Every year the game industry strikes us with amazing graphics and ultra-realistic virtual worlds. Although this incessant search for the most realistic feeling have been pushing the development of new technologies, new engines and more powerful computers, for me the real deal is all about aesthetics.

The yet to be launched Far Cry 3 is one good exemple of that. In spite of all the reality sense of the game, what really amazed me so far is it’s style. Not only it feels realistic, but the game also brings a unique stylish environment, which kind of remembers me 2000 movie The Beach, with all that paradisiac look and beautiful landscapes where anything can happen.

I’m not going to enter the game’s details, I’ll better leave that for specialists. But as a humble gamer, I must say that for what I’ve seen so far about this game, I’m impressed. The released videos and photos shows us a very interactive scenario, where all the elements like water, air, rocks and so on are deliberated available for exploration, which allow us a full experience inside this world.

All of this might seem a little clichê, but is amazing how big-shot game franchisings keep disappointing gamers all over the world with amazing landscapes that don’t really add any kind of value to the experience. More than that, countless are the games with great realistic graphics that don’t have any sense of style, loosing the realistic accomplishment to the simple lack of personality. Let’s just hope my first impressions on Far Cry 3 become true.

Yesterday on Facebook Developer Blog was announced the new Facebook App Center.

According to the information posted, the App Center will be available via web and in the iOS and Android Facebook apps. Targeting the over 900 million Facebook users, App Center is expected to act as a central place for users to find app’s such as Draw Something, Pinterest, Spotfy and so on.

Another interesting feature of App Center ir the rating system. In spite of user ratings and engagement metrics, App Center will bring a new evaluation method called Insights, able to report how users are rating a app over time. This makes easier to track the app overall performance through time.

Focused on quality, the App Center will rank well-designed apps that people enjoy, while apps that receive poor user ratings or don’t meet the quality guidelines won’t be listed.

Finally, App Center will be helping users to find Facebook based apps, and will direct the user to it’s App Store or Google Play download page when it requires to.

To learn more about App Center and it’s features, go to Facebook Developer Blog

Here one piece of my personal portfolio. My full portfolio is displayed at: www.behance.net/vinicius_td

Marco Evaristti is an artist born in Santiago, Chile. Due to his work he now split his time between Copenhagen, Denmark and Bangkok, Thailand.

Know for his approach on territorial power and brotherhood, such as the Pink State, the artist’s own independent state which is a truly State of Mind, with it’s own constitution and passport, and takes place eventually in the real world, as it happened in Greenland in 2004 with The Ice Cube Project, in 2007 at the summit of Mont Blanc – The Mont Rouge Project – and latest in the Sahara with The Arido Rosso Project, 2008.

Marco Evaristti’s work is also recognized by it’s artistic installations, often born out of a unique selection of nature materials, from diamonds and gold to blood! This particular choice is made to confront the viewer with a more critical sense of debate through the approach with different realities, social tabu and other humanity issues. All of this without loosing the perspective of the viewer as a means to heightening the experience of the viewer.

To know more visit Evaristti’s official website

Cloud computing is the future, at least according to several specialists and some big players on the internet industry. The fact is that the heat is on upon cloud computing services.

After the success of Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Drive, Apple Icloud and Microsoft Sky Drive, its time to Google come down to play.

The new Google Drive service is a online storage service that, aside from the storage itself, comes with the advantage of having the well succeeded Google Docs built into it which is a major diferencial towards other services available, and of course, you can access your files everywhere and share them with who you want to.

As it was before, documents can be created, shared and receive comments, except that from now on these documents will also be automatically backed up offline, plus all the content added to the offline Google Drive folder will be show up in the online Google Drive Tab.

Google had also built some pretty cool new tech into Drive such as the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) which makes PDF’s files and scanned books searchable. Smart tagging helps you to organize everything in your Drive and show your own content along with other results whenever you search for the subject (for exemple, if you’ve uploaded a nice Bahamas photo it will be show along with other results next time you search for Bahamas), image recognition, which makes easier for you to keep track of your photos, plus everything in your Drive is easy to find via Google+.  The company has already informed that integration with Gmail account is the next step for the service.

One of the features I liked the most is the file support preview. Google Drive can open straight in your browser 30 different file types, including HD videos and Photoshop and Illustrator files, regardless of weather or not you have the proper software installed.

Google Drive can be installed on your PC or MAC, and you can also use the service through your Android mobile device (phone or tablet). According to Google a IOS version is in a future not far away.

The initial Google Drive is free and limited to 5GB free storage. Or you can upgrade your rive to 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or 1TB for $49.99/month. Any paid upgrade also expands your Gmail storage capacity up to 25GB.

Further info can be accessed on Google Drive page.

