There’s no shortage of wearable action cameras on the market today. The most popular action camera comes from GoPro and is designed to be worn or mounted on just about anything you can think of. A company called iON has unveiled its own ruggedized action camera called the Air Pro 3 Wi-Fi. The cool thing about this camera is that not only can it survive splashes and being submerged in a mud puddle, this thing can go scuba diving with the ability to survive up to 49 feet of water,.
The camera features a 12-megapixel image sensor and can record full 1080p HD resolution video at 60 frames-per-second. Wi-Fi capability allows the camera to stream the video its recording to Android or iOS devices running a free companion application as well. Once the video is shared with the mobile device, it can be easily uploaded to social networks such as Facebook or YouTube.
In addition to the included helmet mount and tripod, its maker also offers a number of mounting options for the camera including a vehicle mount for automotive sports and several wearable mounts. The camera can be pre-ordered now for $349.99(USD) and will ship on November 15.
The Neurocam is the latest invention from Neurowear – the minds behind the Necomimi cat ears and that tail that wags tail that wags based on your thoughts. Though this one seems like a slightly more useful, if not still strange device.
The Neurocam monitors brainwave activity to monitor your interest level in things you’re observing. When it senses that your interest threshold has been hit, it automatically captures images or video. In its current state, the system automatically creates 5-second GIFs of interesting subjects. Here’s a brief video demo of the Neurocam in action:
The device is a headband that holds the users smartphone in a bracket, and it appears that it also has some sort of 90-degree lens adapter for the smartphone so it captures images of whatever you’re looking at.
It’s definitely a novel idea, but all I can imagine is that for most guys, the Neurocam is only going to capture images of cleavage and butts.
If you like the look of tilt-shift and low-fidelity images, you should probably have a camera that looks the part. I’ve been playing around with one particular camera that fits both bills – creative lo-fi images and retro style.
The Bonzart Ampel Dual Lens camera is an unusual little camera that looks like an old-school twin-lens reflex camera, but in this case, each lens is being used to feed a five-megapixel digital image sensor. The top lens offers normal images, while the lower lens offers an optical tilt-shift effect.
The camera even has a clever pop open viewfinder like old cameras, which conceals a small 2″ LCD screen inside. This top-down position for viewing images while shooting takes a little getting used to, but is actually kind of fun once you do. As an added bonus, the pop-up sides around the viewfinder keep glare off of the LCD.
In terms of storage, the camera accepts standard SD memory cards, and gets its power from three inexpensive AA batteries. Controls for switching between effect and shooting modes are located on side of the camera, while the shutter and lens select buttons are on front. Menu controls for changing resolution, exposure, date/time and other settings are located on back.
So how about image quality? Well, I won’t say that the Bonzart Ampel can compete with today’s better digital cameras, but that’s not what it’s designed for. It’s designed to allow photographers to explore their creativity in the capture of artful, lo-fi imagery – and it does that well. Check out some sample images I shot below:
Outdoors, Tilt-Shift Mode
As you can see, it performs quite well in daylight conditions, and the tilt-shift effect is spot on.
Outdoors, Tilt-Shift Mode
Without any focus controls at all, it even captures pretty impressive macro images, complete with unplanned depth of field effects.
Close-up Outdoors, Tilt-Shift Mode
Close-up, Indoors, Front-lit
Close-up, Indoors, Back-lit
Close-up, Indoors, Vivid Color Mode
The camera also offers digital effect modes for vivid color, black and white, sepia tone, and something called “REF”, which seems like a washed out Fuji film style. While you could achieve many of these effects in post-production with image editors, it’s kind of fun to see them in real time on the LCD, and without need to boot up Photoshop.
In addition to still imagery, the Bonzart Ampel can shoot video in resolutions from 320×240 up to 720×480 at 30fps. It also offers a 1280×720 HD mode, but the frame rate is extremely poor at that resolution. Suffice it to say, this isn’t really designed for HD videography. Still, it’s kind of neat to be able to shoot SD video through a tilt-shift lens.
One caveat with this camera is that it’s pretty much useless in low-light conditions. It captures great daylight images, but even in dimly-lit indoor rooms this is the sort of result I got, even when playing with the manual exposure controls:
For those of you who like to use Instagram, the camera also has a built-in 1:1 proportion mode, so you can capture ready-cropped images for upload to the service (or for square picture frames).
Overall, this quirky little camera really grew on me, and I think it’s a fun addition to any photographer’s bag of tricks. If you keep in mind that it’s designed for creative imagery and not for precision, you’ll be much happier with the surprising and serendipitous results it produces.
The Bonzart Ampel Dual Lens camera is available from AC Gears for $180(USD).
