Thursday, June 19, 2008

HoloVizio True 3D Display Uses Voxels, No Goggles

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5014980/holovizio-true-3d-display-uses-voxels-no-goggles

HoloVizio may look like yet another 3D screen, but it completely changes the approach to three-dimensional displays using voxels instead of pixels. Each voxel can project multiple light beams—of different intensity and colors—in several directions, simultaneously. This means that anyone standing around the monitor will actually see an object from a different perspective, with no need for goggles or other stereoscopic tricks. The results are impressive, as you can see on the videos.

Right now, Holografika—the manufacturer—has two displays that work with Windows and Linux systems: the HoloVizio 128WLD and HoloVizio 720RC. These screens act like windows, with objects appearing to recede or pop out of the surface. As you move, you can see the object change perspective like any natural object, with no jumps, an effect that is called continuous motion parallax, which is key to achieve true 3D displays.

According to Holografika, there's also no need for head tracking or positioning, so many people can see the objects at the same time, with no discomfort of any kind.

HoloVizio 128WLD
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Screen size: 32" (792 mm) diagonal, 672 mm x 420 mm
3D resolution: 9.8 Mpixel
2D equivalent resolution from one angle: 512 x 320 pixel
Input: 4 x DVI-I or DVI-D monitor cable (single link)
Compatibility: PC & WorkStation
Viewing angle: 50° horizontal
Color: 16 Million (24 bit RGB)

HoloVizio 720RC
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Screen size: 72" (~1800 mm) diagonal. 1600 mm x 900 mm
3D resolution: 34.5 Mpixel
2D equivalent resolution from one angle: 1080 x 600 pixel
Input: Gigabit Ethernet (CAT6) or Infiniband
Compatibility: PC & WorkStation
Viewing angle: 50° – 70° horizontal
Color! : 16 Mil lion (24 bit RGB)

The price of each unit is probably the gross domestic product of Costa Rica. [Holografika via GizMag]

Read More...

ClickTale Launches Form Analytics; Optimize Your Forms For Maximum Results

Source: http://www.centernetworks.com/clicktale-form-analytics

ClickTaleIf you've been reading CN for a while, you know we like ClickTale. We said that Omniture should acquire the service and we've also interviewed the ClickTale CEO, Tal Schwartz. ClickTale is basically a worldwide virtual usability lab for your Web site, application, ecommerce site or blog.

Today the company is launching a new product -- Form Analytics. Over my career I've seen several products do something similar but not to the scale that ClickTale is. From the ClickTale blog, "Form Analytics reveals how visitors interact with online forms and provides recommendations that can increase shopping cart conversion, form completion rates and reduce visitor abandonment."

Form Analytics is currently in beta and includes three reports: Time, Blanks, and Refills. Tal tells me that additional reports will be coming out soon. The Time report shows you how long people are spending on your forms. It gets even crazier with the Advanced Time report which shows you how much time was spent with each individual field. Blanks provides you with details on which fields users are leaving blank when submitting a form. And lastly, the Refills report provides details on how often a user is forced to redo some part of their entered data.

Based on their initial testing, they've seen two common errors that developers and content creators are making. One is around ZIP codes and not taking into account non-U.S. postal codes. The other is password fields which don't provide any specifics on the type of password required which forces the user to refill the form.

My hope is that they provide regular blog posts with more form analytics data - optimizing your forms can return huge value and they could offer excellent guidance with the aggregated data.

ClickTale Form Analytics

Read More...

Smithsonian copyright-free images on Flickr

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/315324554/smithsonian-copyrigh.html


Carl sez, "The Smithsonian is up and running on Flickr Commons ... the photos are all labeled "no known copyright restrictions" and the photos are high-res. I was particularly intrigued by the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, with photos of famous scientists and inventors. We should all congratulate the Smithsonian on a *big* step forward!" Link (Thanks, Carl!)

Read More...

New Sites Match Agencies With Untapped Talent

Source: http://adage.com/talentworks//article?article_id=127681

Employers Can Screen Applicants More Efficiently, Develop New Hires

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Finding talent is a continuing challenge for marketing-services agencies. But a recent rise of online outlets are democratizing talent, letting creative types share and shop around their work to potential employers. Such sites may alleviate some of the pressures for both agencies and job seekers.

NuIdeaExchange, which launched in February 2008, enables agencies and marketers to submit their requests for proposals and then review submissions. On the flip side, media, account-planning and strategy, creative, production or technology specialists can submit their own creations on the site for marketers or agencies to purchase.

