3D

So, you’re looking at that one photo you took, and wishing that the flower in the foreground was in focus instead of the person behind it? Well it’s no big deal, just go in and shift the focus. Oh yeah, that’s right, you can’t ... but you will be able to soon. California-based Lytro, Inc. announced today that its consumer light field camera is now available for preorder, and should be shipping early next year. It is the first camera of its kind made for the general public. Read More

While the latest 3D TV revolution has had a slow start, the use of 3D technology for video games has proven more popular with over 600 3D-supported games currently available on the PC. However, one of the big downsides 3D gaming solutions, such as NVIDIA’s 3D Vision, share with 3D TV is the noticeably dimmer image that results from wearing active shutter glasses. NVIDIA has now updated its 3D gaming technology with the unveiling of 3D Vision 2, that uses a new technology called NVIDIA 3D LightBoost that is claimed to increase the brightness of 3D images by up to two times. Read More

It appears that there's a number of customers willing to pay a lot to be in possession of a lifelike replica of their face or even their whole head ... or at least, REAL-f hopes so. The Japanese company offers extremely realistic 3D models of human faces and heads made using vinyl chloride resin, based on its own technique called 3DPFs (3 Dimension Photo Forms). Read More

At the Adobe MAX 2011 conference in Los Angeles this week, Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney demonstrated the Unreal Engine 3 running in fully inside Flash as part of his keynote address. The live technical demonstration saw a version of Unreal Tournament 3 running in Adobe Flash Player 11, which was also released this week. Adobe says the development could lead to console-quality 3D graphics in games running directly in the browser, such as Facebook social games. Read More

Those not content with a getting a 2D top-down or 360-degree street level view of a planned route using Google Maps can now enjoy a virtual flight over the route thanks to Google adding a new Helicopter View. The new feature, which currently only works in a full browser and requires the Google Earth plugin, lets users see 3D view, should come in particularly handy for walkers or bike riders looking for a more intuitive view of potentially tiring hills. Read More

No, it's not just you. According to studies recently conducted by the University of California, Berkeley, the viewing of stereoscopic 3D displays does indeed cause visual discomfort, fatigue and headaches. The problem appears to come from the fact that the viewers' eyes are simultaneously trying to focus on the screen, and on objects that appear to be located either in front of or behind that screen. Read More

It's been more than 20 years since Jordan Mechner used videos of his brother running and jumping as a reference to design in-game movements for the Prince of Persia video game. Things have come a long way since 1989, with sophisticated motion-capture technologies being developed. One of the latest innovations in digital modeling technology is a miniature 3D motion-capture figure dubbed QUMA, which is connectible to a PC via a simple USB plug. Read More

Glasses-free 3D displays are getting larger with the 20-inch LG Cinema 3D DX2000 computer display being the latest addition to the glasses-free 3D line of devices. The newest LG Cinema 3D display utilizes similar webcam-based eye-tracking technology as the latest glasses-free 3D gaming laptop Toshiba Qosmio F750, aimed at dealing with the common "sweet spot" 3D technology issue. Read More

Toshiba has unveiled its first glasses-free 3D laptop - the Toshiba Qosmio F750-10Q3D. Powered by Intel Core i7 CPU, the laptop features a lenticular glasses-free 3D display, a full HD 15.6-inch screen and eye-tracking technology based on a HD web camera that maintains the 3D effect while the user moves. Both 2D and 3D content can be displayed simultaneously and the Qosmio F750 comes with a built-in Blu-ray XL drive capable of burning 128GB disks. Read More