woensdag 28 oktober 2009

nice large (42") multitouch screen and affordable

Great to see a review of a 42" screen on a site dedicated to mobile computing. But basically I don't care where it comes from, as long as it is interesting technology and this might help in the implementation of multitouch in the enterprise since price still is an issue in companies.

Hands on with the 42in Albatron Optical Touch Monitor

We've managed to get some hands on time with Albatron's recently announced 42-inch Optical Touch Monitor, or OTM for short and as the name suggests, this display is using a new type of touch screen technology. We shot a short video of it being demonstrated which you can watch after the break.

The display works by having a pair of CMOS cameras installed in each of the top corners, as well as reflectors fitted to the sides and bottom of the screen. The cameras are used to "sense" where your finger is, although you can use pretty much anything as long as the diameter isn't too small, so the back of a pencil would work well instead of your finger if you're afraid of smudges.

The sensor and reflectors are mounted onto a tempered glass panel that sits on top of the LCD panel and as such acts as protection for the LCD panel, although it should be possible to implement this technology without the glass panel in say a notebook. A small controller board is then attached and this is in turn interfaced with the computer via a USB connector.

It's a very simple, yet elegant solutions that works very well and it does of course support both multi-touch and gestures. The OTM is Windows 7 compatible and although the 42-inch models is not priced with consumers in mind, Albatron is offering a 21.5-inch model with 1,920x1,080 resolution for a retail price of about $450 (€304) in selected markets.

We were also told by Albatron that the cost of implementing this technology doesn't increase much by going to a larger screen size which is one of the major selling points of this technology, unlike most touch screen technology which gets exponentially more expensive as the screen size gets bigger. We're hoping that this might just be the future of touch screen technology and Albatron is expecting to license this technology to other display manufacturers, so we might see this from some more familiar brands in the near future.


maandag 26 oktober 2009

High-Tech Glasses Beam Info Directly Onto Your Retinas

ok we have augemented reality. we have got head up displays but this might be the next cool trick. Your own personal augmented reality layer projected about 1 meter in front of you. The only thing is that they need to work on the design thing. Now it's nerds only but would be great to have this available in a fashionable way

Retinal Viewing Do you see what I see ... of course not Brother Industries

Office workers may never have to worry again about viewing hilarious but NSFW images surreptitiously. A pair of glasses developed by Brother Industries can project images or documents directly onto a wearer's retinas.

The Retinal Imaging Display technology displays a small image 10 centimeters wide that appears to float about 1 meter (3.3 ft) in front of a user's eye. Images have an 800x600 resolution and refresh at 60Hz.

Through the Glasses: A conceptual image of the view through the new specs Brother Industries

Each pair of glasses holds an optical scanner, eyepiece and a light source that also contains a tiny power box. Brother Industries derived its application from laser printing technology, as well as piezoelectric technologies based on inkjet printing.

Similar technologies have tried embedding heads-up displays within the lens of glasses. Other heads-up displays have gone for more specific applications, such as giving drivers a safer experience on the road.

The company has yet to announce how much the specs will cost when it commercializes them next year. But reading those operation manuals hands-free at your desk never sounded so exciting. Those are operation manuals, right?

[via Register Hardware]

maandag 19 oktober 2009

future skill levels

When it comes to education in Holland we definately see some issues with the good old craftsmen. They are not skilled enough. I realize there will always be a need for specialists in all areas (even in car mechanics) but we might need less according to this BMW video. The real specilised troubleshooter will end up more well payd I guess but the regular mechanics will not need to much except for this pair off glasses

3D projection and pico projectors

When reading the article below you start understanding the great importance of small projectors. If you want to create a 3D screen )where you do not need those funny glasses' and want it to be viewable by many angles you need a lot of projectors and to have this in a house pico projectors would help a lot making it small enough.


Oct 14, 2009 13:35 Tetsuo Nozawa, Nikkei Electronics

Hitachi Ltd exhibited its 10-inch "Full Parallax 3D TV" at CEATEC 2009. It does not require special glasses, can be watched from any direction and has a resolution of 3D image as high as VGA (640 x 480 pixels), according to the company.

The Full Parallax 3D TV is based on a method called "Integral Photography with Overlaid Projection." Specifically, it consists of 16 projectors and a lens array sheet to cover them. The lens array sheet ensures parallax in any direction (not only in the horizontal direction). Because of parallax, the 3D image seen by the user differs in accordance with the angle from which the screen is viewed.

Aiming to exceed limit of pixel count

In general, the total pixel count of a 3D display that does not require special glasses is equal to the pixel count of 3D image multiplied by the number of viewpoints that show different images. In other words, there is a trade-off between the number of viewpoints and the resolution of 3D image.

