VizWorld.com

LG Showcased several new AMOLED display panels at the IMID2009 and FPD International 2009 shows, including an impressively large 20.7inch display targeted at medical uses.

At FPD International 2009, LG Display showcased a 20.7-inch medical AMOLED panel for the first time. The panel features QSVGA (2560 x 2048) 5M pixel resolution and a contrast ratio of higher than 100,000:1, proving that it satisfied high resolution and high contrast ratio criteria required for medical display.

Realistically this could be used for several things, but medical facilities are the most likely to be willing to drop the considerable amount of money (unspecified) required.

via FOCUS ON.

Hardware amoled, biomed, display, lg

A great recursive infographic on infographics comes from David McCandless of Information is Beautiful.

To me, these seem like the key components of a good infographic / data visualisation / piece of information design.

• Information needs to be interesting (meaningful & relevant) and have integrity (accuracy, consistency).
• Design needs to have form (beauty & structure) and function (it has to work and be easy to use).

You may disagree. I welcome your input. I may not have got it right.

via Interesting, Easy, Beautiful, True? | Information Is Beautiful.

Graphics infographic, venn diagram

Eugene Liscio, our favorite Forensic Graphics Artist, has just written a new piece of Forensic Magazine on the potential of using Microsoft’s Photosynth tool to reconstruct 3D Geometry from 2D images.

These “points” define accurate features in 3D space that are common between photos and by taking enough photographs of an object, it is possible to construct a point cloud from the “synthed” images. In effect, this makes it one of the only free 3D scanners that can be utilized to get relative distances between point features of an object.

via Forensic Magazine® – Making Teamwork Really Work for You.

Science forensic, liscio, photosynth

The “Choose Your Own Adventure” series was one of my favorites as a kid, for the control it gave me over the story and the numerous creative ways to find my own doom while searching for the happy ending.  Christian Swinehart has taken the data from the stories and created some beautiful visualizations.

Designer Christian Swinehart has parsed piles upon piles of Choose Your Own Adventure titles, and rendered them as a series of visualizations, from charts documenting how frequent “catastrophic” endings occur as opposed to “favorable” ones to animated representations of every single permutation of a given book to a full-on digital copy of Zork, which tracks your every move on a visual graph.

cyoa · zork. viz Gizmodo

Science infographic, text, visualization

Anandtech.com reports that in 2011, AMD will be coming out with an Accelerated Processing Unit (APU). What is an APU exactly? Try four CPU cores married to a single GPU. The four CPU cores will be based on the existing Phenom II microarchitecture. The one GPU will be a DirectX 11 class GPU. The APU will be manufactured on a 32nm process at GlobalFoundaries, and is scheduled to arrive in 2011. The code name for the APU is Llano.

Intel is also coming our with their own version of the APU, with the code name Sandy Bridge. Sandy Bridge will use a new microarchitecture for the CPU, and an updated integrated graphics core. Sandy Bridge will be manufactured on a 32nm process, and is due in early 2011.

If one was to handicap this race, then it would be expected that Intel will have a faster CPU with Sandy Bridge. Historically, Intel’s graphics have not always been the best. Thus one could expect that AMD will have a better integrated GPU than Intel.

Hardware amd, chipset

It’s a bit later than previously expected but junaio, the world’s first social augmented reality platform, is now available in the iTunes App Store for all iPhone platforms. From the press release:

With junaio, metaio is putting the power of its augmented reality technology – which has been used by industry giants such as Volkswagen, LEGO and Popular Science plus hundreds of other companies – in the hands of everyday consumers. The worldwide film company Focus Features has partnered with junaio to place memorable characters from its hit animated movies 9 and Coraline (the latter feature already available on DVD through Universal Studios Home Entertainment) on the platform to allow users to interact with the creations.

Unlike other applications that attempt to create new social networking communities, junaio is designed to tie existing platforms together with augmented reality based social interactions. Users can insert an (animated) 3D object into a photo taken with their iPhone  and upload it to Facebook, or augment images that others have posted. The technology will soon be available on other smart phone platforms such as Android and Symbian.

