Monthly Archives: January 2018
Rolling Out (and Up) Innovation
The innovative process is, in many cases, exciting. At the same time, it can be dull, exhaustive and a seeming waste of time and energy.
Welcome to the happy former at the CES 2018 (Consumer Electronics Show) hosted in Las Vegas from Jan. 9-12.
Exhibit Awesome:
While still in the testing phase, the fact that a high-definition TV that rolls up like a newspaper (inside the console, of course) exists and is evolving in the right direction (up) is a thrilling reality to witness. The first real dream, beyond what’s seen and described in the tutorial above, consists of a mobile, high-definition flat screen TV that can be placed on virtually any reasonable flat surface for viewing and a myriad of digital applications. The second part of this technological roll-up dream is for newspapers, magazines and, well, any current paper-like product, to have the same flexible and multimedia functionality. Imagine a day when a buying a newspaper at a stand looks like this, in some form.
(Video borrowed from a Jan. 5, 2016 Jimmy’s Daily Planet blog post titled “Time to Fold on TV” about this very company and this very roll-up TV prototype)
Perhaps the second part of the dream can be best described as a flexible iPad in 2018. Wouldn’t surprise me if design guru Jony Ive and his Apple team are working on that very prototype for release within the next decade.
As has been stated many, many times on this blog, the day will come when entire walls in homes and buildings will be high-definition screens that will be able to serve as a television monitor for shows and gaming, as a computer, art/rotating photographs from our personal photo collections as well as downloadable world-class pieces and most anything else your mind can digitally imagine. For now, a roll-up TV that has the strong potential to become a practical reality in our family rooms within the next several years is exciting. Couple flexible tech with VR’s inevitable rise (plus various smart home applications) and we’re genuinely one small step closer to “the future” in 2015 from Back to the Future Part II.
The future — maybe not “the future” — will arrive in some form.
Whether all this evolving tech in the big picture (had to) is good for us as individuals and as a society is and should remain an ongoing, conscious (and conscience) conversation. As my headline from a couple years back suggests, the time will come to fold on TV so we can open it up in ways we haven’t yet seen or even imagined.
And that reality will not be virtual.
Happy Monday!
The expression goes “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” Keeping that in mind, does that mean there can be some brief, necessary levity to be discovered deep within or around the most unlikely and darkest hours? According to Winston Churchill/Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour, perhaps.
Life, in its many situations, isn’t always as it appears.
Two fingers thumbs up.
Have a Better Week Than Last Week (with a good laugh).
Dunkirk’s Darkest Hour
Have two highly-acclaimed films ever been so perfectly matched as accompanying entities?
This year, Christopher Nolan’s gritty on-the-beach dramatization of the historically necessary evacuation of hundreds of thousands of British soldiers in Dunkirk was hailed as an incredible war movie unlike any other. You were on the beach, you were in the air and you felt the literal and metaphorical claustrophobia of what seemed like inevitable demise closing in. It was a matter-of-fact story that took audiences into the living hell of British and French soldiers under deadly German air attacks.
Also this year, just weeks ago, Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour was hailed as an engaging peek into the life of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Faced with the end of the British armed forces, Western civilization, and the world in domino fashion by Germany in World War II, Mr. Oldman’s metamorphosis into Mr. Churchill was a masterclass in acting brilliance. To put it briefly, Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour was an ordinary man who, through cigars, booze, unlikely confidants, ingenuity, courage and his wife, was able to lead the rescue of soldiers struggling for their lives on the beaches of Dunkirk in a matter-of-fact manner on the silver screen.
Movie fans should see both films, both for historic and cinematic purposes. But what if you could see them interwoven together in an epic trailer?
While Gary Oldman has all but sealed up a forthcoming season of Best Actor awards for his performance as Winston Churchill, there’s an argument for cinematic history to be made with regards to the Best Picture of 2017:
Dunkirk + Darkest Hour.
The Academy will likely not comply. Regardless, history is eternally thankful for the ordinary heroes showcased in both films.
Setting the Stage for Star Wars
Star Wars isn’t going anywhere, folks.
It’s Thursday and the following interview with Mark Hamill on the practical “Death Star” set is a nice throwback and early sobering assessment of what Star Wars was and was going to be to movie fans as the original trilogy was just beginning to change the world forever.
While Mr. Hamill’s drawing of a cinematic line between Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz sounds as ridiculous as two suns on Tatooine back in the ’70s, what time has proven is that there is, in fact, a link between that famous yellow brick road and the ultimate good vs. evil battle in a galaxy far, far away…
and that link is movie magic.
When films welcome and embrace that powerful escapist sensation, that’s when we, the fans, are granted permission and encouraged to travel to far-off worlds and galaxies we never knew were possible to reach within ourselves.
Sometimes in less than 12 parsecs.
Jimmy's Daily Planet 