And what is boobquake you ask? It’s McCreight’s tongue-in-cheek challenge to Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi who surmised that Iran’s recent run-ins with earthquakes were the blame of … well I’ll just let you read it: “Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes.”

McCreight’s response: “Time for a Boobquake.” In her now notorious post, “In the name of science, I offer my boobs,” McCreight pledges that she will wear the low-cuttiest top she has on Monday April 26, 2010 (hereafter Boobquake Day) and challenges other women to do the same. And the Double XX’s have responded in droves (and some XY’s as well). When I RSVPed to the Facebook event this morning, about 44 thousand (now 60) had said they would show off their boobs, moobs, A cups and Montag’s to either put Mr. Sedighi’s claims to breast, or cause the boobiest clash of plate tectonics ever! It’s the best use of post feminist blogging breast power I think I have ever seen, and that’s saying something!

Well I don’t know about you, but I think that my A cups can contribute a slight tremor to the cause, perhaps yours can too, and together we can solve this immodesty earthquake puzzler once and for all.

While checking in with my company fanpage I noticed the nice, neat little message that today Facebook is rolling out the “like” button for Fan Pages . . . I’m not sure how much I really “like” this idea Facebook.  When you become a fan of a site doesn’t it make more sense for me to “become a fan” rather than clicking “like” . . . I just don’t get the logic.

Take this question from the ‘Learn More’ section as an example . . .

No potential confusion for the masses there Facebook . . . 0.o

Fast Company has a great article that explains the Official and Community pages feature.

“There are two controversial elements of this change, and they’re kind of the refrain of all Facebook-related problems: annoyance and privacy. Starting Monday, if you’ve got thirty interests and affiliations listed on your profile, you’ll be presented with fifteen popups telling you to join fifteen Pages. You can pick and choose which Pages will be linked individually, but if you’ve got a long, curated Facebook profile, Monday is going to be a pain in the ass for you.Oh, and you’re stuck with using accepted, linked Pages for most of your profile, including education and interests.” – Read the full article

What are your thoughts on the new changes? Read more about the new changes HERE and when you are done reading about the new “like” feature and the community pages – take a moment to help Facebook by offering them feedback.

To put it simply, this basically means that according to the court ruling, Comcast was simply directing available bandwidth in ways that they felt were effective for their network management.  This was the claim by Comcast defense. The U.S. courts agreed that the FCC can not tell Comcast how to manage said network utilization.

Herein lies the problem.  With the lack of control the FCC has over broadband regulation, unlike the telephone industry, neutral usage can not be controlled by a “third party” regulator like the FCC currently. Instead bandwidth will be manipulated by individual ISP’s who can “throttle down” individual customer usage for any reason they choose, including lessening speed throughput on content that competes with their own services, such as Hulu, video games, movie downloading, etc.

         The following is a mash up of reports on the FCC vs. Comcast court ruling from around the web:

The Washinton Post stated:

“At first glance, Tuesday’s federal court ruling on Comcastlooked like a clean win for the cable giant and for competitors including Time Warner and AT&T. The court, after all, ruled that Comcast could regulate high-speed Internet traffic over its own system and that a company that wanted to push its content through Comcast’s pipelines could not.

But the ruling might be only the beginning of a long campaign between Internet service providers and companies such as Skype, Google and Microsoft. The outcome is far from certain.

But the FCC could work around the Tuesday ruling with a vote of the five FCC commissioners. Currently, Internet service providers fall under a lightly regulated area of the FCC. It would take only a 3-to-2 vote to move high-speed Internet into one of the FCC’s more heavily regulated areas, where the agency could set tough rules on companies such as Comcast.

The FCC said Wednesday that the ruling would hamper key portions of its national broadband plan, such as its goal to bring high-speed connections to rural and low-income areas.”
Broadcast Engineering mentioned:

Hours after the decision was made public some advocates of Net Neutrality began calling for a reclassification of Internet access service. “The FCC should immediately start a proceeding bringing Internet access service back under some common carrier regulation similar to that used for decades,” said Gigi Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C. based public interest group, in a statement posted on the group’s Web site.

Yahoo wrote:

“With so much at stake, the FCC now has several options. It could ask Congress to give it explicit authority to regulate broadband. Or it could appeal Tuesday’s decision.

But both of those steps could take too long because the agency “has too many important things they have to do right away,” said Ben Scott, policy director for the public interest group Free Press. Free Press was among the groups that alerted the FCC after The Associated Press ran tests and reported that Comcast was interfering with attempts by some subscribers to share files online.

Scott believes that the likeliest step by the FCC is that it will simply reclassify broadband as a more heavily regulated telecommunications service. That, ironically, could be the worst-case outcome from the perspective of the phone and cable companies.

“Comcast swung an ax at the FCC to protest the BitTorrent order,” Scott said. “And they sliced right through the FCC’s arm and plunged the ax into their own back.”

The battle over the FCC’s legal jurisdiction comes amid a larger policy dispute over the merits of net neutrality. Backed by Internet companies such as Google Inc. and the online calling service Skype, the FCC says rules are needed to prevent phone and cable companies from prioritizing some traffic or degrading or services that compete with their core businesses. Indeed, BitTorrent can be used to transfer large files such as online video, which could threaten Comcast’s cable TV business.”

