Extended Reality (XR) - Page 79

If you live in an area of the US, where you get cable from Cox Communications the company has announced a new service that will get your attention quickly. The new service wraps a new Trio program guide into a package with a DVR system that works for your entire home. That means you can record a program on any DVR in your home and then play it back on any TV in the house.

Foxtel are set to launch Australia's dedicated 3D channel.

When it comes to accessories like cables, docks and all sorts of other stuff for Apple devices like iPods and the iPhone, Scosche is a big favorite for many. Scosche is also big on accessories for the iPad as well. One of the first things that many iPad buyers realized when they went to charge their iPad from a computer is that not all USB ports are up to the task of charging the iPad thanks to the iPad needing 2.1 amps of power. That means many notebook and PC USB ports won't charge the iPad.

Ahh, technology; a road that never ends and there's always something new on the horizon. A pretty funky iPhone application was launched today by the Commonwealth bank which more or less gives the ability to point their phone at a house from out the front and access both its sale price as well as giving a virtual peek inside.

The new app harnesses mobile phone camera and location based tech to map the user's position; then it simply matches it with information about the house such as how many bedrooms and bathrooms it has, the exterior or interior (or both) sale photographs and also its most recent sale price. Said information is obtained via property website Realestate.com.au and rpdata.com.

This afternoon TAITRA shipped ourselves and many other international press over to the MSI headquarters for a look at some of its new and upcoming products in the mobile space. This was after the Computex 2010 pre-show press conference that was held earlier today and we'll be covering that shortly.

SPARKLE is giving NVIDIA a helping hand in pushing its 3D Vision technology by putting together a promotional bundle package which includes the 3D Vision glasses, drivers, software and a bunch of 3D Vision supporting game titles together with one of SPARKLE's factory overclocked GeForce GT 240 graphics cards.

I am a big fan of PC gaming and always look forward to new video cards hitting the market to give me better graphics when I play. A new video card has turned up at CeBIT from Sapphire and the card is a beast.

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The Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5970 has 4GB of on-board memory of the GDDR5 flavor. It uses a Sapphire Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme cooler packed with three fans and four copper heat pipes. That massive cooler should keep the card running nice and cool.

The GPU clock is 850MHz and the memory clock is 4800MHz. The card needs a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors and has two DVI outputs. The card also has a pair of DisplayPort outputs too. Exactly how much the beast will cost is unknown, but it won't be cheap.

PC cooling specialists Thermalright have come out with a new mean looking VRM cooler for AMD's top-end ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cards. The company has already released aftermarket VRM coolers for the HD 5800 series in the VRM-R3 and VRM-R4, but this new VRM-R5 improves on them both with superior cooling properties.

My DVR is one of the most important gadgets in my house. I use the thing daily, without it I would miss all the shows I really love, and even worse, I'd have to watch commercials again. TiVo has been granted a patent on technology commonly used in DVRs everywhere after filing the application way back in 1999.

Both NVIDIA and AMD partner Club 3D has just unveiled a non-reference version of AMD's Radeon HD 5850 graphics card which it simply calls the Radeon HD 5850 Overclocked Edition with its higher clock rates on tap.

CES 2010 - If all goes well, consumers should be able to get their first taste of 3D Blu-ray on their computers and laptops midway through this year.

During Digital Experience we hooked up with Tom from CyberLink here in the USA who gave us a rundown on the technology, a look at the different glasses options and probably your very first look at PowerDVD 3D up and running for real, albeit a very early version, but a look nonetheless. Watch our video below.

The folks at Engadget were lucky enough to have recently gotten a taste of NVIDIA's 3D Blu-ray ecosystem on one of Acer's upcoming LCD beauties, the 120Hz NVIDIA 3D-ready 24" G245.

So the Zune HD is finally getting some decent games. It took Microsoft a little less than two months to get them out but now that they are hear Zune HD owners can finally begin to show off the power of the Tegra inside their PMPs.

As of this morning the Zune Marketplace is showing roughly seven extra free games and apps. Of special note are PGR: Ferrari Edition and AudioSurf Tilt. We had the chance to grab these free games and to take them for a short spin. We can honestly report that the Zune HD is quite the gaming platform.

In PGR: Ferrari Edition we found the graphics to be excellent while the Accelerometer in the Zune HD offered better control than the one in the iPhone 3G (or 3G S). The game was fast paced and the audio processor is excellent at maintaining in game sounds.

