MasterImage 3D is developing a 3D screen for smartphones and tablets that doesn’t require special glasses.
The screen uses what the company calls “cell matrix parallax barrier” technology, which it claims is more sophisticated than the autostereoscopic technology currently available.
GamesBeat lead writer Dean Takahashi points out that the viewing experience is vastly improved as compared to disappointments such as the Nintendo 3DS: “But the glasses-free experience MasterImage 3D has developed is something altogether different. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s going to offer an outstanding 3D experience on smartphones and tablets.”
Roy Taylor, executive vice president and general manager for MasterImage 3D, demonstrated a working prototype for Takahashi, who was very impressed: “The quality blew me away. On a 4.3-inch WVGA screen, Taylor showed a 3D movie running in stereoscopic 3D. I didn’t need to wear glasses to see the sharp 3D imagery. When I moved my head, it didn’t get blurry. And if I moved my head too far to the side, it gracefully transitioned to a two-dimensional image.”
Can Research In Motion turn around waning sales of its BlackBerry smartphones by adding the ability to run Android apps?
Rumors suggest that the next generation of BlackBerry phones, to be released during the first half of next year, could be designed to run Android apps.
Bloomberg cites “three people familiar with the plan” who suggest RIM is building smartphones now that will use its new QNX software. Phones with the new software will be able to run Android apps, the sources claim.
“It has to be said, [BlackBerry] App World looks a bit sorry for itself when compared to Google’s Android Market,” reports Digital Trends. “App World currently has around 40,000 apps available for download. If next year’s phones are able to run Android apps, that’ll open up owners of the new BlackBerry devices to a further quarter of a million. If BlackBerry can create some unique, feature-rich phones in the coming months, that may well cause consumers to pay RIM’s devices some serious attention.”
As smartphones gain greater market penetration, and data-intensive applications become more popular, cellular carriers are creating limits on how much data customers can consume, and raising the price of that data.
T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon have all phased out their unlimited plans, and introduced tiered plans that charge customers based on how much data they consume. Only Sprint still offers an unlimited data plan.
Some developers worry that the caps will stifle innovation of data-intensive applications, and that customers may blame the applications if they go over their limits. This problem is compounded by the fact that consumers have no intuitive sense of how much data a given application may be using.
Industry analysts predict that the availability of data will become an increasingly important profit stream for cellular carriers, and a key point of competition between them.
GLMPS (pronounced “glimpse”), a new iPhone app, hopes to stand out from the growing collection of available image-sharing apps by creating a new type of media that combines stills and video.
Digital Trends describes the basic premise: “When you take a picture with your smartphone through the app, GLMPS captures a photo as well as a short, 5-second video clip of what took place just before the picture was taken. When viewing the GLMPS file, the video plays first, and is then shrunken down and superimposed as a thumbnail over the photo. The video then plays on repeat, much like a GIF file.”
All images are automatically stored to the iPhone’s camera roll. Users can then share the images through the free app, or post GLMPS files to social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.
Mike Capps, president of Epic Games, imagines the iPhone 8 will be faster than an Xbox 360 and will probably plug into our TVs or connect wirelessly, perhaps making next-gen consoles less significant.
“I think that’s the real challenge for us now,” explained Capps to IndustryGamers, “rather than worrying about the difference between a couple consoles and some order of magnitude, whether 3X or 4X. It’s about how do we deal with iPhone 8.”
“Your iPhone 8 will probably plug into your TV, or better yet, wirelessly connect to your television set to give you that big screen gaming experience with good sound,” added Capps. “So really, what’s the point of those next-gen consoles? It’s a very interesting situation to be looking at. That’s what we’re starting to think about more…not how do we scale from some Nintendo platform to some other future console.”
Capps’ observations are similar to remarks made recently by EA CEO John Riccitiello, who described the iPad as the company’s fastest growing platform.
“We have a new hardware platform and we’re putting out software every 90 days,” Riccitiello told IndustryGamers. “Our fastest growing platform is the iPad right now and that didn’t exist 18 months ago… Consoles used to be 80 percent of the industry as recently as 2000. Consoles today are 40 percent of the game industry.”
Verizon began selling the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 this week, the first LTE-supported tablet available in the U.S.