And Kotaku stated:

“Now as gamers, we could live without BitTorrent, though some publishers make extensive use of torrent files to deliver content patches for PC games. There are plenty of other ways to deliver patches that a ban on torrents wouldn’t cripple a gamer.

It’s the potential restrictions that could come down the line that are more frightening.

Net neutrality, again, calls for no discrimination between data or the devices that connect to that data. With today’s game consoles easily identifiable via network, what’s to stop a broadband provider from claiming that too much traffic is being used by your Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, and demand you pay a premium to connect them to the web?

Or massively-multiplayer online games, for that matter. Millions of people play World of Warcraft in the United States alone. What happens when an ISP decides that World of Warcraft players need to pay a little extra for the constant connection to the game?

It may sound ridiculous to some, but there are already restrictions in place. Comcast now restricts its standard users to 250GB of bandwidth a month. While that’s not a problem right now for most gamers, PC games are getting larger every day, and consoles are already starting to allow users to download full games directly to their hard drive. If a company like Comcast were to suddenly start breaking that 250GB into segments based on use, we could be in trouble.”

It is clear that this battle has just begun.  What’s at risk?  The internet’s soul!  (Dramatic dun-dun-dun…..)

Image courtesy Gadget Boyo

Between wifi on the airplane, the kids watching movies, and me playing around and exploring I’m going to put this thing to the test.

Actual time used in the limo = 55 minutes 

8:30AM We are at the airport and through security.  The battery still says 99%.  The kids watched two half hour shows on the way down.  I haven’t logged on to the wifi here; I am waiting until we are on the plane.

12:00PM The flight was delayed, so the kids watch one more 30 minute video. Weare now onboard the flight. I have wifi and have started playing around: I’ve downloaded a book from the book store and downloaded the flight tracker software. I’ve also checked my email, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. My next move is to try to download some good trashy magazines. Battery power is at 83%.

Actual total time used = 1 hour 35 minutes

1:30PM I checked out the magazines but have yet to download. I’ve done some Twitter work and played on Facebook.  Then a child needed to be entertained…thank you SpongeBob!  Luckily, we had it downloaded on iTunes, because the streaming video from Netflix wasn’t streaming so well on the airplane’s wifi.

We also spent a lot of time on Flight Tracker, which I have to say has calmed the “are we there yet” monster.  It’s calm, but not completely gone. Battery power just dropped to 69%.

Actual total time on = 3 hours 10 minutes

2:30PM We are going to be landing soon.  The kids played on Google Maps for a while and then I read some of the book I downloaded on iBooks. I also have books on the Kindle (I’ll compare those apps in a different blog).  The power so far is impressive. I am still at 55%.  For the record, the iTouch lost power about an hour ago and the laptop just shut down.

On a side note, I’ve had about 5 people coming up to talk to me about the

iPad, they want to touch it and feel how light it is.  They want to see the screen and the apps.  I’ve mentioned that I am blogging about battery life and they ask me where so they can read it (note: Travis, we need business cards).

Total time = 4 hours 10 minutes 

5:55PM We are at our condo. I’ve logged into wifi and checked email, Facebook and Twitter, told the parents that we made it here safely, and I’m about to head to the pool but first, the battery power’s at 48% – Awesome!

Total time = 5 hours 10 minutes

Here we are at 8:30PM. I haven’t been on the iPad much since we arrived but the kids did play with Google Maps.  I did a little work; just checked some emails and texts. The battery is at 44%.

Total usage time = 6 hour 10 minutes

Basically, I’ve used the iPad as much as I would want to during my travels and still have half my battery life. That is amazing!

So, just as an added test, I gave my iPad to a friend in the group told him to see what he could do. He spent about 45 minutes with it playing around checking out videos and all sorts of fun things, and here we are at 10:30PM with 32% battery life.

Total time = 7 hours 15 minutes, with 31% battery life.
Given that they claim 10 hours, I’d say they are right on the mark!

Flash forward to 2009 and the break out of social media tools for business like Twitter and Facebook.  There are still a great deal of companies who aren’t quite sure how to fit these into their plan but at least at this point they are starting to understand that they need to figure out how to manage their social media and online presence.

Now, I want to take you one step further. I’m going to make a little prediction here and I think you may see it come true in the next 5 years.  With the impeding delivery date on the iPad being April 3 and considering all of the companies that are working on their own version of a tablet like computer, not to mention the fact that non business users are flocking to stores to upgrade their cells phones to smart phones……I think we are going to be in a situation where the app fills in the gaps that the website has left behind.

I have some ideas on this but am not going to give away the farm here. What I will say is this, take mobile phones/devices combine them with mobile apps and throw in some virtual perimeters and geo location services and you’ve got yourself some serious cross marketing going on.  The beauty of this is that businesses will be marketing to people who want to be marketed to.

My prediction is that in less than 5 years time businesses will view mobile applications in the same light that they view their website.  Developers, get on board now!

I had the opportunity to chat with Joseph Matheny, who is a founder of Hukilau . . . . well in his own words a ‘Serial entrepreneur and transmedia storyteller. Hukilau/Alterati/Greylodge founder. In my  words – a great f*ing guy.

My first question was “What the hell does Hukilau mean?”

