Stereoscopy is a pretty active photography genre - I have a relative who has a large library of self created images. There are numerous websites devoted to it. http://www.stereoscopy.com/cameras/ is one example.
At one end you can simply glue to cameras together bottom to bottom as someone mentioned, at the higher end there are dual lens cameras that use normal 35mm film and developing...you just need to mat them carefully.
The images are very compelling - much more immersive than regular photos. The handheld viewers work OK - but for the real effect get a dual lens projector for the slides and some green & red glasses and watch the show on a wall size image.
I read an article about Intel's fabs a few years back. A new fab costs something like $3-4 Billion and can only make state-of-the art chips for about 3 years (due to shrinking line widths). Anyways, the punch line was that the depreciation cost for a single fab was $20 Million per day! So when a fab is new, and aging at $1M/hour - I think they charge what they can. 3 years later of course - the fab is fully depreciated and can produce 'old' chips like a PII-450 that sell for a very low price profitably
I am personnaly looking forward to some form of HDVD because I do have HDTV, and on a large screen, DVDs are noticably grainier than HD content.
I am sure I will buy some form of HDVD once they are out..if only in a PS3 for my kids. What I won't do is buy movies in a format that will likely become white elephants, or in a "low-quality' DVD. Netflix will be able to meet my content needs for HD I am sure...but I don't think you will see people tossing the latest Harry Potter HD film in their carts when they buy grocieries if there is no confidence in the media format.
So - the Hollywood studios who now expect 50%+ of the revenue to come from the DVD release will suffer.
Laser 'circuitry' is cooler than electronic because it avoids the resistance heat generation..However it is not a means to more powerful CPU's currently. Today's 130nm CPUs like Athlon ( http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041221/cpu_char ts-07.html) ) already significantly smaller than bandwidth of light by several multiples (400-700nm http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/Wavelengths_for _Colors.html ). This means that an optical processor will be less dense in circuitry and therefore less powerful, at least on a cm^2 basis.
They are exciting for some specialized applications like fibreoptics because they eliminate the OEO stage for amplification, regeneration and the like...but don't seem likely for mainstream processors soon.
One possibility to get around the density problem is to go up...building a 3D cube of optical switches is physically possible because heat doesn't build up in the core. An optical microprocessor DOES have a (theoretical) advantage on circuits per cm^3, but whole new school of processor design and fabrication would have to be developed in order to make that happen.
Re:Badass new Cisco router's (presentation include
on
Router Wars
·
· Score: 0
Wrong, wrong.. wrong
This presentation is for Cisco's branch routers. They are very cool in their own way - but these go for a few thousand bucks...they hang on the premises side of a T1 or DSL circuit.
The Juniper TX or Juniper CRS are carrier products that would support multiple 10 gig optical circuits, SONET links and other carrier class connections.
ummm, my camera has more RAM than my workstation had hard disk space 5 years ago, I have a thumb drive for under a hundred bucks that holds a years worth of e-mail (or a weeks worth of PowerPoint) and a 120GB storage in my TiVo that would have cost about $100,000 in 1995. Storage has progressed faster than almost any other technology in IT.
The interesting question is: for an industry that quadruples bang for the buck year after year - how come nobody makes any money? Seagate, Quantum, IBM, SanDisk, the guys that made Zip drives all bleed money year after year...
At the Smithsonian Air & Space museum they a Cray of some sort (XMP, YMP, I forget) bubbling away in a room with padded benches around the circumfrence to rest your weary bones on.
Seeing (and sitting on !) what was once one of the fastest computers in the world is incredible. For my money - they Cray is as cool looking as any fighter jet in the building.
There has never been a case of asbestosis diagnosed from someone who did not work in an asbestos plant - so all the panic about pulling it out of buildings like it was plutonium is really overblown.
The actual fact is: a little asbestos never hurt anyone.
An excellent post. While all the naysayers (to be polite) criticize America because we are not divine in our wisdom they are probably living in a nation whose freedom was paid for in American blood. Europe, Asia, Central America have all been directly liberated from various tyrants by US forces. The fact that we then develop comercial as well as political ties to most of these nations is only one more aspect of liberty.
