Every pixel counts

This week, I have two little pieces of insights for you:

1. 1) A fascinating event at Te Papa

2. 2) Our website has three free AI tools for you to test

Every pixel is a touch point of eternity

Yesterday, I enjoyed attending an excellent event at Te Papa that I would not have wanted to miss. The history of Pixels unfolded when we were listening to Dr Alvyn Ray Smith – and at the same time, we learned the history of Pixar, which Dr Smith co-founded.

I will not discuss pixels in detail because you can buy his excellent book, A Biography of the Pixel, from Apple Bookshop or Amazon. Or watch the video below.

Dr Smith has been around for about as long as computers. With a sprinkle of binary magic and a dash of creative genius, Alvyn helped birth the computer graphics renaissance. From the exquisite halls of NYIT (New York Institute of Technology) to the eccentric corridors of Pixar, he was the Grand Master of pixels, conjuring up sprites at Altamira and painting the future of animation at Lucasfilm.

He wove his technical artistry into Hollywood, giving life to the Genesis Demo in Star Trek II and mentoring the likes of John Lasseter at Pixar. Though he may have coined the alpha channel and named Pixar—inspired by a linguistic twist and the glow of a laser—let's not forget that every pixel counts in Alvy's grand canvas, even if we can't count them all.

This talk yesterday was one of a kind. Meeting this funny, laser-sharp, witty game-changer was the year's highlight. It was great to see a room packed with young students from technology and design backgrounds coming to listen to how history had been made and recognise someone who had made it in real time.

I bet none of us who were there will look at screens as we used to: merely as commodities. Instead, we'll see them as vessels of infinite potential to create, ad infinitum.

And to learn from the history, Alvyn's great insight resonated with me when he said that “Pixar's success was because of an intentionally created culture of mutual admiration”.

When I chatted with Dr Smith after his speech, his eyes shone mischievously when he said that this mutual admiration was his gift to the technical and artistic geniuses with whom he changed how we can tell our stories. To paraphrase his insights, I summarise his message: Nothing great comes from only one but from all pixels touching the infinite canvas of reality in harmony.

New tools for curious minds

My business partner, Chengyu, and I decided to put some new AI tools for you to explore. If you go to our website and register there (for free - mind you!), you can have access to these three little AIs:

There is a LinkedIn post generator. It will ask your topic and then your messages, and, voila, soon your post is ready, and you can then fine-tune it in the editor. Nifty little tool.

There is also a News Summarizer tool you can use to retrieve relevant news articles and their summaries from the Internet about the topic you are interested in reading more about.

And then, there is the good old survey analyser. Upload your survey results as a PDF or CSV file and let the AI do its magic.

We would love to hear what you think about these little tools. Are they useful and helpful? Watch this space. There are more things to come.

That's it for this rainy week.

And remember that the best umbrella is your curiosity, but keep it open, rain or shine.

Ngā mihi

Jussi

I couldn’t help but add this video for you to enlighten your week. It is an educational video on how technology and art can find a common tune. It is one of those rare videos that make you learn something new every time you see them.