Over the years we’ve seen a variety of concepts for portable augmentedreality devices, but it seems as if Google Glass opened the floodgates for AR devices that are worn like eyeglasses. Case in point, the Japanese telecommunications company NTT Docomo, which recently showed off not one but four ideas for glasses with an AR interface.
The first interface that NTT Docomo showed off was a projector that mirrored the display of a connected mobile device. The player appears to float in front of you and you can still see what’s in front of you in the background of the window. That in itself isn’t particularly revolutionary or practical, but when paired with sensors it turns into a really neat product. For instance, Docomo imagines a combination of a head-mounted camera and a face recognition app that shows you information about the people you meet.
The other two concepts were more exciting: the real-time translator that I talked about a couple of weeks ago and an external projector that can detect the size of the object that you’re using as a display surface. When used with a ring-shaped accessory, the glasses will also be able to detect your hand, allowing you to manipulate the projection as if it were a touchscreen.
There you have it, another exciting look at the future of augmented reality, and perhaps fashion as well. Out of all the concepts I’ve seen, the one I really want to own would still be the Sixthsense concept from back in 2009. I wouldn’t mind looking like a dork for that.
A couple of years ago Triggertrap released its namesake device, an electronic camera trigger that activates your camera based on a variety of inputs. Recently the company launched a Kickstarter for an improved camera trigger, which they’re calling Redsnap. It’s modular, which not only makes it compact but versatile as well.
The Redsnap has a base block that you can connect to up to two sensors at once. The base block handles long exposure and time lapse shots. At launch, the Redsnap will have the following sensors: a laser sensor (with a built-in laser), a light sensor, a passive infrared sensor and a sound sensor. Triggertrap says they will release more sensors in the future.
Because you can connect two sensors at once, you can set up shots for a variety of conditions. For instance, you can rig your camera to shoot only when the light sensor and the sound sensor are both triggered. Or you can connect two of the same sensor if you wish. The Redsnap also has three trigger outputs, so you can connect multiple cameras or flashes and have them all go off at the same time.
Pledge at least £35 (~$57 USD) on Kickstarter to receive the base Triggertrap Redsnap kit as a reward – which is capable of shooting time-lapse photos. A kit with the light sensor goes for £60 (~$97 USD), and a complete high-speed kit with laser and sound sensors is £90 ($145 USD). Check out all of the available bundles over on their fundraising page.
Here’s another device that could be vying for space on your face in the near future. A company called Avegant is making what they call a Virtual Retinal Display. The thing is, it doesn’t actually have displays. Instead, it uses “an array of two million micromirrors” to project light directly to the retinas of the wearer.
Avegant hasn’t revealed a lot about its technology, but it did let journalists use some of its prototypes. Apparently, the Virtual Reality Display causes much less eye strain compared to LCD monitors and other head-mounted displays. As for how good it is, Engadget claims that wearing the display’s image quality “blows everything else out of the water”, even though the prototypes max out at just 1280 x 768 for each eye. They said that it even made a 360 x 160 video “look great.”
If it’s such a great way to show video, why have we not seen more of these “retinal displays”? According to CNET, other companies have indeed dabbled with the technology. Even Google tested it for Glass. But apparently the retinal displays need to be precisely aligned to the wearer’s face and eyes to work, which is why it’s not great for a one size fits all headset. To solve that problem, the Virtual Retinal Display will have highly adjustable frames and optics.
All these 3D and head-mounted displays coming out are making me hate my monitor. And my sunglasses. As Avegant CEO Ed Tang told CNET, the Virtual Reality Display should be available by the first quarter of 2014.
AppSeed is probably the handiest app you can have if you’re into creating apps. It’s an up-and-coming app that turns mock-ups and sketches of your app into a functioning prototype.
But let’s backtrack a little.
Normally, the application development process begins with conceptualizing the app and working out use cases. Once the idea is fully formed, it’s time to bring out the pen and paper to create wireframes and sketches of the app’s interface. For most, the next step involves hiring a developer to create a functional prototype. This is where AppSeed comes in.
At this point, you just take a picture of your app sketches, and fire the app up to let it get to work.
The use of computer vision speeds up the process and understands your sketches. AppSeed can identify an enclosed space in your sketch, allowing you to make it into a button, input text, map, or another UI element – making your sketch into a functioning prototype running on your phone.
AppSeed is up for funding on Kickstarter through tomorrow (10/9), where a minimum pledge of $8 CAD (~$7.25 USD) will get you access to the app once released.
In the future, we may not need to go to museums and other repositories of art in order to admire paintings and sculptures. We may be able to print inch-perfect replicas of artworks that, to the untrained eyes, look exactly the same as the original. Engineer Tim Zaman showed that it’s possible to make high quality and full color scans of paintings using off the shelf devices. But for now, it takes a rare and proprietary 3D printer to turn those scans into accurate replicas.
