Need another reason to live in America's other bastion of social liberalism and homelessness? How about a $1 billion electric vehicle re-charging infrastructure in the Bay Area? Palo Alto's Better Place is finally bringing its ambitious, city-wide electrical grid and battery exchange service home after staking plans to do the same in Israel, Denmark, and Australia. The plan just endorsed by the San Jose, Oakland, and San Francisco Mayors (without coughing up any money), is expected to result in 250,000 charging ports (for topping off charges), 200 battery-swap stations (for trips over 100 miles), and a driver service center by 2012 -- network planing and permitting will begin in 2009 with infrastructure deployment set to kickoff in 2010. Here's how it works, customers will receive a discounted price on electric vehicles when they subscribe to drive a certain number of miles -- Better Place will own the batteries. Besides clearing the way of government bureaucracy, the mayors have agreed to offer incentives for companies that install the plug-in stations. Now get this, Better Place expects to lure electric vehicles from the usual suspects like Toyota, Renault-Nissan, and GM in addition to, get this, Tesla Motors. Oh yes. Almost makes us want to hug an Upper Haight, teenage, poser hippie. Almost.

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Not that electric MINIs are anything new, but unless you were willing to pay for all the mods yourself, procuring one wasn't exactly simple. Now, however, we're hearing that MINI itself will be bringing scads of these buggers to American streets in the summer of 2009. Yeah, like, one year from right now. MINI USA VP Jim McDowell was the source of said statement (so it's pretty much official, yeah?), though he didn't mention whether all of them would be reserved for California or if they would be available sold out nationwide. Hey MINI, we'd say you've got a hit on your hands.

From the word go, amateurs and professionals alike were hot for RED's (relatively) minuscule Scarlet. After all, can you really go wrong with a 3K camera in one hand and a Dairy Queen dipped cone in the other? (No, no you cannot.) Nevertheless, those anxious to see more as the run-up to its early 2009 release continues can feast their eyes on an all new rendering. Oh, and if you're the talkative type, click this link and join in the 8+ page discussion at Scarletuser.com about that image you're eyes are still fixated on above.

In a couple of weeks I'm going to shoot for first time with the RED camera in RAW 4K... it's a VideoClip for a local band directed by Tito Gifré (link in spanish).. all in his Studio.. so we can control everything.. it's gonna be an interesting experience! and a test drive for my next feature which it's going be also shot in RED.

Apple aquest any no serà present a la NAB, la fira més gran de tecnologia audiovisual, marc de les seves novetats al sector professional fins ara. 

Amb aquest moviment d'última hora s'afegeix una peça més als rumors que corren per la indústria sobre si Apple s'està plantejant deixar "morir" Final Cut i abandonar el sector "pro" per centrar-se, encara més si cap, al sector del consum que tants bilions de dòlars els proporciona.

Hi ha diverses coses que van confirmant el rumor: Avid tira la tovallola, Shake desapareix, Final Cut l'un any sol ha tingut sol dos mini pegats però encara continua sent més inestable que la seva anterior versió, ProRes té bugs importants que no s'han solucionat, Final Cut Server no ha vist la llum, la versió "fake" que es va presentar en la passada NAB, ha quedat només en fum, els xRAID desapareixen i ara pràcticament un mes abans de la NAB anuncien la retirada de la major fira del sector audiovisual... almenys Avid va tenir la decència d'anunciar-ho no més acabar la passada NAB