As you're probabaly aware, one of Firefox's greatest strengths is its infinite ability to learn new tricks via extensions and add-ons. Today, I present you three Firefox add-ons that will simplify your drawing and animation tasks.
Ever had the need to draw some diagrams? You should give this Pencil a try.
If you're more into fast SVG editing, then maybe svg-edit will suit your needs better.
And if static images don't cut ir, how about using Animat to create some animated PNGs in the APNG format?
If you recall Nvidia Optimus you'll know this is a system that allows your computer to dynamically switch between graphic cards depending on process at hand.
This time, I bring you quite a clarifying video that shows that the external - more powerful - graphic chip is completely powered off when not needed (not just in a suspended standby state.)
How can we be sure? Well... how about actually removing and re-attaching the graphic card while the rest of the system is still powered on, is that enough for you? :)
Still haven't had the time to get onboard the new HTML5 bandwagon? Worry not; here's a nice intro video that will show you some of its new (and amazing) features, with nice examples to get you started:
Web vector graphics with the Canvas tag and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
Looks like those incredible image enhancements we see on TV are becoming increasingly real.
What if someone told you it was possible to reconstruct an image from a noisy or incomplete source?
No matter how impossible it sounded, someone applied some advanced math to it and... the results were amazing.
Be filling the empty spaces using the known pixel as reference, they were able to get crystal clear images out of incomplete MRI scans. And the same applies to most other kinds of images and even sounds!
And this is not all: how about compressing an image by deliberately throwing away the needless pixels that can be rebuilt using this algorithm? As you can imagine, the possibilities are endless!
I have to admit: ever since I first saw Microsoft's Project Natal, I was wondering what they were using "under the hood".
It's no secret there are a lot of "pseudo-3D" technologies out there, but for MS to be announcing it as a truly revolutionary experience, they had to be using something... amazing.
Well, at last - and actually, by chance - I found what they're using: it's a technology called "Time of Flight", and it allows the creation of a real 3D camera!
Forget everything you knew about 3D technologies. This is no "tricked" 3D image analysis or stereoscopic wizardry. I'm talking about real 3D information from a camera, where each pixel represents a well know 3D point in space.
It uses the same principle of SONAR (with sound) and LIDAR (light), emitting a modulated light pulse and waiting for the time it takes for the reflected signal to get back. Unlike those, however, which require mechanical "swiping" methods to create an "image", time of flight cameras use thousands of receptors - each pixel acts as a tiny range finder - allowing to capture a full 3D image in real time speeds.
And, as each pixel is tuned to look only for a specific modulated light spectrum, it doesn't require - nor is affected - by other light sources.
In the end you get 3 images: one where each pixel intensity represent the distance to that point, one showing a "grayscale" image of the scene, and one other showing a "distance accuracy probability" that tells you how "certain" the camera is of each pixel measurement.
This kind of technology has therefore nothing to do with "simple" image processing done via regular webcams like the EyeToy. Stuff that is very hard to do with a regular camera (like recognizing overlapping moving objects) suddenly becomes possible, in a much easier way.
The only "issue" is that these cameras currently go for well over $5000 USD (though it's quite feasible to make it a lot more affordable once you built it in mass scale as MS intends to do with its Project Natal.)
If you think all the projects the Wiimote enabled enthusiasts to do... Imagine what an affordable sub $100 ToF camera would allow us to do!
The 15" OLED TV by LG is already being sold in Korea, and is now making its way to Europe and the US.
The LG 15E9500 is due in Europe next May and will cost...€2000.
It should arrive at the US a couple months later.
Besides the astronomical contrast ratios of 10,000,000:1 and lightning speed response times of 0.001ms, it will serve its purpose of showing us what the future OLED TVs have to offer.
Although it is a lot of money, it's quite a bit less than the smaller SONY XEL-1.
Maybe that's why Sony has opt out of the OLED business - at least for now...