Okay – a little help from Wikipedia ::

A Hukilau is a way of fishing invented by the ancient Hawaiians. The word comes from Huki, meaning pull, and lau, meaning leaves. A large number of people, usually family and friends, would work together in casting the net from shore and then pulling it back. The net was lined with ki leaves, which would help scare the fish into the center of the net. [1] Consistent with the Hawaiian subsistence economy, anybody that helped could share in the catch.

Great concept right?!

Independent film as I understood it meant that you were in it together – cast and crew. It also meant that the amount of effort and time you put in – you would get out of it. But Joseph quickly pointed out that the organic landscape of independent films had changed over the years to resemble more of a shallow set on a back lot . . .and that independent films were not going to stay Hollywood’s bitch for long.

This is how Hukilau started for him . . .

“It was a weird juxtaposition of things. I started reading Alex Cox‘ book called the X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker – Alex was the guy who made Repo Man and Sid & Nancy and the thing about Alex is – those two movies were huge – and then you notice he’s not around anymore – and it wasn’t because no one would hire him – its because he dropped off the Hollywood map. HE dropped off the Hollywood map of his own volition. I loved those films and I liked him as a director and I was always curious what happened to him and why so I read the book. The book was an outline of all the things that were wrong with the film industry. Alex wanted to remain true to his vision and all he found in Hollywood was – that he would come up with a good idea for a movie and it would get into a studio and by the time he could actually make it – it had been perverted – it was all because the studio’s were applying more pressure to make it more commercial, to make it dumber, to make it this – make it that. So he decided that he wanted to retain his soul and from that point on he was only going to make micro budget films. Now at the time he started doing that – the technology that’s around today wasn’t as accessible as it is.”

“If you go back to the root of independent films which is back before the studios caught on that this was some sort of milieu that they could make money on – back in the early 90′s when I worked independent films – it really meant independent. It meant that the money either came from a personal private source or the director, the producer and a couple of the crew got together and maxed out their credit cards and made a movie. It was usually like 30 thousand dollars – 50 to a 100 thousand dollar realm. And some of the best independent film came out of that.”

“These are the films that got the attention of the studio’s and that’s when they said “Oh, well we want to own that market too.”  Then they moved in and independent film became something completely different. Well – studio’s have dropped that as a milieu that they care about any more – the only thing that they care about anymore is Iron Man, Batman, and Avatar. They want to make big investments and they want to make big profits. They don’t care bout the long tail approach anymore. And that’s where all the good film comes from.”

Joseph’s work with the Los Angeles Film Festival last year was an integral part in his path to changing the independent film landscape back to something more recognizable. There was an entire weekend conference at the Landmark where they talked about finance. “Which, in independent films, is a big issue – and every year there are different trends in finance. I recorded all of them so that I could pod cast them later – and I talked to people who were keynote speakers and they all basically said the same thing – which baffled me -  that “There were no more hedge funds – that there was no more money coming out of Dubai and all of the places that you guys were getting the money to make independent films are gone – dried up- bankrupt- disappeared. However we do think that there will be a renaissance of independent film.”

A renaissance is all well and good I’m thinking – but how does that affect the independent film makers who are struggling to pay their rent much less foot the bill for some boom mics on their visa?

This is where Hukilau provides a unique opportunity by (in their words)”offering services to film, video and Alternate Reality Game projects for crowdsource funding and staffing, matching funds, distribution and marketing services for aspiring and established creators and producers alike.”

Basically – if you want to make a movie – you can make a movie – You no longer have to worry about some hollywood exec adding love scenes and explosives to your script just to make a few extra bucks.

Joseph also points out that “What’s around now is red camera’s which is what they used to film District 9 – very affordable. Basically anyone can go out and get a Mac and they can put Final Cut Pro on it and can edit a movie to look just as goo as anything that comes out of a Hollywood post production facility. So the only thing that was missing from this equation was distribution – and the distribution is there – it’s a pipe called the internet . . . it’s just that nobody’s really figured out how to put these pieces together so that anybody who wanted to make a movie can make a movie and not have to rely on studio’s and still find an audience . . . that was the part that was missing. Distribution means finding your audience. And you could make a movie and put it on the internet but who’s gonna see it unless your just really lucky and you get a YouTube breakout – that’s about it.”

After reading Chris Wilson‘s Will My Video Get 1 Million Views on YouTube? I can see why Joseph (DPRGRM/Pilotlite), Michael Mailer Films and ELC Technologies announced in January a joint venture to launch a “crowdsource” style studio called Hukilau. . . so what are you waiting for?

In term of innovation in gaming, Nintendo itself is a very aggressive company; from the design of the original d-pad on the NES/Famicom, to the analog-stick in the N64, to the touch-screen in the DS, to the motion controls in the Wii.  Nintendo has always been a company that experiments with new ways of interacting with technology, they have also had several lesser known, lesser successful, endeavors like the Famicom Disk System, Virtual Boy, 64DD, and the Satellaview that brought online gaming in the mid-90s.

However, Nintendo has not been a company that develops the key enabling technologies from scratch, rather they are a company that uses existing technologies and reinterprets them for entertainment purposes.  For this reason we can examine existing technologies and analyze how Nintendo may be adding 3D display technology to the 3DS.

