A helicopter flyover of a crowded urban city can make for an awesome and dramatic establishing shot in a film. But an expensive one, too, making them impractical for most amateur filmmakers. Or so we assumed until we saw the fantastic flyover footage Paul Wex was able to create using Nokia’s Here mapping service, and a hell of a lot of patience. More »
In 2011, former Sony employee Seijiro Tomita launched a suit against Nintendo, claiming the 3DS infringed on a patent he holds to display 3D visuals without glasses. Today, a federal court in New York decided to award Tomita with $30.2 million in damages for Iwata and Co.’s infringement. The house that Mario built unsuccessfully argued that it didn’t rely on key parts of the patent, and that Tomita was just one of several folks it met with when it was looking into 3D tech in 2003. Nintendo’s pockets are certainly deep enough to handle the sting, but we can’t imagine it’s a welcomed loss with sales forecasts taking dips.
Filed under: Gaming
Source: Reuters
Nintendo’s Flipnote Studio (aka Moving Memo Pad) brought shareable animated sketches to users when the wildly popular free app first launched for the DSi console many moons ago. Now, Nintendo’s brought it up to date for Japanese 3DS users with Flipnote Studio 3D, supporting stereoscopic 3D images with three layers of depth along with six colors. As before, wannabe animators in that country will be able to share their artwork in AVI or GIF formats with friends on the 3DS network at no charge, or post to a larger audience on the Hatena World Flipnote Gallery for a fee. You can check the video after the break for more, but it would help to understand Japanese — or be able to parse YouTube’s inscrutable translation.
Update: We’ve replaced the Japanese YouTube video with a new English version after the break, so all the aforementioned parsing and translating is no longer needed.
Source: Nintendo (YouTube)
Here’s a sneak peak at a few devices Samsung has planned for us. Samsung has been granted 7 new design patents for several smartphones and 3D glasses. Samsung had also recently been granted patents that showed that the Samsung Galaxy S IV will have 3D-capable camera technology integrated into it. The included pictures below show 4 new devices that Samsung plans on releasing, one of which is supposed to be a Windows 8 device.
The design above looks like it could possibly represent an upcoming Windows 8 device. According to Patent Bolt, the design looks like it supports Windows “tile” interface. But for all we know, it could be a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7-inch device. Another design shows what appears to be a Samsung phone that will lack both physical and capacitive buttons. It will instead utilize on-screen buttons like the LG Nexus 4 or the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. In the same picture, there is another Samsung device that looks like it will have 4 physical (or capactive) buttons, giving users who hate on-screen buttons another option to choose from. It looks like it will go for the classic Android approach, and have menu, home, back, and search buttons.
One image seems to represent a Windows Phone 8 device as well. The button layout slightly reminds me of the old T-Mobile HTC HD2. The menu and search button are both grouped up in one bar, while the Home and Back buttons are on their own separate islands. However, Samsung could just be testing out a new design for an Android phone, or maybe it’s one of the upcoming Tizen handsets its planning on releasing this year. In the same picture is Samsung’s new design for its 3D glasses.
Judging from these designs, it looks like Samsung is looking to stray away from the the “home button” design featured on the Samsung Galaxy S III, and Samsung Galaxy Note devices. These phones will all most likely fall under the low-tier to mid-tier categories, because it wouldn’t make sense for Samsung to release high-end devices so quickly after the Samsung Galaxy S IV launches. Once we get the details and specs for these devices, we’ll give you an update.
[via Patent Bolt]
Samsung unveils designs for its new, upcoming devices is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
It would appear that Samsung will be connecting their Smart TV and smartphone universes once again with the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the possibility of 3D video and photo capture. Though we’ve not specifically seen the device and it’s camera working in-the-flesh quite yet, a patent filed just a few days ago by the company whose Smart 3D TV segment is already live and in-action may be too good not to be true. This and the possibility of the first appearance of Samsung’s next-generation “Octa” Exynos processor under the hood are making the Galaxy S4 a smartphone that’s not to be missed.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 has been tipped to be coming with a 4.9-inch display with AMOLED technology flavored with a bit of futuristic tech that’ll make it about 30% brighter than past iterations. Call that Green PHOLED if you dare. The display is set to be rolling out with a massive 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution too, this making the device a beastly 440PPI – so sharp it’ll cut your eyeballs apart.
The Samsung Exynos 5 Octa quad-core processor has been tipped several times for the Galaxy S4. With that and the smooth excellence of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean as well as Samsung’s own TouchWiz in its newest iteration, this device will be a beast when it comes to futuristic mobile computing. Then there’s the camera.
Today’s tip from PatentBolt suggests that the Samsung Galaxy S4 will be working with some form of 3D camera action. With the “2D to 3D” sort of logo appearing in trademark form today connected with the following text, the Galaxy S4 coming with 3D processing technology has become a real possibility. We’re not going to see a double-camera situation like we did with past 3D-capable smartphones, instead we’ll be seeing post-shot processing (if we see any such 3D abilities at all, that is).
“Application software for smart phones; application software for tablet computers; digital cameras; USB flash drives; mobile telephones; portable media players; portable computers; rechargeable batteries; smart phones; tablet computers; wireless headsets; lenses for cameras.”
