Hasta La Gadget!

After 3-D movies and 3-D TVs, it’s time for computers to go into the third dimension.

Companies such as MSI and Asus will be showing 3-D PCs at Computex, a huge trade show for manufacturers of PCs and PC components held every year in Taipei, Taiwan. This year, Computex runs from June 1 to 5.

MSI plans to introduce a 24-inch 3-D net-top: a desktop computer with its internals built into the display case, similar to an iMac.

“We can run 3-D movies, games, photos and TV,” says Clifford Chun, product manager for all-in-ones and desktops at MSI, “and by just pressing a button you can switch between 2-D and 3-D modes.”

MSI’s rival Asus will debut a 3-D laptop with a 15.6-inch display and desktop similar in screen size to that from MSI. The 3-D PCs are expected to be available in the third quarter of the year.

“People may choose a 3-D PC because it is a less expensive way to get 3-D content,” says Rob Csongor, vice president of marketing for Nvidia, which makes graphics cards that power the 3-D PCs. “Companies are coming out with some beautiful devices that are going to be a higher-end product initially but they will be very attractive to consumers.”

With Hollywood’s success in films such as Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, the 3-D format has made a big comeback. And it’s not confined to just the big screen. The 3-D TV was one of the biggest stars of the Consumer Electronics Show this year. Almost every major TV maker, including Sony, LG, Panasonic and Mitsubishi, plans to offer big-screen 3-D TVs, while broadcasters such as ESPN and Discovery have promised 3-D channels by the end of the year or early next year.

Meanwhile, amateur 3-D content is taking off as consumers use 3-D cameras or homemade 3-D rigs to shoot photos. In a sign that homemade 3-D videos could soon be ready to hit mainstream, YouTube has started offering a 3-D display option.

Makers of 3-D PCs hope to step into this world. “3-D PCs are for consumers who see the 3-D stuff everywhere and wonder, ‘How can I get this home?’” says Csongor.

Close to a million 3-D PCs will ship in 2010, predicts Jon Peddie Research, and annual sales could reach 75 million by 2014 as 3-D PCs become ubiquitous.

With a powerful graphics card, most PCs are 3-D capable — in principle. But critical to the 3-D experience is a 120-Hz monitor and special glasses. PCs with 3-D have stereoscopic displays, which means their screens can present a rapidly alternating set of images for the right and the left eye so the brain can fuse them together into a single image that includes depth.

MSI’s 3-D desktop, called ‘Ripple,’ has an Intel Core i7 860 processor, an ATI Radeon HD 5730 graphics chip, 4 GB of memory, a 1-terabyte disk drive, a Blu-ray player, 1.3-megapixel webcam, and Wi-Fi capability. The 24-inch multitouch display has a refresh rate of 120 Hz and will come with its own pair of active-shutter glasses.

“With active-shutter glasses you don’t lose transparency or contrast as you do with the polarized versions,” says Chun. “We think its the best way to experience the 3-D feeling.”

If you are wondering what you will use your 3-D PC for, there’s plenty of 3-D content already out there, assures Nvidia’s Csongor. Nvidia’s graphics chips, which are embedded in Asus machines, can support any of 400 3-D-enabled video games already on the market. Of course, they can also show 3-D photos, streaming video from sports such as golf tournaments, and Blu-ray 3-D movies.

And if you get tired of all that 3-D, just switch the display back to the old-fashioned PC mode, suggest MSI’s Chun.

“Since we can move between 2-D and 3-D, you can see clear images even if you don’t wear the glasses,” says Chun. “No blurring or fuzzy images in 2-D.”

The 24-inch MSI desktop will cost $2,200 — not exactly cheap, but just a little more than what most users would pay for a high-end multimedia machine. For many, it will also be easier to buy a 3-D PC rather than a 3-D TV.

“Not everyone wants a 3-D TV when they are ready to buy their next TV,” says Csongor. “But a 3-D PC for their next laptop or desktop is something that may be willing to go for.”

