Posts Tagged ‘perception’
What makes OLED TV to achieve perfect contrast at the level of natural human perception?
Author: James Cliff
Question by : What makes OLED TV to achieve right contrast at the level of natural human understanding?
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Solution by David ENobody claims the contrast is ideal. As for why it is so great … ask an analyst. Simply think that it is that good and hang around for the rate to come way way down.
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Switched On: Extra Sensory Perception
Author: Laura Clark
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
At Intel’s CES 2012 press conference, the giant chipmaker justified calling thin notebook PCs “ultrabooks” by noting how the devices would increasingly be characterized by more than their thinness.
The integration of sensors has become so core to the modern smartphone experience that their absence would make using such devices untenable.
Most of that differentiation was based on plans to integrate the kinds of sensors that have become commonplace in smartphones and tablets, sensors that can detect location, motion, orientation and proximity. The integration of sensors has become so core to the modern smartphone experience that their absence would make using such devices untenable. Imagine if we had to manually reorient a display every time we wanted to play a game or take a photo or if we had to avoid activating a button with our cheeks when holding a phone against them.
But as Switched On discussed in taking on how screen size affects form factors, what is a limitation of form factor today may not hold true tomorrow. Already, of course, smartphones can tap into remote intelligence for applications such as remote camera viewing or unlocking of doors via services from home security companies such as ADT and Vivint. From around the world, you can even remotely start a vehicle using the Viper SmartStart app. But there are increasing opportunities for smartphones to act on information from sensors that are not embedded into their shells.
Continue reading Switched On: Extra Sensory Perception
Switched On: Extra Sensory Perception originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Video: This 3D Display Uses Multiple Lenses To Boost Sense Of Depth Perception
Author: Brian McKinnell
Naked-eye 3D displays, even large-sized models, are nothing special anymore, but they usually have a common problem: the 3D effect when viewing pictures isn’t as strong as with displays that require users to wear glasses. Professor Kakeya from Tsukuba University in Japan is trying to solve the problem.
The way his 3D display works is actually pretty simple: it uses multiple layers and lenses to boost the sense of depth perception. Professor Kakeya explains:
It forms images of objects at the front toward the front, and objects at the back toward the back. When objects at the front are in focus, those at the back are blurred, and when you’re looking at objects at the back, those in front are blurred. So a feature of this display is that it reproduces focal depth.
The resolution in the current prototype stands at just 200×200, but another cool feature is that it allows you to view pictures in 3D not only when you move your head horizontally, but also when you move it vertically.
This video, shot by Diginfo TV, provides more insight:
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Windows 7 Was My Idea. No, Really, It Was
Author: Jenny Zhao
My cool new desktop. Snapped and ready for action.
You’ve surely heard by now that there is a new Windows operating system. It’s nothing like XP, and it’s certainly an upgrade from Vista. It’s called “Windows 7,” and Microsoft is hoping that it will revolutionize how their operating system is perceived by users and information technology professionals everywhere. So if you haven’t noticed, this article is about Windows, so if you are a Mac addict, just move on, nothing to see here.
If you’ve read some of my pieces, or follow me on Twitter you know that I’m a PC. It’s not that I hate Macs or anything; it’s just the way things are. Now, this piece isn’t about that argument, this is about Windows 7. Knowing that I’m a PC, Microsoft thought it best to send me a copy of their new operating system. Their spies must have seen that I didn’t have a competent PC to run the new OS on, so they sent me a loaner computer as well. That’s the full disclosure part.
The PC they sent me is a new Asus Eee PC (1008P Seashell Karim Rashid Collection.) Once I figured out that I was missing some drivers in order to turn off the touchpad, it suddenly become a really cool computer. It boasts the Intel® Atomâ„¢ N450 processor, 2GB Memory, a compact 10 inch screen and 320GB 2.5†SATA2 HDD. It makes my old Dell XPS look like stone knives and bear skins. It sucks that I have to give it back, but that’s the breaks.
With it was an installed copy of the Windows 7 Starter OS. It was literally a one-click update to Windows Premium Home Edition. Just enter the product key and bam, done. The thing that struck me right away when I started using the OS, was that it was my idea. Really, every new feature was my idea, and honestly, it was probably yours, too. All those complaints we’ve registered in our heads have been addressed. And if they haven’t, they will be.
