Intel Research Day: pick of the projects

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

I’ve already written about Dispute Finder, a neat little service which is up and running – albeit shakily – right now. But Intel’s Research Day in Mountain View, California hosted some far more ambitious and long-term projects too. Here are my favourite projects from the rest of the show: research being what it is, some of them will probably never be heard of again, but others may well find their way into real-world products in the next few years.

Oh, and just to ramp up the excitement, I’ll take you through my top seven in reverse order.

7. Location Awareness with LED Visible Lighting

This is one of those ideas whose appeal lies in its sheer simplicity. In short, it’s a system that warns you when you’re too close to a car in front – or when a car is too close behind you. The clever part is that it works out the distances involved by triangulating the beams from LED headlights and tail-lights.

It’s a fast system, and accurate – the showcase stand included a live demo with some toy cars, tracking their locations in real time to a precision of under an inch. It can even track multiple cars at once. (more…)

Photoshop Extended vs Informatix Piranesi

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

A while back I wrote a piece asking What is the point of Photoshop Extended? The underlying technology is undoubtedly brilliant allowing you to import fully-textured 3D models into your flat images, but the implementation is awkward and intimidating. Beyond adding some extruded text (or should that be “repousséd”?) I doubt whether many users have ever even touched the 3D menu.

This might suggest that I can’t see the point of trying to mix the two worlds of bitmap editing and 3D. That’s absolutely not the case. These days 3D is moving centre stream wherever you look. Moreover the combination of 3D and pixel-based handling can unleash some extraordinary creative power. It’s just that it can be done so much better…

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3D in the home: let the hype truly begin

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

So, you thought the 3D hype was already in full swing? Brace yourself, because over the next few weeks we’re going to see advertising campaigns, news stories and product announcements blitz our lives. And at least some of the blame falls at the door of that accursed World Cup.

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What’s the point of Photoshop Extended?

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

The latest Photoshop CS5 has received near universal critical acclaim for its seemingly-magical image processing power and Photoshop CS5 Extended builds on that with even more extraordinary 3D functionality.

photoshop CS5 extended

But is the emperor wearing no clothes? Does anyone actually use the extended 3D functionality of Photoshop Extended?

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SketchUp 7.1 – Google does the right thing (largely)

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

It might be minor compared to the whole China issue, but Google has recently tackled another skeleton in its cupboard – and it shows just how difficult it is to live up to the company’s famous “Don’t Be Evil”  code of conduct.

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Will Channel 4’s 3D experiment work?

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

It’s the moment we’ve been waiting for all these years, the 3D spectacular to really kick-start the technology in homes across the UK. It’s eye-popping, it’s nail-biting, it’s heart-stopping, it’ll have you on the edge of your seat.

It’s… sorry about this… it’s… um… footage from 1953 of the Queen’s coronation year. In 3D.

Not exactly what I had in mind, but the news that Channel 4 is going to run a week of primetime 3D content this Autumn is just one more step along 3D’s road to the mainstream. The line-up also includes a Derren Brown special and a selection of 3D movies, and it’ll all be possible with your existing TV set – all you’ll need is a pair of special specs from Sainsbury’s.

Now, this worries me a bit. (more…)

Do you actually want 3D?

Friday, February 27th, 2009

While researching an upcoming feature, I found a link from the BBC. Entitled “Why 3D is about to break through“, it explains the exciting world of 3D movies and projection, before concluding that it “looks like the future of 3D is firming up.”

Only trouble is, the article was from over a year ago. Since then I’ve been to see Beowulf at the IMAX, and toyed with an old game on one of Zalman’s monitors, but I can hardly say 3D leapt out at me through 2008.

This year, though, is different – one look at the barrage of 3D TVs launched at CES is enough to realise that. But while the industry hypes it, I’m intrigued to know whether you, the consumers, are actually interested in 3D at all. Going to a movie once in a while is one thing, spending your own money on kit is another entirely.

So, is it something you’d consider investing in? And, gaming and movies aside, are there any applications for which you see 3D being genuinely useful?