One of the strongest art movements in recent history, the Abstract Expressionism was a american post-World War II movement. Besides been the first specifically american movement, the Abstract Expressionism launched the city of New York as the center of international art world during the 1950′s.

History

After the World War II the main cities in Europe were facing their respectives rebuilding stages including Paris, the so far capital of the art world. Although through the war period many arts still, such as Pablo Picasso, remained in Europe, many more fled away from the war specially towards the USA. This mass movement, among many other things, was responsible for the art boost on the next decades.

While in Europe the raising movements were lead by Surrealism, Dada and Tachisme (the European equivalent to Abstract Expressionism), in the US the new generation of artists were strong influenced by the presence of great European artists, such as the german Hans Hofmann and the russian John D. Graham.

Besides, the USA had just got through the famous crisis of 1929, which led to severe marks on american folks during the 1930′s.

So the big picture in USA was a remarkable recovering from one of the worst economic crises in history (mainly because of the war in deed, but that’s not the point here), a recently victory in the biggest war ever and the presence of some of the greatest artists in the world. Add to that picture a Europe still trying to get back on its feet and you have the perfect time to US to show the world what they could do. The American Dream was just there at hand.

In this scenario art could be once again faced as art itself. Without the predominance of a war feeling and the violence that comes along with it, but with the war horros still pretty much alive in peoples memory, artists could now conceive art for the art. It was a new world, a new era, and there for it requires a new art, a new language, a new approach. The break with previous schools started with artists like Arshile Gorky, Hans Hofmann and Jackson Pollock (the major Abstract Expressionist) still during war years, back in 1943. Through the 1950′s until late in the 1960′s artists such as Lee Krasner and Robert Motherwell push further the Abstract Expressionism as a cacophony of several elements extracted from the post-war scenario.

Characteristics of the Abstract Expressionism

Probably the most expressive characteristic is the Action Painting technique, usually associated to Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning it represents the process of the art. For those artists the final results were a living proof of what the artist went through to get the piece done. More than simply what’s visually represented, the art piece should present what were the artists feelings during the process, and how the artist had approached that piece, both artistically and physically. Pollock for instance use to put his canvas on the ground, were he can than approach it form any side, resulting in a 360 degree overview of his work.

A few other techniques are common related t Abstract Expressionism, such as Color Field painting and Hard-Edge Painting, but the most expressive one (sorry for the word-play) is the Action Painting. Ultimately all of those are related to the same purpose, that is to show through the canvas (or any other media/material) not only the final result, but the process of creation itself as well as the state of mind and spirit of the artist in that particular moment. For this the Abstract Expressionism is characterized as one very emotive art movement.

That all happened over 40 years ago, so what now? 

The Abstract Expressionism not only was the very first north-american art movement and the introduction of new techniques. It also contributed to the expansion of the art scenario in the “new world” at a point where it became the major influence to artists around the world. More than that, the roots of the subsequent movement, the glamourous PorArt (and later the urban art forms, such as graffiti) are deep beneath the Abstract Expressionism freedom of experimentation and its approach to the art process, not only the final piece.

To know more: The MoMA holds the biggest archive of Abstract Expressionists masterpieces and plus they’ve launched an app at Itunes Store of their showcase which took place in 2010.

David Kelley, founder and chairman of IDEO wants you to stop talking and Start Making!

The video is one of a series used to promote General Assembly, a campus for technology, design, and entrepreneurship who provides educational programming, space, and support to facilitate collaborative practices and learning opportunities in New york.

The great site How Interactive Design has recently launched a serie of posts for those who (like myself) wants to start it’s own blog. Named 21 Days for your first WordPress Blog, the posts are a complete guide for WordPress, from scratch to posts. Worth the click.

Check it out here!

Recycling urban spaces in order to turn them into brand new living areas is, in my opinion, the cleverest way out to preserve historic buildings and maintain one city’s identity. Happily there are several similar initiatives around the world, some more successful than others.

Even better is when such initiatives are undertaken under the contemporary concept of revision in our lifestyle, specially in that were we have to rethink our connection with nature and the standard life quality in our major cities. And that’s exactly what High Line Park has achieved.

Located in the old rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side, the park was created in 2009 by the Friends of High Line, a community residents association who fought for it’s preservation and transformation. The park is owned by the City of New York and maintained and operated by Friends of High Line. With the support of New York City Department of Parks & Recreation the High Line Park is a extraordinary public space in the very heart of the Big Apple.

You can find further information on the park history and how to support the initiative at www.thehighline.org

Greg Léon Guillemin is an artist living in Rochefort, France. His work is all about minimalism, and he is very good at it, check out a little sample of his work.

Also check his studio’s official site and his profile at Behance.