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Cloud graphics company, OTOY Inc., today marked a major milestone in the future of media and entertainment, unveiling a holographic video pipeline for content creators, including the world’s first portable 360 holographic capture system and a cloud-based pipeline for creating and deploying holographic media to virtual reality and, in 2015, holographic light field displays. The pipeline enables holographic captures of real world people, objects, and environments, and one-click publishing of interactive holographic videos which are viewable on mobile devices and virtual reality headsets such as the Oculus Rift. Forthcoming next-generation light field displays being developed by OTOY will bring commercial freestanding volumetric holographic displays to market in 2015.
Today, Microsoft will not only lift the veil from its secret server designs. It will “open source” these designs, sharing them with the world at large so that other online outfits can use them inside their own data centers.
A smartphone with two screens - one of which uses e-ink technology and is "always on" - has been launched. The Russian company Yota said the phone would go on sale online immediately in Russia, Austria, France, Spain and Germany. The Android-powered phone promises to extend battery life by transferring web pages and other applications to the e-ink screen. Experts said it may prove attractive to users fed up with drained batteries. The phone has one LCD display, similar to those found on other smartphones, and a second e-ink screen which the company says lets users see the information they want without having to wake up the phone.
Going where few password crackers have gone before, a team of security consultants has deployed a cracking-optimized computer that's completely submerged in mineral oil. Members say the setup offers significant cost savings compared with the same machine that uses air to stay cool. The rig contains two AMD Radeon 6990 graphics cards, long considered a workhorse for password crackers. While the parallel processing in just one of these $800 cards can make as many as 9 billion password guesses each second (see PC3 in the graph at the bottom of this page), the performance comes at a price. GPUs run extremely hot, particularly when combined with other graphics cards, which drives up the cost of keeping them cool enough to run without burning out. The dedicated fans normally used to keep them cool also generate plenty of noise.
Today at NAB in Las Vegas Sony unveiled the world’s first 4K Media Player and a video distribution service. With a name only Sony could love, the FMP-X1 will be available this summer bundled with 10 feature films and video shorts in true 4K resolution for $699. In the fall of 2013, users of the same 4K Media Player will be given access to a fee-based video distribution service offering a library of 4K titles from Sony Pictures Entertainment and other notable production houses. The feature films included with purchase of the 4K Media Player are Bad Teacher, Battle: Los Angeles, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Karate Kid (2010), Salt, Taxi Driver, That’s My Boy, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Other Guys and Total Recall (2012).
While 4K TV has it’s detractors, more pixels are never a bad thing. When paired with a 4K display, Sony’s new media player will deliver HDTV that is four times clearer then 1080p.
The number of technologies that are creating disruptions to companies and ecosystems are increasing at an alarming rate. Even though Altimeter rated the technologies that matter from last week’s SXSW, we see even more technologies emerging on the heels of mobile world congress, and CES. Expect even more technologies to emerge, radically altering the power shift of those who use these technologies to gain power over existing institutions.
Meet Google’s “talking shoe,” which aims to translate movement data in witty messages to users and their friends. The concept apparel, showcased at the search giant’s swanky SXSW Interactive headquarters, is part of a new arts project - ”Art, Copy, Code” – which aims to breathe a social, life-like experience into everyday objects. “If standing still was a sport, you’d be world champion,” the trash-talking shoe projects on a monitor hanging over a rainbow-colored obstacle course after it senses I’ve been standing still. At a distance, users seem a tad pathetic trying to trigger positive feedback from the shoe. But when I strapped it on, I felt oddly compelled to impress my new automated coach. Combining coaching (even robotic coaching) made lifeless data unexpectedly motivational. Essentially, it’s Richards Simmons in a shoe.
Fujitsu Laboratories Limited today announced the development of a new data transfer protocol that, by taking a software-only approach, can significantly improve the performance of file transfers, virtual desktops and other various communications applications. Conventionally, when using transmission control protocol (TCP)(1)—the standard protocol employed in communications applications—in a low-quality communications environment, such as when connected to a wireless network or during times of line congestion, data loss (packet loss) can occur, leading to significant drops in transmission performance due to increased latency from having to retransmit data. To address this problem, Fujitsu Laboratories has succeeded at a software-only approach, developing: 1) A new protocol that incorporates an efficient proprietarily developed retransmission method based on user datagram protocol (UDP)(2), an optimized way to deliver streaming media able to reduce latency resulting from data retransmission when packet loss occurs; 2) Control technology that addresses the problem of UDP transmissions consuming excess bandwidth by performing a real-time measurement of available network bandwidth and securing an optimal amount of communications bandwidth without overwhelming TCP's share of the bandwidth; and 3) Technology that, by employing the new protocol, makes it possible to easily speed up existing TCP applications without having to modify them.
