Posts Tagged ‘3D’

New Year, New Gadgets

Friday, January 9th, 2009

A New Year means a whole new batch of Gadgets both in development and vying for our attention on shelves in their shiny new packages, offering us what was only talked about in hushed whispers last year. Or at least that’s the idea. As you may be aware the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is currently underway in Las Vegas with companies showing us what could be in our homes in both the not too distant, and slightly more distant future. Even with the current uncertain economic climate just as many stalls are present as last year with companies still showing off high end products such as the biggest and thinnest TV’s ever and the like. Of course they are also looking to maybe the not-quite so high end as well, conscious that consumers may not be willing to splurge quite so much on luxury items. From the early reports I have heard on the radio, and through some blogs a lot of emphasis is being put on how energy efficient the latest generation of Gadgets is, with green, and low cost to run being major selling points.

Scanning through various blog posts these are a few of my favourite items I’ve stumbled across:

First up is this Digital Scanner which offers an easy way to change all your books to audio format. Setting up the scan is a simple case of placing the book on the base, and the scanner does the rest. It’s special lamp even scans every word, even the ones in the crack of the books spine! The only downside is that as far as I can see there is no means of automating the page turning, but maybe I’m just lazy?




Next up is the Gadgets Towers, which I shall post about my adventures with in due course. The only real letdown is that those ridiculous looking “3D Specs” are still needed!


Finally, continuing my unhealthy obsession with all things Guitar Hero and Rock Band shaped is Guitar Hero for actual Guitar. A Rhythm Game based Guitar tutor “Disney Star Guitarist” aims to teach you how to play the guitar using an interface similar to that of the Guitar Hero games, as well as scoring you appropriately for correctly hit, or missed notes.


3D technical Readout of a Battlestation. Well, not quite…..

Friday, June 27th, 2008

Ok, I know it’s not exactly new, the video below having been posted 10 months ago, but it’s summer, and as such ground breaking exciting new gadgets are fairly few and far between, and I hadn’t seen it before Wired (presumably experiencing the same sort of summer hiatus) posted about it.
This video shows the Interactive 360º Light Field Display in action, and it’s looking quite impressive I feel.

The first image I saw was the one below of a wire frame 3D Tie Fighter, which immediately made me wonder two things:
1) Why not do the Death Star a la the scene towards the end of A New Hope rather than a TIE? Ok so a TIE could possibly be considered more impressive than the Death Star, with the latter being just a sphere with a dent in it really.
2) Seeing the wire frame TIE I couldn’t help but be reminded of the original Star Wars game (bottom image), and how cool it would be if they could do it in 3D using this means of image projection.
3D TIE Projection


Original Star Wars arcade game
There are some minor health and safety hazards with this as it is that would probably need to be addressed. For example, part of the intrigue with any holographic 3D image is being able to put your hand through it. Doing so with this would unfortunately result in your hand and arm being shredded somewhat by the rapidly rotating mirrors. Never the less it seems a good place to start.