The site has already garnered more than 400 registered creative groups, encompassing "a combination of agencies, freelancers and traditional-minded to new-media-oriented talents," said President Dave Evans. The site gives the creative community a chance to show its work to a large audience, he said. On the agency side, NuIdeaExchange enables agencies to keep all of the work in-house without having to share portions of an assignment it may not be able to handle with other agencies.

Nothing to lose
Martin Schell, president-CEO of New Phase Communications, an Oklahoma City-based phone company, is planning to launch his company within the next 60 days. He issued a request for information on NuIdeaExchange six weeks ago seeking a company logo. Mr. Schell said he has received a couple of proposals and is deciding which one to choose.

"The quality of the work was pretty good," he said. "Both of them are pretty promising. Next step is to decide who I want to go with."

Marshall Lestz, a freelance copywriter, plans to use the site. "For a freelancer who is between jobs, this is a great, easy way to see what's out there and potentially land some work," he said. "You have nothing to lose, especially if you're between jobs or after you have called all of your contacts, because you can only call people so many times before you start to annoy them. Even if you're not chosen, you're still going to be able to make a good contact because you're displaying your abilities to a prospective client down the road."

Anand Chopra-McGowan, partner at YouIntern.com, a site that connects aspiring interns with agencies, said given agencies' struggle to find talent, many view intern programs as a way to develop new hires.

"Programs like this allow us to be a college recruiter for agencies who don't already have one," he said.

Filtering applicants
On the site, interns can post reviews about their experiences at past internships that other students can learn from, and agencies can post internship openings. Arnold Worldwide asked YouIntern.com to find four potential candidates for its summer intern program this year. The agency hired two interns who began the eight-week program last week, said Maurice Haynes, VP-director of worklife, Arnold.

"If you equate time with money, then there definitely is a cost-savings involved," Mr. Haynes said. "It's nice to have someone pre-screen applicants that would be a good fit for the company."

Mr. Chopra-McGowan said identifying the right intern can help eliminate one of the biggest issues in the ad industry: a high turnover rate.

"If they're a good fit for the company, they can move on and make them a longer-term offer," he said. "And chances are that person will stay with the company longer."

Drawbacks
So what's the downside to these online talent clearinghouses? "If you don't know what you want and haven't been through the process before, it can be a little tough,"

Mr. Schell said. "The instructions say, 'Tell us what you want,' but there's not a lot of coaching to pull it out of you."

Added Mr. Evans, "I have spoken to holding companies who said this could be a big help to them. The only fear on their side is the dynamics of what it means to the industry," he said. "Some of them are saying they want to talk to us but they are fearful of the fact of how this is going to impact them as an agency. But they have said it's probably better for us to engage in it and work with it vs. trying to fight it."

Read More...

Asus Eee PC 1000H Reviewed (Best Eee Yet, Except the Price) [Asus Eee Pc 1000h]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/315058414/asus-eee-pc-1000h-reviewed-best-eee-yet-except-the-price

Asus's Eee PC 1000H is the least Eee-like Eee yet—big, pricey ($649) and it has a regular ol' platter hard drive. Laptop Mag says the extra screen real estate makes it the most productive yet, too, even though the colors don't pop as much as the Wind. And the keyboard: "To say it's an improvement over the cramped keyboard found on earlier Eee PCs is an understatement." Performance from Atom and its 1GB RAM is solid, and the move to a HDD from a SSD doesn't hurt too much, even on startup—battery isn't hit too hard either, 4 hours and 28 minutes with Wi-Fi. Overall, everything's gravier than past models, 'cept the price. [Laptop Mag]



Read More...

3D GIFs Made from Old Stereo Cards Are Stupidly Simple, Effective [Cool]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/315319281/3d-gifs-made-from-old-stereo-cards-are-stupidly-simple-effective

Joshua Heineman is obsessed with old stereo cards, those old photographies from the 19th century that contained two different views of the same subject to give the illusion of depth. He converts them into pseudo-3D GIF images which can be seen without glasses, in your monitor. The method is extremely simple, and while the jerking result may seem silly, surprisingly, it works:

Johsua just gets his images from the New York Public Library, and combines them into a single two-frame GIF animation, which quickly flicks between two frames. [Cursive Buildings]


Poll

Read More...