Suite à la publication de notre article sur le laser MegaJoule, des lecteurs nous ont réclamé des précisions sur le concept de Z-Machine. Nous avons demandé à Jean-Pierre PETIT, ancien directeur de recherche au CNRS, de nous présenter cette troisième voie en matière de fusion nucléaire…
Almost exactly a year ago, upon these parched steppes of Nevada we know as Las Vegas, Vizio told us it was keen to get into the 4K TV market, but the timing wasn't right quite yet. Vizio asked for a year's worth of patience and, atypically for an electronics company, it's back at CES with the delivery of its 4K promise.
Ever wondered how you can watch 3D content on a 2D set? Dr Geoff Ogram explains ‘freeviewing’ and the difference between cross eye and parallel viewing. Do you remember those Magic Eye pictures? By adjusting the way you looked at the specially encoded pictures, a 3D image would emerge. It is a way of seeinmg a 3D image on a regular 2D medium without having to wear glasses. When viewing 3D video on YouTube, one of the options is no-glasses where the viewer can switch between cross-eyed and parallel to see a 3D effect without glasses using the similar viewing method to Magic Eye.
Voici un petit avant-goût des démos cette semaine de France Télévisions à la conférence LeWeb, où nous serons présents pour la 3ème année consécutive. Cette fois en tentant d'imaginer le salon d’un appartement ou d’une maison d’un geek, bien sûr connecté !
1- Vous avez perdu votre télécommande ? Utilisez votre table basse !
2 – Vous aimez le Wi-Fi, vous adorerez le Li-Fi !
3 – Pluzz, désormais aussi sur Windows 8
4 – SALTO sur TV connectée : ne ratez plus le début des émissions !
5 - La télévision en Ultra Haute Définition : nos premières images en 4K !
6 - La TV interagit vers des objets connectés !
7 - Vos objets connectés interagissent vers votre TV
8 - Design numérique & décoration : papier peint augmenté, cadre photo et éclairage mural connectés
9 - Les news de France TV Info dans la voiture connectée.
This paper describes the aims and concepts of the FP7 RE@CT project. Building upon the latest advances in 3D capture and free-viewpoint video RE@CT aims to revolutionise the production of realistic characters and significantly reduce costs by developing an automated process to extract and represent animated characters from actor performance capture in a multiple camera studio. The key innovation is the development of methods for analysis and representation of 3D video to allow reuse for real-time interactive animation. This will enable efficient authoring of interactive characters with video quality appearance and motion. This paper was presented at the NEM Summit, Istanbul, 16-18th October 2012. The slides shown during the presentation are included as an appendix.
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Kinoma Create is the JavaScript-powered construction kit for makers, professional product designers, and web developers with no prior hardware experience.
With Kinoma Create, you can create personal projects, consumer electronics, and Internet of Things prototypes more quickly and easily than ever before.
It's designed to be the fastest way to go from a product concept to a fully realized, Internet-connected prototype.
Bare boards like Arduino and Raspberry Pi are amazing for their audience — we love these products and all the wonderful projects they have inspired. Kinoma Create was designed to enable a broader audience to join the party. It lets you make all the same sorts of things, but helps you skip the tedious and difficult details to get straight to the fun stuff.
Why is Kinoma Create especially good at prototyping smart consumer electronics and Internet of Things devices? Because they share the need to talk to other devices, phones, and tablets, to connect to sensors in order to interact with their environment, and to talk with web services. And Kinoma Create makes all of that simple.
Teaching children the basics of computer science isn’t as simple as teaching them to tie their shoes. How often do you see a parent sitting down with their kids, walking them through a line of code or pointing out the components of a motherboard? Probably never. Because kids think it’s boring. And parents think it’s hard. Today, children grow up surrounded by shiny objects that look and act like magic. There are screens that respond to touch and computers that can do just about anything a five-year-old can dream up. But even though kids have been immersed in technology since birth, it’s rare for them to actually know how it works.
Stanford researchers say new materials could help lower the cost of producing fuel with solar energy. By making a solar photovoltaic material more resilient, researchers may have found a way to make artificial photosynthesis—that is, using sunlight to make fuel—cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels.
There will be a special attraction for deaf people in theaters nationwide soon. By the end of this month, Regal Cinemas plans to have distributed closed-captioning glasses to more than 6,000 theaters across the country. Sony Entertainment Access Glasses are sort of like 3-D glasses, but for captioning. The captions are projected onto the glasses and appear to float about 10 feet in front of the user. They also come with audio tracks that describe the action on the screen for blind people, or they can boost the audio levels of the movie for those who are hard of hearing. This is a big moment for the deaf, many of whom haven't been to the movies in a long time. Captioned screenings are few and far between, and current personal captioning devices that fit inside a cup holder with a screen attached are bulky, display the text out of their line of vision to the screen, and distract the other patrons.
