3D poised to hit gamers later this year

Sony, Nintendo battling it out to get games out in the new format, but you may not need glasses for Nintendo.

After taking over the big screen, 3-D is poised to hit the small screen via video games.

Sony Corporation and Nintendo Company presented duelling versions of 3-D gaming on Tuesday at the opening of the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, where attendance was expected to reach 45,000.

Both companies are investing heavily in 3-D video game technology to drive the next wave of consumer spending in an industry that generates roughly $45 billion (Dh165.2 billion) in sales worldwide. Sony showed off a number of game titles it hopes will prompt players to don glasses and enter the third dimension, including Gran Turismo 5, a much-anticipated racing game debuting on November 2, and Killzone 3, an adrenaline-soaked shooting game that is due out in February.

New technology

The 3DS, unlike Sony's 3-D games, does not require glasses, an advantage that Nintendo hammered home at its Tuesday news conference at the Nokia Theatre. "Man! Those glasses!" Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime exclaimed in mock horror. In an effect similar to lenticular images, the Nintendo 3DS projects an illusion of three dimensions on its 3.5-inch screen. The result is a picture comparable to 3-D with glasses.

The 3DS is similar to the current DS console, except that the top 3.5-inch screen will display 3-D images while the bottom, slightly larger display is a touch screen. Equipped with three cameras (two on the outside casing), the DS lets players take 3-D pictures and share them with other 3DS owners via a Wi-Fi internet connection. A slider lets viewers adjust the extent of the 3-D effect, including the ability to turn off the 3-D feature entirely.

What if an iPad 3G Gets Microwaved

If you've ever wanted to see an iPad microwaved, you can thank Dovetastic Microwave Theater for making your dreams come true. Dovetastic runs a YouTube channel, which provides videos of various items being microwaved, and the latest is an iPad - and not just an iPad, but the new 3G 64GB iPad. 


This is not the first time we've seen the destruction of an iPad in a YouTube video, but I haven't seen one microwaved until this point. Some will call these people names like "imbeciles", but it is clear that Dovetastic takes its work seriously. It calls itself a "performance art website subsidiary of Perfectlymadebirds Co.




In case you're wondering what Perfectlymadebirds Co. is, it's an eBay shop that claims to have "the largest selection of doll eyes on Ebay at low prices." They also have various Quizno's kitchen equipment listed, and of course, the Microwaved iPad itself, which currently has 14 bids, and is up to $132.49. 

Interesting!

I think my favorite comment involving iPad and microwaving is totally unrelated to the microwaving of this iPad. @Daking75 on Twitter says, "The ipad needs to microwave burritos then I will buy one!!"

On a related note, Apple has sold over a million iPads in a month. I'd be curious to know how many of them have been destroyed.


Thanks: webpronews, Dovetastic Microwave Theater. 

A new star from Google - People Hopper

People Hopper is a new application for Orkut that lets you take your profile image and 'morph' it into your friend's–using publicly available images from other Orkut users along the way. It is a fun app that also allows you to make new connections–since the images that show in your Hopper all come from people who have chosen to make their profiles public, you can click through to learn more about them and reach out to them. You can also morph one friend into another. No computer graphics are used to generate the path.

To be able to use People Hopper, one needs to have an Orkut account. If you don't already have one, create a new account here. Then, you can add the gadget by clicking on "add apps" under the "more" menu, or simply click here to use people hopper.

To generate a 'morph', People Hopper uses image matching technology. First, faces are automatically detected in public profile images and normalized for improved contrast and size. Then, for each image, we find other publicly available profile images that are similar to one another. Then, when you pick a friend you want to be your end match, we just hop along similar public images, step-by-step, until the connection is made! You can think of it as an image graph between friends, similar to the friendship graph already on Orkut. We don't use any face-specific features or metrics during this process. It is just a simple matching to find similar pictures.

The quality of the path depends on two main factors: the appearance of faces in profile images of Orkut users and the similarity measure used for image matching. Since we cannot control the appearance of profile images, it may happen that for a particular image there exists no visually similar image in the database. Developing better similarity measures is a topic of continuing research.

To know more: Click Here

New gadget allows soldier to "See with his Tongue"

Lance Corporal Craig Lundberg was blinded by a rocket propelled grenade while on patrol in Basra in Iraq during 2007 but thanks to new glasses which is called the Brainport, the Blind soldier can now navigate his surrondings using his tongue. This new device is a mere technological marvel, the Brainport is a miniature video camera and sensory equipment works by converting visual images into a series of electrical pulses which are relayed to the wearer via their tongue. Different images are then built using different strength pulses then relays them to the wearer which allows him/her to navigate around objects or grab on to them and pick them up.

