In 1958, David Ogilvy created the immortal Rolls Royce ad.
"At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in the new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock"
At the time, automobiles were noisy, greasy and could be heard from a long way off
Luxury and refinement was defined by how skillful engineers made the car interior quiet for occupants.
Another famous one in 1990, showed the Volkswagen driver irritated by a persistent squeak in the car he's unable to diagnose.
The electric car poses another problem altogether.
It makes no noise at all. And that's a traffic hazard because it's dangerous to pedestrians and other road users who cannot hear the car.
In July 2019, the European Union passed a law mandating that all electric cars had to emit a 50 db sound when they were going at less than 20 kms per hour.
But it wasn't specified what the sound should be.
And companies are already looking at how to distinguish their vehicles and trademark sounds.
What will an electric Rolls Royce sound like?
The pendulum has swung in the opposite direction in 60 years.
What is your take?
Can Power Point be used to create real animation?
Not in the normal course of your office job.
Power Point offers a set of stock animation effects and most of them are awful
The 'Fade in' and 'Appear' are the best from the list.
The others that bounce, swivel and spin are best ignored or left alone.
I've seen presentations where every single animation effect has been used and the results are terrible.
People are so fascinated by the ability of the letters to move on screen, they use it all.
This post is not to provide a graphic design lesson but to illustrate how a determined programmer was able to bend Power point to his will.
It's complicated and even after watching the video, I'm not sure how he achieved the effects.
And this guy did it while in high school on the underpowered school computer - not on a fancy graphics workstation or high end systems.
Start watching from around 4.00 - 5.15. I'm quite sure the designers of Power Point never thought it would ever be used to create 3D animation.
If you stick around and watch the rest of the talk, he'll blow your mind.
He labours through his English but his work sings.
Scam 1992 - Sony Liv's OTT trial by fire
Good guys are boring.
It's always the guys who crash and burn we're fascinated with.
So, the small time trader Harshad Mehta who electrified the stock market in the 1990's is introduced to a new generation.
Riding on its success is Sony Liv. Having created its space in the satellite and cable wars, it was late to the OTT party.
Over The Top (OTT) is a great descriptor. The app has to work on the mobile phone. Then it has to play nice with the new TV gatekeepers, Chromecast and Firestick. Not to forget the wifi networks.
As long as access was free, it was ok. But payment gateways and the security involved throw in a few more obstacles.
So, you pay, sign in with an email, generate an OTP for the mobile phone and key that into the TV to start streaming the series through the Firestick remote. Or the Chromecast.
The confusion is evident, especially because Netflix has set the bar very high. Move from TV to laptop to iPad and you pick up exactly where you left off.
Sony Liv stutters all the way through search and streaming.
Like Harshad Mehta did on his first day trading at the stock exchange
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Quieter than a Rolls Royce