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The previs software was developed as an internal tool by Artefact after the company couldnt find suitable off-the-shelf software that allowed them to iterate quickly during the production of vr projects. They say:

Storyboard VR works in a similar way to traditional storyboard techniques by creating static frames that roughly block in a scene. Designers and developers can easily import assets from existing drawing tools and position them while inside vr to quickly test and iterate. And, just like traditional storyboarding, users can create multiple scenes to test the flow of the experience. An incredibly lightweight app, Storyboard VR takes only a few minutes to get acquainted with.

Significant interest from the vr community has led them to release the software for free publicly, in the hope that it will promote experimentation across industries and organizations and inspire and accelerate the development of new experiences in this emerging medium.

While the software is available at no cost, Artefact warns it is an unsupported alpha application, so bugs and other issues may exist. Although we use Storyboard VR in our daily work at Artefact, the company further says, we have no immediate plans to continue to update and develop the software. The software is only supported on HTC Vive and requires Windows to run.

A demo of how to build a scene can be seen in the video below:

See the original post here:
Artefact Launches Storyboard VR, Free Software for Prototyping Interactive Animation Projects - Cartoon Brew

Shuttleworth said he became "disgusted with the hate on Mir", which has changed his opinion of the free software community.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu developer Canonical, has condemned some in the free software community who he believes hate everything that's mainstream.

Shuttleworth aired his grievances in a Google+ post in which he initially thanked contributors to Canonical's soon-to-be abandoned Unity desktop interface, but which he later used to criticize the "antisocial types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream".

The question that triggered Shuttleworth's rebuke asked whether Canonical will continue its work on Mir, its desktop display server and alternative to Wayland.

Canonical had hoped Unity would bring convergence to desktops, tablets and phones, but last week Shuttleworth said next year's release of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will revert to the RedHat-backed GNOME.

A Canonical spokesperson told Ars Technica that going forward with GNOME and abandoning mobile would necessitate quitting Mir and replacing it with Wayland.

Shuttleworth acknowledged in the original GNOME announcement that the community took Canonical's work on Unity as "fragmentation not innovation", while manufacturers didn't take up the implementation.

"I respect that markets, and community, ultimately decide which products grow and which disappear," he said.

But Shuttleworth's reply to the question about Mir's future suggests he's deeply disillusioned with how some members of the community went about that process, given the work that goes into making free software available.

He clarified that Mir actually does have a future in IoT projects where it's being used as a compositor, but complained the "Mir hate-fest" was being steered by "muppets" with political objectives. Shuttleworth labelled opponents of Mir the Open Source Tea Party when it first released the software.

"The whole Mir hate-fest boggled my mind -- it's free software that does something invisible really well," he wrote.

"It became a political topic as irrational as climate change or gun control, where being on one side or the other was a sign of tribal allegiance. We have a problem in the community when people choose to hate free software instead of loving that someone cares enough to take their life's work and make it freely available," he continued.

Shuttleworth said he became "disgusted with the hate on Mir" and that this changed his opinion of the free software community.

"I used to think that it was a privilege to serve people who also loved the idea of service, but now I think many members of the free software community are just deeply antisocial types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream," he wrote.

"When Windows was mainstream they hated on it. Rationally, Windows does many things well and deserves respect for those. And when Canonical went mainstream, it became the focus of irrational hatred too.

"The very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that IOS/Android had no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing in (free software!) compositing and convergence. F*** that s***."

Read more:
Ubuntu's Shuttleworth: Free software zealots are antisocial muppets who love to hate - ZDNet

Fanshawe Colleges $28-million gift is about making people a lot more comfortable.

The donation to the school from Siemens Canada will boost its ergonomics study program, meaning students will help design products and measure workplaces, improving comfort and reducing injuries.

This investment from Siemens ensures our students are well prepared for relevant and rewarding careers upon graduation, Fanshawe President Peter Devlin said in a release.

We thank Siemens for its continued support of Fanshawe and helping us unlock the potential of our students.

Software donated by Siemens has a value of $28 million and will go to the colleges advanced ergonomic studies program in the school of public safety.

The software, called Jack, is a leading-edge human modelling and simulation program considered an industry standard. Students will design products and evaluate industrial tasks meant to improve user comfort and reduce musculoskeletal injuries.

Digitalization is rapidly changing every aspect of our lives, including how we work, said Robert Hardt, chief executive, Siemens Canada.

Were thrilled through this grant to be providing Fanshawe students in the advanced ergonomic studies program with sophisticated software tools to help develop safer, more efficient working environments for Canadians.

Mark Hunter, chair of Fanshawes school of public safety, said the technology will enable students to move directly into the workplace.

Students in our advanced ergonomic studies program will now have the opportunity to learn using leading-edge software, preparing them for careers as industry leaders upon graduation, said Hunter.

It is the second gift from Siemens in recent months. In January it donated software technology with a commercial value of $248million to the school of applied science and technology. That was for NX software used for computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering.

Having gained hands-on experience with the Jack modelling software has greatly contributed to our thorough, scientific understanding of human biomechanics when exposed to various working circumstances, as well as provided experience in applying ergonomic analysis tools for both proactive and reactive design purposes, said Anna Beenackers, an advanced ergonomic studies student.