Presently the Brainport is only a prototype stage and sends information to 400 points on the tongue which the designers plan to increase to up to 4,000 points for clearer images in the future.

Thanks: http://www.loopygadgets.com/

The world's most expensive island online

Twenty-seven year old in Australia paid $26,500 for a virtual island considered 'most valuable virtual object' by Guinness

What is the most you're willing to pay for a virtual item in a videogame or virtual world? Five, ten dollars? How about $26,500?
That's the amount David Storey, a 27-year-old graduate student living in Sydney, Australia, paid for a virtual island, the "Most valuable object that is virtual," according to Guinness World Records.

It's easy to write off Storey, who goes by the name "Deathifier," as a geek gone wild, but he now owns a million-dollar empire.

Storey runs Amethera Treasure Island, which he purchased in the virtual world Entropia, as a rare game preserve and taxes hunters on his land.

Storey says the taxes bring in more than $100,000 in real money per year.

"I thought it would be cool to own an island, and I knew I could run it and be able to pay for my play" says Storey, who has picked up skills he never imagined learning in a game. "Entropia continually evolves, so you have to constantly be watching for new developments. It's sort of like real life."

While Storey's example is extreme, buying and selling virtual goods in videogames and virtual worlds is becoming mainstream.

The virtual goods market in the US is estimated to reach $1.6 billion this year, up from $1 billion in 2009, according to research firm Inside Networks.

And the US is just a part of the worldwide market, which some experts put as high as $10 billion; countries like China and Korea are major players.

Virtual worlds and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) like Entropia and Second Life are where virtual goods economies began.

But in recent years, casual and social games like "FarmVille" and "Pet Society" on Facebook have also become important players.

Typically, virtual transactions can be divided into two categories. In one type of transaction, you "cash in," or exchange real dollars for virtual currencies, and use the virtual currencies to buy virtual goods, like a new cow in FarmVille.

The other type of transaction lets you cash in and, like Storey, earn real money. In addition, virtual worlds and MMORPGs have also gotten very good at monetising the user; industry experts estimate that the average revenues per user usually range from $10 to $20.

In comparison, social and casual games are relatively newer, less mature markets that usually only utilize "cash in" transactions.

A fairly successful social game might have average revenues per user of a dollar or two. Still, Inside Virtual Goods estimates that sales from social games will make up more than half the total US virtual goods revenues in 2010.

Technology reached here today!!!!

Content courtesy: gulfnews.com

How Laptops May Look Like in the Future?

You may not need a briefcase to carry your laptop in the near feature. Just roll the computer and wear it like a shoulder handbag.

Orkin Design, a design firm in Germany, has created a amazing concept computer that can be used both as a laptop and a tablet (slate). It features a large multitouch screen, USB ports, webcam, stylus and everything that you probably look for in a computer.



The sad part, you can only experience this flexible laptop in a video and we don’t know if any of the hardware companies are actually working on such a design. As one commenter points out:


" Its an interesting concept, but It is probably a long ways from any sort of actual prototype. Forget DVD drives, what about Circuit boards! They would need to find a new material instead of the current silicon, as circuit boards today cant withstand much flexibility.
I know simple circuit boards are flexible (hence rollup keyboards), but I have yet to see a flexible motherboard that supports the required watts/current of a modern chipset and processor."

Thanks labnol.org for this wonderful post.

Meet the Apple IPad

The iPad is a tablet computer developed by Apple Inc. Announced on January 27, 2010, it is similar in functionality to the iPod touch, running the same operating system (iPhone OS) and almost all of the same applications.

The iPad has a larger 9.7-inch (25 cm) LED-backlit Multi-Touch display with a pixel resolution of 1024x768, 16 to 64 gigabytes (GB) of flash memory, a 1-gigahertz (GHz) Apple A4 processor, Bluetooth 2.1, and a 30-pin dock connector to sync with iTunes and connect wired accessories.

Two models have been announced: one with 802.11n Wi-Fi (available in March 2010 in the United States) and one with Wi-Fi; 3G, which can connect to HSDPA cellular networks; and Assisted GPS (available in April in the U.S. and several other countries). Prices will range from US$499 to US$829.

Apple's first device to use its iBookstore service and companion iBooks ebook reading application, the iPad has been compared to Amazon's Kindle.