Autostereoscopic Displays

The technology to display 3D without glasses has existed for close to a decade.  Sharp first released a cellphone in 2002 called the SH25LiS for NTT DoCoMo in Japan that came with a 3D display, this was one of the first models with a display switchable between 2D and 3D modes.  In 2004, Sharp announced a 15″ 3D monitor called the LL-151D, and they have has also released laptops with 3D displays as well.  Phillips until 2009 even sold a 42″ WoWvx TV.  In 2009, Hitachi released the Wooo H001 cellphone that also had autostereoscopic technology, and most recently Fuji has started selling a 3D camera and picture frame both of which have 3D displays.  However, the technology in its current form has its nuances and limitations that better suit smaller screened devices.

To understand these limitations we first need to understand how this technology works.  The visual ability to perceive the world in three-dimensions comes from the fact that each our eyes are receiving two slightly different images; this is called stereopsis.  The technical challenge is to insure that each eyes sees different images from the same display.  With 3D glasses, we can filter the image directly before it reaches the eye, however without glasses this presents a challenge.

There are two primary methods that this is accomplished.  The first method is through a lenticular lens screens, which has small micro-lenses that are put above each pixel, these lenses direct light from alternating pixels to different eyes.  The Phillips WoWvx uses this lenticular lens technology, and most recently, Sumimoto-3M, has also shown a lenticular lens display prototypes that utilize this method.

Sumimoto 3M Lenticular Lens 3D display

The second widely used method is the use of a parallax barrier that is placed in front of the LCD screen.  The images for the left and right eye are placed on alternating pixels; the parallax barrier acts to block out the light from the alternating pixel so that only the corresponding image for each eye is shown to the viewer.  The parallax barrier itself is merely a transparent monochromatic LCD that is placed above the main LCD display.  For this reason, parallax barrier itself can be completely turned off to display a conventional ’2D’ screen.  Sharp, Hitachi, and Fuji use this method for their 3D screens.

The biggest issue with either of these methods is that the 3D image can only be effectively viewed within a narrow spatial window.  For this reason, the viewer needs to be a set distance from display to properly get the 3D effect.  This is also the reason why autostereoscopic TV sets have not been pursued as aggressively for 3DTV sets; multiple viewers and variable viewing distance can quickly ruin the 3D effect.  Also, the larger the screen, the more effort is necessary to keep your eyes within that 3D sweet-spot, and prolonged viewing can quickly lead to fatigue.

For handheld devices, the viewing distance is a lot more predictable; the viewer’s eyes would be between a comfortable viewing distance to no further then an arms length away.  Even for a person with very long arms the actual viewing distance would be fairly consistent.  Furthermore, a handheld gaming device is much more personal, the concern about multiple viewers is also reduced, and the getting yourself in the 3D sweet-spot should be less of a problem with a portable device compared to a fixed monitor or TV set.

Faux-3D.

Another option is giving the user the illusion of 3D while using a conventional 2D screen.  As was mentioned on Kotaku, as well as here, there are various methods that would give the player the illusion of 3D.  The “iPhone method” is through the use of an accelerometer, where titling the device would produce a different field of view.  The problem is that the field of view is based off of the orientation of the device, not the viewer’s eyes.  For that reason the 3D effect is minimal, and accelerometer alone cannot effectively produce a faux-3D in all but the most limited environments.

The more effective faux-3D method is by using eye-tracking technology.  As Kotaku has pointed out, a similar technique is used by DSi game, 3D Hidden Picture, which uses a less sophisticated face-tracking technology (the video below demonstrates the efficacy of a face tracking on a Mario doll).  In that game, the camera is used to adjust the image orientation to hit the viewer’s field of view.  There are also commercial monitors with mounted cameras that use this same principle to produce a 3D-like effect.

Eye-tracking is well suited for portable gaming devices since the user would be positioned less then a meter away from the handheld device and camera.

Nintendo 3DS may use Natal-like technology

If a eye-tracking approach is used a crucial component in this capability would be the camera.  However using a conventional camera to do eye-tracking could be a problem for a portable device.  After all, we should expect that the 3DS would be used in  a large array of lighting environments, on a bus or a train, with constantly variable lighting, at home, on the toilet, or even in complete darkness.  For this reason, a CMOS camera using a normal image sensor cannot be relied upon to eye-track the user in all environmental conditions.

The solution to this, and the prevalent technique which most eye-tracking is done, is through the use of near-infrared TOF (time-of-flight) cameras.  This is the same technology that Microsoft is using to capture full-body motion in the Natal.  The basic principle of operation is that a diode sends out infrared light, and that light bounces off the user and captured by an infrared sensor, and the ‘time-of-flight’ of that infrared light can be calculated.  The main benefit of a TOF camera is that it operates irrespective of visible light.  It can even operate in complete darkness, and mated with a normal camera can cover a large range of environmental conditions.

There are key differences in how the Natal would implement this technology and how the 3DS would.  First and foremost is the fact that 3DS would capture the player less then a meter from the camera, for this reason the infrared diode and camera would be designed to meet these conditions.  Natal, comparatively needs to capture the entire body of the player, and in some cases multiple players.  From that data, Natal creates a 48-point skeletal model of the human player based of that data.  The 3DS would only need to do head-tracking or eye-tracking, and possibly hand-gestures.  Technically speaking, the 3DS would not have the processing requirements that Natal would need if they used a TOF camera.

TOF (Time-of-Flight) cameras can capture images in three-dimensional space that can be utilized in eye-tracking as well as gesture control

What would Nintendo do?

