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With the recent Great Recession, and the bailout of Wall Street, there has been a movement to take money that we deposited in large institutions and instead place them in small banks. The New York Times has published an infographic showing where big banks dominate the country, and where smaller banks are more prevalent. By their definition, small banks have less than $65 billion in assets, whereas large banks have more the $65 billion in assets.

Despite the power of big banks, small institutions still dominate huge swaths of the country and hold nearly half of bank deposits overall.

via Metrics – A Banking Battleground – Graphic – NYTimes.com.

Graphics infographic, nytimes

[H]ard|OCP has a review today of the PowerColor PCS+ HD5870 and HD5850 video cards featuring chips from ATI. These cards have a professional cooling system (hence the PCS) on them, and are slightly overclocked from default frequencies (hence the “+” in their name).

Since they are overclocked, does this make any difference in playing games? Since they are professionally cooled, does this make them cooler, does this make them quieter, does this allow them to be overclocked more? Click on through to see the answers to these questions.

From what we have seen today, the feature that should be most hyped on the PowerColor PCS+ HD5870 and HD5850 video cards are their thermal solutions. The PCS+ cooler does its job very well, and if the power utilization wasn’t as high as it was, we’d be seeing some very impressive full-load temperature readings. Even as they are right now, their idle temperatures rival anything we’ve seen yet.

via Conclusion – PowerColor PCS+ HD5870 & HD5850 Video Card Review | [H]ard|OCP.

Hardware 5850, 5870, ati, radeon

An industry insider going by the pseudonym of “Alexander Murphy” has an article up on Gizmodo railing against the movie studios’ continue push for more 3D movies, and cutting every corner they can to “milk the 3D cow”.  Starting with the usual complaints (the glasses are uncomfortable and dorky), before moving into more technical issues (post-processing 2D into 3D isn’t really 3D and does a disservice to those shooting in true 3D like Avatar), and then summing it up nicely with this one very technical issue:

And there’s the final nail in this absurd 3D show: The eyeglasses. Simply, watching a $200+ million dollar movie with $.03 crappy plastic glasses is just silly. They are not only optically poor but they take almost a full stop of light out of the image. That’s almost half the amount of light! None of the prints or projectors I have seen 3D movies in properly compensate to counteract that loss of light. When I saw Alice In Wonderland the other night at a cast and crew screening—where you think it would be dialed in just right—the image was still painfully dark. The situation in a majority of theaters theatre out there is as bad or worse.

Definitely worth a read.  I still hold to my prediction that 3D in the home won’t be big in 2010.

via The Movie Studios’ Big 3D Scam – movie studios – Gizmodo.

Hardware 3d, movie, stereostopic

Valentina D’Efilippo recently made a huge splash in the infographics space with the “Relationship Matters” infographic book visualizing the social structures within groups of people.  Fortunately, that’s not the only thing she’s created, as evidenced by her website www.vale-n-tina.com .  She has created several original works of infographics and graphic design, usually compiled into books, and shows them on her website.  Unfortunately, the resolution is a bit poor making it difficult to appreciate the full beauty and detail.

As a VizWorld Exclusive, Valentina has send us some special high-resolution images of two other great works (The Shining and Visualizing Gender Stereotypes), which I’ve added below for your own perusal.  Check after the break for some great visualizations of the american cinema classic ‘The Shining‘, as well as some interesting differences between the sexes as it pertains to their stereotypes.

Read more…

Graphics feature, infographic

NAB2010 is coming up quickly, only a month away (April 10-15th), and the organizers have smiled upon us again this year and provided me with a special free exhibits-only registration code for all you VizWorld readers to user!  Simply visit the NABShow Registration Page and use the special promo code A913 to get your free registration.

Update: Due to a glitch, the original code posted here was the wrong code!  The previously posted code UG44 is for $100 off the PostProduction World Conference (PPWC), still a great deal if you are interested in attending.  Use code A913 to get the free exhibits-only registration.

One other neat thing going on at NAB this year is the “Post Pit“, which will be running live from the floor.

Post Pit brings together users, rock stars and creators of the most savvy and dynamic post-production software available. During the day, post-production geniuses take the stage to give hot and exclusive tips, while at night, no matter your platform of choice, you can join together with fellow pros for a uniting reception.