Go get the app in the iTunes App Store.  You can read the full press release and see some sample video after the break.

Read more…

Science augmented reality, iphone, junaio, metaio, mobile

A pair of sad, unusual, and conflicting reports coming out of EA.  With disappointing financials posted for the last quarter (a loss of $391Million), EA has decided to trim the “fat” and laid off an amazing 1500 people including management, support staff, developers, and graphics artists.  An internal memo reads:

First, we announced a cost restructuring that involves reducing the number of titles for FY11, enabling us to focus and invest more in our most important franchises and our most promising new IPs. This restructuring involves the elimination of approximately 1,500 jobs across EA. Cuts are being made for titles we are eliminating and in support and corporate areas.* Some team sizes are being reduced and programs that are not working as we’d like are being cut. This is a tough decision that comes with a heavy price for our colleagues – but it is the right decision for EA.* We are sympathetic to everyone that is affected and appreciate everyone’s help as we regroup and move forward.

Also, amidst all the layoffs, EA has decided to boost its position in the social games space by dropping $300M on Playfish.

EA has acquired Playfish for approximately US$275 million in cash and approximately $US25 million in equity retention arrangements. In addition, the sellers are entitled to additional variable cash consideration, up to a maximum of US$100 million, contingent upon the achievement of certain performance milestones through December 31, 2011.

Good luck to all of you former EA employees, and if I was at Playfish I’ld seriously start brushing up my resumé.

via Icrontic Gaming » Massive layoffs looming over EA.

Graphics ea, financial, playfish, video game

Some prototypes of the Lucid Hydra 200 Multi-GPU solution have been shipped to reviewers, and the results are promising for an early build unit.

After running Lucid’s test bed through an assortment of tests in several graphics configurations, we have a better idea on how well the Hydra 200 performs. Using the components available to us, we saw impressive scaling in most instances, which peaked at 85% in dual-GPU mode. The mixed ATI / NVIDIA combo ran pretty well and fell within the expected range of performance throughout testing.

It remains to be seen if Nvidia will allow something like this to exist in the market, they’ve previously stated their intent to intentionally disable it at the driver level.  If it comes to market, it shows huge potential tho.

via Lucid Hydra 200 Multi-GPU Performance Revealed – HotHardware. and PCPerspective

Hardware benchmark, hydra, lucidlogix, multigpu

CNN has recently relaunched their website, focusing heavily on Video and the “iReport” social features.  “Feltron” was given the job of analyzing their web statistics and visualizing the traffic patterns over the last 13 years.  It’s a massive amount of datathat he’s trimmed down into an impressive collection of graphs.

The spike chart of average weekly page views forms the centerpiece of the chart. The busiest 10 weeks are called out, and the events associated with the week are highlighted below the x-axis… along with other events of cultural significance or large week-over-week gains. I also tracked the absolute and relative growth of their site categories over time, and highlighted several unique metrics at the top of the chart, including the busiest and slowest days of the year, and the number of countries that visit the site (192 at last count). Finally, to put everything in context, I found milestones in the history of the Internet for each year which I placed along the bottom of the chart to create context for the narrative.

via feltron — In conjunction with the relaunch of their website,….

Science cnn, Website

You weren’t cool or old enough to be present at the historic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989?  How about now via virtual time travel in Twinity?

Walk through one of the open-air wall museum gateways at the Brandenburg Gate, Potsdamer Platz, Checkpoint Charlie, and four other locations in Twinity and step back in time to 1989. From the Brandenburg Gate to Checkpoint Charlie – a 2 km, interactive stretch of the Berlin Wall including the infamous death strip will appear before your eyes.

Background information on the history of the GDR, from the building of the wall to German reunification, can be found at key points along the way.

Twinity.com | The Berlin Wall In Twinity

Graphics history, secondlife, twinity, virtual environment, virtual worlds