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Thursday, August 31, 2006
Posted by Roberto
4:11 PM 1 comments

SPEAKING WITH IMAGES
PROJECTED 2008 SALES: ONE BILLION CAMERAS

"The place of images in our society is changing profoundly. All but gone are the days when most people took pictures only twice a year, at Christmas and on vacation. More than ever before, we will use our images - both still and moving - to communicate more effectively in all aspects of our daily lives." - Alexis Gerard, imaging prognosticator

The camera-phone market is driving the development of miniaturized, rugged, low-cost, low-power, high-performance lenses that will eventually find their way into all cameras. The latest and most promising innovations are liquid lenses and software-enhanced optics.

"Unfortunately, even our best cameras do not have the human's ability to see fine detail or to hold information at both ends of high-contrast scenes. Our cameras don't equal even our limited ability to see in color in low light. Cameras don't have peripheral vision; they don't perceive and record depth and dimension information; they treat "still" and "motion" as different modes. We expect nothing less from our cameras than the ability to equal what we see with our eyes. We won't be satisfied until we get it, and we'll vote with our wallets in favor of the products that give it to us."
- Alexis Gerard, coauthor of Going Visual and president of Future Image Inc.

Imaging Ecosystem Numbers:
Total number of cameras of all kinds sold in 2000: 85 Million units.
Projected 2008 sales: One Billion units.

Links
6sight
Future Image

Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Posted by Roberto
4:00 PM 0 comments

MARRYING VISION AND SOUND WITH TOUCH SENSORY INTERFACES

Most people's experience of haptics so far has been limited to vibrating cellphones and games controllers for consoles such as Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox. These use a motor to spin a weight that is mounted off-centre on a spindle. As the weight rotates, its eccentric motion jerks the gadget around, providing a rough-and-ready vibration or rumble.

Nintendo's forthcoming Wii console, will for the first time offer 3D-motion sensing too. Players will be able to swing an on-screen baseball bat or tennis racket or wield a virtual paintbrush, just by moving the controller through the air. When it comes to haptic feedback, however, even the Wii's controller is limited to little more than a simple shake and rumble.

For most gamers, the first truly sophisticated haptic controller will be the Novint Falcon. Gamers will be able to "feel" the weight and recoil of a gun and experience the sensation of wading through water in games such as the shoot-'em-up Half-Life 2. The Falcon controller consists of a spherical gripper connected to a base by three mechanical arms. As you move it around, motors in the base apply forces to each arm to create resistance in three dimensions. This gives the illusion of touching a solid object or the push of a moving one, letting users feel weight, texture, shape, dimension, dynamics, 3D motion and force effects.

Gadgets get the feel of the tactile world - New Scientist 14 July 2006
Nintendo Wii - Controllers
Novint Falcon

Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Posted by Roberto
11:20 AM 0 comments

U.S. BROADBAND ADOPTION JUMPS 33 PERCENT IN 2005

U.S. BROADBAND MARKET OVERVIEW
The FCC has reported 50.2 million broadband internet access lines in the U.S. in 2005, an increase of 10.4 million lines over one year (33 percent increase). The total includes both consumer and business subscriptions.

DSL subscriptions increased by 5.7 million lines over the year compared with 4.2 million new cable modem lines. Although DSL added more lines, cable still leads the market share with 57.5 percent, compared to DSL's 40.5 percent.

The remainder consists of SDSL at 0.5 percent, fiber connections to the end user's location at 0.2 percent, and 0.5 percent for other methods of connection like satellite, electric power line, and terrestrial fixed or mobile wireless.

CONSEQUENCES ON TELEPHONY
Due to this trend of increasing broadband penetration, US Voice over IP users (VoIP requires a minimum of 90 Kbps in both directions to work) are expected to more than triple in the next 4 years, jumping from 10.3 million to 44 million in 2010.

CONSEQUENCES ON THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
In the US, music downloads - fee based rather than subscription services - now account for 25 percent of music sales, especially among the 25-54 age groups. The under 25s mainly use peer to peer sites, plus they download music videos, ring-tones and movies.

Federal Communications Commission