers such as Orca and text-to-speech readers such as eSpeak, Festival, and Emacspeak, as Linux.com's Carla Schroder noted last year.

'Anyone can modify it'

Meanwhile, the Ubuntu-based Sonar Project hopes to go further with an accessible Linux distribution that's not only free in cost, but also has free source code.

"Free (as in source code) is the most important part of this," Nadeau explains. "Since the source code will be Free, this means that once the operating system is built, anyone can modify it to improve and enhance what already exists. I want people that depend on assistive technology to use Free software so we can be in control of our own computing and accessibility needs."

The Sonar Project seeks $20,000 in funding by Feb. 20; so far, it's garnered only $2,385.

Does accessibility matter to you or your company? Please leave a comment if an accessibility-focused distro would make a difference for your business.

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Mayhem, chaos and the Just Cause 2 multiplayer mod

I mentioned this JC2-MP six months ago when it was first generating some popularity in the PC gaming world. It was chaotic, buggy and a ton of fun. If you own Just Cause 2 (which is ridiculously cheap on most digital distribution platforms, including Steam) you need to play this mod. The fun factor of your weekend depends on it.

It only comes around once in a while, but every so often the guys designing the mod will announce a 48-hour playtest period where upwards of 1,000 players can hop into one server and make the island of Panau their personal playground. This weekend is one of those times. At midnight PST tonight, the server will open and the players will flood in.

If you own the game, you should be one of them. Thankfully, installing the mod is a cinch; head to the website's download page at midnight to get the installer. The instructions are all bundled and it only takes about two minutes to complete. From there, all you need to do is type in the correct IP address (also provided) and pray for a decent connection.

IdolNinjaDrop in on all your friends and plenty of strangers.

Join a car race, enter the destruction derby, hijack a helicopter, ride on top of an airliner with a pilot who has no idea what he's doing or simply parachute over everyone and take in the hilarity. There's really no limits on the fun to be had.

There have been too many updates to count since the last time I took to the server. Hit detection for shooting players has been implemented and greatly improved, many bugs were squashed and the ability to ride on top of a car in stunt positions (and affect the car's physics while doing so) was added.

If you've written off Just Cause 2 as an old game with no life left, you'd be sorely mistaken and had better start reinstalling now to enjoy this rare treat of a mod. If you've played this mod before and were turned off by its bugs, time to give it another shot. If you're not a fan of fun, you have my permission to miss out.

Ben-bujaPlease put your seat in the full upright position.

Keep tabs on the Twitter and Facebook feeds of the mod team for their latest announcements.

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Weekend project: Check out ROSA Linux 2012

With all the excellent Linux distributions available today, it can be easy to focus exclusively on the few that dominate the headlines, such as Ubuntu Linux, Linux Mint, Fedora, and Mageia Linux, to name just a few.

Scanning DistroWatch is a nice way to regain some perspective, replete as it is with details and announcements about virtually countless others out there, but every once in a while one jumps out from the news as being particularly compelling.

Case in point? ROSA Linux, a distro that just recently got a big update and offers several features that are particularly attractive for business users.

Based on Mandriva

Now occupying No. 20 on DistroWatch's list of page-hit rankings, ROSA Linux is a free and open source Mandriva-based distro that features a customized KDE desktop along with several modifications designed for user friendliness. Its Russian maker, ROSA Labs, also develops an "Enterprise Server" edition of ROSA that's based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

ROSA Desktop.Fresh 2012 is the name of the release launched in late December, and it's designed as "an area for experiments with the freshest software components," in the company's own words. "The distribution is targeted at community users who are familiar with basic Linux components and want to get a product with a wide set of customization and personalization possibilities."

Also available, however, is ROSA Marathon 2012, a business-focused version released last May that offers Long Term Support as well as office software, a graphics editor, anti-virus software, and more.

LSB-compliant

Perhaps most interestingly of all, both versions are not only compatible with a wide range of modern hardware, but they're also compliant with the Linux Standards Base (LSB), meaning that users can easily launch LSB-compliant applications including proprietary software often relied upon by enterprise users.

Ready to take ROSA 2012 for a test drive this weekend? The boundary-pushing Desktop.Fresh version and the stable, business-focused Marathon version are both available from the project site.

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Twitter hacked; 250,000 users must reset their passwords

Twitter's servers have been breached by "extremely sophisticated" hackers who may have made off with user names and passwords for about 250,000 users, the company said Friday.

Twitter said unusual access patterns led it to identify the attacks, which took place during the past week.

"We discovered one live attack and were able to shut it down in process moments later. However, our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information—usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords—for approximately 250,000 users," Twitter Director of Information Security Bob Lord said in a blog post.

Twitter reset the passwords and revoked session tokens for the accounts, and said it was emailing the affected users Friday and telling them to reset their passwords.

"This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident," the company said in its post.