There are lots of little changes, the small stuff that makes a difference when navigating an operating system.
One of those small but very important changes is the pin to taskbar function. You can now pin your favorite programs to the taskbar at the bottom. Similar to how they are when opened. So, when you open a new window in that program, there are no additional window tabs. Instead, the pinned icon is highlighted, indicating a window is open. Want to see what is in that window? Simply scroll over it and it will pop up with a preview of the windows open in that program, and you can click on the one you want to switch to.
This is a welcome change from the stacking of previous windows OS. Where multiple windows open in the same program would stack in a list in the taskbar icon. That was ugly and poorly organized. I would set the windows to set up on the taskbar in individual fashion, which would usually make my taskbar fill up to three levels. Just not convenient when working on multiple projects.
One of the other noticeable changes is the way menus operate. Instead of having to dig through multiple menu options, the Windows Explorer window puts the most commonly used items linked on the left, hides the stuff you never use and keeps the libraries for documents, music & videos right up top — because you know that’s the stuff you use the most.
On the downside of this simplicity, if you are trying to use advanced functions that stuff can be kind of difficult to locate for the novice user. If you are familiar with operating systems and where things should be, then it shouldn’t take you too long to figure out.
To find out more about the big little changes, I spoke to Ben Rudolph, PC Evangelist & Gadget Guru at Microsoft. Our conversation was via phone, so the quotes below are paraphrased as best as my distracted brain could transcribe them.
As I mentioned above, there were a lot of big little changes. The general look and feel of the OS, the taskbar pinning, the simplified menus and options. Ben mentioned that it’s not just the visual changes where Windows 7 shows improvement over Vista, but the physical operation as well.
The fundamentals have improved. From start up to shut down, sleep, wake — they are so much faster in Windows 7, so much so that it’s not a big deal to sleep your machine anymore. I have Windows 7 machines that boot in 20 seconds. On an old Windows XP computer, you’d close your lid and it would take like 20 seconds to wake up, in Windows 7 it’s almost instant. It’s faster, smoother and runs lighter.
So once you get the machine booted up, and you change the color scheme and copy over all your music (since Windows 7 was my idea, that should have been already done) you start to notice the visual and basic functional changes in the way the OS behaves. Ben was quick to point out his favorite changes to the functionality, which ended up being mine as well. Perhaps because they are that noticeable and highly used, or perhaps because they were my idea.
Once you get inside the OS, there are two things that are my favorites; the taskbar, how you can pin things to the taskbar — and jump lists. The preview piece on the taskbar is awesome, move your mouse over and get a preview to see what’s there. This came directly from customer feedback. However, when it comes down to it, snap is my number one favorite feature in Windows 7.
Snap is the function we first saw via the commercials in the current ad campaign. One monitor, multiple windows — simply snap them to the sides of the screen. No reason to re-size windows. This is very helpful for all you plagiarizers out there, or just when doing research. We’ve come a long way from Windows 3.1. Ben agrees.
The last time I used Windows 3.1 was a couple years ago, on a virtual machine. The last time I installed it — straight onto a PC — would have been back in 1994. I was a beta tester for Windows 95. It’s kind of fun to see how far things have come from that revolutionary OS.
The biggest part of how Microsoft is working to change their public perception is through community involvement. While not going the road of open source software, they are taking every step of the development to the users through constant focus groups & consumer input. Based on how Windows 7 is built, they seem to be listening. This is important not only if they want to stay competitive with the Mac OS, but if they want to move cleanly into the future of accessibility.
Keeping that community involvement in mind, one has to wonder, what’s next for the Windows OS? I mean, Windows 7 was my idea but I’m fresh out. Ben had some insight into the future of the OS, with a good point about the public perception of Microsoft development, not to mention confirming that Windows 7 was in fact, my idea.
Windows 7 was your idea. Hundreds of thousands of people, millions of hours of conversations and testing. That’s not just related to Windows, that’s related to how we do things now. We have some of the smartest engineers in the world & millions of customers that we learn from every year. From Kinect to Windows Live. It’s not just a couple of smart engineers holed up in a room and releasing something every couple of years.
To that end it’s not like Windows 7 is going to make anyone switch from a Mac to PC, that’s not what this is about. It’s an operating system, not a complete computer package. What Windows 7 will do is change your perception of what Windows can do, and that it’s not the stuffy over complicated OS that we all thought it was. This isn’t XP, this certainly isn’t Vista. It’s a whole new OS. And it was my idea.