A 16GB version of the Honeycomb 3.1 device is offered at $530, while a 32GB model is available for $630 (although InformationWeek was not impressed with the pricing of the data plans). Verizon will also offer the Wi-Fi-only model for $499.
Additionally, the wireless provider will begin selling an LTE-ready HP Pavilion Entertainment laptop and will upgrade its Motorola Xoom tablet to LTE in September. InformationWeek reports the new HP laptop “ships with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and it features an 11.6-inch, high-definition HP BrightView LED display at 1366 x 768 pixels. Under the hood, it is powered by a 1.6-GHz AMD dual-core processor, offers 2 GB of RAM, and 320 GB worth of storage with HP’s ProtectSmart hard drive protection.”
ETCentric recently reported that Verizon expanded its LTE 4G network to more than 100 markets last week. Verizon claims its customers can expect download speeds between 5 and 12 Mbps and upload speeds between 2 and 5 Mbps.
Consumers are increasingly using iPads and other tablet devices for mobile purchases, according to a new report by Forrester Research released this week.
Tablets might even one day outpace smartphones and PCs in terms of e-commerce volume.
The devices already account for 20 percent of mobile sales, even though just 9 percent of online shoppers have tablets. Additionally, 60 percent of tablet owners say they have used the devices to shop.
Tablets typically offer richer catalog presentations than those available via smartphones, and applications often produce faster loading times than retailers’ websites.
“Everyone thinks that mobile phones and mobile commerce are the next big things, and I think what this data shows is it’s probably actually tablets,” explains Sucharita Mulpuru, a Forrester analyst. “We have always capped e-commerce at 10 to 15 percent of total retail sales, but this potentially has the capability of really expanding e-commerce much beyond that.”
Smartphone screens may continue to get larger. Hitachi announced it has developed a high resolution 4.5-inch, 720p display that the company hopes will be used for portable TVs, phones or handheld game devices.
The 1280×710 resolution may enable 720p HD movies to be viewed in native resolution on phones — and the backlit LCD would be an IPS-based display, allowing for a wide viewing angle like that on the iPhone.
Additionally, this new 3D-capable display uses a lenticular lens (rather than a barrier approach) that would enable glasses-free 3D.
ETCentric contributor Phil Lelyveld points out: “3D is driving the display industry towards higher and higher resolution phone screens, since 3D effectively halves the resolution. Resolution has become a marketing point in this highly competitive market.”
Samsung’s recent patent application illustrates how it is possible to add shallow depth-of-field to a point-and-shoot or smartphone camera.
The approach makes use of a dual-lens setup (similar to what we’ve seen with 3D cameras lately), where one lens captures full resolution of the target image while the other calculates and records relative distances.
The camera then merges the data with the primary image in order to create a depth map. A graduated blur is applied, based on this depth map, adding simulated depth-of-field.
The concept is not found in any product; however, Engadget is optimistic: “No word on whether this neat trick will make its way to consumers’ hands — but with 3D still the reigning buzz, we’d upgrade that possibility to a very likely.”
The Photography Bay post includes a link to the patent application.
The “Olloclip” is a new iPhone lens attachment that features wide-angle, fish-eye and macro lens functionality cleverly designed in a single pocketable unit.
Engadget likes the $70 device: “The accessory brings the functionality of all three lenses to the iPhone 4, and it does so well enough to warrant leaving your pro kit at home on occasion — assuming, of course, that your photographs aren’t responsible for putting food on the table.”
Overall, Engadget praised the accessory in terms of design, ease of use and image quality, but expressed concern regarding shelf life since it is currently only tied to the iPhone 4. “We imagine the company will be able to adapt future versions to accommodate new iPhone models (and perhaps even smartphones from other manufacturers), but the current version will likely be replaced whenever the next iPhone is released. Keeping that in mind, we love the Olloclip, and plan on shooting with it as long as our hardware allows.”
The post includes sample images taken with the Olloclip and a hands-on video review.
Apple may soon “amp up competition with Android” by offering its iPhone 3GS for $0 (with a qualifying service contract).
The iPhone 3GS was launched in the U.S. in June 2009.
