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The HDRoom: Earlier this week, news broke that Dolby Laboratories is pushing its 3-D Blu-ray Disc technology with content providers in hopes of scoring the prized industry standard when Blu-ray in 3D debuts. Dolby’s standard would utilize existing Blu-ray players, 3-D equipped TVs and glasses with specs determined by TV manufacturers.Today, an article in The Nikkei Japanese newspaper today is reporting Panasonic will be unveiling their 3-D Blu-ray technology, that would be built into software and hardware, at CES this week. It would utilize special glasses viewing alternating left-and-right eye images at 120fps to achieve a 3-D effect on-par with what you’d find in the movie theater today.

These two proposed standards likely won’t be the last. The future of home entertainment, for both movies and videogame consoles like the next iterations of Xbox 360 and PS3, is pointing more and more towards 3-D with each passing day.

The fear many, including us, don’t want to face is another “format” war like HD DVD and Blu-ray where multiple 3-D standards are released to the marketplace. One war slowed the adoption of Blu-ray already. In this economy, the clearer options are to consumers, the better.

If a standard can be adopted relatively soon and manufacturing gets underway with relatively little issue, the first 3-D Blu-ray hardware, software and TVs are expected to hit the marketplace in mid-to-late 2010

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Hexus.gaming: Rumour has it that the next big Xbox 360 dashboard update will include a new 3D interface option that will utilise the rumoured motion-sensing controller.

In addition to a huge list of other features and enhancements, including faster loading times and new payment methods, Kotaku claim that the new dashboard will will “recreate the increasingly cluttered dashboard “blade” system in a 3D environment that will be something more akin to the Minority Report than a filing cabinet”.

“The motion controls will allow users to sort of slide through the different levels of this floating menu system.”

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Slashgear: Somewhat at the opposite end of the size-scale from Telson’s UMPC prototype, Philips have developed their own glasses-free 3D display.  Using a whopping 52-inch LCD panel, the screen can display full 1920 x 1080 high-definition, has a 2,000:1 contrast ratio and 8ms response time. 

More importantly, it combines that with Philips 3D Solutions’ WOWvx technology, described as a “2D-plus-Depth” format, which adds additional occlusion information into the picture to give the impression of being able to “look around” what’s on-screen.

WOWvx relies on footage being coded with depth information that indicates the position of each 2D image pixel.  That information is translated into nine different views and rendered in real-time by the display hardware. 

A microlens layer in front of the LCD panel spatially disperses these nine different views, giving a sense of depth to the high-definition picture.  Because it only requires enough data to construct a relatively basic depth profile, the bandwidth requirements for “2D-plus-Depth” are close to plain 2D video.

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easier: Clarion’s latest portable navigation units are the first to map buildings, landmarks and elevation changes in 3D, and combined with comprehensive lane information and turn-by-turn voice prompts (text to speech), deliver the clearest, most convenient route advice yet.

The MAP780 (Europe) and MAP680 (UK & Ireland) use two separate high-performance programmes to draw buildings in the foreground and background. Buildings close to the driver appear see-through as you approach them, so as not to obstruct the view of the next junction, whilst buildings further away are textured and solid, making them lifelike and easily recognisable as reference points while driving.

Both PND’s utilise digital elevation model data to draw height and depth features, with hills and mountains rendered in 3D while you drive, to create the most realistic view, at all levels of zoom. Elevation information is also applied to the road network for rendering of shadows, to display roads and bridges at their correct height for a greater clarity of route guidance.

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MyGuide seems to be revamping their product line these days. After M.i.motion3318, M.i.motion4328 and M.i.more4338, the two new additions to their entry level GPS navigation systems are the m.imove 3218 and m.imove 4228.m.imove 3218 is the smaller of the two with a 3.5″ screen. m.imove 4228 boasts a 4.3″ screen and a stronger 1450mAh battery as opposed to 1050mAh.

The rest of the of features are identical. Both have text-to-speech function, come with 2.1 million points of interests, can show elevations in 3D, and have lane assistance. As far as hardware and OS nothing too exciting: 372Mhz CPU, 512 MB Flash Memory, 64 MB RAM, 30 channel GPS and Windows CE 5.0.

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NaviGadget: iNAVI K2 has the best 3D navigation software we’ve ever seen so far. Of course it is from Korea; a company called Thinkware announced iNAVI K2, a GPS navigation system that has 8GB of space on SDHC memory card, comes with 256MB of RAM, and has a 4.8″ WVGA screen with 800×480 resolution.What makes iNAVI K2 so futuristic is the fact that 3D structures are rendered with actual realistic images of the buildings. You can also expect to get complete lane information about the road you are on to help you with your next turn.

iNAVI K2 GPS navigation system also integrates a geomagnetic 3 axis sensor which detects absolute north pole and can calculate the heading of your vehicle even in stand still.