Samsung's P400 DLP Projector is Tiny for Portability, Sleek too [Projector]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/315287113/samsungs-p400-dlp-projector-is-tiny-for-portability-sleek-too

Samsung's new P400 Pocket Imager projector is designed mainly for businesspeople on the go, so it's pretty tiny. Inside, its DLP unit is a native 800 x 600 resolution and its LED lighting pushes out 150 lumens, resulting in a 30- to 40-inch display capability with 1000:1 contrast ratio. It takes the standard RGB, composite, S-video and audio inputs, and has two 1-watt speakers. Plus, though it's no pico-projector, it's just 5 x 3.7 x 2 inches in size and weighs 1.9 pounds, so it'll carry nicely in your laptop bag. And you know what? Just coz it's businessy doesn't mean it has to look ugly or utilitarian: so Samsung have actually made this thing look pretty good. Available now for $749, full press release below.

Jun 18, 2008 18:00

Samsung Launches Sleek, Sophisticated Palm-Sized DLP Projector for Professional Mobility

Bright LED Lightweight Projector, the P400 Pocket Imager Defines Style, Performance and Functionality for Today's Busy Professional

LAS VEGAS —(Business Wire)— Jun. 18, 2008 Samsung Electronics America, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Corporation, a world-leading supplier of professional LCD and PDP display products, today announced the P400 pocket imager that defines style, performance and functionality for today's busy professional. The P400 and the full line of Samsung's projectors will be on display during InfoComm at the Samsung booth, C2417, in the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center from June 18 - 20.
The P400 Pocket Imager allows professionals the ability to easily transport and display information without compromising picture quality. Ideal for road warriors, field sales representatives, business executives and traveling entrepr! eneurs, the new Pocket Imager provides a creative and dynamic solution that is now both easier and less expensive to utilize. The lightweight, palm-sized DLP projector fits conveniently into a road warrior's computer bag or luggage and sets up in seconds. The P400 also features Samsung's sleek, sophisticated industrial design with a glossy black finish.

The Samsung Pocket Imager is small enough to take anywhere and can project images from a variety of sources, including computers, DVD players, video game stations and digital cameras. Utilizing DLP technology, the P400 has a native resolution of 800 x 600 SVGA. In addition to the 1,000:1 contrast ratio, the pocket imager has 150 ANSI lumens for a crisp, clear 30"-40" diagonal image even in a well-lit office setting, and RGB, Composite-In, S-Video, audio-in (RCA L/R) rear inputs for optimal functionality.

The P400 features 1-watt (x2) built-in speakers for convenience. Measuring in at 5 inches wide by 3.7 inches deep and 2 inches high, the 1.9-pound pocket imager is both light and portable. Plus, by utilizing LED with a lifespan of up to 30,000 hours, there is no projector lamp to replace. Other offerings included with the P400 Pocket Imager include a remote control, power cables and a sliding lens cap that protects the projector lens without worrying about it falling off or losing it during transit.

"We continue to push the boundaries in digital signage and projection and are thrilled to launch the P400 as it expands Samsung's growth into projection mobility for the various environmental application demands," said Christopher Franey, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Samsung Electronics America Information Technology Division. "The pocket imager's versatility proves to be an ideal digital signage solution for early technology adapters, mobile professionals and style-conscious enthusiasts."

Like all Samsung displays and projectors, the P400 pocket imager is backed by a one-year limited warranty on labor and parts, as well as toll-f! ree tech nical support for the life of the projector.

The P400 Pocket Projector is currently available for $749 ESP through Samsung resellers and distribution channels, which can be located by calling 1-800-SAMSUNG or by visiting http://www.samsung.com. Samsung Power Partners receive special promotions, lead referrals, training and technical support, as well as collateral and marketing materials. To find out more about becoming a Samsung Power Partner, visit: http://www.samsungpartner.com.

[Samsung and Electronista]



Read More...

Prezenter PSR Two-Touchscreen Laptop: Travelling Sales Pitches Go High-Tech [Sales]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/315323902/prezenter-psr-two+touchscreen-laptop-travelling-sales-pitches-go-high+tech

I've never encountered a traveling salesperson, so I've not had someone trying to push a "revolutionary" product on me from the comfort of my home. But if the Prezenter PSR is anything to go by, traveling sales is about to get high-tech. It's a custom notebook PC, designed to fold so that a 14-inch screen faces the victims audience, while a 7-inch touchscreen faces the seller. The small screen controls the presentation, and the audience can draw stuff on their screen. Apart from that it's a standard laptop, with 3.5 hours of battery if you're using wi-fi, and it's on trial in the US market. When it's for sale, it'll cost you $1,800: presumably you won't have to watch a two hour sales pitch to buy one. [Cnet]


Poll

Read More...

