The Satosphere is actually two domes: an immobile one that protrudes through the roof, and the slightly smaller projection dome that nests inside. The projection dome is a steel frame panelled with thin sheets of perforated aluminum. (The holes, which prevent sound from echoing and distorting, account for almost a quarter of the surface area, but are small enough not to affect viewing.) Special paint prevents too much light from reflecting back from the panels (too much reflection would spoil the image on the opposite side of the sphere) while still allowing high contrast for the projections.

The eight projectors are grouped in pairs near the top of the dome. The highest projectors are angled down to cover the lower half of the screen; the lower projectors point up. Each projected image overlaps with the next by about a foot, but painstaking projector alignments, and a formidable rack of computers, make for a seamless 360-degree panorama that fills every millimetre of the room.

Every millimetre. That’s the important part.

What makes “the magic happen,” says Mr. St-Arnault, and distinguishes the Satosphere from old-school planetarium-style projection domes, is the high position of the projection dome’s equator, or its widest point, allowing images to be projected right to the floor. (The projectors are angled to prevent roaming audience members from obstructing the light beams.) The dome can be raised, and additional rows of panels added, to change the floor-to-floor curve from 180 degrees to a maximum of 230; the higher the equator, says Mr. St-Arnault, the more our brains are fooled and “the more immersive the space because it gives you a sense of having the horizon all around you.” (The Satosphere is a high-tech operation— Mr. St-Arnault will only say the price-tag is “millions”—in every way except one. Raising and lowering the dome is achieved through technology that wouldn’t be out of place in the girders-and-gears Paris of Mr. Scorsese’s Hugo: pulleys, chains and muscles.)

The Satosphere opened in October, 2011, with a performance called Intérieur. Live dancers, choreographed by Marie-Claude Poulin, moved among the audience and interacted with a two-hour video by artist Martin Kusch. (As if navigating through a dance troupe wasn’t enough sensory overload for audiences, a later performance called Salon de massage McLuhan, inspired by the legendary Canadian media theorist, incorporated narrative-appropriate tastes and smells courtesy of the adjacent “Foodlab.”)

Training artists to create more works for the space is a priority, says Mr. St-Arnault, but the SAT is also exploring non-art applications for the technology. The group has already begun brainstorming with Montreal’s Sainte-Justine children’s hospital (one possibility: a safe virtual environment for phobia patients), and Mr. St-Arnault can see architects using the technology to give clients “tours” of proposed buildings (or even to give neighbours an idea of how that new building might obstruct their views). Whatever the direction, he thinks interactivity will be key, with users one day directing the environment by using smartphones as a kind of virtual mouse.

The Satosphere is an experimental cinema located in a building that began life as an actual meat market, before that particular stretch of lower Boulevard Saint-Laurent took a turn for the carnal. The shiny new glass façade stands in stark contrast to the neighbouring porn theatre and transvestite burlesque club, but what truly marks the Satosphere as a new kind of spectacle is the massive dome protruding from the roof.

Eighteen metres in diameter, the three-month-old Satosphere is a round cinema, but—unlike similar planetarium theatres of old—it uses a hi-tech network of eight video projectors and 157 speakers to completely surround (save the floor) up to 400 people with lifelike sound and images. The effect isn’t 3D in the comin’-at-ya! sense recently back in vogue. Rather, it gives viewers the sense of moving inside the images—even, during particularly kinetic sequences, verging on motion sickness.

“It’s like being in a transparent bubble that’s floating through an environment,” says Louis-Philippe St-Arnault, the director of production and immersive development for the Society for Arts and Technology, the digital arts research, training and performance centre behind the Satosphere. The 32-year-old started his career as a set designer for stage and film, but found himself increasingly drawn into the SAT’s science-for-art’s-sake milieu. Five years ago, he joined SAT full-time.

“People have made domed theatres before,” admits Mr. St-Arnault. “But, strangely enough, they still tried to make the viewer look only at the front, like in a regular cinema. We’re trying to move away from that by not having fixed seating. We want people to be able to walk around, to choose their point of view, both by their body position and what captures their interest.”

Two viewers standing back-to-back in the Satosphere would see, and possibly hear, completely different things, making the experience as much about what you miss as what you catch. Sound overwhelming? That’s kind of the point.

“Everywhere you look in the world, there’s too much information,” says Mr. St-Arnault. “If I choose to look in front of me right now, then I’m missing whatever’s happening behind me.” He turns around. “Now I’m missing something else. Nobody in the Satosphere sees or hears exactly the same movie.”