If the number of viewpoints is focused too much, the resolution of 3D image deteriorates. But it is not easy to increase the total pixel count of a display. For example, the Science & Technical Research Laboratories (STRL) of Japan Broadcasting Corp (NHK) is now developing a 3D display using the "Ultra-high Definition TV" with a resolution of 7,680 x 4,320 (approximately 33 Mpixels) but seems having a hard time to achieve a high resolution.

Hitachi aims to go over the limit of total pixel count by using multiple projectors, each of which has a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels (SVGA). So, a display using 16 projectors has a resolution of 7.68 Mpixels, which is equivalent to 4K x 2K resolution. Considering its small size (10 inches), the new 3D display is much finer than a normal 4K x 2K display.

"We will be able to arrange projectors in a higher density by employing laser-based micro-projectors and increase the number of projectors by more than 10 times," Hitachi said.

Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) also employed the method of increasing the total pixel count by using projectors and exhibited a 3D display that does not require special glasses at CEATEC in two consecutive years. But NICT utilizes projectors to increase the pixel count only in the horizontal direction.

vrijdag 16 oktober 2009

Paper-thin speaker collects tech gong - a new dimension in audio books

14 October 2009

A paper-thin speaker technology was recently honoured at the Wall Street Journal’s global Technology Innovation awards. At the ceremony on October 13, 2009 Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute scooped an award for its fleXpeaker concept that is set to revolutionise sound in industries from digital signage to automotive. According to the Wall Street Journal, ITRI is considering options, including licensing or the creation of a new company, to bring the product to market.

ITRI paper-thin flexible loudspeaker (fleXpeaker)
ITRI paper-thin flexible loudspeaker (fleXpeaker)

InAVate first reported on the technology back in April. Back then, although it was a relatively unknown product, researchers were confidently claiming the product would be used for in-car audio in 2010. The prestigious award should contribute to putting the product firmly on the map, escalating the likelihood that we will see fleXspeaker out in the market over the next year.



The technology project, supported by Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs saw of competition from 500 competitors to snatch the award that recognises its efforts in research and development.



The Wall Street Journal commented: “Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute, or ITRI, won in the consumer-electronics category for its work developing a paper-thin, flexible speaker. Researchers at ITRI, devised a way to create arrays of tiny speakers that can be combined to produce high-fidelity speaker systems of almost any size. Because the fleXpeaker is lightweight and consumes little power, it could be attractive for use in cellphones or in car sound systems. Other possible applications include giant banners that could be used to deliver public-service announcements in train stations or advertising messages in shopping malls. ITRI is seeking to license the technology or create a spin-off company to commercialise the product.”



ITRI president Dr Johnsee Lee explained: “ITRI commenced with R&D of the paper-thin flexible loudspeaker in 2006 through the team led by General Director Dr Yi-Jen Chan in Electronic & Optoelectronic Research Laboratories. Presently, ITRI has applied for 45 global patents for its 17 projects. Applications for this technology are rather extensive and with enormous industry potential. Aside from currently using in family stereo automobile hi-fi equipment, it can also be used in earphone or for industrial anti-noise purpose. The papers of this technology have been published at the largest display exhibition in the world—the US Display Consortium (USDC), the Society For Information Display (SID), and also adopted by the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America in 2009.”



The paper-thin flexible loudspeaker utilises paper and metal layers and is produced with a printing technique. Aside from upgrading traditional speaker industry, it can be integrated into energy-saving buildings, electric vehicles, and will be suited to entertainment and medical applications.

donderdag 15 oktober 2009

So you think you've got a large screen:)

Well there is large and building size large

Switched On: Microsoft's touchy subjects

Just an ordinary copy of an engadget post but one I clearly like
Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
As CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates would often talk about his dream of "information at your fingertips." The company he co-founded, though, is now taking literal steps toward that goal. By the end of the month, Microsoft will have released three new devices or platforms that embrace or extend touchscreen support -- but the impact touch will have on each varies significantly by their legacy, usage, and manufacturers.

Windows has long had touchscreen support. Such support, in fact, was the basis of the Tablet Edition of Windows XP, and Tablet PCs were proclaimed to be the future of notebooks. Early iterations were larger and thicker keyboard-lacking slates much like the new Archos 9pctablet. But this was before rampant Web browsing, streaming video, casual games and electronic books -- all of which now provide relevance for a new generation of touchscreen PCs as content-consumption devices.