RBC Capital Market analyst Mike Abramsky suggests the free phone will be made available the same time that Apple releases its successor to the iPhone 4, providing options for different demographics.
Abramsky also forecasts the free 3GS could “expand the iPhone’s worldwide marketshare from some 64 million users to more than 150 million users.”
Google’s Android is currently the top-selling smartphone platform in the U.S.
Nintendo introduced autostereoscopic 3D gaming with its 3DS system earlier this year, but it failed to gain significant traction.
In his Forbes Tech column, John Gaudiosi suggests the availability of new top-tier 3D games and a drop in price may help turn that around.
The drop in price may come sooner than expected, now that Sprint’s $200 Evo 3D (from HTC) – the first glasses-free 3D phone for the U.S. – is available. Plus, later this summer AT&T will enter the 3D market with its LG Thrill 4G.
“While some have called 3D phones gimmicky, these devices are already commonplace in Asia. And with an influx of new 3D phones entering the market this year, coupled with the Nintendo 3DS, Jim Cameron recently told me that he sees these glasses free devices as being key for the adoption of 3D TVs in the homes.”
Gaudiosi’s column features several interesting video reports and interviews about the direction of 3D.
The average viewer watched more than 158 hours a month of television content on a TV set in Q1 2011.
Viewing has increased across all platforms, with Internet and mobile devices seeing increases of 34.5 percent and 20 percent, respectively.
However, a subset of viewers who access video via their PCs tend to watch significantly less traditional TV (especially in the 18- to 34-year-old demographic).
Nielsen credits the surge to increased amount and diversity of content in addition to the ability to view content based on viewer’s convenience.
Another factor is the rise of the tablet, which offers a bigger and better viewing surface than smartphones.
According to Peter V. Dobrow from Comcast, families are increasingly adopting mobile devices for TV viewing. “Families use them, if the adults want to watch one thing, then the kids can watch another on the iPad and the whole family can still be in the same room,” Dobrow said. “We’re pulling together different apps and trying to make it easier to use and more consumer friendly.”
It should come as no surprise that Nielsen’s monthly analysis of cellphone bills for more than 65,000 lines indicates that smartphone users (which comprise 37 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers) are consuming more data than ever before on a per-user basis (especially those with app-friendly iPhones and Android devices).
The average smartphone user is accessing 89 percent more data per month than last year’s figures, growing from an average of 230MB per month to 435MB per month in the first quarter of 2011.
Nielsen reports that “data usage for the top 10 percent of smartphone users (90th percentile) is up 109 percent while the top 1 percent (99th percentile) has grown their usage by an astonishing 155 percent from 1.8GB in Q1 2010 to over 4.6GB in Q1 2011.”
As data usage dramatically increases, most users are paying approximately the same amount they did a year ago for data, translating to a lower cost per unit of data consumed. According to Nielsen: “The amount the average smartphone user pays per unit of data has dropped by nearly 50 percent in the last year, from 14 cents per megabyte (MB) to a mere 8 cents.”
Recent product announcements indicate 3D technology may not be just for cinema releases and home theaters, as the technology is beginning to make its way to mobile devices.
The first significant 3D mobile device was the Nintendo 3DS (launched in March). The $249 3DS features a 3.5-inch glasses-free 3D screen. However, sales so far have been disappointing. NPD Group reports that Nintendo sold almost 400,000 units in the first week following its U.S. launch (100,000 units less than sales of the original DS in November 2010).
Now, tablets and smartphones are in the 3D spotlight.
Rumors are surfacing that the next iPad will feature 3D capabilities – and two new Android smartphones, the LG Thrill and the HTC Evo 3D, are already touting glasses-free 3D.
Manufacturers hope these devices will make watching movies, playing games, and sharing photos more of an immersive experience.
The LG and HTC phones include special 5MP dual-lens cameras for shooting 3D photos and videos.
It is too early to tell whether 3D technology for mobile devices will be the next big thing or merely the next big gimmick. However, the much lower cost of mobile devices could make adoption more swift than its been for comparably higher priced HDTVs.
According to Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD Group: “Handsets by themselves are typically not as strong a voice for developers to create 3D applications. If someone the likes of Apple or Google get into 3D, then there will be a large enough base.”
