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Tag: Silicon

  • Adobe releases Photoshop beta for Apple Silicon and Windows ARM

    As new M1-equipped Macs arrive to early adopters this week, Adobe has released a beta ARM version of Photoshop. The beta allows owners of the Microsoft Surface Pro X and M1-powered Macs to run Photoshop natively. The current public release version of Photoshop runs emulated on both Windows and macOS.

    Looking at the beta version of Photoshop for Apple Silicon, there are missing features, but Adobe states that many core features are fully operational. The beta will only run on Apple hardware using the M1 chip, so the M1-equipped MacBook Air, 13″ MacBook Pro and Mac mini.

    M1-equipped 13″ MacBook Pro. Image credit: Apple

    There are a variety of known issues, the full list of them can be found here. As Adobe states, many features are not yet available, including Camera RAW, Select Sky/Sky Replacement, Content Aware Fill/Scale/Move, Auto-Blend Layers, Photomerge, Spot Healing Brush and much more. Further, some included features have bugs, including opening hundreds of files, performing object selection, certain upscaling methods and more. For additional details, refer here.

    For the Windows ARM beta, many of the same issues persist. To use this beta, you must have a Surface Pro X with at least 8GB of RAM and be running Windows 10 build 19041.488. Specific to the Windows ARM version, users must install the Microsoft OpenCL and OpenGL Compatibility Pack in order to take advantage of OpenCL- and OpenGL-related functions, of which there are many inside of Photoshop.

    Microsoft Surface Pro X. Image credit: Microsoft

    Despite the missing features and known issues, Adobe says, ‘We are excited to announce the first Beta release of Photoshop running natively on Apple Silicon Hardware and Windows ARM devices.’ Adobe also promises that more features will be added in short order. Since the software is in beta, it’s not officially supported yet, but Adobe wants users to try it and provide feedback. You can post issues not listed in the ‘Known Issues’ sections found in the above links by visiting the Photoshop (Beta) forum.

    To reiterate, the current beta version is not quite ready to act as your daily Photoshop application, nor does it fully showcase what the new Windows ARM and Apple M1 architectures are capable of when it comes to running Adobe Photoshop. In fact, the beta has been released exclusively for early feedback. Nonetheless, the beta represents a critical and important step in the development process and paves the way for what we all expect to be very fast, efficient versions of Adobe Photoshop. Early reports from users of the new Apple M1 machines showcase remarkable performance and benchmarks, and there’s ample reason to expect Adobe will be able to extract that power in its software.

    (Via The Verge)

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Urban Food Park: Scandinavia is Growing a “Silicon Valley for Agriculture”

    [ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

    danish-food-park

    An expansive master-planned complex to facilitate urban agriculture and private/public collaboration, The Agro Food Park is Denmark’s version of “Silicon Valley” for food research and development. From experimental greenhouses to vertical farm prototypes, the park is bringing together academics and businesses to work on creating a sustainable future via global food security.

    scandanavian-food-park

    Co-designed by an array of architecture, engineering, technology and agriculture firms, the food park was first opened in 2009 and already hosts nearly 100 companies in 44,000 square meters of space. The newly-expanded plan, however, will grow the park by 280,000 square meters over the coming decades, requiring careful strategic planning reflecting environmental considerations.

    food-park-master-plan

    The long-term master plan features a communal Lawn showcasing experimental developments, a main-street Strip hosting various gathers and activities, and a series of Plazas to facilitate interactions between companies and researchers. The huge complex is also designed to recycle its own waste efficiently and minimize its footprint, a “practice what you preach” approach to ecological urban agriculture.

    food-park-plan

    “Innovation occurs best when knowledge is concentrated in clusters and cross-pollinate. By linking food production to urban life, we have tried to create an environment where people, knowledge and ideas meet. The dream is to create the framework for agriculture’s answer to Silicon Valley.”

    food-park-systems

    Though the plan is complex, the mission of the place is simple: to feed the world in a healthy way. The expressions of that mission, however, vary greatly, from initiatives to use clean energy and create biodiversity to facilitating healthy air and clean water. In short: it is not just about good food, but how best to produce edible goods in a sustainable way.

    food-park-arrangement

    “Embracing Agro-Urban Ecosystem Design, the AFP treats urban and agricultural development together as a unified, productive and restorative ecosystem,” said the project architects.

    futuristic-silicon-valley-food

    “By integrating the carbon cycle and other ecological processes into large scale urban systems and their surroundings – buildings and energy flows, water cycles and wastewater treatment, land use and food production – the AFP creates economic value within the urban and agricultural infrastructure.”

    Growing Up: NYC Rooftop Farm Supports 1,200,000 Pounds of Soil

    Brooklyn Grange is behind the two largest rooftop soil farms in the world, together growing 50,000 pounds of organic produce per year from 108,000 combined square feet, demonstrating the …

    Sustainable Food in the City: 10 Smart Urban Farm Designs

    The world’s largest indoor farm has already proven just how amazingly successful food production can be outside of standard agricultural setups, and these 10 urban farm designs and concepts take …

    Urban Human Habitats: 13 Compact Concepts for Growing Cities

     

    How will various cities around the world adapt to rapid population growth while maintaining quality of life and responding to their unique environments and cultural context? In some …

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    [ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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  • Silicon Greenery: World’s Largest Green Roof to Span City Blocks

    [ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

    largest green roof

    Aiming to turn Cupertino into the green center of Silicon Valley, this expansive green roof design rolls over 30 acres of central urban real estate, capping a massive mixed-use redevelopment project. The resulting street-crossing expanse is set to include miles of walking trails, vineyards, orchards, playgrounds and an amphitheater.

    silicon vally green roofs

    Developers from Sand Hill Property Company assembled the constituent real estate, including a partially abandoned Vallco Shopping Malls, from separate owners.

    silicon valley green rooftop

    Their proposal to create nearly 1,000 apartments and over a million square feet of office space was developed in part by architect Rafael Viñoly with the assistance of OLIN Landscape Architects.

    largest roofs

    In the buildings below, a cinema, gym, shopping center and ice rink are slated for construction, revitalizing the downtown area and integrating with outdoor elements above.

    silicon valley theater amipheather

    “The Hills at Vallco features an unprecedented 30-acre community park and nature preserve, which will not only be the largest community park in Cupertino, but also the largest green roof in the world” according to the developers behind the scheme.

    cupertino california silicon valley

    The plan has been pitched to the city as a way to secure its position as a hub for technology and innovation in California. The project is currently entering a public review phase. Critics note that feasibility may be an issue, citing the architect’s record with a London skyscraper known for blowing over pedestrians and lighting cars on fire.

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    Forested Facades: 13 Buildings Bringing Greenery to the City

    Why stop at parks when we could make cities lusher and greener by integrating thousands of plants right into the facades of urban buildings? Vertical greenery …
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    [ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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  • Faded dream: blogger looks back at the failure of the Silicon Film project

    SiliconFilm.png

    In the early days of digital photography a small American company, Imagek, started developing a digital sensor module that could be installed in film SLRs. The idea still generates excitement today, more than ten years after the company (by then named Silicon Film) failed. Photographer and blogger Olivier Duong has taken a look back at the promise and disappointment of the Silicon Film dream.

    News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)