Combined with the low prices and sleeker form factors of today's netbook and CULV platforms, we'll soon see PC companies rolling out consumer touchscreen PCs both with and without keyboards. Unlike Tablet PCs of old, they'll be finger-friendly, but Windows itself won't look very different despite its support of touch -- very few manufacturers are investing in distinct interfaces that really take advantage of the plumbing.

Like the Windows on the desktop, the history of touch-enabled mobile devices from Microsoft runs deep, with the earliest Windows CE-based PDAs supporting stylus input. Since the advent of the iPhone, though, many Windows Mobile vendors have added finger-friendly user interface layers to their phones, and with Windows Mobile 6.5 Microsoft has brought its own spin across the platform with easier targets for controls and a revamped stepped grid app launcher. This brings Windows Mobile a bit closer to platforms that have embraced touch at their core like Android and webOS.

It's hard to deny Windows Mobile 6.5 represents a refinement of what has essentially been a touch platform from the beginning.

However, the nature of Windows Mobile licensing and the competitive smartphone market means that many Windows phone users will hardly see the results of Microsoft's touch rehash -- HTC, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and others all bring their own user interface layers to their handsets. Indeed, promising handsets such as HTC's HD2 will bring Windows Mobile to a new level of user experience by combining a large, capacitive touchscreen with a fast processor, but the primary interface is HTC's Sense, not Windows Mobile. Regardless, it's hard to deny Windows Mobile 6.5 represents a refinement of what has essentially been a touch platform from the beginning.

Finally, there is the Zune HD, Microsoft's answer to the iPod touch that represents a marked contrast from Apple's most advanced iPod. While both devices use a multitouch screen and employ similar gestures for browsing Web pages and photos, The Zune HD shows Microsoft's thinking about a limited functionality device. As opposed to iPod touch screens filled with icons and button controls, most screens on the Zune are represented by miniature previews of themselves. The result is a richer representation that blurs boundaries of modality at the cost of some screen clutter.

The Zune HD's touch interface is not just an engaging touch interface in its own right, but one of the best examples of how a non-touch user interface can be transformed into a touch-centric one with few compromises. Unfortunately, given Microsoft's low market share and limited distribution, far fewer will experience one of Microsoft's best user interfaces -- most will instead experience the quiet touch overlay of Windows 7 or the largely buried one of Windows Mobile. Zune HD user interface concepts may be seeds that will grow into a major makeover for Windows 7, but there will need to be accommodations to meet the requirements of a wider range of hardware running a wider array of software.


Ross Rubin is director of industry analysis for consumer technology at market research and analysis firm The NPD Group. Views expressed in Switched On are his own.

dinsdag 13 oktober 2009

KDDI Augmented Reality Meets Twitter!

Augmented reality on a mobile phone isn't new, but KDDI has a very nice setup using a phones internal GPS + camera and Twitter. I'm sure you're aware of what augmented reality is like on a phone… Just in case, let’s say that thanks to your phone scamera you can see additional information on top of real settings… Imagine you're watching a street via your mobile phone's camera, some virtual information or ads pop-up on specific details. Now with the usage of a GPS and Twitter, KDDI allows you to see virtual Twitts on top of real sceneries. Imagine that you're walking down a street and people who walked the same street a couple of day priorl Twitted some points of Interest (photo, text and GPS location) you can immediately see them… Ideally, and if many people do this, you could walk on any street in the world and get additional information or must see POIs from other Twitter users…

donderdag 8 oktober 2009

3D film for mobile displayes...........no glasses needed

Film specialist 3M has come up with a new optical film that lets you ditch the glasses when viewing stereoscopic 3D images on mobile devices. The 3D optical film goes into the gadget's back light unit and uses two alternate rows of LED lights to project left and right images sequentially into the viewer's eyes. As the sequential images are focused on the individual eye, the technology eliminates the need for 3D glasses to block the picture for the other eye.

According to Erik Jostes, LCD business director of 3M's Optical Systems Division, it does so without sacrificing screen brightness or resolution.

"This technology can switch from 3D mode to 2D mode and back and you don't make compromises on the original display," he said.

3M's technology works on displays up to 9 inches, and the company envisions it primarily for games and other single-user applications. It requires one LCD panel and operates at a 120Hz refresh rate (most monitors and TVs display video at 60Hz, but to watch video in 3D, the video must be displayed at 120Hz, since each side of the screen creates two perspectives for each frame).