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Sky News: The BBC test-screened the RBS Six Nations rugby match between Scotland and England live in 3D HDTV as a joint venture between BBC Sport and The3DFirm, a consortium comprising media communications firm Can Communicate, 3D specialist company Inition and hire and post production house Axis Films.

Thought to be the first-ever live test screening of an international sports event in 3D HDTV via satellite, David Wooster of The3DFirm said:

“Premium sporting events, where demand for tickets outstrips supply, lend themselves perfectly to live 3D transmission. 3D creates an immersive, ‘almost as good as being there’ experience. Unlike traditional television coverage, 3D ‘places’ the audience in the stadium, as if they were actually there, giving a heightened sense of reality.”

According to Aashish Chandarana, BBC sport innovations executive, the process is very much at a test stage. “We’re trying to do something no-one’s tried before and bounce dual HD signals around and re-encode them as a 3D experience.”

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Absolute Gadget: Navman has updated its S30 and S50 sat-nav models to include 3D Landmarks of more than 1,000 buildings in cities across Europe. The devices will also feature a new content and services package called Navman Connect.Navman claims its Connect service includes Europe’s first Local Search function for locating specific shops and local amenities when on the move.

The S50 3D links to an online local directory search via a Bluetooth connection to a mobile phone is required and network charges may vary. 

Users can also use Local Search to identify shops, amenities or facilities on the Navman Connect desktop software before setting off on their journey and download them to the device.

Beneath the surface the S30 3D and S50 3D have also benefited from the inclusion of SiRF’s InstantFix II technology, reducing the time taken to fix on GPS satellite signals to as little as five seconds, even in built up areas.

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I4U: Samsung announced the world’s first Plasma HDTV with a stunning 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio (that is 1million to 1).

The 50 inch (127cm) PAVV Cannes 450 Plasma HDTV is 3D ready, which means you can watch 3D games or movies with special glasses.

Samsung achieves the ultra-high contrast ratio in their new Plasma TV with Cell Light Control.

The Samsung Digital Natural Image engine + (DNIe+) takes care of handling external noise, contrast ratio, color in the image display of the Samsung PAVV Cannes 450.

The new Samsung 3D Plasma TV will ship with glasses and PC software to watch games and videos in 3D.

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NaviGadget: According to German site Pocket Navigation, Navigon is preparing a new, 8000 series PND, equipped with a new version of Navigon MobileNavigator (version 7) navigation software.After version 6 presented two years ago this new version would finally introduce voice synthesis as well as voice recognition for capturing address information.

Routes calculation will be faster and it will still have the 3D reality view but even more realistic with the new version 7. Similarly ‘lane assist’ will improve.

Navigon 8110 will be the new high-end PND (portable navigation device) with a brushed aluminum design and a very wide screen, measuring 4.8 inches.

Navigon 8110 will be equipped with Navigon 7 which we just mentioned, and it will also have hands free integrated Bluetooth kit, as well as an FM transmitter to utilize the audio system of the vehicle. It will also have a RDS/TMC receiver for traffic information which would be integrated in the car charger.

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The Register: After thousands of sci-fi movies have already exploited the idea, the possibility of immersive 3D films and gaming is finally upon us in the real world. Manufacturer Headplay claims to have created the world’s first portable cinema capable of rendering both 2D and 3D content through a head-mounted visor.

The Headplay Personal Cinema System has two parts: a visor unit, that’s worn by the user and includes a ‘screen’ that sits over their eyes, and the “Liberator” unit, which connects the visor to the content source. The Liberator is compatible with a range of multimedia sources, including your DVD player.

The unit has various input interfaces, including analogue, audio and USB 2.0 jacks, which enables it to connect up to PCs, Macs, consoles, mobile phones, and even iPods. It accepts composite video, component video and S-video signals in both NTSC and PAL formats, while running the software for managing the system.

The Headplay Personal Cinema System is available now for €290.

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Mobile Magazine: As if cruising through the streets of Paris was sexy enough, the HP iPAQ 312 Travel Companion portable GPS unit comes with maps that feature 3D representations of all the landmarks. We’ve seen three-dimensional maps before, but they’re usually just showing you where to go. By contrast, when you check out a map on the iPAQ 312, there are actually virtual buildings there.

The 4.3-inch QVGA display is a touchscreen, making the user interface relatively intuitive. Powered by Windows CE 5.0, the HP iPAQ 312 Travel Companion gets powered by a Centrality Titan 600MHz processor and a 1700mAh lithium ion battery. Other features include Bleutooth 2.0 for handsfree calling and an SD slot for memory expansion.

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