* Wireless devices are drawn to animation
Remember when you were a kid and you learned how to animate something? You took a notepad and slowly drew pictures on each page, then created a “flip book” that would animate the drawings until you ran out of paper. My favorite animation to draw was an Evel Knievel-type motorcycle jump over several cars that always ended in disaster.
Now you can do this on a handheld device – PhatWare last week upgraded its notes organizer application for Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs, Tablet PCs and desktop computers. The PhatPad 2.1 application now features an Animation Mode that lets users open handwritten notes and pictures as an animation clip. When activated, the program then flips through the pages of notes at a specified speed, giving the user a quick preview of live notes.
In an example that will be more productive than watching a motorcycle jump, the company said a user could draw out street directions on a map, and then add additional streets on successive notes pages, so when animated you could see the entire route (if you’re bored you could just draw the motorcycle jump thing too).
Other features of the 2.1 version include improved shape recognition that supports arrows, customizable vertical and horizontal automatic scrolling, a new command that lets you duplicate a note’s pages, and the ability to scroll the page with the device’s stylus. In addition, PhatPad can be used with CalliGrapher and/or PenOffice (sold separately) to convert handwritten notes into digital text.
The PhatPad 2.1 application costs $29.95 and can be bought at the PhatWare Web site. Registered users of PhatPad 2.0 can get an upgrade to the new version for $14.95.
Speaking of animation, Turbo Squid has teamed up with face2face Animation to launch the AniTones Mobile Character Player, which lets users experience streaming animation on mobile phones. As part of the launch, face2face has created a 3-D animated comedy series for mobile phones, introducing characters who will provide “serialized episodic content.”
The series will feature talking animated characters with “clever, insightful and sometimes risqué comments,” a news release states. Customers will receive the AniTones player for free when they purchase face2face animations from the Turbo Squid Web site. Content is created using the face2face AlterEgo facial capture system, video analysis software that converts digital video into animated motion instructions (or Facial Animation Parameter data as specified by the MPEG-4 standard). Go to https://www.turbosquid.com/Storefront/index.cfm/ID/1268 for more details.