Researchers in the SAT labs spent three years experimenting with the best way to capture and project images. The process starts by creating 360-degree video footage, either by using a six-lens camera (similar to those used by Google to create its Street View maps) to record a real environment, or by computer modelling entirely virtual scenes. The footage is then rendered into a “flattened” image that is texture-mapped over the virtual surface of a 3D object—in this case, the curved walls of the Satosphere, but it could be any surface—making exacting adjustments to the image to compensate for any distortion that normally occurs during projection onto a non-flat surface. It takes about four hours to import one minute of raw footage, but editing, colour correction and other tweaks add considerably to the process; all told, it takes about a year to create two hours of polished video. Throughout the process, footage is test-screened in the laboratory’s miniature dome, which holds a handful of viewers. Once the video works there, it’s ready for the big room.

Normally, the hurried throng at CES can’t get through the main entrance fast enough. But this year, as attendants passed out passive 3D glasses to all who entered, many people just stopped in their tracks and watched the 3D presentation from 50 state of the art LCD TVs working together in one very impressive video wall. Past that, LG had the coveted spot just inside the main entrance of the central hall and many attendees took their time and watched the amazing products on display.

LG and Samsung get top honors in the competition for jaw-dropping TV exhibits. LG made no attempt to hide the fact that it would be showing a 55″ OLED TV at the show. We saw a number of third-tier players hawking LED TV’s, possibly trying to pick up on the buzz around the LG and Samsung demos. These manufacturers were simply showing standard LCD displays with LED backlighting. It’s good technology and makes for great displays, but it was new two years ago.

Common themes this year built on the themes from last year. We saw many more 3-D sets. Bezels continue to shrink, with displays pushing out closer and closer to the edge of the screen. Sets are thinner, less than a half-inch for the OLED versions, and around an inch for the LED lit LCD sets. Viewable area continues to increase. There were 70″ displays in stores this Christmas and 85″ displays here at CES. New for this year were so called 4K displays, with double the resolution in each direction to 3840 x 2160. That’s the first step in ultradefinition designs. Full ultradef calls for doubling again in each direction to 7680 x 4320.

Sony and few others were showing no-glasses 3D displays. This is fairly new technology that depends on lighting and precise viewing angle in order to look anything like 3D. Booths had to be built with overhead cover to prevent the mercury vapor lights that normally light up the Las Vegas Convention center from totally washing out the 3D effect.

But if it’s a personal viewing experience you want, we saw one completely tricked-out reclining chair with mechanical overhead arms that positioned one to three screens around you for an immersive experience. Throw in a nice sound system (which this had) and you can replace your man-cave with a man-lazyboy. The chair also comes with a keyboard arm so you can use it for work. While the experience might be immersive, the design of the chair won’t earn it space in a stylized living room.

More than seven feet on the diagonal, LG’s 85″ 3D LED lit LCD Ultradef (4k) screen was an impressive monster. Though easily mistaken for a model, that’s your humble reporter in the photo, standing next to this display to provide some perspective on its size. This giant is meant for media rooms and commercial displays; we doubt it’ll make its way into most living rooms. But if you’re of a mind to, the quality of the picture is incredible.

Chocolate lovers may soon be able to print their own 3D creations thanks to work by UK scientists.

A 3D printer that uses chocolate has been developed by University of Exeter researchers – and it prints layers of chocolate instead of ink or plastic.

Although still a prototype, several retailers have already expressed interest in taking on the device.

3D printing using plastic and metal is already widely used in industry to speed up design work.

Lead scientist Dr Liang Hao told BBC News that chocolate printing, just like any other 3D printing technique, starts with a flat cross-section image – similar to that produced by ordinary printers turning out images.

“Then you do a 3D shape – layer by layer, printing chocolate instead of ink, like if you were layering 2D paper to form a 3D shape,” he said.

Once a layer is completed, it solidifies, and the machine moves on to the next layer.
Shape and taste

There have been other attempts to develop so-called “food printers” – in 2010, researchers from Cornell University in the US used liquefied foods as inks in a specially designed machine.

Dr Richard Hague from Loughborough University told BBC News that the Exeter creation is a step towards manufacturing a device able to print flawless 3D objects that taste good.
Chocolate The machine builds up objects layer by layer

Getting the printing process right involves careful control of key parameters, such as temperature.

Once the prototype becomes a finished product, it may find a role in the restaurant and food preparation industry.

And some companies are already expressing interest.

“Obviously, it’s chocolate, so it is hugely appealing,” said Joanna Grant from UK online gift retailer findmeagift.co.uk.

But what is even more appealing, she added, is that customers will be able to design any object on a computer before hitting the print button.

“We could do things like 3D faces, for instance – the possibilities are enormous on a commercial aspect.”
Social networks

Besides producing 3D chocolate, Dr Hao’s team wants to go a step further – and take their printer into cyberspace.

He said the next step would be creating a chocolate-oriented website.

“Now we have an opportunity to combine chocolate with digital technology, including the design, digital manufacturing and social networking.

“Chocolate has a lot of social purpose, so our intention is to develop a community and share the designs, ideas and experience about it.”

