How to Shoot Your Own 3D Movie

But there's one category of 3D gear for the home that doesn't require a bank loan: 3D video cameras. I'm not talking about James Cameron's Pace camera rigs here; these are ordinary consumer-grade camcorders that are affordable and as easy to use as run-of-the-mill video cameras. They are a surprisingly accessible first step into 3D video. You can see the video�in 3D and without glasses on the cameras' own displays. It's no accident that some of these cameras' manufacturers are also selling 3D TVs they are banking on user generated content partially filling the void until Hollywood produces more 3D Blu-rays.

And that strategy may work: There are already subcultures of 3D enthusiasts shooting everything from homemade 3D nature clips to 3D music videos and distributing them online. As for the cameras themselves, there are several coming to market at prices from a few hundred bucks to just under two thousand. The rough patches have more to do with the half-evolved infrastructure of at-home 3D equipment and software than with the cameras themselves. the cameras. Pricewise, 3D cameras fall into two categories: For $1000 to $1700, you can get a full-feature 3D HD camcorder with optical zoom, high-end sensors and processors that can record at high bit rates which translate directly to higher video quality. Below $1000, there are several easy-to-use 3D video cameras, but what you get varies from device to device.

The most straightforward of the cheaper bunch is the Sony 3D Bloggie, a camera that resembles the once popular but now defunct Flip video camera, but with two stereoscopic lenses. Primarily a 3D video camera, it can shoot 3D stills as well. Reversing those priorities is the Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D W3, a 3D still camera that can also shoot 3D video. Perhaps the weirdest device in the group is the HTC Evo 3D, a full-feature smartphone with integrated 3D camera that takes both still photos and video. If the $1000-and-above 3D camcorders are analogous to SLR still cameras, then these more affordable cameras are comparable to pocket point-and-shooters.

A beautiful but creepy vision of the "smart glass" future

Materials mnufacturer Corning put together a futurist video last month called "A Day Made Of Glass," which has spiraled into stratospheric popularity on YouTube. The premise of the video is that we're about to live in an era of ubiquitous touchscreens (made with glass) and smart windows (made of glass) as well as appliances like stoves which are also made with glass.

What's striking about the video is mostly how we see the touch screens working, and the way the mobile devices seamlessly network with household appliances, TVs, and bendable flat screen computers. There's also a very paranoia-inducing, panopticon feeling to what we're seeing. As one person walks along, we see giant pictures of her (or her avatar?) leaping up the walls of buildings. And when she walks into a store, she's shown pictures of herself in the clothes she might want to try on. A world made of glass may promise easy information access, but it also seems to be a world where everybody is always looking at themselves and each other to an alarming degree.

Still, I wouldn't say no to some of this tech. Especially the interface where you plop your phone down onto a surface and it instantly networks with it and allows you to get a large screen version of the data on your mobile.
Source: io9

Disposable endoscopic camera is the size of a grain of salt

Tiny Endoscope Fraunhofer Labs

A new type of endoscope with a super-small camera on its end could yield cheap, disposable scopes for peering inside your body. The camera is about the size of a grain of kosher salt, and its designers say it's the smallest camera ever.
Endoscopy involves inserting a cable with a camera lens on it through your body’s natural openings or through small incisions, so doctors can check out internal organs, examine injuries or perform surgery. But endoscopes are complex to produce, requiring complex silicon wafer etching, which means they’re expensive. They also must be carefully sanitized with each use, which is time-consuming.
The new model, designed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration in Berlin, is so cheap that it could be tossed out with the doctor’s latex gloves.

It’s possible with a new fabrication method that simplifies the wiring of the image sensors, according to a Fraunhofer news release. Typical endoscopic cameras consist of a lens at one end and a sensor at the other, but this one is self-contained, as Gizmag further explains. The camera has a resolution of 62,500 pixels and transmits images through an electrical cable.

It’s just one cubic millimeter in size, which the researchers say is the smallest camera known.

Along with medical applications, endoscopes are used in bomb disposal and in the construction industry. The automotive industry is apparently interested in this new one, according to Fraunhofer — the tiny cameras could be used to replace outside rear-view mirrors, improving cars’ aerodynamics, or they could be installed to monitor drivers’ eye movements to make sure they’re paying attention to the road.

The German image sensor firm Awaiba GmbH developed the tiny endoscope with Fraunhofer Labs, and its owner hopes to commercialize the technology by next year.

Source: Popsci via Fraunhofer via Gizmag

New Panasonic Camera Replaces Your Face With a More Attractive Version of Your Face

You’ve seen the scene before: immediately after a picture is snapped, a group of girls huddle around the camera to see how they look. More often than not, one of the girls shriek, “Ah! I don’t like it, let’s take it again!”. And they take another picture and do the same post picture routine. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. But with the Panasonic Lumix FX78, that would never happen again. Why?

Because the Lumix FX78 has a “Beauty Re-Touch” mode that can tweak a person’s skin tone, whiten their teeth, adjust their makeup, and pretty much photoshop a better looking image of themselves in an instant. Don’t like how you look? The camera doesn’t either! It’ll save you the trouble of taking another picture (girl, nothing can help that hair) by airbrushing you into a beauty queen. All the celebrities get airbrushed, why not you, right? Also included in the camera is a “Cosmetic Mode’ which removes dark circles, smooths wrinkles and can even shrink face size and enlarge eyes.


"According to data we've acquired, around 50 percent of our digital camera clients are not satisfied with the way their faces look in a photograph,"Akiko Enoki, a Panasonic project manager in charge of developing the camera, told Reuters. The other half, presumably, are already stunningly beautiful, and the FX77 aims to level the photographic playing field.


A testament to human vanity? Absolutely, but the Art Retouch function also lets photogs tinker with the saturation of color and brightness of images right on the camera, features that many might find useful beyond doctoring their own visages.

There’s certainly something very uncandid about snapping that candid shot only to manipulate the faces into something that they’re not. Then again, if you’re really particular about putting your best foot forward in each and every Facebook photo your friends never see, you now have an option. Until we all have beautifully sculpted, personalized robotic doubles to pose in all of our photos for us, this will have to do.

Aside from those features, it’s your run of the mill point and shoot: 12 megapixels, 5x optical zoom, ISO 1600. Just don’t be surprised when every girl has this camera (it’s already selling out in Japan).
Source : Panasonic via Reuters via Pop Sci via Gizmodo