Over the years, filmmaking auteurs from Hong Kong have changed the landscape of action movies, from the early Wuxia-style of martial arts to the hanging-by-a-wire Kung Fu fantasies of the last 15 years. So it’s not surprising that they’re ready to change the landscape once again with the use of technology. What’s surprising is that they’re using 3D tech to create the most realistic sex movie ever.

The movie is called 3D Sex And Zen, and will come in at a budget of $4 million, which is supposedly quite high for a movie of this genre. About one-third of the movie will include sex scenes, and it’s likely that only those scenes will be the ones in 3D, in the same way that many current action movies save the 3D effect for the climactic, plot-driving scenes. 

Stephen Shiu Jr., a spokesman for the film, told the Sunday Morning Post that, "there will be many close-ups," and it will feel as if the performers will only be "a few centimetres from the audience."

We’ve previously noted that 3D films from all genres are growing in popularity, and as a result, many movie companies are now more willing to invest in them. The 3D Journey to the Centre of the Earth last year grossed $216 million worldwide, and more than half of that came from the 3D version of the movie.

According to the announcement, the same company that worked on the 3D version of The Nightmare Before Christmas will be the one working on this one.

There’s no word on which type of depth perception 3D trick will be used, or if the movie will also incorporate elements of wire-Fu into the story.

Photo: LiveNews.com

Luminus Devices’ new LED chipset is promising to improve the brightness and overall quality of new small projectors, starting with Acer’s upcoming K10 hand-sized gadget.

The just-announced PhlatLight LED PT39 chipset (with RGB LEDs) will combine with Texas Instrument’s DLP technology to push out improved images to microdisplays ranging from 0.4" to 0.55." The LEDs will light up to 100 ANSI Lumens in the light-output range (where predictably, the brighter the projector, the higher the ANSI rating will be.)

Brightness levels for projectors are important because they’re in the mix that determines the quality of an image, but maybe even more important, they help users determine the room environment that’s better suited for a projection.

For example, a projector with a low level of brightness looks better with a quality projector screen that reflects light. With higher levels of brightness, a projection could be set upon any surface (like walls or friends’ faces), which reflect light poorly. A projector with greater ANSI levels will also be able to be used in rooms with slightly higher levels of light output. Currently, most of the picos need absolute darkness (or something close to it) to project accurate images.

The Acer K10 projector is one of a number of upcoming small projectors that are not quite Pico-sized. Instead, they are about the size of an outstretched hand, like slimmer version of Nintendo’s old Gamecube system. They’re not quite portable, but can easily fit in a bag. You can bet manufacturers will face them off against the Picos, who generally have lower ANSI brightness levels and a lower pixel count.

With small projectors coming just a bit higher in price than the Picos, Optoma, 3M, and the rest of the Pico pushers need to keep up the innovation, or lose out the burgeoning market to rigs with better video quality.

The K10 will come out at the end of this week, with a native resolution of 800 x 600 pixels, a contrast ratio of 1000:1, weigh 1.2 lbs., and cost about $450.

Photo: AboutProjectors.com, 3M

See also:

• CES 2009: Bug Labs Shows New Pico Projector and 3G Modules
• Microvision’s ‘Plug-and-Play’ Pico Projector Prototype Is Easy to Use, Won’t Come Out Until Next Year’s CES

Over the last couple of decades, televisions have grown wider in order to accommodate new content (mostly movies) that come in rectangular aspect ratios. Later this year, Philips will unveil a TV with the widest aspect ratio yet, the Cinema 21:9.

The 56-inch LCD TV aims to provide the closest proportion yet to screens at movie theaters. But that might not be enough to make it a worthy investment for people planning on using it for more than watching movies.

According to Philips, the aspect ratio of the screen is 2.33:1, which is about the same as the regular ratio of most movies, which come in at 2.39:1 (many 35mm films also come in at 1.85:1.) As a result, the TV won’t suffer much from black-stripe letterboxing when watching a widescreen movie, like many current regular-sized HDTVs. And because it’s not a plasma set, the potential damage of burn-in with the black bars is pretty much nil.

