3d

We do a lot of Hubble gawking here. Arguably NASA's most enduring mission, the telescope has provided humans with the deepest possible look into the corners of the universe and papered many a desktop background. It's beamed back so much beauty that it's easy to take it for granted.

But Hubble 3D reminds us how miraculous a thing the Hubble telescope truly is. It is the apotheosis, the pinnacle of Hubblegasms. It's IMAX 3D in space.

More than a year after the first consumer 3-D-ready HDTVs were demoed at CES, the next generation of sets are going on sale this week. But, aside from the new TVs, glasses, and Blu-ray players, the question of content remains. While there are already brand partnerships with networks like Discovery and ESPN, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

"It's OK for astronauts to cry, right?" asked Mike Massimino, one of seven NASA astronauts who flew the space shuttle Atlantis on a daring mission to rescue the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009. The New York City native made his jest during a special preview screening of early footage from the upcoming Hubble 3-D IMAX film on Thursday, and all the reporters laughed. No one doubted his sincerity in describing his surge of emotion upon watching himself and his fellow spacewalkers floating on the big screen.

NASA launched one of its boldest space missions in 2009 to repair and save the aging Hubble Space Telescope. Now everyone can get a glimpse of astronaut derring-do in a preview trailer for the upcoming Hubble 3D IMAX film slated for release on March 19.

DARPA's dreamers and brainiacs have set their sights on a new technology for the U.S. military -- high-tech binoculars or goggles that would supposedly have the ability to find the not-so-proverbial needle in a haystack. The Register pointed out the U.S. Department of Defense proposal issued last week.

You may remember playing with zoetropes as a kid, or at least their flipbook equivalents that converted a series of 2D stickman images into an animated story. Such devices proved popular from the Victorian era all the way up until movies became all the rage in the 20th century. Now there's the 21st century version -- a 3-D zoetrope that creates a spiraling animated ilusion.

It's not all about singing robots in Tokyo this year. The annual CEATEC tech expo is loaded with the makings of your gadget-geek future.

In the past, in order to take a stereoscopic 3D photo, photogs had to fashion their own hacked shooting rigs of conjoined cameras wired into a central shutter. But even with all that, 3D shots taken with those setups still can't be seen with the naked eye. Fujifilm's Real 3D system, which is available in the U.S. today, includes a camera, digital frame, and print center that creates 3D images you can see without those flimsy glasses.

This is the week of the Internationale Funkausstellung (er, International Consumer Electronics Show) in Berlin, which is pretty much just what it sounds like. It's one whopping, European CES. The trouble with IFA for us on the State-side, though, is that a lot of companies forget one key thing: the magical Internet can cross water. Because of that, a lot of "new product announcements" are "things we have already seen," so it takes a little more effort (and flexing what's left of my undergrad German skillz) to figure out what's worth paying attention to.

Over the last two days, the IFA press preview has kicked up some real goodies -- even before the show floor opens to the public today. IFA '09 has already shown us a real taste of how our home theaters will look in the next half-decade, laptops on serious diets, and a couple cool new toys.

For the nervous new freshmen heading to college this fall (and some bitter 25 year olds looking to travel back in time) a new website, DesignYourDorm offers the chance to make design decisions ahead of time in a 3-D replica of the room they’ve been dealt.

Not just content with making a splash on the big screen, content providers are also set on bringing 3-D programming into the home as well. Sky TV plans to launch a dedicated 3-D channel in the UK next year.

The station will offer a smattering of sports, movies, and entertainment-related content, all piped through to the living room via a set-top box. This seems to lineup with Panasonic's plans to have 3-D movies in the home by 2010 as well.

Think you have a snazzy business card? Perhaps one with a cool graphic or one-of-a-kind shape? Well, think again. No matter how impressive, it's unlikely to beat this augmented reality card from ActionScript developer James Alliban for coolness.

Lose this remote control you’ve got a serious problem. In two short weeks, a group of German scientists will unveil the iPoint 3D, which allows users to communicate with a 3-D display through simple finger gestures. The technology doesn’t require a data glove, 3-D glasses or any contact with the screen. On the down side it doesn’t negate the need to actually lift your arm.

I still have serious doubts about 3D PC gaming actually taking off, but Maingear's Nvidia-powered Prelude 2 3D gaming rig neatly bundles everything you need into a $US2000 package.

OK, so perhaps Audi hasn’t brought in holographic sales assistants to save on labour costs, but can’t you just see supermarkets and service stations heading in this direction? That was off topic, the real news is that, yes, Audi really has brought in holographic sales assistants. Audi is the first company in Australia to deploy the technology that displays a holographic person in realistic proportions.