WETA to be at SIGGRAPH 8/11/04

For those in or around LA, WETA Digital (responsible for the effects in Lord of the Rings, for anyone who's spent the last four years asleep) will be represented, among others, on a "Middle Earth: Imagination Made More Real" Tech Talk panel at SIGGRAPH this year.  WETA will also give a presentation on their effects work.  SIGGRAPH will be at the Los Angeles Convention Center from August 10-13; the Middle Earth Tech Talk will be in Hall G, Room 1 from 4PM to 6PM on Wednesday, August 11.

The Tech Talk is open to anyone interested in attending (see link for details).

Googling for holes

Computerworld reports that hackers are using tightly-focussed Google queries to search for website vulnerabilities without exposing their own IP addresses.

Implementing Dream Park in Oz

Vernor Vinge's upcoming novel, Rainbow's End, features an immersive augmented-reality environment much like Niven & Pournelle's Dream Park (this short story, Synthetic Serendipity, is an adaptation from the novel for IEEE Spectrum).  That's nothing new.

What is new is that it's being implemented for real, today, at the University of South Australia in Adelaide.  Granted, it's only in its early stages right now... but there's folks wandering around the campus with backpack computers, haptic guns, and head-mounted displays playing what they call ARQuake -- Augmented Reality Quake.