It noted that The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal also said they'd been targeted by hackers this week. Those companies said the attacks originated in China, but Twitter did not point to a country of origin.

Twitter said it thinks other companies and organizations have recently been similarly attacked.

It urged all its users to ensure they are using strong passwords on Twitter and elsewhere on the Internet. Passwords should be at least 10 characters and use a mix of upper- and lowercase letters, as well as numbers and symbols, the site said.

"Using the same password for multiple online accounts significantly increases your odds of being compromised," Twitter said. "If you are not using good password hygiene, take a moment now to change your Twitter passwords."

The company said it was still gathering information about the attacks and is working with federal law enforcement agencies to prosecute the attackers.

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Booting Linux via UEFI can 'brick' some Samsung laptops

A problem with a kernel driver for Samsung laptops has caused numerous users to find their machines "bricked" after trying to boot Linux on them.

That's according to several reports on the Ubuntu Linux bug tracker that name the 530U3C, NP700Z7C, NP700Z5C, and 300E5C series as among the Samsung PCs involved in the problem, which occurs when users boot Linux via the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI).

One user filing a report has apparently lost two laptops due to the problem.

'No sounds, nothing'

"I cannot provide detailed log messages because laptop is bricked right now," wrote the user in the bug description last August. "If you have courage to try it, select UEFI boot from BIOS and try to boot laptop using LiveUSB.

"Laptop hangs up in black screen," the user added. "If you force power-off, after it, laptop won't start—not even start bios—just black screen, no sounds, nothing."

The same thing apparently happened to the user's previous laptop, but it was still under warranty and could be repaired with a new motherboard.

The issue has been spotted by users of both Ubuntu Linux 12.04 "Precise Pangolin" and Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal," but it's considered likely that other Linux distributions are affected as well.

At least one other user reported experiencing a similar issue on a Lenovo IdeaPad n585 laptop, but that doesn't seem to have been confirmed yet.

A BIOS update on the way

In any case, the issue is apparently not related to the "Secure Boot" mechanism that has caused so much controversy in Windows 8 hardware.

Ubuntu developer Steve Langasek confirmed in a comment last week that Canonical has communicated with Samsung about the bug, but he noted that there's currently no ETA for a BIOS update that would fix it.

In the meantime, Langasek advised Ubuntu users to download the latest daily images, which have been tweaked to avoid the problem.

Update: Apparently Linux creator Linus Torvalds published changes to the main Linux development tree this morning that should provide at least partial protection against the problem. Hat tip to The H, which also has more details.

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Why Office 365 is a better deal than Office 2013

The new Microsoft Office is here. As with the previous versions, you can get Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more as a locally installed suite of applications or as Office 365, a cloud-based subscription. However, choosing between Office 2013 desktop software and the new Office 365 is a dramatically different decision than in the past.

This time, there is virtually no decision to make. Comparing Office 2013 to Office 365 is an exercise in semantics; Microsoft has significantly stacked the deck to favor one over the other.

Microsoft has given Office 365 a clear advantage over Office 2013.

There is a clear distinction between the two options. Office 2013 describes only the desktop applications. By contrast, Office 365 is a Web-based platform that pairs the Office applications with cloud storage. In the past, though, the Office 365 versions of the software had limited features and capabilities compared to the full desktop versions, and if you didn't have an Internet connection you didn't have Office.

With the new versions of the productivity suite, though, Office 2013 vs. Office 365 is a smoke-and-mirrors debate. Office 2013 is more expensive than Office 365, and the license is only good for one machine. If you only need the core applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote) you can get Office 2013 Home & Student for $140. Throw in Outlook, and you get Office 2013 Home & Business for $220. Office 2013 Pro adds Access and Publisher, all for $400.

Office 365 comes in two flavors: Office 365 Home Premium for $100 per year and Office 365 Small Business Premium for $150 per year. Both come with the full Office 2013 Pro software for your PC, but there are key differences. Up to five people can use Office 365 Home Premium on up to five devices, with each user getting an Office experience customized to their own Microsoft ID.

Office 365 Small Business Premium also comes with five licenses, but billed per user per year. Each user can install and use Office on up to five PCs, but the licenses can't be shared with other users. Office 365 Small Business Premium also includes a managed Microsoft Back Office environment including Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync.

Office 365 includes five licenses for Office 2013 Pro.

Depending on how many computers and devices you want to install Office 2013 on through Office 365, and which version of Office 2013 you're comparing to, it will take somewhere between one and a half to 20 years ($400 multiplied by five to install Office 2013 Pro on five machines comes to $2000—or 20 years of Office 365) for Office 2013 to become the more affordable choice.

The only scenario that truly makes sense for Office 2013 is if you only need the software in Office 2013 Home & Student, and only on a single PC. In that case, you can spend the $140 and be done. Once you throw in a second PC, though, or if you need the additional tools like Outlook, Access, or Publisher, the math is heavily skewed in favor of the Office 365 subscription.