Since installation of the 3D film is almost identical to that of film stacks on existing systems, 3M says it can be easily integrated into the display's back light module at the assembly stage. The film--which will be on display at the Korea Electronics Show next week--is currently appearing in one mobile device in Asia, according to Jostes, though he wouldn't disclose which.

how long to wait before you've got an office like this

Microsoft Research is doing some nice stuff and this is the new office according to them. Just check the video and you be asking for this. At least I love to have one like this

vrijdag 2 oktober 2009

I've got W7, a multitouch screen and then...........

Then there is Bumptop. Just what you need to actually start using your multi touch screen productively in the office or at home. Look at this and watch the video. I grabbed the info of their sire but they have some impressive kuddos

A while back, we gave you a sneak preview of some of the new multi-touch features we were hard at work on this summer. I showed off our basic gestures, but mentioned that we’re a few really cool gestures that I couldn’t tell you about yet. Well, I’m happy to say that I can finally talk about them. Today, we’re announcing BumpTop 1.2, which contains some awesome new multi-touch features for Windows 7.

Check it all out in the video, or read on for more details. You can also check out our full gesture guide.

Pan and Zoom

As you’d expect with any multi-touch application, BumpTop uses multi-touch gestures to pan and zoom. Dragging with two fingers on the desktop will pan the view around your desktop. Spreading two fingers apart on the desktop zooms in, and pinching the fingers together zooms out. You can also the spread/pinch gestures on individual items to grow and shrink them. Pretty cool, eh?

One of my favourite gestures is two-finger tap: when objects are selected, tapping with two fingers zooms into those objects. A two-finger tap on a photo also takes you into slideshow mode.

Wall Focus, Rotate

Multi-touch Gesture: Wall FocusMulti-touch Gesture: Rotate

In BumpTop, sometimes it’s helpful to shift your focus to one of the walls to get a better look at items on it. Pulling down with two fingers not he back wall focuses your view on it. Then, you can use the rotate gesture to rotate your view in either direction to focus on the other walls.

Beyond Pan and Zoom

One of the key features of BumpTop is piles. With piles, you can quickly unclutter your desktop by selecting a bunch of items and putting them into a pile, all in one quick step. We’ve got some really innovative gestures to help you work with piles.

BumpTop Scrunch GestureFirst, there are two ways you can create a pile with multi-touch: first, there’s lasso ‘n cross, which is the traditional way of creating a pile in BumpTop. But one of our coolest new multi-touch gestures is scrunch. It’s easiest to describe with a picture (see right).

To pile a bunch of items, just “scrunch” with 3 or more fingers around them. Super useful.

Another helpful gesture when you’re dealing with lots of objects is shove. Just use the side of your finger (pinky or thumb works best) to push items to the side.

Once you’ve got all your items in a pile, we’ve got two helpful gestures for peeking inside it: a quick flick to the left lets you flip through the pile like a deck of cards. Or, you can fan out a pile like a deck of cards by dragging on it with two fingers.

BumpTop Flick GestureBumpTop Fan-out Gesture

One More Thing

One last gesture that we know you’re going to love is the photo crop gesture. When you’re in slideshow mode, touch the photo with one finger, then swipe horizontally or vertically with another finger to crop the photo along that line.

BumpTop Photo-crop Gesture

donderdag 1 oktober 2009

Cisco to acquire Tandberg Networking giant says $US3 billion deal will bolster its collaboration and video portfolio

Cisco is moving deeper into the AV area by taking over Tandberg. They already worked together but now it will become an integrated part of Cisco. After taking over a relative smallplayer called FLIP (from the flip cameras) it's now time for a big fish:)

Cisco has announced its intention to acquire video conferencing and communication vendor, Tandberg.

According to a press statement, Cisco has commenced a cash tender off to purchase all company shares for approximately $US3 billion. The proposal has been unanimously recommended by Tandberg’s board of directors. Norway-based Tandberg is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and has 1500 employees worldwide.

The acquisition is expected to close during the first half of next year but is subject to closing conditions as well as regulatory reviews in the US and elsewhere.

"Cisco and Tandberg have remarkably similar cultures and a shared vision to change the way the world works through collaboration and video communications technologies," Cisco chairman and CEO, John Chambers, said in a statement. "Collaboration is a $US34 billion market and is growing rapidly – enabled by networked Web 2.0 technologies. This acquisition showcases Cisco's financial strength and ability to quickly capture key market transitions for growth."

Cisco said it planned to integrate Tandberg’s video endpoints and network infrastructure solution into its collaboration architecture.

“This will enable intercompany and multi-vendor interoperability and ease of use across the full product portfolio – from desktop to immersive, multi-screen TelePresence. This interoperability will benefit Cisco's customers, but also competitors and partners by accelerating customer interest in video collaboration globally,” Cisco said in a press statement.