From gaming to marketing: The XBOX ONE and the future of Entertainment

The XBOX One should be the next big hit, not only in gaming, but also in entertainment. Many great features and a modern Hardware that can compete with average Computers. All in One Box. It even comes with the Kinect, the new interface between Human and XBOX. It seems Microsoft really wanted to give the consumers everything they wanted.
But behind all that technology is always Software that watches you.

Quicksolver: My Unity Lightmaps look bad

Problem

My lightmaps in Unity look really bad and ugly.

Solution

• Untick "Compressed". This decompresses your lightmaps and makes their file size bigger. Uncompressed Lightmaps look a lot smoother.

• Set your bake quality to "High" and change the resolution.

Result

Quicksolver: Unity Beast Lightmapper Problem

Problem

When I upgraded from Unity 3.5 to version 4 I had problems with Unity's Lightmapping tool Beast. It has worked fine in 3.5 but completely refused working in Unity 4. I kept getting the Error "Nothing to bake. None of the Mesh Renderers or Terrains in the scene are marked as static. Only static objects will be lightmapped".

Solution

Make sure you ticked "Generate Lightmap UVs" in the Import Settings. It seems to be necessary in the new Version, although it worked fine in the old.

Still not working?

• Check if your Objects are static in lightmapping

• Is "Use Lightmapping" on?

• Check if you have meshes and lights in your current scene

Search your Photos with Google and more

You can now search your photos on Google+ with simple keywords like "cat". It isn't perfect (notice the rabbit in the picture), but it's a nice way to find pictures of certain things. 

How to

First of all, upload your photos to Google+, either via the Google+ App, or your Browser (https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos).

The rest works fully automatic. Simply use the search bar from Google+ Photos.

More features

But wait, there is more! Newly uploaded photos get also auto-enhanced in a very unique way. Instead of just applying filters, Google identifies objects and decides how to optimize them in the best way. Just like a professional would do.

The Highlights function also identifies objects and sights in your pictures, and shows only your best pictures. It ignores doubled, blurred and uninteresting pictures. Especially photos with smiling (happy) people get chosen.