Pictures of the ThinkPad X200 surface

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/315099229/

Filed under:


We got specs on Lenovo's rumored ThinkPad X200 a couple weeks ago, but we didn't really know what it looked like until now -- surprise, it looks like the X300. We're not exactly pumped about the removal of a trackpad in favor of TrackPoint nub, but we suppose something's got to give to hit that 2.9-pound starting weight. One more shot at the read link.

[Thanks, Albert]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Read More...

Samsung's Snapdragon super-MID just days away?

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/315222874/

Filed under:


While we haven't found an official press release on the subject, AVING is reporting a June 2008 release for a Samsung Snapdragon MID. This according to a Qualcomm official. It's unclear to what extent Sammy's device will make good on Snapdragon's list of "supported" features like 12 megapixel camera, GPS, HD video playback, WiFi, Bluetooth, all day battery life, digital broadcast television (MediaFLO, DVB-H, and/or USDB-T) and dual-mode EV-DO Rev. B and UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA riding atop a 1GHz processor and Qualcomm's 600MHz always-on DSP. All we've got is this picture of an engineering prototype (actually based on Snapdragon this time) on display right now at the World IT Show.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Read More...

Intel, Nvidia face off at Hot Chips

Source: http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208700435

Many media processors debut at Stanford confab



EE Times


SAN JOSE, Calif. — Intel Corp. and Nvidia Corp. will go head-to-head with their latest graphics architectures at the 20th annual Hot Chips conference at Stanford University, August 24-26. The event will also showcase a handful of new media processors.

In an afternoon session, Intel will present a paper on its new Larrabee graphics architecture and Nvidia will describe the version of its new GTX chip that is aimed at high-end parallel computing and was announced Monday (June 16). "This will be the first time someone can see these two architectures side by side," said Kevin Krewell, an Nvidia marketing manager who is on the Hot Chips committee.

Intel is expected to make the first technical disclosures of Larrabee in a paper at Siggraph the week of August 11. It will probably also discuss the chip at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco the week of August 18.

To date Intel has only said Larrabee is based on multiple x86 cores and is aimed at graphics and technical computing. Recently Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner suggested the chip will drive an industry transition from raster graphics to ray tracing, a shift many observers said is not in the foreseeable future.

A variety of media processors will be described at Hot Chips, including a programmable multicore video processor from Advanced Micro Devices that it calls a mediaDSP. NXP Semiconductors will present its PNX5100, a video processor aimed at H.264 playback at 120 Hz, and Toshiba will describe a new derivative of the Cell processor called the SpursEngine and aimed at media processing.

Two startups will describe mobile media devices. Telegent will present a single-chip receiver for NTSC/PAL TV that consumes 300mW and is aimed at handheld systems. Audience will detail a voice processor that imitates the way human hearing works.

In addition, a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences will describe the Godson-3. The chip is a multicore version of the group's earlier designs with similarities to the MIPS processor.

Read More...

Intel Delves Deeper into 'Nehalem'

Source: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Infrastructure/Intel-Delves-Deeper-into-Nehalem/

Intel Delves Deeper into 'Nehalem'

By Scott Ferguson

Intel is offering a chance to peek under the hood of its new "Nehalem" microarchitecture and get a glimpse at some of the technologies it's using, including its approach to saving power and transferring data from one chip to another.

At the VLSI Symposia held June 17 to June 20, Intel will present a new paper June 19 called "Next Generation Intel Micro-architecture (Nehalem) Clocking Architecture," which will offer an account of some of the new technologies and innovations going into this particular microarchitecture.

The first of the Nehalem processors for servers and high-end desktops will likely debut in the fourth quarter with more chips based on the architecture entering the market by the first half of 2009. The first of the Nehalem chips will include four processing cores.

In describing Intel's research paper, Rajesh Kumar, an Intel Fellow and director of Circuit and Low Power Technologies for the company, dwelt on two aspects of Nehalem: the integrated memory controller and a feature called QuickPath, which allows the processors to connect to another component or another chip on the motherboard.

"Here, the path to memory and the path to the chip are all integrated into the CPU itself," Kumar said during a briefing before the start of conference. "The reason we are doing this is to get much lower latency to memory and much higher bandwidth to memory. The numbers we are going to achieve with Nehalem are 25GB per second for socket-to-socket communication and 32GB per second for going to main memory."

Kumar added that this means Nehalem is about three times faster than other chips in the market. In this case, Intel is referring to Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron processors, which have used integrated memory controllers and high-speed interconnects for a number of years.

