I am not actually in favor of this as a trend, but it was interesting enough I figured I should mention it. When they do the Mikunopolis concert starring my favorite Virtual Idol being held this weekend at Anime Expo in Los Angeles, the folks at NicoNico Douga will stream it live. Why am I, a serious Hatsune Miku fan, not thrilled? According to the folks at Crunchyroll, they will be selling tickets to get the live stream for 1500 yen (around $18) each. Of course, the concert is completely sold out, so even if I was on the left coast I couldn’t get in, and they have added some more Vocaloid singers to the lineup (and Danny Choo will be the MC). I’m going to have to think about this one…
Now that we have virtual Idols, between Vocaloid and the 3D RL holographic projection process that displays them live on stage, it is time to get creative with our live concerts. Mikunopolis is coming on July 2nd to the stage in LA as part of Anime Expo. Besides being Virtual Idol Hatsune Miku’s first performance in the US, she will be the first ever Virtual Guest of Honor at an American Con. In case you were wondering, her back-up band on stage with her will be non-virtual, but there is always the chance some of the other Virtual Idols will be joining her on stage. SEGA is doing the 3D imaging tech work for the show with Crypton Future Media, the creators of Hatsune Miku, supervising. The videos here were taken at the Miku’s Day Thanksgiving live show in Tokyo on March 9th 2010, and the reports are the 3D tech for the on stage presentation has gotten even better since then.
If you are interested in creating your own Virtual Idol, it was announced today, or yesterday depending on which side of the date line you are on, that Vocaloid is finally being updated (the last new version was released 4 years ago). The program itself has come down in price, and version 3 will be retailing at around $125, but they have not announced what the voice packages are going to run yet. This is supposed to be the most realistic singing voice engine to date, and comes with multi-language support. That means your English language songs can be built from English phonemes now; I am sure anyone who programmed the previous versions to sing in English when it only came with Japanese phonemes is going to be quite excited about that. I think I will save the resources to create your 3D Idol for another post; enjoy the music from the old version of Vocaloid.
This weekend Balticon 45 takes over the Marriott’s Hunt Valley Inn in Baltimore, as it does every memorial day weekend. Ben Bova is the Guest of Honor, and they are doing the world premiere of Ninjas vs. Vampires amongst the other fun; day passes are still available and there is a Twitter Hashtag to follow. Also this weekend, Syfy is running a Star Trek Movie Marathon for those who want to into couch potato mode.
The opening ceremonies of Gallifrey 22, which is going on this weekend, were caught on Video and posted online. Peter Davison does a wonderful job with this, and they even manage a nod to The Doctor Who Experience in the process.
Doing the first Cosplay video montages (a fancy word for slide shows) brought back so many memories for me the other week, I figured I had to do it again. Cosplay is a way to express yourself you usually can not do without risking psychiatric ward time; thank ghod for Cons!
When Nintendo rolls out a new product, usually it has a smattering of in-house titles for it, with half of them playable, and half vaporware, depending on third party products to take up the slack. Not so this time, acording to Japanator; there will be 32 in-house games on display for the Nintendo 3DS, their portable 3D gaming platform. You won’t need special glasses to get the 3D effects, although as with most new optical systems there will be a brief learning curve while your eyes figure out the trick to viewing it. The percentages will be about normal though, with 15 playable games and another 17 game trailers. They are taking over Chiba City’s Makuhari Messe Hall 9, the same town featured in so many early William Gibson stories, and the same venue used for the Tokyo Game Show each September. I am not much of a gamer, but this is one system I am looking forward to. For a full list of which games are real and to see coverage of the actual event, go to Nintendo World 2011. The event will run January 8th, 9th, and 10th.