The knowledge and experience gained from our exposure to Jack will minimize the learning curve and aid in the transition as we progress from students to working professionals in . . . ergonomics.

WHAT THEY SAID

This investment from Siemens ensures our students are well prepared for relevant and rewarding careers upon graduation.

Fanshawe President Peter Devlin

Were thrilled through this grant to be providing Fanshawe students .. . (with) tools to help develop safer, more efficient working environments for Canadians.

Robert Hardt, chief executive, Siemens Canada

The knowledge and experience gained from our exposure to Jack will minimize the learning curve and aid in the transition as we progress from students to working professionals in ... ergonomics.

Anna Beenackers, advanced ergonomic studies student

Read the original post:
Fanshawe gets 'Jacked' by $28M software gift - London Free Press

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has labelled some members of the free software community habitual, hateful and reflexive contrarians.

Shuttleworth added a comment to his own Google+ post thanking those who worked on Ubuntu's recently-abandoned Unity Project.

But as he read the comments on that post, his mood changed and he soon added a comment about past debate on the Mir windowing system.

The whole Mir hate-fest boggled my mind, he wrote, it's free software that does something invisible really well. It became a political topic as irrational as climate change or gun control, where being on one side or the other was a sign of tribal allegiance.

Shuttleworth thinks that was bad because We have a problem in the community when people choose to hate free software instead of loving that someone cares enough to take their life's work and make it freely available.

I came to be disgusted with the hate on Mir. Really, it changed my opinion of the free software community.

I used to think that it was a privilege to serve people who also loved the idea of service, but now I think many members of the free software community are just deeply anti-social types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream.

When Windows was mainstream they hated on it. Rationally, Windows does many things well and deserves respect for those. And when Canonical went mainstream, it became the focus of irrational hatred too. The very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that IOS/Android had no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing in (free software!) compositing and convergence.

The comment concludes with three words of profane and terse criticism: Fuck that shit.

Shuttleworth has form using strong words to describe Mir opponents: he once labelled opponents them the Open Source Tea Party.

The comment takes his ire to new levels and represents an unusually-blunt criticism of the free and/or open source software community from a senior figure in that community.

Grab some popcorn: this could get interesting.

Read more here:
Mark Shuttleworth says some free software folk are 'deeply anti ... - The Register

Ubuntu's dream of a single Linux platform across all your devices has died, swiftly, following a single gunshot to the head. Holding the revolver: founder of Ubuntu, Mark Shuttleworth.

Shuttleworth has shocked and surprised the open source community, even those who were critics of the Unity effort that was started six years ago.

"I'm writing to let you know that we will end our investment in Unity8, the phone and convergence shell," he wrote on the official Ubuntu blog Wednesday. "We will shift our default Ubuntu desktop back to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS."

The decision came during a new-fiscal-year evaluation of Ubuntu's various projects. Unity in its eighth version but without ever having made it to public release didn't make the cut.

Developers are in shock so much so that the Ubuntu blog has been knocked offline by traffic as we write (cache of post) although Reg readers will have suspected something was coming. In an interview with us in February, Shuttleworth admitted that time was running short for the project, which he noted was already a year late.

Calling it his "white whale," Shuttleworth noted both the project's failings and his personal investment in the project. "I feel the team has earned a fair shot and I may take my carrots," he said meaning that he would have do something he didn't want to because it was the healthy choice.

In that interview, he also reflected on the dream that was Unity: "Unity 8 delivers a unified set of experiences across all the kinds of personal computers. I care about developers I need to give them a Linux environment wherever they want to do their developing if that's on a phone it needs to be on their phone. If it's on their goggles it needs to be on their goggles."

Sadly, it won't be on any phones, fondleslabs, goggles or desktops: Canonical is killing development of Ubuntu software for phones and tablets altogether including, presumably, its Mir display server and thus paving the way for a Wayland-powered GNOME experience. The irony of course is that earlier this month, the new Samsung Galaxy S8 phone came with the ability to attach it to a screen and keyboard and use it as a desktop computer Unity's dream.

"I took the view that, if convergence was the future and we could deliver it as free software, that would be widely appreciated both in the free software community and in the technology industry, where there is substantial frustration with the existing, closed alternatives available to manufacturers," Shuttleworth wrote in his post Wednesday. "I was wrong on both counts."

Despite noting that the Unity team had delivered a "beautiful, usable and solid" platform, he said he had to recognize the bigger reality. "I respect that markets, and community, ultimately decide which products grow and which disappear," he noted.

And if there was any doubt that the decision came as a blow to his dream of one Linux to bind them all, Shuttleworth wrote: "This has been, personally, a very difficult decision, because of the force of my conviction in the convergence future, and my personal engagement with the people and the product, both of which are amazing. We feel like a family, but this choice is shaped by commercial constraints, and those two are hard to reconcile."

So, it's back to GNOME and bye-bye Unity.

See more here:
Ubuntu UNITY is GNOME-MORE: 'One Linux' dream of phone, slab, desktop UI axed - The Register