Consumer Reports has tested fourteen different models of 3-D televisions, including both plasma and LCD televisions. Consumer Reports concluded that plasma television sets were better at 3-D because they produced less ghosting. They not only looked at ghosting, they also compared the television sets on their black level, brightness, and viewing angle. Panasonic’s 3-D plasma sets took the top three spots.
“It remains to be seen whether 3D TV is just a novelty or a new product category in the consumer electronics space,” said Paul Reynolds, electronics editor for Consumer Reports. “But, our tests show that there are some fine 3D TV sets out there for those consumers eager for a new experience.”
The evolution of computers in the past two decades has been something absolutely amazing, and Ology shows us that path, focusing on Supercomputers. Also with an historical perspective comes The Blog Herald‘s recent history of online video, and The Roxor shows us the awesome size of the internet. The growth of the European smartphone market is analyzed by Metagrafic, and to close today’s selection comes Tech King‘s most popular Design Blogs by Twitter followers and Facebook fans.
A scathing piece on the NZHerald covers the recent news that the folks in charge of Lord Of The Rings prequel “The Hobbit” have decided to shoot it in New Zealand afterall. What finally changed their mind? A two-fold concession of the government: First to offer another $10 Million (in addition to the previous $50 Million) in tax breaks, and second to offset marketing costs by another $13.4 Million. So for $23 Million dollars (after the existing $50 Million), the New Zealand government “bought” The Hobbit production.
This was about the shooting of just two films. If the industry cannot stand the loss of them, it must be in a sickly state. It was surely over-egging matters to suggest all international film-makers would sidestep this country as a consequence.
Indeed, at some stage, the local film industry should, like virtually every other New Zealand enterprise, be able to survive without subsidies. The talent and skills of local film-makers, along with outstanding scenery, should be the attraction for Hollywood moguls.
It’s only good business to shoot the film where the best offers are, but it seems ridiculous for national governments to be offering such staggering amounts of money for the “privilege” of hosting such a film. Sure it generates tourism and boosts the local economy a bit, but to the tune of $75 Million?
Anyone who’s hardcore into Second Life and other virtual worlds can tell you that the potential for instruction and education is huge. An article over at the LA Times does the same, but visits some of the virtual environments created by the USC Institute for Creative Technologies which combines technologies like CAVE’s, Virtual Reality, and some hollywood magic to recreate some of the toughest and most challengest training scenarios to date.
Maintaining this kind of realism is key to the institute’s success, said Peter W. Singer, author of “Wired for War,” a book that examines robotic warfare. “The stuff that ICT does is really in a class of its own.”
One popular demonstration from VisWeek was the ‘Choosel’ webapp which allows you to import and visualization CSV data via a highly interactive webapp. No software install is required, and a wide variety of datasets are available. Just paste in any CSV dataset and then use the interactive tools to annotate, visualization, and explore your data.
There’s a new 3D Engine on the block, and it’s called ‘SimplyCube’.
Designed specifically to ease the interactions between 3D graphics and simulation of realistic physics behaviors, the SimplyCube enables any software developer to integrate every asset of 3D simulation in his applications.
While still in development, its a combination of engine and toolbox to merge physics and 3D graphics into a single engine. According to their blog, they are currently porting it from the PC to Windows Phone 7, an interesting choice to be sure. They also eventually it will be available on the Web, the XBox 360, and other platforms.
It boasts a great collection of rendering features like volumetric lighting and global illumination, and support for various physics engines including NVidia’s PhysX. Unfortunately, it’s currently unavailable as they prepare for a final release.
3DConnexion has some new competition thanks to a little product called the “Axsotic”. It’s a 3d mouse that mounts a sphere on a few flexible mounts, allowing you to manipulate it just as you would in real space.
Do everything at the same time
In a normal 3D-Workflow, you need to serialize navigation steps to move, zoom and rotate, and then finally you can work.
With the 3D-Spheric-Mouse you can do all of the steps at the same time.
