Hasta La Gadget!

If you don’t like the options for 3-D content, go out and make some of your own.

That’ll be an increasingly practical option in 2011, thanks to a handful of new 3-D consumer cameras and camcorders.

Previously, you had to be a pretty serious stereophotography enthusiast to make 3-D images or video. The technical requirements for making 3-D photos have gotten lower (in the simplest setup, all you need to do is take a photo with your camera, then move it a few inches to one side and take another).

Photo- and video-editing software like Roxio now has built-in tools for making 2-D imagery into 3-D synthetically, or for fusing together two images into a single stereogram. YouTube offers tools for creating 3-D videos, and Flickr has forums dedicated to sharing stereo photos.

But it’s all going to get even easier with the advent of cheap cameras with dual lenses that can capture 3-D images on the fly. In 2011, we’ll see Sony’s 3-D Handycam and 3-D Bloggie, five cameras and various 3-D lenses for still cameras from Panasonic, a 3-D Fujifilm camera, and even a 3-D camera from Polaroid.

In this short video, I take a look at some of these technologies on the tradeshow floor of CES.

Because if you have no interest in watching Avatar again, you might still want to look at 3-D photos of your vacation to Paris.

RIM’s mythical BlackBerry Storm 3 is one of those products that shows up every few months with just enough new information to have you believing that it’s real and it’s eventually coming before slithering back into the night, going totally radio-silent for another month or two. We’ve no doubt that the phone is real at this point, but considering the lukewarm reception the Storm 2 got, we’re surprised RIM hasn’t pushed harder to get the updated device to market — only thing we can figure is that the carrier partners keep sending it back for tweaks. Speaking of tweaks, BGR says that we can expect a phone with a 1.2GHz processor (same as the alleged Torch 2) along with a 3.7-inch WVGA display, 5 megapixel camera, dual-band WiFi with UMA support, mobile hotspot capability, and BlackBerry OS 6.1. Word has it there will be at least two versions released around the globe — codenamed Monaca and Monza — and it’s on track for a September release. That’s all well and good, though these specs aren’t going to blow anyone away as we approach Q4 ’11.

BlackBerry Storm 3 shows up again, tracking for September launch? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 12:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Keith Sharp is the 55-year-old mayor of a city in eastern England. He’s been a health adviser for the past decade and a half. He’s spent $3,000 on a 3D HD TV and $175 on 3D glasses. All the guy wanted to do was rent a copy of Piranha 3D and spend a quiet, bloodsplattered night at home.

An employee at the local Blockbuster video thought otherwise, telling Sharp that he couldn’t rent the film. The ailing movie rental chain has a policy against renting out 3D, offer hygiene concerns. Apparently the policy was misinterpreted by an employee, who thought it extended to 3D films (why the store would carry a bunch of movies it couldn’t rent is beyond us, of course), barring Sharp from going home with the comedy-horror flick.

“It’s absolutely stupid,” Sharp said, apparently distraught by the whole run in. “It’s one of those over-the-top health and safety issues I’m sick and tired of. Things like renting a DVD should be common sense. I’ve come across idiotic health and safety people in my time, and this is up there with the worst of them.”

Blockbuster apologized for the apparent mix up, telling the press, “Staff have been trained on our strategy-but unfortunately, in this case, they provided the wrong information to the customer.”

The Nissan Leaf may be dishing out achievements to hypermilers and wowing moms, but it’s also proving something of a disappointment to the thousands of people still stuck on the waiting list. Nissan blew through its 20,000 pre-orders and is pledging to get 25,000 cars on US roads by the end of next year, but right now that number is rather more modest: just 19 delivered. In Detroit this week PluginCars chatted with Brian Carolin, Nissan’s Senior VP of Sales, who indicates: “In hindsight, maybe we could have lowered expectations a little bit more.” He does, however, dispel the myth that the cars had to be held back due to some wiring issues. How long until we can all stop fretting? “I think in five to six months time this will be kind of behind us,” he says, which is actually quite a long ways away if you’re really pining for your first EV.

Nissan responds to Leaf launch disappointments, set expectations too high originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Virginia doesn’t want its teachers to be friends with students–not on Facebook. The state’s public school system is voting on a new rule titled “Proposed Guidelines for the
Prevention of Sexual Misconduct & Abuse in Virginia Public Schools,” which would ban extra curricular communication between students and teachers, including texting and Facebook friending.

According to the proposed rule, communication between students and teachers would be restricted specifically to school sanctioned communication platforms. Communication via texting and “personal online social-networking sites” is banned altogether. Teachers “must decline or disregard invitations from students” to join social networks.

If the teacher has to contact a student through one of these methods in the case of an emergency, all communication must be reported to a school supervisor. Online gaming with students is also out of the question, under these new rules.