For his master thesis at the Delft University of Technology, Tim built a custom 3D scanner composed of two Nikon D800E cameras with 80mm PC-E lenses and a polarization filter and a picoprojector that also has a polarization filter. Tim said his rig enabled him to combine two 3D scanning techniques – stereoscopic scanning and fringe projection – allowing for scans with a resolution of 50 micrometers (μm) and a depth precision of 9.2 μm. Skip to around 1:52 in the video below to see Tim talk to the BBC about his project:
In his reply to a commenter on YouTube, Tim said that it takes him one day to scan a 1 sq.m. (approx. 11 sq.ft.) surface. Printing the resulting file can take up to a day as well. Not that you’d be able to do so with just any 3D printer. The miraculous machine in the video below and the 3D printing process it uses were developed by Océ, a printing company owned by Canon. The painting that was replicated here is Rembrandt’s The Jewish Bride.
That is one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in my life. No doubt visual artists and art critics will have to come to terms with the off-putting consequences of this technology. What is the value of a painting if it can have infinite perfect replicas? Should one’s appreciation of a painting or sculpture be informed by the knowledge of its authenticity if you can’t tell the difference between an original work and its replica? But as Tim stated in his thesis, the fruits of his labor can also be applied to study, conserve and restore works of art. Head to Tim’s website or YouTube channel if you want to find out more about his research.
Crowdfunding sites are flush with 3D printer projects these days, so it’s getting increasingly difficult to tell which printer you should buy or if you should just wait for the market to shake out in a few years.
But if you’re looking for a 3D printer that’s small enough to travel with, there’s a new printer in development which could fit the bill better than other printers.
The LumiFold is unique in that it measures just about 9.84″ x 4.72″ x 1.18″ when folded up, which makes it small enough to throw in your backpack or briefcase. Its compact printing platform can’t crank out huge objects, with a size limit of about 3.5″ x 3.5″ x 3.5″.
Unlike most other consumer 3D printers, the LumiFold uses a photographic process to create 3D models. It uses light-cured materials to generate models. This process uses a platform that moves only on the “Z” axis, and then images generated by curing UV-sensitive resin one layer at a time. So the trick to this technique is that you need to also have a projector in order to transmit the X and Y axis information through onto the printing material. Included open source software is used to slice 3D objects into razor-thin layers which are exposed onto the resin.
The cool thing is that the platform can move in increments of just 0.01mm, which produces a very fine object resolution – especially when combined with a high resolution projected image. Just pour some light-sensitive resin into a cup, set it on the platform, and let the light do the work for you. The first time out, you’ll need to adjust the timing for each layer to cure based on the UV output of your projector, but the LumiFold includes a UV sensor to help you calibrate this.
Another unique feature of the LumiFold is its companion accessory, the HoloDock. This allows you to preview a simulated holographic image of the object you’re modeling as it’s being printed. It’s a little gimmicky though, and you certainly don’t need to buy one if all you want to do is print 3D objects. One caveat is that the HoloDock requireS that you place either a mobile device or PC monitor underneath it to create the 3D illusion
And therein lies the biggest challenge with the LumiFold and HoloDock. It’s a really neat idea that you can carry a 3D printer with you. But if you also need to carry a projector and some sort of device to view the previews, it does limit it’s true potential for portability. On the other hand, if you already have a small projector and a mobile device, it’s not an insurmountable challenge.
If you’re interested in checking out more about the LumiFold and HoloDock, head on over to their IndieGogo project before its conclusion on November 6. A pledge of at least $399(USD) will get you the LumiFold parts kit, while you’ll need to spend $449 for an assembled and tested version. The HoloDock Mini – which works with the iPhone, sells for an additional $79, while the iPad-friendly HoloDock Big goes for $99.
One of my earliest posts here was about the Color Picker, a concept for a pen that let you copy colors from your surroundings and then doodle with that color. Matthew Sheridan brings us a step closer to that magical device with the Nix Color Sensor. It’s basically half of the Color Picker pen, letting you copy colors from physical objects.
Actually the Nix was designed to do more than just copy colors. With the help of its complementary desktop and mobile apps, Nix can save and place notes on your captured swatches, show you the RGB, HSL, HSV, Lab, XYZ, HTML, or CMYK values of those colors and even look for a paint store that sells the matching paint.
Pledge at least $99 CAD (~$96 USD) on Kickstarter to get a Nix sensor as a reward. The iOS and Android apps will be bundled with the sensor; I’m not sure if the Windows and Mac apps will be free as well. I wonder if Pixy can be modded to work like Nix.
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