Webmania: Talking tech
Webmania this week: 3D without glasses
A Toronto-based company is working on a technology that would allow moviegoers to experience three-dimensional images without the need for awkward 3D glasses.
Spatial View chief operating officer Jim Trussler says the company is a leader in the field. They are developing 3D display technology for several professional fields, including architecture and medicine.
Before it reaches those places, Trussler says 3D will make its debut on electronic billboards.
"The technology is advanced today though to be great for retail applications where you're looking at menu boards at fast food restaurants or displays at trade shows or displays at the airport or the mall," Trussler told Webmania.
Using proprietary software combined with a special thin screen - called a "picket fence" - that overlays a monitor, the technology allows the left and right eye to see two slightly different images.
"The brain will then naturally combine those two images to a 3D image that we're accustomed to seeing in real life," Trussler said.
While the technology is in its infancy, video gamers may help popularize it. Trussler said they have the ability to apply their technology to video games, effectively immersing players in their virtual world.
"We can plug our screens into those games and you'll be playing in 3D right away."
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The Good and Bad Side of the Power of the Net
Bill Hutchison
The web can be used for so much and you can reach so many people quickly and easily.
Newmindspace.com has been utilizing the power of the net for a while to stage fun events like the giant Easter egg hunt in Toronto or the mass pillow fight in New York City in February.
In China there is a phenomonenon that has been growing over the past six months called "mob shopping" or "team buying." Consumers agree online to meet at a set time and place and then descend on a store, sometimes as many as 500 shoppers at a time, to purchase a product. They use their numbers to demand discounts of up to 30 per cent.
According to a report in The Economist, some stores don't like it, while others are happy to move so much inventory all at once.
A couple of sites to check out are 51tuangou.com and teambuying.com.cn.
On the flip side, an ad on the website craigslist.com led to a home being ransacked near Seattle recently.
The ad invited people to go to the house and take whatever they wanted.
They did.
Windows, doors, appliances, light fixtures, and yes even the kitchen sink were removed. The home was a rental owned by a woman named Laurie Raye. She had just evicted a tenant, her sister. The ad was only online for a couple of hours before being pulled, but the damage was done.
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Webmania: Photo technology
Innovation in digital photo products is happening at a rapid pace and many of the cutting-edge imaging technologies were on display at the recent Photo Marketing Association International convention in Las Vegas, Nevada recently.
While digital SLR cameras are enjoying consumer popularity plus extensive research and development, imaging companies are also trying to pack more into smaller packages.
Capturing attention during the PMA trade show was Sony's 8 mega-pixel T-100 point and shoot camera. The camera is compact but boasts big features, according to technology journalist Marc Saltzman.
"I love that it's one of the first cameras that allows you to watch your photos in HD-quality on an HDTV. You connect 'component out' to your HDTV and you can look at your photos in high-definition even when it's playing in slide show format."
To store those high-quality images, Kingston Technology unveiled a new line of Secure Digital flash memory cards. Offering up to eight gigabytes of storage capacity, the new line of SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) cards means photographers can keep shooting for a very long time.
"Talk about high capacity, 3,500 photos with a six mega-pixel camera can fit on something this small, the size of a postage stamp. And eight hours of video, so that's just incredible," Saltzman said.
"This will be supported by many camera companies this year; Canon, Kodak, Panasonic, and Sanyo to name a few."
Once those images are taken and stored, new photo printers promise photo lab quality prints in very little time.
A new product from Sony even offers prints at prices that rival popular photo labs.
"I love this little picture station here from Sony - It's the FP90 (model) ... It's capable of spitting out 4x6 photo lab-quality prints in as low as 45 seconds (and) costs about 29 cents a print."
But high-tech cameras are power hungry, having a reputation for quickly wearing out batteries.
Now battery manufacturers are offering a high-capacity choice of their own.
Saltzman recommends using lithium batteries for cameras that require double-A or trible-A type batteries.
"Your camera will last seven-times longer. We all hate seeing that flashing red battery light at the back of our camera, especially when you need it the most."
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Webmania: Walk-on websites
New visitors to websites usually decide within seconds whether they will stay or if they will surf away.
For online marketers, catching and holding people's attention in those crucial moments is essential.
A Mississauga, Ont.-based company believes it has a solution.
HD Media Creations shoots videos to give websites a personal touch. Their technology inserts a person directly into a web page, allowing the actor or spokesperson to walk around the site, interact with it and enhance the visitor's experience.
The online actor can even be clickable, directing web surfers to more information.
"We're basically humanizing websites," Bruno Marsala of HD Media Creations said.
Marsala added that the innovative idea is based on technology that web surfers are already very familiar with.
"It's Flash-based ... It's a transparent layer that sits over an existing web page with total functionality that you can call up another video or run to another HTML page within your site or bring up an email."
The videos are shot with high-definition cameras against a green screen. When the video is processed, the green colour is eliminated and the actor is seamlessly inserted into the web page.
HD Media Creations not only provides studio time and HTML coding for their clients, but they also provide online performers for websites.
Marsala claims that one of the company's performers, Vanessa, is "the busiest online actress in the world right now."
Anyone can try out the technology for free with a simple demonstration found on the company's website.
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