See Also:

• 3-D Goes DIY With Amateur Photos, Videos
• 3-D Tabletop Display Gets Rid of the Glasses
• 4 Things That Could Keep 3-D TV Out of Your Living Room
• Why 3-D Gaming’s Future Is Still Blurry
• Wired Explains: How 3-D Television Works

Photo: (bigchus/Flickr)

Onkyo busts out DP312 Ion nettop originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ed Roberts, the maker of the world’s first personal computer, died yesterday at the age of 68.

Roberts created the Altair 8800, the first computer normal people could a) afford and b) use in their homes, without it taking up an entire room. Altair 8800 was also the platform Paul Allen and Bill Gates used to make their first programs and launch Microsoft.

In the wake of nearly-obsessive anticipation of the iPad and its revolutionary potential, it’s worth remembering how people like Roberts got this whole personal computer thing started.

Roberts founded Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry System (MITS) in 1970 to sell model rocket kits. By 1971, MITS moved beyond model rockets and started making electronic calculator kits. Roberts’ next project was making a low-cost computer kit that a broad array of customers could afford and use. MITS finished building the Altair 8800 in late 1974.

The Popular Electronics 1975 cover with Altair 8800

By today’s standards, Altair wasn’t sexy. The $439 build-it-yourself computer had no display and was operated by switches. Nonetheless, it was a radical departure from massive mainframe computers, mostly owned by universities, and proved to be a commercial hit. By August 1975, MITS shipped more than 5,000 Altairs.

Bill Gates, a Harvard sophomore at the time, and Paul Allen, working in Boston, saw the Altair 8800 in the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics. The duo immediately decided to be the first to write programs for the machine, in BASIC programming language.

The only problem? They did not have access to an actual Altair 8800. Instead, they created a BASIC emulator that worked on a PDP-10 mainframe computer at Harvard.

According to Stephen Mantes’ 1994 book on Gates, the team was soon calling Roberts and claiming they have BASIC programs ready to roll on an Altair computer. They went to MITS’ headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico to present their products.

This was the first time they saw the Altair. To their utmost surprise, the BASIC code that they developed in a simulator worked almost perfectly in its first run on an actual Altair. A month later, Microsoft was founded.

Roberts didn’t stick around for the computer revolution that followed. He sold MITS, moved to Georgia in late 1977, enrolled in a medical school, and in 1988 started his own medical practice in Cochran, Georgia.

Robert’ Altair was the first mass-appeal, low-cost, feature-stingy personal computer. It was smaller and less powerful than most computers available at the time, but was far better suited to the needs of ordinary users. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

(Photos: Wikipedia)

Yo Intel, when your 2008 fourth quarter was one of the worst you ever recorded, it’s slightly, just slightly, facetious to go trumpeting an 875 percent improvement in your 2009 fortunes. The self-appointed chipmaking rock star has clocked up $10.6 billion in revenues for the last quarter, which filters down to $2.3 billion in pure, unadulterated, mother-loving profit. That’s good and indeed technically nearly nine times what the company achieved in the same period the previous year — we’d just appreciate this to be represented as the recovery it is, rather than some major leap forward in the face of a global financial meltdown. Either way, the Santa Clara checkbook is now well and truly balanced, even if it would’ve looked fatter still but for the small matter of a $1.25 billion settlement reflected in last quarter’s results.

Intel profits recover to $2.3 billion in Q4 2009, company describes it as 875 percent jump originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 02:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good news, everybody! If you’re looking into one of Asus’s Eee Box 1501 nettops but weren’t exactly into the built-in DVD burner, well, better days may be ahead. It looks like a new version of the 1501 is on its way, this time packing Blu-ray. In case you’ve forgotten the specs, the Eee Box 1501 packs NVIDIA’s Ion chipset, an Intel Atom 330 dual-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and an HDMI port for good measure. There’s no official word on this yet, but the release of the Blu-ray boasting updated nettop looks likely for Switzerland in the near future, so we’ll keep our eyes peeled for more information.

Asus Eee Box 1501 with Blu-ray on its way to Switzerland originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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