Jules Urbach, founder CEO Lightstage & Otoy - Photo from Rod Roddenberry
OTOY outshined AMD at their press conference today, unleashing demos of Crysis running on an iPhone. L.A. Native & founder of Otoy & Lightstage, Jules Urbach (Harvard-Westlake ’92) has a new remote compression technology that is putting game consoles and bulky harddrives on the endangered species list.
Rod Roddenberry tweets: “At AMDs hardware release press conference on the uss hornet aircraft carrier in Oakland Ca. Also launching is my boy Jules 3D compressing …
Jules and AMD president at a conference earlier this year
What if you could play any video game on your phone? Don’t think Tetrus or Suduko – think Grad Theft Auto and Halo! Friend, tech maven & inventor Jules Urbach has teamed up with AMD – who have built a brand new supercomputer just to run his high compression cloud-computing software that beams interactive high-quality content to your phone without any additional software or hardware on your end.
What’s cloud-computing, you ask? A cloud is a metaphor for off-site. Think of it as where your inbox is kept and processed if you have hotmail account. Or if you log into Jdate, the server running the site could be considered “in the cloud.” The term essential means your computer, or hand-held, device needs no more bandwidth, computing power or software other than any web browser. So pick up your phone, connect to web, and one day soon you will be able to simply type in Otoy.com and get a list of video games that will be streamed to your cell – for little to no cost. Sound to good, cheap and easy? Imagine the world one second before the telephone, the computer or the wheel was invented and then Stop! That is where you are right now.
Jules on Halloween - Photo from Ahmet Zappa
Jules is also CEO of Lightstage, an exciting new method of capturing 3D imagery by using a spherical shell of cameras and light sensors to record any object standing in the middle. Game and film developers can now insert a villain or a ship or an animal into this sphere developed at my alma matter USC, and record a perfect 3 dimensional replica of it, and then manipulate it any way they want. Like if James Cameron wanted to sink another Titantic? That would be no problem. The cost? So far … there is no cost other than the development of these technologies so far … it reminds me of the time Nikolai Tesla figured out how to provide free world-wide power to everyone by slinging power waves around the Earth’s magnetoshpere to build up power …
An experimental light stage at USC - Photo from USC
Jules was in my brother’s class at Harvard-Westlake and was best friends with my “other” brother Rod Roddenberry. At 18, while the rest of us were trudging off to college back East, he deferred acceptance to Harvard to develop his first video game called Hellcab … and the rest became history. Jules has since graduated to world domination. A year ago, I would have limited that just to the video game world, but with our changing world, Jules’ inventions can also apply to film and anything that could use a virtual reality such as social networking sites or online shopping.
Ari Emanuel and Mark Wahlberg at Endeavor's Pre-Oscar party in 2006 - Photo from Wireimage
Understanding the artistic possibilities this would present filmmakers, uber-agent Ari Emmanuel (for whom Jeremy Piven’s “Ari Gold” character in Entourage is based ) helped Jules explore the possibilities in feature film for Lightstage and OTOY. Jules has already applied the OTOY lighting system to the “Transformers” movies for Paramount Pictures, culminating in real time 4k and 8k pixel renders and animations of the ILM movie models for Paramount’s marketing campaign during the month of the movie’s release and replicated this with AMD’s help for Sony Picture’s “Spider-Man 3.” The OTOY rendering engine has been used in feature films, animation and online projects for AMD, EA, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Toei Animation, Warner Brothers, Hasbro, and Disney.
Me and Jules at our friend Jeremy Steckler's (Harvard-Westlake '92) father, Len Steckler's, art show in Beverly Hills, 2006 - Photo from Wireimage