Asahi is reporting that Nintendo will be using Sharp’s displays for their 3DS.  Which means that Nintendo will be using the parallax barrier method to display 3D.  Asahi, we should assume, to be very reliable.  Asahi is a news organization that has a 130 year history in journalism, and are generally considered to be fairly conservative with strict editorial oversight for their business related news.  Sharp, also has a long history of being a supplier to Nintendo; including the DS.  Moreover, Sharp has invested in 3D technology since the early 90s, particular through their European arm.  If Nintendo where to choose a partner for 3D displays, Sharp would be a primary candidate considering their existing relationship with the company as well as their current technical prowess of this technology.

Another thing we should consider is that parallax displays and eye-tracking is not mutually exclusive.  There has been research in mating these two technologies, where eye-tracking could be used to adjust the efficacy of the parallax display.  But as we add technologies we need to consider the cost of these technologies as well.  Nintendo has traditionally shied away from high-cost gaming devices, and instead have relied on the elementary economic principle of supply-and-demand.  From this rationale, we should expect the Nintendo device to be within the ~$200 range, give or take, and we should not be expecting the addition of technology without direct purpose.

As for the parallax display, Sharp has had a difficult time promoting this technology due to the lack of content (its difficult to sell a 3D cellphone when only the menus are in 3D).  Teaming with Nintendo and their developer network gives Sharp dedicated content and a market for their technology.  To add a parallax barrier itself only requires a transparent monochromatic LCD.  What deal that Sharp has with Nintendo is still a mystery, or whether both screens with have 3D functionality.  However, we do know based on the Asahi report that the screen should be below 4″.  Based off of iSuppli, the 3.5″ within the Apple iPhone 3GS costs $19.25.  For this reason we should consider the BOM (bill-of-materials) for the dual LCD screens itself for the Nintendo 3DS to be over $40 without the 3D capability assuming they have a similar resolution.

In term of adding eye-tracking, from a cost perspective, a TOF camera’s CMOS sensor is not necessarily that different from the cameras already on the DSi.  A CMOS/CCD sensor has the ability to capture light in larger range then human’s perception of visible light, and for this reason most camera sensors go through the effort of keeping captured light only in the visible range.  Capturing excessive IR light in normal photography produces fake-colors and is considered an undesirable trait, but there have also been some specialty cameras like the Fujifilm S5 Pro that captures IR, as well as UV, images.  In the context of volume which would be necessary for the 3DS, an addition of a TOF camera would meet sufficient economies of scale, and the cost to implement it should not be significantly more then the two-cameras already present on the DSi, however it will still be an additional cost nonetheless.  Now, if Nintendo will implement parallax display and/or eye-tracking is still speculation.  However adding either or both should still be a significant cost to Nintendo.

Force-Feedback 3D Controls

Nikkei is reporting that the 3DS will have “a 3-D joystick and a force feedback mechanism that will let players feel the collisions of a game character, for example. It had already acquired related patents at the end of last year.“  The Nikkei we should also consider to be a very reliable source, they publish Japan’s primary stock market index, and is generally very accurate on what they report.  This “3D joystick” may only mean a traditional analog-stock, however, the patents Nintendo has acquired last year are of a different nature, so the Nikkei may be referring to something completely different.

Nintendo has traditionally avoided adding graphical enhancements without backing that technology up with a corresponding control scheme.  If we think back to the N64, Nintendo added an analog stick to move characters in three-dimensional space, and added 4 yellow “c” buttons to control the camera angle.  Mario 64 was a revolutionary game for the time, and it was the first true-transition from 2D gameplay into a fully realized 3D gaming experience.  Those “c” buttons has evolved into a second analog stick, but the original concept remains.

When we think of Avatar-like 3D, we expect objects coming out at the viewer in three-dimensional space.  Instinctively, we reach out to touch these visual objects to only have our hands pass through them.  Its an experience I’m sure we have all had when we first saw 3D at the theaters.  So we need to re-investigate the semantics; is Nintendo going to make ’3D controls’ in the vein of what currently exists in the form of analog sticks?  Or is Nintendo going to create ’3D controls’ that exist in three-dimensional space?  Assuming that its the latter there are several technical methods that this could be accomplished.

If Nintendo is going to add a IR TOF camera, the easiest method would be to do finger-tracking.  As the video below demonstrates, a user’s fingers can be made into a 3D mouse and be used to type on a virtual keyboard.  The force-feedback could be given via rumble in the device itself when a corresponding gesture is made.  While Nintendo implementing IR cameras is still speculation, if they are implementing the faux-3D approach via eye-tracking, this control mechanism could be added for little to no additional cost.  Again, much like eye-tracking, finger-tracking can be accomplished without the TOF cameras, however given the variable lighting conditions that the portable would be subjected to, a TOF camera would insure accuracy and consistency.