20 years of increasingly viscious terrorist attacks on US citizens and soil is enough patience. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. (Ed Burke - a pre-terror Irishman)
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Stereoscopy is a pretty active photography genre - I have a relative who has a large library of self created images. There are numerous websites devoted to it. http://www.stereoscopy.com/cameras/ is one example. At one end you can simply glue to cameras together bottom to bottom as someone mentioned, at the higher end there are dual lens cameras that use normal 35mm film and developing...you just need to mat them carefully. The images are very compelling - much more immersive than regular photos. The handheld viewers work OK - but for the real effect get a dual lens projector for the slides and some green & red glasses and watch the show on a wall size image.
I read an article about Intel's fabs a few years back. A new fab costs something like $3-4 Billion and can only make state-of-the art chips for about 3 years (due to shrinking line widths). Anyways, the punch line was that the depreciation cost for a single fab was $20 Million per day!
So when a fab is new, and aging at $1M/hour - I think they charge what they can. 3 years later of course - the fab is fully depreciated and can produce 'old' chips like a PII-450 that sell for a very low price profitably
I am personnaly looking forward to some form of HDVD because I do have HDTV, and on a large screen, DVDs are noticably grainier than HD content. I am sure I will buy some form of HDVD once they are out..if only in a PS3 for my kids. What I won't do is buy movies in a format that will likely become white elephants, or in a "low-quality' DVD. Netflix will be able to meet my content needs for HD I am sure...but I don't think you will see people tossing the latest Harry Potter HD film in their carts when they buy grocieries if there is no confidence in the media format. So - the Hollywood studios who now expect 50%+ of the revenue to come from the DVD release will suffer.
Laser 'circuitry' is cooler than electronic because it avoids the resistance heat generation..However it is not a means to more powerful CPU's currently. Today's 130nm CPUs like Athlon ( http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041221/cpu_char ts-07.html) ) already significantly smaller than bandwidth of light by several multiples (400-700nm http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/Wavelengths_for _Colors.html ). This means that an optical processor will be less dense in circuitry and therefore less powerful, at least on a cm^2 basis.
They are exciting for some specialized applications like fibreoptics because they eliminate the OEO stage for amplification, regeneration and the like...but don't seem likely for mainstream processors soon.
One possibility to get around the density problem is to go up...building a 3D cube of optical switches is physically possible because heat doesn't build up in the core. An optical microprocessor DOES have a (theoretical) advantage on circuits per cm^3, but whole new school of processor design and fabrication would have to be developed in order to make that happen.
Wrong, wrong.. wrong
This presentation is for Cisco's branch routers. They are very cool in their own way - but these go for a few thousand bucks...they hang on the premises side of a T1 or DSL circuit.
The Juniper TX or Juniper CRS are carrier products that would support multiple 10 gig optical circuits, SONET links and other carrier class connections.
ummm, my camera has more RAM than my workstation had hard disk space 5 years ago, I have a thumb drive for under a hundred bucks that holds a years worth of e-mail (or a weeks worth of PowerPoint) and a 120GB storage in my TiVo that would have cost about $100,000 in 1995. Storage has progressed faster than almost any other technology in IT. The interesting question is: for an industry that quadruples bang for the buck year after year - how come nobody makes any money? Seagate, Quantum, IBM, SanDisk, the guys that made Zip drives all bleed money year after year...
At the Smithsonian Air & Space museum they a Cray of some sort (XMP, YMP, I forget) bubbling away in a room with padded benches around the circumfrence to rest your weary bones on. Seeing (and sitting on !) what was once one of the fastest computers in the world is incredible. For my money - they Cray is as cool looking as any fighter jet in the building.
There has never been a case of asbestosis diagnosed from someone who did not work in an asbestos plant - so all the panic about pulling it out of buildings like it was plutonium is really overblown. The actual fact is: a little asbestos never hurt anyone.
An excellent post. While all the naysayers (to be polite) criticize America because we are not divine in our wisdom they are probably living in a nation whose freedom was paid for in American blood. Europe, Asia, Central America have all been directly liberated from various tyrants by US forces. The fact that we then develop comercial as well as political ties to most of these nations is only one more aspect of liberty.
20 years of increasingly viscious terrorist attacks on US citizens and soil is enough patience. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. (Ed Burke - a pre-terror Irishman)