On the other side is AudioSurf Tilt, this game does fail at the graphical level but as a whole is very fun to play and addictive as well. In the game you "drive" along a race track created based on the audio track you chose. You have to maneuver along it collecting colored cubes while avoiding speed bumps. It has a very fun Guitar Hero feel to it and was one that I found it hard to put down.
But with the good there is always a little bad. In this case the Zune HD's lack of a speaker can make the games awkward. To get the sounds you have to use a set of headphones, this makes holding and controlling the player awkward. There is also the slightly annoying issue that most of these games have an ad that you have to watch before they launch. So while the games are free, you end up paying with that annoying intro ad and the wasted time to get into the real game play.

The Zune HD launches tomorrow to what should be a great reception. According to early previews and information on the internals for the new Microsoft Media Player the Zune HD is looking pretty formidable.

The question is; will it be able to make a dent in the iPod/iPod Touch's massive market share? Well, MS is facing two problems; the first is the most important. MS has almost no idea how to market the Zune HD. Their marketing department is terrible. When you compare them to the highly polished Apple team it is almost comical. The second problem is one that is easier to tackle.

To compete at all the Zune HD must, hands down, outperform the iPod Touch. I am not talking about simple video playback; I am talking about in all respects. So far the Zune has probably the most powerful SoC out, the nVidia Tegra. This gives the Zune HD an advantage over the touch in terms of RAW CPU and GPU power. But having a great CPU/GPU is not enough.

The OS must do and have things that the Touch does not/cannot. As of right now the Zune has a few checks in this column. HD Radio, (rumored) Flash Support, 720p(+) playback, remote control (with Dock), and now it may be that the Zune HD has the upper hand in gaming. Check out this promotional video showing it playing Forza 3.

Maybe if the MS Marketing team can get their heads out the Zune HD might actually have a fighting chance.

So Microsoft might release project Natal in 2010 and they might have a new XboX 360. That is a lot of mights to be perfectly honest. But Sony on the other hand is saying they will have 3D TV support for the PS3 in 2010.

This was demonstrated recently. The new 3D Support will come in the form of a firmware update for the PS3. This simple (relatively) update to your console will enable 3D support for all existing titles.

That last line is the most important; this is not an update that will make it available for "future products" no it will enable it for all existing titles. All I can say there is wow.

3D gaming has been something of a dream for game developers. It allows the eye-candy and visual element of the game to become more active. Now if they can get the motion capture/control elements working then we are talking about a completely new level of immersive gaming and something to really look forward to in the future.

There is nothing like a new cool gadget and Fujifilm has one. This is a 3D Digital camera for the masses. The new camera is a small compact device that is capable of capturing 3D Images that are viewable without the need to special glasses.

The concept behind the capture is surprisingly simple; through the use of two lenses (similar to the old stereoscopic viewers) the camera is able to combine different fields of view (depth) into an image or movie that is fully 3 dimensional.

Fujifilm will also offer a special printing process for these images. The new FinePix REAL 3D W1 should hit the stores in Japan early next month followed by a general release late next month.

The REAL 3D W1 will not be an inexpensive gadget though; it will run about $640 US dollars.

Rumors are fun things, at times you can picture them happening and being a great jump forward for a product, company, etc. At other times they are just plain silly.

This is exactly where the rumor that Microsoft will be putting in stereoscopic 3D support into next generation Xboxs fits. The rumor says that the next Xbox 360 will have Natal motion sensing technology but that the Xbox 720 will not only have Natal but those cheap and cheesy 3d glasses you see at movies.

It then goes on to say that the new Xbox 720 won't start shipping until 3D HD TV support is more wide spread. This means that in 4-5 years Microsoft would be putting in support for a 3D technology that is outdated today.

Read more here.

Ok time for one last round of iPhone rumors before the end of my day. It seems that there is a lot of speculation on what Apple will bring forth onto the world at WWDC. Much of this speculation surrounds the iconic Apple iPhone.

For months there have been rumors, fake shots, blurry cams, everything you can imagine but as we get closer to the time when the announcements should be dropping we hear some good ones.

The latest is that the new iPhone will have a 3D Graphics Chip in it. I am not sure the purpose of this unless perhaps it is an nVidia off shoot and Cuda/OpenCL capable. At that point perhaps Apple might be looking at a way to push off some of the iPhone overhead onto the GPU.

But then again since we have heard a ton of other rumors who knows until the great bitten one gives us the details.

Read more here.

Well CES kicked off today so the news will be full of interesting products. Our first article comes from Charlie Demerjian at the Inq.

It seems that Charlie was able to get a shot of nVidia's new 3D Glasses while checking out a projection system from Samsung.

These new glasses are very cheap looking (remind me of something found on a gas station sunglass rack) and if Charlie is right won't be great performers either.


Take a look for yourself here.