3D

The online mapping stuff just keeps getting better.

A company called EveryScape is launching on Monday a three-dimensional local search site that lets people "drive" down streets and even "walk" into buildings.

If you thought Google's Street View was cool, wait until you see how you can ski down the slopes in Aspen, Colorado, or whiz over taxicabs and pedestrians through the streets of New York, Boston, and Miami. The inside views of buildings are only available in Miami and Aspen right now.

The visuals are stunning as you fly through the front doors of … Read more

Thumb open an ordinary flip or slide phone and nothing happens, except maybe the triggering of a robotic greeting (Hello to you, too, Moto.) Do it again with a phone enriched with Emdigo's 3D offering and football players might rush by.

The carrier-partnered content distributor isn't one I'd normally cover, but the offering is an example of compelling 3D software coming our way. Similar third-party, carrier-agnostic downloads are sure to follow.

NFL Team Tailgate and Hello Kitty are two such examples of these enhanced animated skins that users can purchase through Verizon and Alltel. Flipping or sliding … Read more

Imax is following the smaller-format movie industry to digital projection technology a bit more rapidly than earlier planned.

The company plans to install three prototype systems in the second quarter of 2008 with a full transformation in the second half of the year. Previously, the company had planned to begin the transformation sometime between late 2008 and mid-2009, the company said.

"Several key exhibitors, studios and consumer research groups have already experienced the digital prototype we've been running for the past several months, and we are very encouraged by the unanimously positive reaction to the next iteration of … Read more

Dolby has signed up a passel of cinemas to use its Dolby 3D movie technology, the company announced Monday.

At the ShowEast conference Monday, the company offered a list of independent and chain theater companies that will use Dolby 3D: Carousel Cinemas, Cinema City, Cinetopia, Cobb Theatres, Kerasotes Theatres, Malco Theatres, Marcus Theatres, Maya Cinemas, Megaplex Theatres, Starlight Cinemas, Sundance Cinemas, Warren Theatres, Kinepolis Group of Belgium and Supercines of Ecuador.

But Dolby still isn't saying how many screens total are equipped with its technology, a key measurement of how the relative newcomer is faring against incumbent Real D. … Read more

Canonical plans on Thursday to release "Gutsy Gibbon," the Ubuntu Linux version 7.10 that the company hopes will lay the foundation for a serious push into the server and other markets six months from now.

That's when Gutsy Gibbon's sequel, "Hardy Heron," is scheduled to arrive. Gutsy Gibbon will have the usual Ubuntu support life span--18 months--but Hardy Heron will be the company's second version to feature long-term support, which lasts three years for the desktop product and five years for the server.

Some of the Gutsy Gibbon work involved introducing new … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--It looks like Nikon, having followed Canon into the market for high-end SLRs with full-frame image sensors, will continue the effort by offering lower-end models as well.

Nikon's $5,000 D3 camera, announced in August and due to go on sale in November, employs a sensor the size of a full frame of 35mm film. These FX-sized sensors offer higher sensitivity and a broader field of view than the smaller DX sensors Nikon has used in its SLRs until now. Nikon will develop new DX-based cameras, but the company will flesh out its FX line as well, said … Read more

TOKYO--It's as big as 3D gets.

The Cyberdome is an 8.5-meter-high hemisphere-shaped screen for 3D computer images at the National Center, a technological showcase for National (a subsidiary of Matsushita) in the Shiodome area of Tokyo. At that size, it's one of the biggest computer screens in the world, according to National. I wanted to get a picture of it, but it wouldn't fit into the viewfinder of my camera.

It's also got a track ball the size of a crenshaw melon. (see picture). The system is driven by 19 PCs and 18 projectors. (That'… Read more

Today, if you want to trim all the distracting background out of a picture--say, the crowd behind your daughter playing soccer--you have to do a lot of artful selection with high-powered software such as Photoshop. But what if your computer understood the depth of the image, just as you did when you took the picture, and could be told to just erase everything that's a certain distance behind your kid?

That's one possible way to use technology that Adobe Systems has begun showing off--and that can be seen in video of a news conference posted by the Audioblog.fr site … Read more