So it might be destined to become a widescreen movie-lover’s best friend. But at that width, most content will still get narrowed down to fit into the frame, including high-definition satellite feeds. Considering that there are other excellent new technologies competing for the short dollar, like the color-rich (and energy efficient) Laser TV as well as widget-full TVs, an especially wide screen isn’t really at the top of anyone’s list.

Add the fact that only a fraction of movies are available to rent with widescreen ratios near 2.35:1 (about 3,000 of them, according to IMDB.com), and you can figure it out yourself. This TV will have a hard time justifying itself in the next year, or at least, until every movie starts coming out with widescreen versions.

Of course, classic movie advocates would strongly disagree with that claim. Most regular HDTVs come in at a ratio of 16 by 9 inches tall, and they provide a good representation of the size of the shot film. But they still fall far short of the wide camera lenses that best captured the long, epic scales of classic movies like Ben Hur and Lawrence of Arabia.

Interestingly, the main reason why the movie industry started using
wider aspect ratios (from their original 4:3 ratio, or 1.33:1) was due
to the creation of television. Out of fear TV would take away their
audience, movie studios helped establish wider film formats
and built screens appropriate for their size. They ended up with
super-wide monster formats, including Cinemascope (2.35:1 to 2.55:1, Star Wars), Cinerama (2.60:1, How The West Was Won), and Super Panavision (2.20:1, 2001: A Space Odyssey).

Those movies have been cut-down to size by their creators to match
smaller screens, but if you’ve ever watched them in their full
widescreen glory, you know there’s a big difference.

Full Screen (4:3)                       Wide Screen (2.39:1)

The new widescreen will probably look good, but the 56-inch
widescreen likely won’t match the impact of a theater just yet. But
if some company manages to make a 150-inch super-widescreen, well, all
bets are off.

The Cinema 21:9 will be available at some point this year, for an undisclosed price.

Photos: Philips, Wikipedia, widescreen.org

One of the coolest product categories we’ll get to see at CES this week will be wrist mounted touch screen displays.

Among the most anticipated is Universal Display’s flexible 4-inch OLED prototype. Universal Display is one of the companies at the forefront of the flexible display business and so far, they’ve been working with the U.S. Department of Defense to develop a few real-world applications. But as with many other technologies, what starts as a government project eventually leads to the private sector of consumer electronics.

But what really matters to us is that it will end up in our wrist and will make those TokyoFlash watches Danny favors seem like a baby’s toy.

Universal Display says the OLED ‘watch’ display is made out of a one-sheet metal foil, and that its malleability will allow it to be quite comfortable. It’s considered to be a direct communications device, which means it will likely also include the 3G, HSDPA capability of the prototype to be unveiled by LG during the conference.

LG’s GD910 will have a smaller touch screen, 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and a camera for taking pictures and video. Universal Displays has developed its OLED display in collaboration with the LG Display division, but the larger showcase display is clearly meant to show the possibilities of the technology.

Neither watch is quite at the level of some of the best nor most fanciful designs we’ve seen before (see below), but it’s really only now a matter of time before they’re made.

See also:

• TokyoFlash "Infection" Watch Attracts/
  Repels The Ladies

The biggest feature of the new Vuzix virtual reality glasses has nothing to do with a new technology.

Mostly, it comes from the fact that the company finally hired a designer aware of current aesthetic tastes. The older models of the VR system looked like props straight from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and they exposed the poor saps brave enough to try them in public far too easily.

The new design is interesting enough that any cool-kid Bono wannabe could reach for them, while keeping it fairly basic.

The Wrap 920AV will have some pretty good tech inside as well. It will have an improved variation of virtual reality combined with augmented reality, whereby an object or video feed will appear in space. Basically, it opens up certain video away from a block panel display into one that will give the appearance of interactivity.

While it sounds a bit confusing, Vuzix promises the optics are much improved and that you will actually feel like you’re watching a real screen. Previous versions suffered from a narrow frame, resulting in a POV that didn’t live up to its goal of immersive-style entertainment.

According to a Vuzix rep, the glasses will be able to connect to any type of portable media player and will be unveiled for the first time during next week’s CES 2009.