Hasta La Gadget!

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.

[via Tim Zaman, Delft University of Technology & Océ via Walyou]

Apple has something new to boast about as it grabs a coveted top spot in the most valuable brands of 2013. Following closely is search giant and Android maker Google at second. The two technology companies have displaced former king Coca-Cola for the first time in the list’s history, possibly signifying a shift in market […]

The European Organization for Nuclear Research aka CERN reached the attention of the masses when they finished the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. Physicists and other scientists all over the world have high hopes for the LHC, while the rest of us are thoroughly impressed with its name. Now you can be even more vaguely impressed with cutting edge technology, thanks to Google’s Street View tour of the CERN site.

The tour is the final product of a two-week shoot by Google’s crew back in 2011. They took images of 5 different areas of CERN’s facilities, including nearly 4,000ft of the LHC tunnel. Check all of them out on Google Maps. Be sure to nod approvingly as you gaze at the images. Doing that helped me resist passing out from sheer confusion.

[via NOTCOT & Google]

Earlier this week Valve teased the free, gaming-oriented and Linux-based SteamOS and the PC-console hybrid Steam Machine. It soon completed the establishment of the fundamentals of its living room invasion by unveiling the Steam Controller. As with the Steam Machine, the controller is Valve’s attempt at bringing the best of PC and console gaming together.

The Steam Controller doesn’t seem to have biometrics or gaze tracking capabilities – two features that Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has cited as desirable input options – but one look at it and you can see that it’s still quite different from most gamepads. For starters, instead of a d-pad or analog joysticks, the controller has two high-resolution trackpads. Valve added “super-precise haptic feedback” to trackpads in the form of weighted electro-magnets. The feedback will be used not only to add tactility to the trackpads, they can also be used to provide other in-game cues and can even function as speakers. How about that?

Chris Remo of developer Double Fine claims he was able to test a prototype of the controller a few months ago and said “…the cursor pads worked amazingly well.” When asked if the haptic feedback helps, Remo said, “Yes, it makes it feel like you’re actually operating a real physically mechanical device, not just a touchscreen.”

Perhaps Remo was actually referring to the trackpads in the second statement that I quoted, but the controller does have a high-resolution touchscreen. It’s the small square at the center of the controller. When you touch the screen, an overlay of the touchscreen’s display appears on your TV or monitor, so you won’t have to look down at the controller while playing. Makes you wonder why they even made it a screen right? Then again, it could be used to display data that should be kept hidden from other players. Take that Lambert!

Aside from its touch-friendly input options, the controller also has good old buttons. There are a total of 13 standard buttons – four face buttons at the corners of the touchscreen, three narrow rectangles below the touchscreen, four shoulder buttons and two rear buttons – but because the two trackpads and the touchscreen are also clickable, you have a total of 16 buttons.  The image below shows a sample key binding setup for Portal 2. Note that the touchscreen is divided into four buttons in the setup.

What makes this controller extra special in my opinion is that it has a “legacy mode” that fools your Steam Machine or your desktop computer into thinking that the controller is a keyboard and mouse. This makes it compatible with all Steam games, which is why the diagram above indicates the mapped keyboard and mouse buttons and not just the functions. Finally, Valve promises that the controller will be hackable, and that they will provide tools to help people mod the controller.

If you’re interested in owning or building a Steam Machine but don’t want to use the Steam Controller, don’t worry. Valve says you’ll still be able to stick with your trusted keyboard and mouse combo.

Valve will pick 300 lucky Steam members to participate in a closed beta. The beta testers will be given both a prototype Steam Machine and Steam Controller. The prototype controller that Valve will distribute to the testers will be wired and have no touchscreen, but the final version will be wireless and have the aforementioned touchscreen. Check out the Steam Machine FAQ page if you want to know how to apply for the closed beta.

[via Valve via Kotaku]

There are plenty of external batteries on the market that have USB ports allowing you to keep your smartphone or tablet charged up on the go. The thing I never liked about those battery packs is that you have to carry your charging cable with you. I think we should be getting away from cables, not trying to carry more cables with us on the go.

Mugen Power has announced a new portable power bank that sheds those wires, assuming your smartphone is compatible. The cool new feature is that the Mugenizer N11 supports Qi Wireless charging. That means if you have a smartphone that has integrated Qi charging technology or a phone with an accessory battery door (and a Qi battery pack), you need no cables.

All you need to is place your Qi enabled phone on the surface of the battery and the power will flow. The N11 has a 4800 mAh battery, so you should be able to get about two charges out of it with most smartphones. The device also has a conventional USB port so you can charge via cable if you need to. Of course you still need to plug in the battery to juice it up too.

You can pick up the Mugenizer N11 battery pack right now for $69.99 (USD).