Features the NAB Show BuZZ, the official production podcast of the 2010 NAB Show produced by Digital Production BuZZ. Watch the program come together in the live on-floor podcast studio featuring interviews with Post Pit speakers, along with other industry movers and shakers.

No doubt press releases and product announcements will begin piling up as the conference approaches.  Will you be attending NAB2010 this year?  If so, post in the comments and maybe you can meet your fellow Vizworld Readers!

Graphics, Hardware conference, feature, nab

Nvidia has recently announced 3DTV Play. This feature allows you to play 3-D video games from your desktop or laptop. All you have to do is to buy a 3-D HDTV, some 3-D glasses, and a powerful enough NVidia card. Personally, I think that a very small subset of consumers will be into 3-D gaming. However, the same thing could have been said several years ago about GPGPU, which Nvidia also heavily invested in to grow the market.

To see how well 3DTV Play performs, Nvidia is touring the nation with demonstrations. Along with Panasonic, they are kicking off a 15 city road trip. Click on the image to find tour dates for cities near you.

Today we announced the latest addition to our 3D solutions, a software technology called 3DTV Play. It lets you connect your compatible GeForce-based desktop or notebook PC to a full HD 3D TV. 3DTV Play also lets you use the active-shutter (or passive) glasses supplied with new 3D TVs, with the synchronization between the TV and the PC happening over the HDMI 1.4 interface.

via nTersect Blog – Check out 3DTV Play In A City Near You.

Hardware 3d, hdtv, nvidia

Mint is back with another infographic. This time it is the The 20 Best Companies to Work for in 2010. Several technology companies are in the list, including Cisco at #17, Netapp at #7, and Google at #4. Who was #1? Click the link to find out.

via The 20 Best Companies to Work for in 2010 | MintLife Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice.

Graphics infographic, mint

The launch date for GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 is March 26, 2010, which is just around the corner. Rumors have been swirling around this release for some time now, but things seem to be getting firm. We have previously posted pictures of manufactures making GTX 480 boards. Now, Guru3D has some leaked pictures of the GTX 480 with the A3 stepping. You will need to click through the link below to see all the images in the Guru3D forum. They are saying that the GTX 480 is:

Huge , Hot , Expensive and only 480 Cores NOT 512. And has been delayed again
to April 6th 2010 for retail availability.

via : First leaked Nvidia Fermi GTX480 Die Shots A3 Stepping.

Hardware fermi, gt100, gtx480, nvidia

Suppose you wanted to get an image of earth taken from outer space. Where would you go? The first place I would look is, of course, Google images. But what if there is a better place to get these images? The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth has a complete collection of photographs of Earth taken by astronauts. For example, the image to the left shows the Chilean cities of Concepción and Hualpén. This image, from astronauts aboard the International Space Station, was taken about seven hours after the 8.8 earthquake occurred. You can see the airport in the top center, smoke plumes, and collapsed bridges. From the website:

Beginning with the Mercury missions in the early 1960s, astronauts have taken photographs of the Earth. Our database tracks the locations, supporting data, and digital images for these photographs. We process images coming down from the International Space Station on a daily basis and add them to the 944,465 views of the Earth already made accessible on our website.

via The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.

Science astronomy, nasa

CNET has an review of the new IMAX movie called Hubble 3D. Hubble 3D tells the story of the final Hubble repair mission that took place in May 2009. It is narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, and is currently showing at the South by Southwest festival. Hubble 3D is slated to be released nationwide on March 19th. You can check the IMAX website for a location near you.

One interesting item I found is that if you go to the IMAX: Hubble 3D website, you have the opportunity to play with a 3-D model of the Hubble telescope. Pretty cool.

In the new film, “IMAX: Hubble 3D,” viewers are treated to the riches of some of the most stunning footage ever taken of a NASA mission, as well as to fantastical voyages to the interior of the star clusters of the Orion Nebula, a place where stars are born, and to our closest galactic neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, fully 2.5 trillion light years from home.

via Inside NASA’s high-stakes Hubble repair mission | Geek Gestalt – CNET News.

Science 3d, astronomy, hubble, nasa