Another method force-feedback 3D controls could be implemented is through a stylus.  Nintendo has patented related technology, and these patents may be what Nikkei was referring to.  Within this patent, Nintendo refers to a game apparatus that is akin to a stylus, and when used in a gameplay environment, for instance attacking an enemy, vibrations of that gameplay action can be felt directly in your fingertips.  The benefit of using a physical device like a stylus is that it can have buttons on it as well.  If this approach is taken, the overall size and how such an input device would be powered is another question.  It might be a stylus-sized Wii remote, or it could be something completely different.  But there are examples of similar technologies:

Nintendo patent demonstrates force-feedback on a portable gaming device

In the video above, the news reporter is startled as the stylus device he is holding in his hands is mysteriously pulled towards the screen, he laughs as the stylus device is then pushing his hand away from screen.  The scientist explains that there is a small motor within the stylus, and the spinning of that motor in calculated directions can give force-feedback sensations.  The reporter then tests out the pinching and pulling of this 3D ball; he explains that there is a distinct sticky sensation as he moves his stylus.

Conclusion

The technologies presented here may, or may not, be used in the 3DS when its finally showed in June.  What we need to understand is relative to Nintendo’s announcement there is a limited number of options that can accomplish what Nintendo is claiming.  The announcement of the 3DS saw Nintendo stock surge almost 10%, all based on short PDF announcement without much detail.  There are still a lot of unanswered questions, but what we can count on is Nintendo is full of surprises.

It seems I can’t go a day without hearing about Foursquare or one of the other location based social media tools that everyone seems to be using.

On little sleep and a lack of sugar, I am really impressionable and easily convinced so I did it. I joined the Foursquare revolution.

After a couple of days of trying it out, I realized that not only has social media brought us an impressive wave of cool tools and information, but it’s also ushered in a new form of annoying narcissism.

Now I can honestly say I am partly responsible for contributing to that narcissism. Today, I did a location update to my local grocery store. Really? The grocery store? How sexy.

Did I need to share with everyone that I was going to the store to pick up mustard and aluminum foil? Why oh why did I get excited when I got points for this?

These located based sites are really creating a false sense of importance for many people.

Normal activities that we never cared about telling complete strangers before are now so freakin’ commonplace. On the surface, it would seem that sharing where we are with the world would make us more connected but on the contrary, it may be doing the opposite.

As we feverishly type “Hanging out with friends at party”, we’re not actually doing that. We’re actually hanging out with friends at party updating our phones, while our friends do the same. Nothing is stranger to see a group of people at a bar for happy hour communicating through twitter rather than just chatting face to face.

Yes, you are important and special in so many ways.

But I don’t really need to know THAT much about you do I?

Let’s make a truce. I will stop sharing my trips to the grocery store for aluminum foil if you promise not tell me about that trip to the post office to buy stamps. Cool?

My favorite sound bite from the interview is when she decries her friends for being obsessed with taking pictures when they’re out and about and then uploading them to Facebook, and how she thinks that they’re not really enjoying the moment because they’re too busy documenting it. Now unfortunately, I’m forced to give Ms. Miley an iota of credit here. Yea, we ‘Mericans are kind of obsessed with documenting the moment and uploading said documentation to our social networking site of choice. But the photo exhibitionism Miley… it has roots. And it has reason.

You see America is an interesting country, we’ve never really had true royalty to emulate. Instead we pick people like Bill Gates, Michael Jordan, Oprah, Angelina Jolie and unfortunately Miley, you. We see pictures of you getting photographed by paparazzi at parties, walking down the street, and we think “Gee, that looks like fun. I wanna be famous too.” And luckily, websites like Facebook and Twitter allow us an outlet with which to showcase our narcissism. And I know that’s a big word, go to Dictionary.com to look it up if you want, oh wait, the Internet is lame. I forgot.

So maybe it would be good of you to remember that not everyone is famous and we can’t all have Billy Ray as our pops, and so maybe we like taking pictures or posting Twitter updates. Or maybe you should just stop giving people advice about things your pretty little head will never understand.

There is currently a recall involving more than 8 million of Toyota’s formerly-popular marquee hybrid to address gas pedals that can become sticky or trapped under floor mats.  A regional Toyota official has asked to collect the Prius involved in the crash but that the Harrison PD “not prepared to release it just yet.”

Police believe the vehicle was on Toyota’s recall list for the sticky accelerator problem but they had no immediate proof that this one had the problem.  More problematic is that the Prius had been serviced by Toyota for the floor mat problem.

Toyota still maintains that the problem is either caused by floor mats or something mechanical with the gas pedal itself.  A far more troublesome cause would be if there was a problem with the Prius’ computer system, which regulates various aspects of the car.  This, however, is not uncommon as many automobiles from a variety of makers feature onboard computers to manage everything from braking to suspension to fuel economy.  If the problem is with the computer system, this could lead to fears about “smartcars” that have such onboard computers.

(via NPR)

I have found yet another way to take my procrastination to the next level. Please don’t blame me if you get hooked.

Dogbook allows your pet to have his or her very own Facebook page. Ok, I know you’re thinking “nerd alert” but hey, there are currently 45,579 Facebook fans doing this, so there are a lot of other nerdy people who sometimes treat their pets like human beings like me wasting time on this thing. But the thing is, it wasn’t a complete waste. There were some useful things on there.

Ok, you basically create a profile like you would for yourself on Facebook except there are a couple of  interesting features that are unique to Dogbook.

You can invite friends for him or her as well as update their status. You can “pet” your dog, buy toys for him or her and remove or defriend people from your dog’s family. Yes cheesy, but fun if wasting time is your goal.

Once you put in your dog’s location, you can also find dog parks in your area. I found 4, all less than 5 miles away, that I didn’t even know existed.