Availability
In an e-mail to customers at the time of launch, Apple wrote:
Application availability and pricing are subject to change. This device has not yet been authorized as required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission. This device is not, and may not be, offered for sale or lease, or sold or leased, until authorization is obtained. -Apple , Wired News

The iPad is to go on sale at the end of March 2010 (Wi-Fi version, worldwide) and end of April (Wi-Fi + 3G version, in the United States and some other countries. International 3G prices are to be announced summer 2010. The Wi-Fi + 3G iPad will be unlocked so it can be used on other mobile carriers that support GSM micro-SIMs. 3G will be provided in the U.S. by AT&T and sold with two prepaid contract-free data plan options: one for unlimited data and the other for 250 MB/month at half the price.The plans will be activated on the iPad itself and can be canceled at any time.

For more information on Apple IPad visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad or http://www.apple.com/

Video of the Month

Is it worth spending time on creating tags and categories?

Is your password strong enough??

This is common knowledge; you should use a combination of alphabets, numerical digits, and special characters (!, @) to create strong passwords. Yet, the most commonly used password on the Internet is 123456 followed by 12345 – see full list.

The following visualization courtesy CXO categorizes some of the popular passwords based on their strength – it might appear a little funny but lot of people are actually using such simple, easy-to-guess passwords for their online accounts.

How Strong is your Password?

Online services like Google’s Gmail or WordPress have password meters that calculate the strength of password as you type more characters into the box. Microsoft too offers an online tool that will instantly tell if your password is strong or weak.

There’s however one downside with most of these password checking tools – they’ll tell you that your password is weak (and thus easy to crack) but you won’t know why the password string has been labeled weak and what you can do to strengthen it.

Enter Password Meter – this is an online tool that will not only rate your password’s strength but will offer clues on what you kind of characters can you add or remove to improve the password’s strength. For instance, the complexity of password “Hell@Wor1d!” can be improved by removing consecutive lowercase letters.

Thanks: labnol.org

Opera Browser Coming to iPhone

If you want to browse the web on your iPhone (or iPod Touch or the upcoming iPad), the only option is the built-in Safari browser because Apple, until now, won’t approve other browser apps in their iTunes store.


Opera, hoping that Apple will change their policy, has developed a version of the Opera Mini browser for the iPhone and they’ll showing a preview of this iPhone App during the Mobile World Congress that happens in Barcelona next week.
An email from Opera PR says:
“We are thrilled to offer journalists and partners an exclusive preview of Opera Mini for iPhone during the year’s biggest mobile event,” said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera Software.

Safari vs. Opera for iPhone
Opera says Opera Mini for iPhone offers up to six times faster download speeds than Apple’s own browser, and up to 10 times smaller data traffic.

The Opera Mini for iPhone will only be shown to members of the press but Apple will have to approve the app for everyone else to experience Opera on their iPods and iPhones.

That may not happen anytime soon as Opera is yet to submit their Opera Mini iPhone App to the Apple App Store for approval.

Content courtesy: Labnol

Amitabh Bachchan Launches a Voice Blog (DEMO)

Indian superstar Amitabh Bachchan — who is not just a Bollywood icon but also an avid blogger — has now launched a new voice blog called Bachchan Bol where he plans to regular record the latest happenings in his life using his own voice.

Fans of Amitabh Bachchan can dial (022) 505678910 from their mobile or landline phones to hear the actor speak or they can even record their own voice comments. Amitabh Bachchan told the BBC that he would record at least twice a week for his “vocal blog” and that he’ll continue to write his (massively popular) blog just as before.

Bachchan Bol is a premium mobile service so you’ll have to pay around Rs. 6 per minute. This may also mean that phone users outside India currently won’t have the facility to dial into Bachchan’s voice blog.

How Bachchan Bol Service Works

You can think of Bachchan Bol as a pre-recorded podcast. The only difference is that you need a computer with an Internet connection to download podcasts but in the case of Bachchan’s phone blog, all you need is a phone connection which most people in India already have.

Here’s a quick video (in Hindi) that explains how the Bachchan Bol service works .


Content Courtesy: labnol.org

What’s Inside the Google Phone

Video: Nexus One Disassembled 

If you are wondering what’s inside Nexus One, check this slideshow at iFixit*. They bought a new phone and completely disassembled it using a Phillips screwdriver.

 
 

The Link With Zune & iPod

The teardown reveals some interesting "secrets" about the components used in the Google Phone.

For example, the touchscreen is made by Samsung who is also a supplier for Microsoft Zune HD. The Bluetooth and wireless chip found in the Nexus One is from Broadcom and it’s the same chip that is used by Apple for iPod touch.

[*] iFixIt is the same web site that offers free visual guides to help you repair or upgradeApple products on your own.

Thanks to: labnol.org