Researchers at IBM have assembled 10,000 carbon nanotube transistors on a silicon chip. With silicon transistors approaching fundamental limits to continued miniaturization, theIBM work points toward a possible new way of continuing to produce smaller, faster, more efficient computers. Earlier work by IBM showed that nanotube transistors could run chips three times faster than silicon transistors while using only a third as much power. And at just two nanometers in diameter, the nanotubes—carbon molecules resembling rolled-up chicken wire—are so small that chip makers could theoretically cram far more transistors on a chip than is possible with silicon technology. But controlling the nanotubes’ placement in arrays numerous enough to be useful—ultimately, billions of transistors—is a major research challenge.
While scientists race to develop a technology, probably nuclear-based, that can slake our energy thirst without a huge environmental cost, it would be folly to wait that long to tackle carbon emissions.
The frosted-glass doors on the 11th floor of Google’s NYC headquarters part and a woman steps forward to greet me. This is an otherwise normal specimen of humanity. Normal height, slender build; her eyes are bright, inquisitive. She leans in to shake my hand and at that moment I become acutely aware of the device she’s wearing in the place you would expect eyeglasses: a thin strip of aluminum and plastic with a strange, prismatic lens just below her brow. Google Glass.
CES 2013 is officially concluded. With over 150,000 people in attendance and almost 2 million square feet of exhibit space, the CEA has stated that it was their largest convention since its founding over 45 years ago. I journeyed to Sin City to get an up-close look at the Ultra HD offerings from some of the biggest display manufacturers in the world, including Sharp, LG, Samsung, ViewSonic, Toshiba, Sony, Westinghouse, and Vizio. I will share my impressions of each in a few moments. There appears to be plenty of cynicism regarding the future of Ultra High Definition technology. Many believe that price, lack of content, insufficient bandwidth, and enormous screen size will inevitably lead to its failure. While some of these limitations are apparent, one cannot simply dismiss the adoption of new technology because it sounds impossible or impractical. Technology is always evolving, and sometimes rapid changes in infrastructure allow for further adoption of new technology. Remember the incredible doubt when flat panel TV’s first debuted? These display companies know that their Ultra HD products are very expensive, and many of them intend to bring manufacturing costs down over the next few years. So why should we doubt progression? Ok, moving on to the summary…
Here at CES, every TV maker is showing off massive 4K "Ultra HD" TV sets. The high prices for this first wave of 4K TVs—Sony's 84-inch set is a cool $25,000, for instance—are going to make them strictly an early-adopter luxury for now. But digital cinema camera maker RED has the first consumer-ready solution for native 4K playback, perhaps solving the chicken-and-egg problem that threatened to plague adoption of 4K as a home entertainment standard.
The annual glimpse into the future of consumer technology. 2013 in all its glory, glistening white and chrome. Covered, perhaps, with a thin layer of Gorilla Glass. Banks of HDTVs seemingly mounted in the sky like a Matrix fever dream, following you through the packed halls. Hundreds of thousands of bodies pack into a convention center in the desert in an artificial city built for human pleasure. Yes, it’s the Consumer Electronics Show, still the world’s biggest, and it kicks off in just a few days. The Verge is heading out to Las Vegas in full editorial and video force to bring you the most in-depth coverage of the show, the city, and the culture behind world of tech that you’ll find anywhere. What’s on tap for CES 2013? Read on!
Roll it up. Drop it. Squish it in your backpack. Step on it - without any damage.
Researchers are working on just such handsets - razor-thin, paper-like and bendable.
There have already been prototypes, attracting crowds at gadget shows.
But rumours abound that next year will see the launch of the first bendy phone. Numerous companies are working on the technology - LG, Philips, Sharp, Sony and Nokia among them - although reports suggest that South Korean phone manufacturer Samsung will be the first to deliver.
A new trick could reduce the energy needed for many industrial processes and make solar thermal energy much cheaper. Steam is a key ingredient in a wide range of industrial and commercial processes—including electricity generation, water purification, alcohol distillation, and medical equipment sterilization. Generating that steam, however, typically requires vast amounts of energy to heat and eventually boil water or another fluid. Now researchers at Rice University have found a shortcut. Using light-absorbing nanoparticles suspended in water, the group was able to turn the water molecules surrounding the nanoparticles into steam while scarcely raising the temperature of the remaining water. The trick could dramatically reduce the cost of many steam-reliant processes.
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