My dog’s name is Raisin. She’s a  needy, miniature Cocker Spaniel that snores. There’s a Groups tab on her profile that lets me find all sorts of dogs groups filled with other dog lovers to connect with. I know there’s a group out there for needy, snoring Cocker Spaniels. Still looking.

Familiar with Amber Alerts? Dogbook has “Arf Alerts”, a place for people to post notices of their missing animals which is great.

You know that you’re going to procrastinate. You know that you’re going to waste time. Check out Dogbook.

Updating my dog’s Dogbook status makes me laugh, which is a good thing.  Dogbook 1 Farmville 0.

“The Canon T2i dSLR sounded extremely exciting, as it promised to bring 1080P video (with decent frame rates) to Canon’s sub-$1000 dSLR line. Photographer Dan Chung was among the first to test it out, and the results look fantastic.” – Mark Wilson

As seen on Gizmodo

Canon 550D / T2i production video – Zhongguancun gadget city from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

550D T2i Camera Test from DMP on Vimeo.

Well I am happy to say that I am now not just a good mom but a  SUPER MOM! Thanks to two new Iphone apps that  I recently downloaded: Qik Video and Camera One.  Now, Camera One isn’t as impressive. It does allow you to zoom, it adds a “flash”, it even has a timer.  The only downfall that I see is that the picture quality is really bad, worse that just using the Iphone software.

As for Qik Video, I am sorry I didn’t have this software for the kids Christmas concert because I was 5 rows back from the stage and my video camera was back at home which left me to video via my Iphone. I am overall impressed with the quality of video that comes in but again, the issue is that there is no zoom.  With Qik Video you can zoom and add all sorts of neat effects (3G only). Plus, you can share the videos straight to Facebook, SMS, or email. It records a 15FPS, and I am impressed with it’s over all capabilities.

These apps are not free – I believe they are $1.99 each but it’s a small price to pay to be transformed from loser mom to SUPER MOM at the next school/athletic event. (I’m gonna need a cape)

Not to mention all the videos I can take of my friends after they had a few cocktails……straight to Facebook baby…yeah! (This is where Super Mom turns into her evil twin, a cape is still going to be a necessity.)

Noktor 50mm f/0.95

43rumors is reporting that a new upstart, Noktor, is preparing to release a 50mm f0.95 lens on March 1st.  The lens will be a 50mm with an aperture of f/0.95, the closest comparison (as its name suggests) would the Leica Noctilux 50mm f/0.95; which is a $11,000 lens.  Leica lovingly refers to a f/0.95 lens as “breaking the “sound barrier” of lens speed 1.1 has been the Holy Grail of lens design for many years“, and a lens that can “Out Perform the Human Eye” and a “King of the Night“.  On paper at least, this Noktor should become a poor-man’s Noctilux.

43 rumors also points out that these lenses possibly could be based on the Senko/Navitron/Yakumo lens designs fitted with a MicroFourThirds mount.  Those lenses were primarily C-mount lenses designed for broadcast CCD cameras, and have been frequently modified amongst the M-mount community  for use on their Leicas.  However, it should be kept in mind that a 50mm lens on a MicroFourThirds system will have an equivalent focal length of a 100mm on a full-frame due to the 2.0x crop-factor.  Being that MicroFourThirds cameras can do HD video (which Leica cannot) and has been shown to have impressive low-light performance comparable to dSLRs with larger sensors, this Noktor could become a useful tool in a photographer’s arsenal of lenses.

Noktor has also put up two samples viaTwitter:

Sample 1, Sample 2

“f/0.95″, What Does it Mean?

“f/0.95″ is the aperture size.  In general, the larger the aperture, the more light can enter the camera, the shutter speed can be faster, and photographs can be taken at lower light, but it also means that photographs taken at large apertures will have a much more shallow depth-of-field(DOF).  Sometimes this shallow DOF is desirable because it produces a nice “bokeh” effect that isolates the subject.

Most 50mm prime lenses range between f/1.4-f/1.8, but there are some speciality lenses like Canon’s 50mm f/1.2L that offer larger apertures, but they tend to be relatively expensive.  dSLRs like Nikon’s F-mount and Canon’s EF-mount are typically at a disadvantage in producing incredibly large apertures, this is because dSLRs have a much larger focal-flange distance (FFD) to accommodate the typical SLR mirror-box assembly.  So rangefinders, like the Leica M-mount, can make lenses with large apertures because they can mount the lens closer to the light-sensitive medium (film/sensor) because it has a shorter FFD due to the lack of a mirror-box (and hence also lacks autofocus abilities as well as an optical view finder).

Since the camera has entered the digital era, the mirror-box assembly (and its phase-detection based AF) has become less necessary.  Panasonic in particular has demonstrated that contrast-based live-view style cameras can also produce fairly accurate autofocus comparable to dSLRs.  Since last year, MicroFourThirds cameras that do away with the complex mirror-box assembly and short FFD have hit the market.   Many have started to refer to these cameras as “E.V.I.L” cameras, as in “Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens”.  This means that compact large-aperture cameras along with modern features (HD video, AF/AE, etc)  are possible with the MicroFourThirds system.  This upstart Noktor has seen an obvious niche that the big lens companies have yet to fill.