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Windows 7 Was My Idea. No, Really, It Was
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Tags: ASUS, color, Dell, development, intel, LED, libraries, Microsoft, operating-systems, perception, public, Research, the-taskbar, Vista, Windows 7 | 
No Comments »Review: My First Hidden Pictures for the iPhone
Author: Troy Sorbo
My kids love Highlights magazine, especially since they each get their own copy (my younger daughter gets High Five), usually on the same day, and they can’t wait to sit down and flip through them. One of their favorite pages (especially my three-year-old’s) is the Hidden Pictures — they love the challenge of looking for all the little things that have been camouflaged in the drawing.
Well, now there’s an app for that! Two, actually. Mobad Games has a version for older kids and another for younger kids. I got to try out Highlights My First Hidden Pictures, aimed at the younger set. (Highlights Hidden Pictures is the older kids’ version.) The app starts with a puzzle pack with eight pictures to choose from. The items you’re looking for appear in sequence on the screen, and then up at the top where you can scroll through them as you play. The image itself uses the standard iPhone pinch-squeeze gestures to zoom and scroll; tapping on an item highlights it and plays a sound. Completing a puzzle results in a burst of confetti on the screen.
One thing I did notice is that, at least in the younger kids’ version, some items are found in several puzzles. For instance, there’s a sock hidden in many of them, quite often as a bent arm. I suppose that makes it easier for little kids because they get familiar with what an item looks like. If you get stuck, you can tap the “Hint” button, which will pan and zoom in slightly on the currently selected item. You can also use the “Hide Clues” button to hide the scrolling list of items to search for: it gives you a little more space on the screen, and can also make the game a little more challenging if your child wants to look for hidden items without the visual clues.
You can get two more puzzles by registering an adult (though I opted out of this), and Mobad Games plans to release additional 8-puzzle packs throughout the year at $.99 each. Although I haven’t tried the version for older kids, it appears to use pretty much the same interface but with harder puzzles, and there are already nine puzzle packs available.
I handed my iPod Touch to my three-year-old, showed her briefly how the controls worked, and set her loose on it for a few minutes. She got the hang of scrolling and zooming pretty quickly, but was having some trouble finding the images at times, even with the hints. It may simply be that looking at a large magazine page is easier than panning around a portion of the drawing at a time. However, she did seem to enjoy playing it with my help.
I like the idea but I’m not sure about the price. The world of iPhone app pricing is so bizarre: sure, My First Hidden Pictures is only $1.99, which is not a whole lot. On the other hand, you can get something like Angry Birds (one of my personal favorites) for only $.99, and they keep releasing new updates for free! It really skews my perception of how much an app is worth. I’m not sure I’d buy a lot of additional puzzle packs, but if your kids like Highlights and Hidden Pictures, then it might be worth it for when you d0n’t have the magazine handy.
Choose from Highlights My First Hidden Pictures for younger kids or Highlights Hidden Pictures for older kids, at $1.99 each.
Wired: Hidden Pictures just like the ones in Highlights magazine! Zoom and pan to find all the hidden items.
Tired: Additional puzzle packs cost $.99 each, on top of the $1.99 base price.
Disclosure: I received a free download of My First Hidden Pictures for review.
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Review: My First Hidden Pictures for the iPhone
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Tags: Apple, armchair geek, games, hidden pictures, Highlights, iPhone, iphone apps, iPod, iPod Touch, mobad-games, perception, Phone |
No Comments »3-D: Coming Soon to a Cellphone Near You
Author: Natalie Wood
If 3-D in movies make you sick and 3-D TVs seem out of this world for your living room, consider a 3-D cellphone.
It’s not that far-fetched. Nintendo has already debuted the Nintendo 3DS, a handheld game console that sports a 3.5-inch 3-D display — about the same size as modern smartphones. With fast graphics processing capabilities and a screen technology that can produce 3-D effects without requiring consumers to wear any special glasses, cellphones might just be the latest frontier for the third dimension.
“One hundred percent of handset manufacturers are evaluating 3-D behind the scenes,” says James Bower, president of MasterImage 3-D, a Burbank, California, company that makes 3-D displays. “Everyone wants a glasses-free 3-D experience.