For years, Intel lagged behind AMD in these types of technologies, which allowed AMD to gain market share, especially for high-end multisocket servers where higher bandwidth is a must. Although it's too early to say for certain if Intel will catch up with AMD, the chip giant is certainly moving in that direction and its customers can expect more details later in 2008.

"I would say that this paper is the beginning of a rolling thunder campaign that will last at least through the end of this year and only let up once all of Intel's Nehalem processors have been launched," said John Spooner, an analyst with Technology Business Research. "During this time, the company is going to begin building the case for Nehalem to be the highest-performing x86 chip in history, with huge benefits in performance per watt for servers in particular. Intel is betting big on Nehalem and it wants the processor family to be well received. So it's working to begin building interest in the platform."

Since the Nehalem architecture will be used across an array of product segments—servers, desktops, notebooks—Kumar said Intel engineers had to consider how they could change the structure of the chips to fit within these different segments. They made the processing cores modular so the cores could be easily switched out to meet the needs of different products.

Intel also decoupled the main components, allowing the voltage and the clock frequencies of the different parts to be set independently of one another. This allows Intel to design chips off the same basic architecture that can offer energy efficiency for one product and high performance for another.

"The CPU core, for example, can be running at its own frequency and voltage while the memory system is running on its own and I/O is running on its own and each of them can be tuned for a different segment," Kumar said.

"This idea itself is not new, but the implementation is new," he added. "So far, most have tried to do this with asynchronous interfaces, which happen to be fairly slow … so the main innovation here is to do this in a synchronous fashion, which is very low latency and [offers] high performance."

Finally, Kumar said Nehalem will adjust to the type of applications a system is running and will adjust its frequency to the power it needs to run these different pieces of software.

Intel did not say what clock speeds the Nehalem chips will offer. The paper also did not detail the exact power envelope these processors will have, although Kumar noted that Nehalem gives Intel the ability to integrate a graphics core into the processor.

Intel is expected to give full details about Nehalem at its Developer Forum in August.

Read More...

Intel 'Harpertown' chip rules supercomputer list

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9971576-7.html

June 18, 2008 11:30 AM PDT

Intel 'Harpertown' chip rules supercomputer list

Intel Xeon processors--particularly the "Harpertown" variety--dominated the top 500 supercomputer list. But IBM's Power chips made a strong showing as usual at the very top of the list. AMD's Opteron processor landed in the No. 1 and No. 4 ranked systems.

Top 10 processors in Top500 supercomputer list

Top 10 processors in Top500 supercomputer list

(Credit: Top500.org)

The Top500 List--updated twice a year--of supercomputers was released Wednesday. Intel's Xeon, AMD's Opteron, and IBM's Power chips vied for most of the spots in the list.

The most dominant chip was the Intel Xeon E54xx series "Harpertown" processor. Appearing in 116 systems for 23.2 percent of the total. The largest for any single processor model.

The Xeon 53xx series "Clovertown" processor was next, appearing in 92 systems for 18.4 percent of the total. Following Clovertown was the Xeon 51xx series "Woodcrest" processor with 18.2 percent of the total.

Harpertown and Clovertown are quad-core processors, Woodcrest is dual-core.

In the No. 4 slot was the AMD Opteron dual-core chip (8.4 percent), followed by the X54xx series of Intel Harpertown processors (7.8 percent), then by the PowerPC 440 (4.22 percent).

(Note: Combining the Intel Harpertown E54xx series and X54xx series boosts the total for this chip model to 31 percent.)

The IBM Power processors passed the AMD Opteron family and "are now (again) the second most common processor family with 68 systems (13.6 percent), up from 61 systems (12.2 percent) six months ago," Top500.org said.

AMD's strongest showing was in the top five supercomputers. Opteron processors played a major role in the No. 1 IBM Roadrunner system, which connects 6,562 dual-core AMD Opteron chips as well as 12,240 IBM Cell chips (on IBM Model QS22 blade servers).

See: IBM's Roadrunner breaks petaflop barrier, tops supercomputer list.

The No. 4 Sun Microsystems' SunBlade system uses over 62,000 cores running inside AMD Opteron quad-core processors running at 2.0GHz.

The No. 2 and No. 3 systems were based on IBM PowerPC 450 chips.

Other Top500 processor highlights:

  • A total of 375 systems (75 percent) are now using Intel processors. This is up from six months ago (354 systems, 70.8 percent) and represents the largest share for Intel chips in the Top500 ever.

  • 56 systems (11 percent) are using AMD Opteron processors, down from 78 systems (15.6 percent) six months ago.

  • 283 systems are using quad-core processor based systems.

Originally posted at Nanotech: The Circuits Blog

Read More...