Hasta La Gadget!

Steve Jobs wants to launch that Mac App Store soon. Really, really soon. How soon? Like yesterday soon. Apparently Apple’s head honcho had hoped to have the new store launched by now, having told developers to have their app ready by now.

“That obviously didn’t happen, ” writes Apple Tell, “but Apple appears to be way ahead of schedule on the Mac App Store nonetheless, and looks to take advantage of the Christmas rush.”

An “inside source” told the site that the company is now looking to launch the service a week from today, hitting that ever-precious holiday buying rush, making the purchase of a shiny new Mac all the sweeter. Jobs first announced the new store back in October, giving the company 90 days to launch the service, making the deadline late January.

Apple is also said to be holding a press conference in the coming weeks to discuss publication distribution for the iPad (including a rumored appearance by Rupert Murdoch). Perhaps the company is looking to combine both announcements into a single event.

Digi-Muckrakers WikiLeaks rocked the global power broker community by exposing the Mean Girls world of international diplomacy. Aside from sometimes less than flattering performance reviews of world leaders, is it possible that WikiLeaks also uncovered intel that is far more out of this world? Head WikiLeaker Julian Assange seemed to hint at just that in a recent reader-submitted Q+A with The Guardian.

When asked if WikiLeaks had ever uncovered any documents regarding UFOs or extraterrestrials Assange answered:

Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were
the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over
a pot-plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our
publishing rules.
1) that the documents not be self-authored;
2) that they be original.
However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.

Intriguing. However, I wouldn’t hold my breath for some kind of E.T. bombshell to come out of Cablegate for three reasons:

1) Assange only makes reference to “UFOs,” which, of course, refers to any airborne object that has yet to be identified. The term is used to refer to unknown objects that were later determined to be errant planes, meteors, or even balloons. There’s nothing surprising about government documents mentioning UFOs without it referring to anything sci-fi-tacular.

2) I can’t imagine Assange or anyone at WikiLeaks would be able to keep from putting a bombshell regarding visiting extraterrestrial life front and center.

3) Of the quarter million files included in Cablegate, they’ve all been “unclassified” or “secret.” There were no “top secret” files included. And from what I can tell so far, these “unclassified” and “secret” cables mostly seem to contain colorful expressions of things that everyone already knows. I imagine all that real-life X-File intel, if it’s anything juicy, is filed under “top secret.”

Just in case you were concerned that the 3D revolution hadn’t yet taken over the scientific research field, EPFL is here to convince you that all is well. Researchers from a pair of EPFL laboratories have recently invented a fly-inspired dome camera that’s not only loaded down with cameras to snag views from (nearly) all angles, but also equipped with an output algorithm that constructs a bona fide 3D image. The trickeration lies within the hardware platform, which calculates depth on each camera image and then reconstructs a 3D visual based on how far away things truly are. That’s a far more sophisticated approach than the stereoscopic one used on existing 3D televisions, as the depth would (theoretically) change as your angle of view changed. There’s an outstanding patent application on the approach, and if the world at large latches on, we could see this thing used for “video surveillance, movie making, and creating backgrounds for video games.” Among other things, of course. A demonstrative vid awaits you just after the break.

Continue reading EPFL’s fly-inspired 3D camera takes omnipresence to the third dimension (video)

EPFL’s fly-inspired 3D camera takes omnipresence to the third dimension (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 09:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Underabove is a two-eyed camera, designed to float twixt air and water and snap photos of both worlds simultaneously. The concept design, shaped much like a pair of conjoined bowling-pins, is weighted with water so it will float in the sea like an iceberg, only with just 50% of its body pulled underwater by the liquid ballast.

The camera, designed by In Kyung Han, has a lens in each end, both of which snap a picture when you trip the shutter or use the self-timer, which is set by a dial around the upper neck. There’s also an LED screen for framing and reviewing pictures, and even a flash for filling shadows or capturing your night-time skinny-dipping. And of course, the whole thing is waterproof.

It’s a fun idea, but a rather specialist, not to mention bulky, solution. How hard is it really to quickly grab a shot above and below the waves with a regular waterproof compact? On the other hand, it is cute, and would make a great bath-toy. Although in that case you might want to switch the camera off first.

For Scenes Above And Below The Sea Level [Yanko. Thanks, Radhika!]

See Also:

• CES 2010: Film Underwater With HD-Camera Scuba Mask – Video – Wired
• Underwater Housing for Lumix GF1 Will Sink to 250-Feet
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• Liquid Image's HD Video Underwater Camera Mask
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Back when I used to spend time in the darkroom, somebody once asked me if they could cancel out their mis-focussed photos by just dialing the enlarger’s lens in the opposite direction. I laughed, but I couldn’t help wishing it was true.

25 years later, it can be done, not in wet darkroom but with your computer. A new Photoshop plugin from Topaz Labs corrects focus-blur, as well as motion-blur caused by camera-shake.

It does this by reverse-engineering the blur, using something called “image deconvolution technology”. This actually correct the blur instead of just increasing edge-sharpness, another technique which makes photos appear sharper, but does nothing to fix them.

There’s a 30-day free trial for the InFocus plugin (the software costs $70 otherwise), so I gave it a quick test drive, with pretty bad results. It seems that every image I tried it with ended up with speckly artifacts all over it. Images with more detail fair better: an out-of-focus portrait doesn’t fare as well as a detailed architectural shot, for instance.

It’s worth a try, and the sample images on the site show that, in practiced hands, it works well. But more important is what it means for digital photography. With imaging tech always improving, otherwise hopeless photos could be saved in the future. You’d better go out and buy another hard-drive to store all the photos you’d otherwise toss out: if you wait long enough, some piece of software will come along and turn it into a masterpiece.

Topaz InFocus product page [Topaz Labs]

See Also:

• Hands-On With Lensbaby Fisheye and Soft-Focus Optics
• Destroy All Photos: Lensbaby Fisheye and Soft Focus Lenses …