This is possible, because the 3D-Spheric-Mouse gives unlike any other 3D-Controller direct control of your 3D-Navigation, without any failure input.
Working with the 3D-Spheric-Mouse feels as natural as drawing with a pen tablet.
Looks pretty impressive, although you can’t actually buy it yet.
First Samsung, then Oakley, and now Gucci has come out with a set of custom $225 3D Glasses.
These obvious 2011 must-haves exhibit the same retro-80s flair that creative director Frida Giannini brought to her Gucci Eyeweb collection this past summer. The shiny plastic aviators are both stylish and sentimental — and best of all, owners will no longer have to share the same classless glasses as common moviegoers at the local cinema.
The announcement is full of PR buzz too, announcing features like ‘optically correct 6-base curved lenses’ and a ‘high-tech multi-layered mirrored coating’. They obviously know their audience, tho, mentioning that the special coating allows the wearer to view themselves in a mirror without distortion (typically, looking in a mirror while wearing polarized glasses causes odd effects in the eyes).
At a recent event, ESPN’s Adrian Pennington spoke about their foray into 3D sports events and while they’ve committed to a full year and are planning a 2nd, they’re currently having difficulties justifying the effort required.
“Regardless of whether we continue as an event-based network or go to a 24/7 network switch to VoD, we definately have to make production efficiencies to make it work. We’ve also got to get more eyeballs looking at 3D to get some idea of acceptance in the marketplace.”
Currently they’re not found a good Return on their Investment, and the technology required is still rather specialized, expensive, and difficult to integrate into their real-time tools. However, they are also doing a lot of research into stereoscopic 3D technologies and end-user effects.
ESPN is also to conduct a major study into depth metadata and depth analysis.
“This is major topic which impacts events downstream. For example we need to think very carefully about how we place closed captions and graphics in stereo. Do we need to develop some automated alarm which will alert us before we go to air whether a graphic is going to occlude the image? These are monumental challenges which are vital to enable us to produce good 3D.”
Today, we begin with to infographics about the biggest nations in the world: Conway Pedron‘s Beijing transportation trends, and the top 100 Indian cities by population, made by Fixr. Of course, we have couldn’t let America out of the selection, and Weight Loss Diet Watch shows us the fattest States, while Zippy Cart breaks down the online Holiday sales trends. To close this up, an amazing piece from Colour Lovers, showing the most popular Colors of the Year.
The evolution of computers in the past two decades has been something absolutely amazing, and 
A scathing piece on the NZHerald covers the recent news that the folks in charge of Lord Of The Rings prequel “The Hobbit” have decided to shoot it in New Zealand afterall. What finally changed their mind? A two-fold concession of the government: First to offer another $10 Million (in addition to the previous $50 Million) in tax breaks, and second to offset marketing costs by another $13.4 Million. So for $23 Million dollars (after the existing $50 Million), the New Zealand government “bought” The Hobbit production.
Anyone who’s hardcore into Second Life and other virtual worlds can tell you that the potential for instruction and education is huge. An article over at the LA Times does the same, but visits some of the virtual environments created by the USC Institute for Creative Technologies which combines technologies like CAVE’s, Virtual Reality, and some hollywood magic to recreate some of the toughest and most challengest training scenarios to date.
One popular demonstration from VisWeek was the ‘Choosel’ webapp which allows you to import and visualization CSV data via a highly interactive webapp. No software install is required, and a wide variety of datasets are available. Just paste in any CSV dataset and then use the interactive tools to annotate, visualization, and explore your data.
There’s a new 3D Engine on the block, and it’s called ‘SimplyCube’.
3DConnexion has some new competition thanks to a little product called the “Axsotic”. It’s a 3d mouse that mounts a sphere on a few flexible mounts, allowing you to manipulate it just as you would in real space.
First 
At a recent event, ESPN’s Adrian Pennington spoke about their foray into 3D sports events and while they’ve committed to a full year and are planning a 2nd, they’re currently having difficulties justifying the effort required.
Today, we begin with to infographics about the biggest nations in the world: 
VizWorld.com 
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