S.F. skyline of future rises today from 3-D printer

SF Gate - The San Francisco skyline of 2017 is a work in progress - except in the precise resin forms on a newly printed 3-D model of 115 downtown blocks where the dust and noise of today's construction boom is nowhere to be seen.  Read more.

Autodesk to offer Spark open software platform for 3-D printing

PC World - Autodesk announced Wednesday an open software platform for 3-D printing called Spark, which will be open and freely licensable to manufacturers and others.

The 3-D design and simulation software company also plans to introduce its own 3-D printer that it said will serve as a reference implementation for Spark. Its design will be available publicly for further development and experimentation...read more.

A Bitcoin for GIFs Aims to Make Digital Art Ownable

Motherboard - Art buyers don't tend to buy digital art, except for a website or domain name here and there. It's hard to put a price on a GIF if it can be copied with a keystroke. 

But maybe digital currency can change that.  Read more.

A Japanese startup unveils a long-lasting and safer battery made from carbon

Gigaom - A battery that lasts longer, is safer, charges faster and is less expensive than a standard lithium ion battery: That’s the powerful idea behind a new type of battery under development by a young Japanese startup called Power Japan Plus, or PJP, which came out of stealth on Tuesday. The year-old company uses carbon for both the anode and the cathode portion of the battery and hopes to start producing it later this year.  Read more.

Brighton Digital Festival has received £173,000 in funding from Arts Council England

TechWorld (UK) - Brighton Digital Festival has received £173,000 in funding from Arts Council England to help grow and sustain the festival through 2014 and 2015.

The annual festival, led by the digital and arts communities across the city...read more.

Dallas actor Kevin Page co-hosts photography, digital arts festival

DallasNews.com - Actor Kevin Page is no stranger to those who watch the edgy TNT remake of Dallas. Page has even become the 21st-century answer to a pop-culture puzzler that first surfaced in the 1980s. That would be, “Who shot J.R.?” Page is the most recent answer, since his character Bum gunned down J.R. Ewing — at J.R.’s request, no less. (It was all part of a scheme engineered by the Dallas patriarch, played by the late Larry Hagman.) Page portrays J.R.’s onetime henchman, who now works for J.R.’s sleazy son, John Ross.

Art connoisseurs have come to know Page for a different reason. He’s an accomplished, distinctive artist, specializing in new pointillism. And now, Page’s artistic scope is expanding.  Read more.