BONUS: You’ll notice the 3D logo is an ever-so-slight modification of Samsung’s previous 3D logo used on their Smart TV line – as seen in our recent Samsung UN55ES8000 55-inch Smart TV Review, too!
If you’ll have a peek at the logo and compare the ever-so-slight 3D-looking “4″ in the invite for the event for the device coming up this week, you’ll find yourself wondering. Could the Galaxy S4 be bringing on 3D technology without a double-dose of camera lens action? We’ll see on the 14th – SlashGear will be in NYC to bring you the full story!
Samsung Galaxy S4 appears to gain 3D Camera tech is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Microsoft has talked up its Kinect Fusion tool since 2011, but it took some time at TechFest this week to show off how the software could be useful in operating rooms. For those who need a refresher, Redmond’s solution can create 3D models of whatever an attached Kinect sensor lays eyes on, but in this instance it was leveraged to create an augmented reality experience. Using an off-the-shelf Kinect camera duct-taped to a tablet, Microsoft researchers layered a model of a brain onto a mannequin’s head, making its would-be mind viewable on the slate from different angles. Ballmer and Co. reckon that neurosurgeons could use the technique to visualize what’s in a patient’s noggin and plan how they’ll guide their scalpel. Word that Fusion would come to the Kinect for Windows SDK first surfaced last year, but Microsoft now says it’ll hit the dev kit’s next release, which should arrive shortly. Head past the break to catch a video of the medical concept app in action.
Filed under: Misc, Peripherals, Science, Microsoft
Source: IEEE Spectrum
MakerBot is known for its amazing consumer-level 3D printers, but today the company unveiled a new toy unlike anything they’ve done before. MakerBot announced and unveiled the Digitizer at SXSW today. It’s essentially a desktop 3D scanner that can scan any object and upload it onto your computer for 3D printing later on.
The company showed off a prototype today of the new scanner, and essentially it consists of two lasers that travels up and down a vertical axis while the object spins, with a webcam to keep an eye on everything. The laser scans the object into your computer, that way you have a digital copy of a physical object. MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis compares the technology to the scene in Tron when the characters get digitized into the game.
The Digitizer can scan small to medium sized objects anywhere from two to eight inches high, and can scan them in as little as three minutes, which is the amount of time it takes for a Keurig to make a cup of coffee. MakerBot notes that this can be great for creating backups of sort for breakable items, and when they do break, you can easily print another one out.
MakerBot is still running tests on the scanner, but the company plans to make it publicly available sometime in the fall. Of course, copyright issues come to mind here, and we’re not sure how that will all play out when the scanner eventually launches, but it seems Pettis doesn’t mind if you end up creating a copy of a MakerBot. Not that it’s even possible, but it seems he’s light hearted about the concept.
[via VentureBeat]
MakerBot unveils Digitizer 3D desktop scanner is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Google’s Fiber efforts may not be that widespread yet, but it’s obvious the search giant is doing all it can to improve the service for those who are lucky enough to have it. With that in mind, Google announced it’s now brought an initial batch — albeit a minor one — of 3D channels to its growing Fiber TV lineup, giving “Gigabit + TV” subscribers (who own a three-dee-ready TV, of course) access to 3net at no extra cost and to ESPN3D for an additional $5 per month. While the inclusion of 3net and ESPN3D might seem like a pretty minor one on paper, it’s without a doubt a step in the right direction for Fiber TV — and, as the company puts it, this shows how the company is “committed to making these qualities that you’ve come to expect from Google Fiber TV better and better.”
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Google
Via: CNET
Source: Google
Earlier this week, a surgical procedure saw the first-ever patient to receive a partial skull transplant using 3D-printed materials. A whopping 75% of the man’s skill was replaced with the polyetherketoneketone material. However, it’s not said what part of the skull was replaced, nor if the 75% accounts for just the top of head.
The photo above is a good representation of what the 3D-printed material looks like and how it fits on the skull. The material has specially-designed textures and holes in it to encourage the growth of cells and bone, and not result as a hindrance to the body, but rather become part of the skull just like ordinary bone. In other words, it’s more than just a simple piece of hard plastic.
Oxford Performance Materials is the company behind these 3D-printed implants, and they’re predicting that this practice will take off shortly, and it could open the door for around 500 patients per month who need bone transplants. The US Food and Drug Administration granted approval of the 3D-printed implant on February 18, and the company is now looking to spread the technology.
The company says that it can produce an implant within two weeks of obtaining 3D scans of the affected area needing transplanted, and recipients can range from injured construction workers to wounded soldiers, according to Oxford Performance Materials. There are no other details as far as further transplants with the new technology, but we should be hearing more about it sooner or later.
[via News]
Patient has 75% of skull replaced with 3D-printed implant is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
3D is all the rage these days when it comes to the movies. The studios have opened up to the concept of shooting movies in three dimensions. It has been found to add to the viewing experience that people derive when watching the movie in a theatre. In fact, the most successful movie of all time was shot in 3D. Despite the cynics and critics lamenting how 3D is ruining the movie going experience, the technology is holding strong and may well continue to do so for the next many years to …
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