The beauty of Office 365 is that you get more than just Office 2013 for your money—it also comes with benefits that Office 2013 lacks. It comes with an additional 20GB of SkyDrive storage and 60 minutes per month of international Skype calls. Office 365 also has a new feature called Office On Demand that enables you to stream virtualized versions of the full desktop software to any Windows 7 or Windows 8 PC.

But, even for other platforms or mobile devices there are Web-based versions of the Office applications, and as long as you store your files in SkyDrive you can access them seamlessly from virtually any Web-connected device. The world doesn't end if your laptop is stolen or destroyed, and you can still edit a crucial client presentation even if you don't have your PC with you.

Even if you only need the applications in Office 2013 Home & Student, it would cost $700 to put that software on five machines, and it would take seven years to break even on the cost of the Office 365 subscription. By that time, there will be a new version of Office (or two, maybe three). If you buy Office 2013 Home & Student, you'll still have it in the year 2020. But, if you subscribe to Office 365 you will always have the most current version of Office available.

Microsoft has set things up so that the decision is already made. You are free to purchase Office 2013, but Office 365 has very clear advantages, and it makes more sense financially in almost every scenario.

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Review: Epson WorkForce WF-3540 All-in-One Printer

If you're looking for a small office inkjet MFP with a comprehensive feature set that will handle more than minimal volume printing, the $200 (as of 2/1/2013) Epson WorkForce WF-3540 is a good place to begin. It's quick, and the output looks nice. Equipped with automatic duplex printing and scanning, 500 sheets of capacity, relatively affordable ink, and easy controls, it's quite the bargain. It also connects via USB, Ethernet, or Wi-Fi so you can use it in virtually any computing environment.

Installing the WorkForce WF-3540 is a mere matter of a few dialogs and about 5 minutes. As mentioned, you can connect to it wirelessly, via Ethernet, or directly using USB. The software bundle includes the trusty Epson Scan and Abbyy Finereader Sprint 9.5 for OCR. The control panel features a 3.5-inch LCD with contextually lit touch buttons on the panel surrounding it. The menu structure is quite easy to navigate--far easier to use than its WorkForce WF-2540 cousin we recently reviewed.

Paper handling on the WorkForce WF-3540 is top-notch. In addition to two bottom-mounted, 250-sheet paper cassettes, there's a single-sheet rear feed for photo paper, envelopes and the like. Tip: Push the paper down into the rear feeder until you feel it grab; the paper sits farther down than with most printers.

The scanner features an automatic document feeder (ADF) which scans both sides automatically (by re-feed). The lid to the letter/A4-sized platen doesn't telescope to accommodate thicker materials, but that's the only issue, and a minor one for an office-oriented MFP.

The output from the WorkForce WF-3540 is quite nice. Color graphics printed on plain paper show reasonably good color accuracy. Images printed on glossy photo stock, while a tad brights are as nice as anything you'll see this side of a dedicated photo printer. Text is sharp and black, and even draft-mode documents are easily readable. Scans tended to be dark, though copies suffered no such issue.

The WorkForce WF-3540's speed is quite good for this price point. Monochrome pages print at approximately 11.5 per minute (ppm) on the PC, and 11.4 on the Mac. Snapshot-sized (4-by-6-inch) photos print at 4.8 ppm to plain paper, and 0.5 ppm to glossy photo stock. A full, 8.5-inch by 11-inch photo printed on the Mac, takes about two and a half minutes.

Scan speeds are average or better. Previews take about 10 seconds. A full-page color scan at 600 dpi takes about 35 seconds, while a 1200-dpi scan of a 4-by-6-inch area takes about a minute and half.

Ink costs for the WorkForce WF-3540 are decent, if you opt for the extra high-capacity (large) cartridges: 3.2 cents per page (cpp) for black and 2.7 cpp per color, or 11.3 cents per four-color page. The high-capacity cartridges are less of a deal: At almost 5 cpp for black, 3.6 cpp for each color, and 14.4 cents per four-color page, they're priced more like standard-size cartridges.

Melissa Riofrio

There is one complaint we'd like to register about Epson's recent habit of providing documentation only online. Installing a link to online documentation is all well and good, but there's room on the installation CD. Do your users a favor and provide a local copy of the user's guide.

The WorkForce WF-3540 is the only $200 MFP we've reviewed recently that isn't missing one feature or another. It's not as cheap per page as the Brother MFC-J4510DW, but it automatically scans in duplex and doesn't striate color output in normal mode as the Brother does. The WF-3540 is also significantly faster and cheaper to operate than Canon's Pixma MX-892. If you're not printing in massive amounts where ink costs will catch up to you, it's the best thing going at this price point.

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Pay-as-you-go Office 365 cripples apps if subscription expires

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