The brains at Stanford University that brought us the SynthCam app and the Frankencamera are about to spin off into a separate company and offer their first commercial option: The Lytro. Boasting the same plenoptic lens shown at other events, it allows you to snap a single photo, a single instant in time, and then post process it later to change parameters like exposure, focus, and more.
The main lens is fixed in place; there is no auto-focus, auto-aperture, or other gubbins. This limits the number of moving parts which need to be adjusted every time a photo is taken, and which cause a lag between pressing the shutter-release button and capturing the image. Lytro’s snaps, by contrast, will be truly instantaneous, just like old film-based snapshot cameras. The light-field approach means they will always be in focus (since the plane of focus can be moved at will after the photograph has been taken). And the main lens is preset so that it always captures the greatest amount of light possible. This means that exposure time can be extremely short even in poorly lit conditions.
Unfortunately, this first offering will be useful only for hobbyists thanks to its 525×525 resolution. It’ll be perfect for home use (I can only imagine how many photos I could have saved if I could have adjusted the focus after the fact, and I’m actually somewhat knowledgable about cameras), and is actually targeted at internet sharing sites. They’ve already raised $50m in venture capital, so hopefully they’ll start ramping up production soon.
We start today’s selection with two monstrous face-offs, illustrated recently in infographic form: Google vs. Facebook, by MBA Program Info, and Microsoft vs. Apple, from Manolution. Then, we take a look at the history of the Alibaba Group and Rakuten, Japan’s top E-Commerce site, both brought by Penn Olson, and Cisco, presented by Focus.
The rise of portability, with smartphones and tablets, has brought some interesting changes in the Mobile business landscape. iCrossing shows the worldwide Mobile Market Share, as of February, and then we take a look at some of the players involved in this “battle”. First, a couple of infographics about Nokia, from Inneractive and Column Five, followed by Geekaphone‘s take at the current situation of RIM. Finally, all the rumors about the iPhone 5, with an artistic perspective created by the folks at Infographic Labs.
This week at the City of Science and Industry event, Nikon presented some of their concept camera technology including the unusual item above called (according to Google Translate) the “Multi-Ball”.
Multi-ball is an object “multi-views that can capture the atmosphere of a scene.”One wonders what kind of pictures can come out well!
That doesn’t really explain much, but I have to wonder if this may be a possible commercially-available Plenoptic Lens. Adobe’s been working on software for plenoptic lens for a while now, and it only makes sense that the would partner with a premiere camera maker to implement it.
The CORE technology has always been interesting, but difficult to work with. Due to some recent changes in the architecture, it loooks like it may be coming back in the next version of LightWave to subscribers of the HardCORE programme.
“Rather than create a re-branded, new product in a separate package, which considering the constant evolution of technology, could take months or even years,” explained Powers, “we plan to implement the CORE technology advancements directly into LightWave itself, in an iterative fashion. We are aware that re-writes and updates to the underlying architecture for LightWave will be necessary to accommodate the advanced features that CORE technology represents, and we are confident that these re-writes are possible.”
NVidia has just announced a new GPU for laptops called the GTX580M, based on the Fermi architecture and boasting the most powerful performance ever offered in a notebook.
The first notebook PC to feature the GeForce GTX 580M, the Alienware M18x offers the option of two GeForce GTX 580M GPUs in one system for up to double the gaming performance, using NVIDIA SLI® technology. Not to be outdone, the Alienware M17x will offer the GeForce GTX 580M along with NVIDIA Optimus™ technology and will deliver 5 hours of battery life in Facebook, and 100 frames per second performance in Call of Duty: Black Ops.
It comes with every single feature NVidia offers: 3d Vision, 3DTV Play, Optimus, CUDA, Verde, and PhysX.
While Cars 2 is getting mediocre reviews in theaters, Pixar is showing off their next big production “Brave” with a new trailer.
The film is set in the Highlands of Scotland and the trailer opens up with some stunning flybys of the mountains and lochs, before showing us some more moody, ground-level, shots, all accompanied by a voiceover in an Scottish accent intoning what being “brave” means. Eventually we are shown the heroine of the tale: Merida, a princess who eschews her Royal parentage to pursue her dream of becoming an archer. There’s some more fabulous animation work in her curly red hair (surely more tangled than Tangled) and that of her horse – head over to stichkingdom.com for a gorgeous hi-res shot of Merida’s hair.
If there’s a buzzword that’s in everyone’s mind in the tech business world these days it’s “Bubble”. After all, are we already living the next bubble? The folks at Elegant Banners show of the main stages in a Bubble 2.0, and Ethority brings the Tech Bubble Barometer. GPlus breaksdown the recent valuations of the largest Social Media Companies, and then, a look at LinkedIn’s road to IPO, by Credit Score, and Online MBA evaluates if you should invest in Groupon’s IPO.
That’s right folks, it’s contest time again, and this one it’s a big one! One lucky winner will receive a brand new NVidia Quadro FX 4800 direct from VizWorld? How do you enter, you ask? Well, if you’ve been watching the VizWorld Podcast then you already know and doubled your chances. For all the rest of you, just go join the VizWorld Mailing List and one lucky winner will be selected this Friday night at Midnight (Central Time).
Unfortunately, this contest is open to US Residents only (sorry folks, but go ahead and join the Mailing List to qualify for any upcoming contests!). Go join up now, and get your friends to join too! If your friends list you in the “How I heard about the Mailing List” box, then you get an extra entry! (Maximum 5 entries per entrant).
So go join the Mailing list today for your chance to win!
Update: Clarified to specify it’s a Quadro FX 4800..
The recent Spring 2011 issue of “HPCsource”, a supplement of Scientific Computing, focuses entirely on Visualization including articles on GPGPU programming, Remote 3D Viz, interviews with experts like Kelly Gaither of TACC, and much more. The online digital version includes videos of several parts, but the whole magazine is available in a downloadable PDF.
The issue is sponsored by Dell, so you’ll have to put up with several full-page Dell ads for hardware and services, but the articles look really interesting.
The brains at Stanford University that brought us the SynthCam app and the Frankencamera are about to spin off into a separate company and offer their first commercial option: The Lytro. Boasting the same plenoptic lens shown at other events, it allows you to snap a single photo, a single instant in time, and then post process it later to change parameters like exposure, focus, and more.
We start today’s selection with two monstrous face-offs, illustrated recently in infographic form: Google vs. Facebook, by 
The rise of portability, with smartphones and tablets, has brought some interesting changes in the Mobile business landscape. 
This week at the City of Science and Industry event, Nikon presented some of their concept camera technology including the unusual item above called (according to Google Translate) the “Multi-Ball”.
The CORE technology has always been interesting, but difficult to work with. Due to some recent changes in the architecture, it loooks like it may be coming back in the next version of LightWave to subscribers of the HardCORE programme.
NVidia has just announced a new GPU for laptops called the GTX580M, based on the Fermi architecture and boasting the most powerful performance ever offered in a notebook.
If there’s a buzzword that’s in everyone’s mind in the tech business world these days it’s “Bubble”. After all, are we already living the next bubble? The folks at 
That’s right folks, it’s contest time again, and this one it’s a big one! One lucky winner will receive a brand new NVidia Quadro FX 4800 direct from VizWorld? How do you enter, you ask? Well, if you’ve been watching the 
The recent Spring 2011 issue of “HPCsource”, a supplement of Scientific Computing, focuses entirely on Visualization including articles on GPGPU programming, Remote 3D Viz, interviews with experts like Kelly Gaither of TACC, and much more. The online digital version includes videos of several parts, but the whole magazine is available in a downloadable PDF.
VizWorld.com 
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