The first 3-D cellphone could be available in the United States next year, he says.
As cellphone processors become more powerful and telecom carriers introduce 4G networks capable of transporting more data, 3-D could charm consumers who are looking for more entertainment and functionality from their handheld devices.
Last year, Japanese wireless carrier KDDI started selling the first commercially available 3-D cellphone, called the Hitachi Woo. More than 300,000 devices were sold in in just a few weeks. The Woo’s 3-D display, powered by masterImage, uses a parallax barrier, a layer that’s placed over an LCD screen to help produce the feeling of depth by directing slightly different images to each eye.
“We can create a 3-D experience in pretty much any kind of screen including LCD and OLED,” says Bowers.
3-D films such as Avatar and Alice in Wonderland have sparked consumer interest in the format. Most major TV makers including Sony, LG, Panasonic and Mitsubishi have started selling 3-D TVs. ESPN launched a 3-D channel in time for the football World Cup. Even PC makers have hopped on to the trend with the launch of computers with 3-D displays.
But the real driver of 3-D content is expected to be amateur photos, video and gaming. Last month, Nintendo announced its new gaming system called the Nintendo 3DS portable. The Nintendo 3DS lets gamers see a rich 3-D display in their hand without the need for any special glasses.
Gadget Lab got a chance to play with the Hitachi Woo. The Woo has a flip-out screen so when opened it looks a lot like a small portable DVD player.
Some 3-D content, such as clips from the Shrek movie and a video of bubbles floating in air offered a better 3-D experience than, say, a music video.
Overall, the 3-D effect on the Woo’s 3-inch display isn’t eye-popping in the same way as on a TV screen or as enveloping as in a movie theater. But it is real and and it works. It’s convenient because you don’t need glasses to view the 3-D effect. A button on the keyboard lets you switch back to the standard 2-D view so you can scroll through the user interface on the device.
The downside: The videos seemed dull and the display didn’t have the intensity you can expect to see with a Nexus One or the iPhone. Watching 3-D clips on the device after a minute or so also made me want to look away from the screen.
MasterImage’s 3-D technology that’s used in the Woo is similar to what display maker Sharp has created for Nintendo’s 3DS Portable. Both use the concept of a parallax barrier.
A layer of material with a number of small, precise slits is placed on top of a display. The slits direct light from each image slightly differently creating a “sweet spot” that can range from 12 inches to 20 inches in front of the screen. At the sweet spot, the brain sees two slightly offset images that it can use to create a composite with the perception of depth. MasterImage says the 3-D layer adds about $10 to $15 to the overall bill of materials for the phone.
“Only one person who’s holding the phone can see the 3-D effect,” says Bowers, “but we have created a good sweet spot so there’s no struggling to find the the right position.”
That doesn’t mean the results are perfect, but it’s good enough to experience 3-D without requiring cumbersome glasses or extremely sophisticated technology.
But the ease of use comes at a price. Adding a layer on top of the LCD or OLED screen reduces brightness by up to 50 percent and resolution by almost the same number.
Bowers says the additional information that the brain perceives because of depth helps make up for some of that.
“Technically you are losing resolution but psychologically you are gaining a lot more information,” he says.
See Also:
- 3-D Goes DIY With Amateur Photos, Videos
- 3-D PCs Will Make a Splash at Computex
- 4 Things That Could Keep 3-D TV Out of Your Living Room
- Samsung’s Impossibly Thin 3-D TV Tempts Hollywood Producer
- HP Plans Line of (Relatively) Affordable 3-D Printers
- Wired Explains: How 3-D Television Works
- Wired Explains: How 3-D Movie Projection Works
Photo: Stefan Armijo/Wired.com
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3-D: Coming Soon to a Cellphone Near You
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Einstein Robot – UCSD Machine Perception Laboratory
Author: Stacey Cook
Scientists at UC San Diego’s California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) have equipped a robot modeled after the famed theoretical physicist with specialized software that allows it to interact with humans in a relatively natural, conversational way. The so-called “Einstein Robot,” which was designed by Hanson Robotics of Dallas, Texas, recognizes a number of human facial expressions and can respond accordingly, making it an unparalleled tool for understanding how both robots and humans perceive emotion, as well as a potential platform for teaching, entertainment, fine arts and even cognitive therapy.
