Being one of the ten people who have yet to buy an iPod, the iTunes store has always been next to useless for me. My only choices to get new MP3s that I can play on my portable player has either been to steal it or to head back into the 1990s and purchase a compact disc.

Several months ago Amazon gave me hope when they began offering DRM free music from their store; but they failed to offer it to non-American residents. Have none of these companies heard of the new global world?

But Aha! Today I discovered Tesco Digital. A place to buy legal – free from DRM – downloadable music in the UK.

Bravo Tesco!

The selection is rather pathetic at the moment, but it is a start at least. Worth checking out as a first port of call.

[note that the MP3s are DRM free, but the WMAs are not.]

I was recently fiddling around with Inkscape when I discovered the feature for converting raster images into vectors. For fun I tried it on a random drawing I had scanned into my computer. The result is below:

I was really surprised by the result. I know it’s not the most amazing of images, but it’s the first pencil drawing that I’ve managed to successfully import onto the computer so I thought I’d put it on my blog.

When I find time to get on the scanner, I’ll try importing some more successful drawings.

I think these are quite revealing.

More here

EDIT (moments later): The Mona Lisa in Microsoft Paint.

Ken McCarthy has just posted some interesting news about the migration of television. First it was obviously on the television, then it hopped to the Internet, and not it is heading back to the television again.

This week, Tivo announced that its customers will be able to view video content off the web on their television sets.

I love news like this because it’s a sign of the future happening as we speak.

I’m particularly excited by this other news:

Apple announced it has partnered with major airlines to let passengers power their iPods in flight and watch iPod videos in their seats.

This is an early sign of truly portable computers (computers that we can carry in our pockets). IPod videos are currently a bit pathetic because of the small screen, but when you can plug it into something of a decent size it makes a whole lot of sense. So essentially you have your videos always available in some form wherever you are, but when you find a screen, you can plug it in.

It’s not difficult to make the connection between iPod videos and fully functional computers. You can check your email wherever you are, but when you find a connection point you suddenly have the bonus of a big screen and a keyboard. I think video may be the one to drive this.

A final quotation from Ken McCarthy:

My prediction: When all this finally shakes out, every TV will come with a broadband connection and an easy search console that will enable users to search the Net and find the exact programming they want without leaving the living room sofa.

If they’re going on a trip, users will be able to insert an iPod-like device into their TV, grab the programs they want for the road and where ever they are - in a hotel room, on a plane, in an airport or train station, on a cruise, or the back seat of a car - they’ll be able to plug their video storage device into any video player and watch what they want.

What you want to watch - when you want to watch it - and the one I don’t here as often, but will be equally as important - where you want to watch it. That’s the future of video.

Read Ken McCarthy’s The Great Migration here.

If sound is done badly, people notice that the work is rubbish.

If it is done well, it’s mostly ignored. This is a good thing.

And then there’s this tape dispenser. Which is probably too overt for most productions, but works amazingly well in this short.

Watch Moth

(Also check out the stop-motion Orange Ad, and… well everything else really)

I recently listened to an interesting presentation by one of the creators of Jib Jab — a company that has pioneered its way into animation through the use of the Internet. What is particularly fascinating is the fact that this company is an independent started by two brothers (and understanding wives). Marketing and distribution have been made possible by clever business sense, quality productions and the Internet.

This will happen a lot more.

KIWI is a great example of this.

As soon as people can easily transfer media from the Internet onto their TV sets, this will really take off.

JibJab interview part 1 here, part 2 here.

Mark Kennedy has an insightful post on drawing crowds so they don’t look like a jumbled mess. A few key points:

• Express one idea or mood. The crowd should be a single entity (Although possibly not in paintings?)
• Paint every character the same colour or tone.
• You can pull a main character out by making them different

My favourite point, however, was about creating a crowd as if it were one character in an animated sequence.

This panel from Tintin illustrates the point beautifully. From left to right it reads like one character getting up from the ground and retreating, but is actually obviously a squad of soldiers. The technique provides order and rhythm as well as selling the idea of movement. But more than just the movement, it sells a more complex idea: that the soldiers are getting up and retreating. This could well be my new favourite technique.

Full post is here.

From a humanistic viewpoint I am not a fan of the industrial revolution. Too many people sacrificed their lives (through a kind of living death), in order to provide our present reality. Tied to a production line or cast down a dark coal mine, is difficult to equate with being human.

With this viewpoint in mind, I am a little unsure what to make of the message behind Artzybasheff’s Machinalia. His personifications of machines could also be seen as ‘machinifications’ of people. Man as machine or machine as man? I’m unsure; it’s a little difficult to distinguish.

See the stunning Machinalia here

This comic strip is definitely one of my favorites and it continues to improve. The Halloween stuff has been particularly funny and todays Sunday strip prompted me to put out a little link love. I think the characters probably get funnier as you get to know them. This and Dilbert are the only strips I read on a daily basis.

I’m tempted to copy the strip strip here, before it leaves the archives but for a comic strip that would probably extend beyond the scope of fair use.

Pearls Before Swine can be read for free every day here.