Posts Tagged ‘3D’

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Viacom Wins Reversal in Landmark YouTube Case (Reuters)
A U.S. appeals court dealt Google Inc a major defeat by reviving lawsuits by Viacom Inc, the English Premier League and various other media companies over the use of copyrighted videos on Google’s YouTube service without permission. Bloomberg Viacom sued in 2007, seeking $1 billion in damages and claiming that YouTube users were illegally uploading thousands of videos of Viacom television programs, such as South Park and The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, and movies from its Paramount Pictures studio. ZDNet The case translates to putting the burden of responsibility back on the website owner, rather than the uploader, which could send massive ripples through the online community from search engines to social networks, like Facebook and Google+. Gizmodo The outcome of the case will hinge entirely on whether YouTube “knew” that all of this copyrighted material was out there and what “knowing” actually means. Read more

Today YouTube is announcing a cool new feature that literally lets you convert your 2D YouTube videos into 3D videos automatically. The 2D to 3D conversion feature was released in beta last September but today it’s being rolled out to everyone.

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If anyone can figure out how to produce amazing 3D photos and videos using a smartphone, it is probably the photographers associated with National Geographic. And, that is what National Geographic and phone maker LG announced today.

LG and the National Geographic will help us to the world in 3D (Akihabara News)

The LG Optimus 3D is an Android smartphone with two lenses on the rear of the device used to record 3D photos and video. Still photos have a 5 megapixel resolution. 2D video can be recorded at 1080p at 24 fps while 3D video can be recorded at 720p with 30 fps. The Optimus 3D provides glasses-free 3D viewing.

Four photographers and two videopgraphers associated with National Geographic used LG’s Optimus 3D smartphone exclusively to create 3D photos and videos.

- Steven Alvarez, photojournalist
- Brian Skerry, photojournalist
- Bryan Harvey, photojournalist (video)
- Justin Guariglia, Photographer/Contributing Editor
- Peter Hutchens, Photojournalist (video)
- Steve Winter, Photojournalist

Their work will be on dislay at the IFA consumer electroics show which starts on September 1 in Berlin.

IFA Berlin

The big news in this recent Sprint press release was that The Green Hornet movie will be bundled with the Android-powered glasses-free 3D viewing enabled HTC EVO 3D smartphone.

Exciting Content Coming for this Summer’s Highly Anticipated Smartphone, HTC EVO 3D Exclusively from Sprint

However, buried in the press release are a couple of other interesting 3D features.

HTC EVO 3D makes it possible to become part of the action and then easily and seamlessly post and view high-quality 3D video to YouTube or Facebook, or share moments in real time over the Internet live, via Qik. The 3D content will automatically convert to 2D if the viewer does not have a 3D capable device.

The capability to easily share 3D video via Facebook, Qik and YouTube should encourage people to record and post 3D video.

You don’t have to buy a 3D TV to see the Green Hornet movie in 3D if you buy an HTC EVO 3D Android-powered smartphone from Sprint this summer. Sprint announced “The Green Hornet 3D” movie will be bundled with the phone on a microSD card included with the phone.

Exciting Content Coming for this Summer’s Highly Anticipated Smartphone, HTC EVO 3D Exclusively from Sprint

The HTC EVO 3D has large 4.3-inch display that provides glasses-free 3D viewing using a technology similar to the one used, for example, by the Nintendo 3DS portable game console.

The “HTC Watch” app give EVO 3D users access to 2D and 3D movies and TV shows on demand. Rentals cost $2.99 to $3.99. Video purchases start at $8.99. Up to five movies can be stored in the network cloud.

Glasses-free 3D is making significant moves into the consumer market. Fujifilm introduced the W3 point-and-shoot 3D camera last year that I bought a few months ago. The LG Optimus 3G Android-powered smartphone is capable of viewing 3D glasses-free as well as recording 3D video. Nintendo’s 3DS brings glasses-free 3D viewing and recording down to the pre-teen crowd (as well as older gamers, of course). But, how about a mobile device with a larger screen? Say, a notebook PC? Toshiba has this covered:

Toshiba Unveils the World’s First Glasses-free 3D Notebook PCs Able to Simultaneously Display 3D and 2D Content on One Screen

The dynabook Qosmio T851/D8CR has a 15.6-inch display that not only provides glasses-free 3D viewing but also a dedicated image processor that somehow makes conventional 2D images appear to have more depth (3D). It also is able to keep captions at a stable depth during 3D viewing. Toshiba says that “Face3D” uses Toshiba’s distinctive high-speed, high-accuracy face detection technology to locate faces in 2D images and then applies a human depth template to the image, giving the features more depth and assuring a 3D appearance with graded shading. This technology is aimed specifically at digital broadcast signals. However, it probably isn’t too much of a stretch to imagine this quasi-3D transformation being applied to Skype video calls in the future.

Anaglyph 3D photographs

Via CrunchGear: Toshiba Notebook First To Simultaneously Display 2D And 3D Images On One Screen

Trimensional 1.02 is a clever 99 cent app that uses the iPhone 4′s front-facing camera to take a picture of an object while the iPhone’s screen lights up in segments to light different areas of the object in front of it.

The 1.02 upgrade adds a couple of simple ways to share your 3D experiments:

- Create a Quicktime movie of any 3D model rotating (shared via email).
- Create an animated GIF of any 3D model rotating (shared via email).

You can see examples of both export types here. The image at the top left is an old school animated GIF file. Embedded below is a YouTube video of the Quicktime file Trimensional created.

There’s also a $4.99 in-app purchase option that export your 3D image in a number of supported 3D model file formats. These exported files can be used by 3D software such as Maya and Blender.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) reports on a prototype app by the Engineering Human-Computer Interaction Research group that uses the iPad 2′s front facing camera to track head movements and create a compeling 3D-like visual effect without any special display hardware.
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3D technology has not captured the attention of the average consumer or even the power-user techie yet. But, that day is coming soon in my opinion. It started with 3D TVs (which are very expensive – typical of first generation products) and the second generation Fujifilm W3 3D camera last year. In 2011, we’ve seen announcements for several Android based smartphones and tablets that feature 3D cameras and, in some cases, glass-free lenticular 3D viewing displays. The release of Nintendo’s 3DS 3D mobile gaming console this past weekend will probably get a lot more people thinking about and actually working with 3D viewing and photo creation. However, the biggest push for 3D might come if Apple jumps into the market.
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I noticed that both the WiFi-only Motorola Xoom (Android 3.0) tablet and the Nintendo 3DS were at my local Costco store over the weekend. I fought the temptation to buy one or both of them. It turns out that this may have been a wise decision concerning the Nintedo 3DS portable game console. International Business Times reports that some 3DS owners have been reporting several problems including something dubbed the Black Screen of Death.

Nintendo Downplays Reports Of 3DS Flaws

- Black Screen of Death: Screen goes black and then the 3DS becomes unresponsive
- Screen instructions telling 3DS owners to restart their systems
- Loose hinges on the 3DS

Nintendo is said to be addressing these issues. In some cases, 3DS users are being instructed to download a system update.