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Panasonic reveals DMC-ZR3 super slim versatile compact

By Paul Ridden

18:26 February 2, 2010 PST

Panasonic has revealed a new addition to its LUMIX family of cameras, the DMC-ZR3 slim compact digital. The successor to the ZR1, optical zoom has been boosted to eight times, the addition of AVCHD Lite video should extend recording time, the pixel count now stands at 14 megapixels and it supports the new SDXC card format. Read More

Vuzix display Wrap 920AR augmented reality glasses

By Mick Webb

18:59 January 12, 2010 PST

Forget looking at the world through rose colored glasses – try these on for size. Video eyewear manufacturer Vuzix has unveiled its Wrap 920AR glasses prototype that features cameras mounted to the lenses that project real world images onto LCD’s inside the glasses, seamlessly mixing real-world and computer generated imagery.

With the LCD’s offering the view of a 67” display from ten feet away and the cameras able to capture video at a resolution of 752x480 at 60fps, the application promises a myriad of uses from gaming to education and social networking. Read More

Store, sort and share - the Kodak Slice Touchscreen digital camera (and pocket photo album)

By Mick Webb

21:10 January 8, 2010 PST

No longer just a device intended to capture images, the digital camera becomes a veritable pocket photo album with the latest offering from Kodak, the Slice Touchscreen. Featuring a 3.5” LCD touchscreen 5X optical zoom and 14MP resolution, the Slice also packs a 2GB internal memory with tagging functionality. This not only recognizes up to 20 faces allowing the user to tag photos by person, place, date or occasion, but also lets the user tag photos for easy uploading to sites like Flickr and Facebook. Read More

ProFORMA software creates a 3D model of an object in minutes using a webcam

By Jeff Salton

18:58 November 29, 2009 PST

Cambridge University PhD student Qi Pan has designed software that creates textured 3D models in slightly more than a minute using a stationary camera, such as a webcam. Conventional off-line model reconstruction relies on a number of phases - there’s an image collection phase that can be quite quick, followed by a very slow reconstruction phase, which requires a long time to verify a model obtained from an image sequence is acceptable. This new software creates a 3D model on-line as the input sequence is being collected. As the user rotates the object in front of a camera, a partial model is reconstructed and displayed to the user. Read More

JOBO ScanViewer combines digital photo frame and scanner

By Paul Ridden

14:27 November 12, 2009 PST

Turning your old pre-digital memories into pixel-rich images usually involves buying a scanner, loading the prints into a computer and then transferring them to a USB or SD Flash card for viewing in your digital photo frame. JOBO has greatly simplified this process by including a scanner built into its latest photo frame - the appropriately named ScanViewer. Read More

'Hyperspectral Remote Sensor' senses disasters from space

By Darren Quick

23:59 October 25, 2009 PDT

Combining sophisticated sensors in orbit with sensors on the ground and in the air has led researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) to create a “Hyperspectral Remote Sensor” (HRS) that can give advance warnings about water contamination after a forest fire, alert authorities of a pollution spill long before a red flag is raised on Earth, or inform the population where a monsoon will strike. Read More

The interactive 3D Virtual Autopsy Table

By Paul Ridden

16:17 October 20, 2009 PDT

Swedish researchers have developed an interactive touchscreen 3D autopsy table that allows pathologists to examine virtual representations of real bodies in minute detail and from numerous viewing angles. Using data provided by scans of an actual body, the table allows the user to remove layers such as skin and muscle, add or remove tissue and circulatory systems, zoom in and out and cut through sections with a virtual knife. The video below is a "must watch". Read More

3D cryo-imager can identify a single cancer cell

By Mick Webb

10:22 October 1, 2009 PDT

Recent developments in the fight against cancer have promised better ways to both identify and treat the disease. Adding to the ever growing list of advancements is Dave Wilson, a Professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Frustrated by blurry low resolution optical images of diseased tissues, he has developed a cryo-imaging system which can identify and pinpoint the exact location and number of cancer cells in a particular area while displaying the findings as a detailed three dimensional color cyber model. Read More