Alternatives

There are currently  several ways to mount ultra-fast primes onto the MicroFourThirds system.  The Loctilux 50mm f/0.95 for instance can easily be mounted onto any MicroFourThirds body with an M-mount adapter.  There are also several very-fast primes like the Cosina-made Voigtländer Nokton 50mm F1.1 lens which sells for a little over $1,100 and which can be mounted via an VM adapter (sample).  Cosina, it should be noted, also make the superb Carl-Zeiss SLR lenses for Canon and Nikon mounts.  Nikon has also made a 50mm f/1.1 rangefinder lens in 1956, as well as a 50mm f/1.0 Nikkor O-lens in 1962, but those lenses are expensive and very hard to find.  There is also slightly slower, slightly cheaper, alternatives like the Minolta 50/58mm Rokkor f/1.2 or the Canon FD 50mm f/1.2 that can be mounted via adapters.

The lens that shouldn’t forget mention is the Canon 50mm f/0.95 “Dream lens”, which was originally produced for the Canon 7 rangefinder.  However, there are issues with mounting the lens onto a MicroFourThirds body.  The first method is purchasing a lens that has been converted to an M-mount, or converting the lens yourself by sending it to several specialists.  The lens has been popular amongst the Leica community as there are several M-mount Dream lenses floating around, but they tend to cost over $1,000 and can be hard to find.  The other option is to buy the “TV” version of the lens, which Canon produced for CCTVs, that comes with a C-mount adapter.  From either C-mount or M-mount, the lens can be fitted onto a MicroFourThirds body.

This Noktor 50mm f/0.95 should offer something more easily obtainable without the hassles of finding old-lenses on Ebay or fiddling with adapters; it will be a native MicroFourThirds lens.  The big question is how much it will cost and what image quality it will produce.  Will it have the soft ephemeral “dream”-like quality of other f/0.95 lenses?  Stanley Kubrick famously converted a Zeiss 50mm f/0.7 NASA lens to take the candle scenes in the movie “Barry Lyndon”,  modern sensors mated to these ultra-fast primes could produce similar unique results- especially mated to capable video-centric MicroFourThirds cameras like the Panasonic GH1.  This could be a lens for the modern-day Stanley Kubricks…

Canon 50mm f/0.95 "Dream Lens" mounted on a MicroFourThirds Panasonic G1

Webcams have carved out a large market since their earliest use in 1991. It is hard to believe the impact something so small and cheap and plasticy can have on our privacy, our friendships, our news delivery, and yes (drumroll please) even our sexuality. You saw that coming, right?

We have come a long way since the first known webcam, which was focused on the coffee pot in the Trojan Room at University of Cambridge.

I remember the early days with my overpriced Cracker Jack toy-like camera. Trying to push that grainy picture through the comparatively tiny pipes we had for Internet access back then was like a poodle giving birth to a rhinoceros.

It was not very long before coffee pots and animals gave way to Internet video sensations like Jennifer Ringley of JenniCam, and technology webcaster Chris Pirillo.

Later, the boom of the webcam forged a huge spam market similar to that of the little blue pill. They were cheap and available everywhere. Not only that, we finally had more ways to use them.

As the technology improved, we started seeing more instant video from all over the place. It went mobile, and not just people going out to get video and putting it on YouTube twenty minutes later. The live video streaming sensation went mobile in a big way.

I am no Al Gore (self-proclaimed creator of the Internet), but I felt pretty darn excited on the day I decided to go mobile with a webcast. I was programming my home security IP cameras (so I could spy on my cat while away) and I had this crazy idea of a webcast from the car. “How amazing would that be?” I thought to myself. So I went about finding all of the right equipment to take my show on the road. I crammed a bunch of camera equipment, laptops, and cellular booster into a Corvette for a nine day live mobile webcast of the Cannonball One Lap of America. I packed as many wires as a guy could pack into that car. If not for a lot of careful tucking and routing, the car would have looked like a big bowl of black spaghetti. I brought a lot of equipment for the long 6,000 mile (9,500 km) trek from race track to race track, and a whole different setup for webcasting my racing events live at 175 miles per hour (280+ kph). I even threw in a live GPS feed and called myself Cop Magnet. I was feeling pretty high-tech … for way back in early ought-eight.

Today we can look back at all of the genius of nearly a decade since that coffee pot and what have we got now? Phones that can send a stream straight to the Internet. Not just phones, but incredible handheld wonders that grandma wouldn’t have seen coming in her wildest dreams. Better yet, they are not just sending streaming video to some obscure server, they are sending it to big communities like USTREAM, Qik, Kyte and others. Then they archive and upload episodes to YouTube, and Facebook, and send it out on Twitter, FriendFeed, Ping, and etcetera. The service I use even maps my GPS coordinates as I move along and allows viewers to chat with me right through my viewfinder. All of these cool features just by pushing the red button! So much for my rats nest of wires.

The most amazing thing to me now is that as the technology has grown so vast, many people seem to have become more shy. I think is scares a lot of people just how quickly they can make a fool of themselves in front of a global audience. This begs the question: “Isn’t that what we wanted?”

It is your turn. Feel free to leave your video reply, but if you are feeling particularly shy, just go ahead and type it out like they did in ought-nine. Here is my video from just before I pushed “publish”. I am sorry, but I didn’t get my hair all just right and I have not shaved, but you cannot call me a chicken!