“We track the head of the user with the front facing camera in order to create a glasses-free monocular 3D display. Such spatially-aware mobile display enables to improve the possibilities of interaction.
It does not use the accelerometers and relies only on the front camera. “

The Sony HDR-TD10 captures amazing 3D video in 1920×1080 with its dual lenses, and displays on its 3.5-inch screen with No Glasses Required. It packs 64GB of Flash memory which will store 5 hours of HD 3D, or 25 hours of HD 2D.

The Optimus 3D packs a 4.3-inch touchscreen that displays 3D pictures and videos with No Glasses Required.

Read more: http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/mobile-phones/lg-optimus-3d-review-50002715/#ixzz1E59rdjni

Introducing the Nintendo 3DS system.

Size (when closed):
Approximately 5.3 inches wide, 2.9 inches long, 0.8 inches tall.
Weight:
Approximately 8 ounces.
Look:
Final design is TBA.
Top Screen:
3.53-inch widescreen LCD display, enabling 3D view without the need for special glasses; with 800×240 pixel resolution (400 pixels are allocated for each eye to enable 3D viewing).
Touch Screen:
3.02-inch LCD with 320×240 pixel resolution with a touch screen.
Cameras:
One inner camera and two outer cameras with 640×480 (0.3 Mega) pixel resolution.
Pre-Installed Software:
TBA
Nintendo 3DS Game Card:
2 GB Max. at launch.
Wireless Communication:
Can communicate in the 2.4 GHz band. Multiple Nintendo 3DS systems can connect via a local wireless connection to let users communicate or enjoy competitive game play. Systems also can connect to LAN access points to access the Internet and allow people to enjoy games with others. Will support IEEE 802.11 with enhanced security (WPA/WPA2). Nintendo 3DS hardware is designed so that even when not in use, it can automatically exchange data with other Nintendo 3DS systems or receive data via the Internet while in sleep mode.

Game Controls:
Touch screen, embedded microphone, A/B/X/Y face buttons, + Control Pad, L/R buttons, Start and Select buttons, “Slide Pad” that allows 360-degree analog input, one inner camera, two outer cameras, motion sensor and a gyro sensor.

Other Input Controls:
3D Depth Slider to adjust level of 3D effect (can be scaled back or turned off completely depending on the preference of the user), Home button to call system function, Wireless switch to turn off wireless communications (even during game play), Power button. The telescoping stylus is approximately 4 inches when fully extended.

Input/Output:
A port that accepts both Nintendo 3DS game cards and game cards for the Nintendo DS™ family of systems, an SD memory card slot, an AC adapter connector, a charging cradle terminal and a stereo headphone output jack.

Sound:
Stereo speakers positioned to the left and right of the top screen.

Battery:
Lithium ion battery details TBA.

Languages:
TBA

Parental Controls:
Parental controls similar to the Nintendo DSi system will be included.

Toshiba is demonstrating a glasses-free autostereoscopic 3D laptop at CES 2011 in Las Vegas this week.

According to Engadget, Toshiba’s new glasses-free 3D notebook could well see a commercial release at some point in 2011, although there is no official word from Tosh on any plans for launch.

Dead-zone free 3D

The new Toshiba Qosmio packs in head- tracking technology in an attempt to create “dead-zone free stereoscopic 3D images.”

The Qosmio laptop has two parallax 3D LCD screens, with a special eye-tracking feature that knows when you shift the position of your head.

Which basically means you don’t need glasses and you don’t need to keep your head in one place in order to enjoy the 3D illusion from the laptop.

Toshiba’s director of product marketing Phil Osako is confident that the company will bring a glasses-free 3D lappy to market at some point this year.

Children under that age may face difficulty training their brains to focus their eyes after too much strain caused by the 3-D viewing, Nintendo fears, evidently heeding the advice of doctors.

As of Wednesday midday, there was no cautionary note posted under “safety warnings” or “info for parents” on Nintendo’s U.S. products web site, but a message posted on its Japanese site, widely translated by media, warns that “Vision of children under the age of six has been said [to be in the] developmental stage. [The 3DS] delivers 3D images with different left and right images, [which] has a potential impact on the growth of children’s eyes.”

High Stakes

The DS is the most successful handheld gaming device in history, having sold more than 128 million units since its debut in 2004, although sales dropped last year to around 27 million from more than 31 million in 2008.

In June, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimee, speaking at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles, promised that the 3DS would raise the bar for gamers with its double 3.5-inch wide-screen lenses on the outside that can also display movies and photos in 3-D. “No more glasses!” he exclaimed.

A slider lets users determine the depth of the effect or turn it off completely to watch in one-dimensional mode. The U.S. price hasn’t been announced, but it is said to be priced at the equivalent of $300 in Japan.

Consumer-devices analyst Avi Greengart of Current Analysis said Nintendo had likely chosen the best time to release the warning — weeks ahead of the launch — “so every reaction will be taken into account,” and the image of dazzled and delighted kids using the device may overshadow the warning.