DEMO: Xerox 'Color By Words' uses simple language to get great pictures

By Jeff Salton

19:22 September 24, 2009 PDT

If you’re not a graphic designer, you may have struggled in the past to get your personal photos looking their best when relying on your printer’s color adjustment settings. Complex color wheels, sliders, brightness and contrast editors, and highlight tools all look handy – until you try to use them. Xerox has devised Natural Language Color Editing technology that allows you to adjust the colors in your printed documents by accessing plain English phrases. A drop-down Color By Words menu on your computer offers phrases like: ‘Make the blues a lot more vibrant’, which will then do just that across the entire document or image. Combining words can form thousands of different phrases to deliver the results you want. You can watch the demo video below or test drive the technology for yourself via the link at the end of this story. Read More

Technicolor announces affordable 3D solution for cinema

By Mick Webb

06:29 September 23, 2009 PDT

With Hollywood set to give us over a dozen 3D feature films in the next twelve months, demand for 3D technology is at an all-time high. As the roll out of digital cinema has taken the industry longer to implement than expected, Thomson’s Technicolor Business Group has announced what it says is an affordable alternative 3D process that works with existing 35mm cinema projectors. While the introduction of such technology will expand the current reach of 3D, not everyone, it seems, is singing Technicolor’s praises. Read More

Swift snaps our best-ever ultraviolet image of neighboring Andromeda Galaxy

By Jeff Salton

18:51 September 20, 2009 PDT

In a galaxy far, far away … about 2.5 million light years, in fact, lie approximately 20,000 hot, young stars and dense clusters that comprise the Andromeda Galaxy. The galaxy, known as M31 in the constellation Andromeda, was recently captured by an ultraviolet optical telescope aboard NASA’s Swift satellite, and delivers the highest-resolution view of a neighboring spiral galaxy ever attained in the ultraviolet. Read More

OceanoCam can record hi-def videos of the ocean depths on a budget

By Dario Borghino

14:54 September 20, 2009 PDT

It's often said that we know more about the depths of the Universe than the ocean floors of our own planet, but this might soon change with OceanoCam, a newly-developed cheap underwater camera for capturing high-definition video at great depths, aimed at both research community and the entertainment industry. Read More

Samsung releases P410M and A600 projectors

By Dario Borghino

16:42 September 16, 2009 PDT

Samsung recently added two new projectors to its lineup, both featuring high image quality and a wide range of connectivity capabilities at a very interesting price. The very portable P410M is compact and lightweight, with direct USB connectivity for games and devices, while the high-end A600 offers full HD 1080p video suitable for home theater projection. Read More

Frankencamera: Digital cameras get the open source treatment

By Darren Quick

02:15 September 4, 2009 PDT

Open-source started with the Netscape Navigator browser and has expanded to include operating systems for PCs (Linux) and mobile phones (Android). Now photo scientists at Stanford University are out to bring the advantages of open-source development to digital photography with the creation of an open-source digital camera giving programmers around the world the chance to create software that will teach cameras new tricks. Read More

Invisible Flash sheds new light on photography in the dark

By Paul Ridden

06:17 August 6, 2009 PDT

As technology becomes available to help those wishing to avoid the annoying flash photography of the paparazzi get some payback, researchers Dilip Krishnan and Rob Fergus from New York University have developed a system for taking dazzle-free photos in poor lighting conditions which could result in celebs not even knowing they're being photographed. Named dark light flash photography by its creators, the system uses light waves beyond our visible range and special software and algorithms to produce photos comparable in quality to a long exposure shot. Read More

Sky to launch 3D TV channel in UK next year

By Mick Webb

05:59 August 3, 2009 PDT

With 3D television becoming more than just an excuse to don the ubiquitous red and blue glasses, UK broadcaster Sky is hoping to broaden the appeal and get an early jump on the competition, by announcing plans to launch Europe’s first 3D TV channel. Requiring a "3D ready" television, the channel is due to be available next year as part of the BSkyB subscription service. Read More

If Dali had a supercomputer: amazing supernova rendering

By Darren Quick

23:56 August 2, 2009 PDT

Capturing complex visualizations, such as the above Dali-esque rendering of a supernova, don’t just produce pretty pictures ideal for desktop wallpapers. They also allow scientists to see simulations of complex physical, chemical and biological phenomena. Unfortunately generating the quadrillions of data points required for visualizations of everything from supernovas to protein structures is quickly overwhelming current computing capabilities. So scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are exploring ways to speed up the process using a technique called software-based parallel volume rendering. Read More

Logitech backs Vid software release with seven new webcams

By Mick Webb

19:03 August 1, 2009 PDT

Logitech recently launched its own simplified take on video chat software called Logitech Vid - and now there's a raft of new hardware to bundle it with. The company has announced a new series of – count ‘em – seven webcams, ranging from your standard fare to the flagship Pro 9000 model featuring Carl Zeiss optics and 16x9 widescreen video at 720p. Read More

Canon announces new Hybrid Image Stablization technology

By Jeff Salton

01:41 July 23, 2009 PDT

Canon has developed optical image stabilization technology that compensates for angle camera shake and shift camera shake. The Hybrid Image Stabilizer (IS) technology will be incorporated in interchangeable single lens reflex (SLR) camera lens planned for commercial release before the end of 2009. The company says this is the first lens of its kind to incorporate technology that addresses both types of camera shake. Read More

Vikuiti Rear Projection Film turns shop windows into very big screen TVs

By Darren Quick

01:31 July 13, 2009 PDT

Taking a stroll through your average city shopping precinct will see you bombarded with a plethora of advertising messages. Making their particular message cut through the visual noise can be a tough prospect for advertisers and plain old billboards and static signs just don’t seem to cut the mustard anymore. Those looking to grab people’s attention might want to take a look at 3M’s Vikuiti Rear Projection Film, which can be laminated onto transparent glass or plastic to act as an eye-catching rear projection screen. Read More

MIT’s ‘flexible camera’ replaces lens with fiber web

By Alan Brandon

23:40 July 8, 2009 PDT

Imagine that instead of carrying a camera in your jacket pocket, your entire jacket was the camera. That is the promise of a new type of light-detecting fibers developed by researchers at MIT. The team from the Institute's Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) has developed light-detecting fibers that, when woven into a web, act as a flexible “camera”. Fabric made from these fibers could be joined to a computer to create a large, foldable telescope or made into a soldier’s uniform to provide greater situational awareness. Read More

Carl Zeiss launches new MERLIN electron microscope

By Stephen Saunders

19:29 July 5, 2009 PDT

Like the wizard from the King Arthur legend, the new MERLIN electron microscope has a few tricks up its sleeve. The new Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope, more conveniently described as a FESEM, from Carl Zeiss SMT AG is designed to overcome the standard trade-offs between image resolution and the analytical capability. Read More

Video perfection tool catches up with TV cop technology

By Darren Quick

03:39 July 3, 2009 PDT

Anyone who has watched CSI or any of the Law & Order franchises has no doubt witnessed a well groomed police technician magically clean up fuzzy security camera vision, thereby providing the detectives with the vital number plate or the face of a criminal at the push of a button. The truth is, of course, far removed from such TV fantasy – at least it has been until now. A new video “perfection tool” developed by researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) helps investigators enhance raw video images to improve the quality at which the images were originally recorded. Read More

Researchers create acoustic metamaterial ‘superlens’

By Jeff Salton

04:48 July 1, 2009 PDT

A team at the University of Illinois, Chicago, has developed the world’s first acoustic ‘super lens’. It is proposed that this innovation could be used for high-resolution ultrasound imaging, non-destructive structural testing of buildings and bridges, and underwater stealth technology or "acoustic cloaking". Read More

Early detection of Alzheimer’s disease using x-rays

By Darren Quick

22:42 June 21, 2009 PDT

A highly detailed x-ray imaging technique previously been used to examine tumors in breast tissue and cartilage in knee and ankle joints could used for early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory are the first to test the technique’s ability to visualize a class of minuscule plaques that are a hallmark feature of Alzheimer’s disease. Read More