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We thought that you would like to hear about the new push from Kognitiv  into education with engaging, interactive content  to stimulate 3D immersive learning – especially in the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

The response from colleges and universities in the UK and Europe has been  very positive, even to the point of saying that this new paradigm will change the way we learn.

Why did they say this ?

Because they could appreciate that making a learning concept that is intangible into an engaging and interactive visual experience makes their job of educating young people so much easier and the learner “gets it” every time.

Adding this extra ‘layer’ of special awareness means that a true appreciation of the scope of the problem is revealed – something you just cannot do with a 2D image or diagram.

Making difficult to learn concepts into easy to understand visual learning material is going to make this type of training and education far more successful for the young learners and Kognitiv has been contributing to this journey.

We have been speaking to many people in academia, industry and government – and everyone is adamant that this is the new way forward.

If you would like to know more about where this new exemplar in learning is heading then please get in touch with us.

http://www.kognitiv.com/STEM_images.html

ASUS CEO (Jerry Shen)  announces a trio of new  “3D PCs” at Computex 2010 – an all new designation which ensures that computers include a pair of 3D active-shutter glasses, a 120Hz 3D-capable display and a discrete graphics processor — the company is hitting just about every computer segment save for the ultraportable, netbook and tablet PC.

…and for the sceptics out there, we feel safe in predicting that a 3D slate is somewhere on NVIDIA’s workbench.

via – Engadget.

This article echoes what we have been saying for a while now – that 3D TV can be over-hyped by those who are jumping on the ‘3D  bandwagon’.

There is going to be a huge amount of 2D material that will be edited and converted to ’so-called’ 3D.   …and if it is done too quickly and cheaply it will have a negative impact on the industry.

At the moment how are the public to know that there is a huge gap in the standard of 3D content being produced out there – to them if it says 3D they expect it to be as good as Avatar – and many are going to be disappointed and wonder what all the fuss is about.

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source:  Marc Chacksfield – TechRadar.com

Brian Lenz, the director of product design and TV production development at Sky, has spoken candidly about 2D to 3D conversion technology, explaining that the results can be poor.

Speaking at the 3DTV World Forum in London, Lenz said: “I am sceptical when it comes to 2D to 3D conversion – any attempts to do it quickly and cheaply will make it bad 3D.”

There are problems with converting/editing 2D material, as Lenz explains: “Creatively, 3D is different to 2D. You want slower cuts, your editing style needs to reflect the 3D image.

“Because of this, 2D cuts don’t work in 3D, so 3D conversion will never rise to the level of native 3D content.”

When asked if Sky would use conversion technology in its 3D channel, Lenz was quick to note: “Sky is focused on native 3D. That’s not to say that there will be advancements over time with 2D conversion, I don’t doubt that that will be the case. But we are looking at native 3D.”

3D moviemaking

Neil Dodgson, from the University of Cambridge and an expert in 3D agrees about converting 3D, saying: “Automatic 2D to 3D conversion is a poor substitute for real 3D. Coverting 2D to 3D manually is adequate, but very expensive, costing 2,000 Euros a minute to convert.

“It also puts people off. Clash of the Titans was recently converted into 3D and got poor reviews. Bad 3D can put off moviemakers and that is not good for promoting the technology.”

Dodgson believes that the best way for 3D to work is to make it a key part of filmmaking process.

“If 3D is to survive it must not be a gimmick but actually part of the moviemaking tool set”, he notes. “Up and Avatar hold up well in 2D – they do look better in 3D – but this is because they are good movies without the 3D.”

Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/

Sony is launching a marketing campaign using a “fake” 3D TV ad in which all the images are blurred as part of a push to convince consumers to trade up to 3D sets.

The campaign, which will run across Europe and was by the ad agency Anomaly, features a bizarre montage that includes the footballer Kaka, a sports car doing a burnout, an exploding goalmouth and a strongman tensing his muscles. It comes complete with a warning that your television is not malfunctioning.

All of the images are seen in double, as if the ad were in 3D. “Do not adjust your set,” runs a bold strapline a few seconds in. The pay-off line is: “Maybe it’s time to get a 3D TV.”

The campaign, which breaks in the UK on 11 June – the day of the World Cup’s opening match, between South Africa and Mexico, and also the day after Sony 3D TVs will first go on sale.

“Unless you give viewers a bit of a jolt, a wake up, if you can't make a serious impact then it is just another bit of fancy TV wallpaper,” said Paul Graham, co-founder of Anomaly. “We’ve got to get people into stores, or cinemas, to get people into 3D.”

It is thought that about 100 shops in the UK will have the 3D content, including major hubs such as the one at Heathrow’s Terminal Five.

via Media | guardian.co.uk.

For CEOs, creativity is now the most important leadership quality for success in business, outweighing even integrity and global thinking, according to a new study by IBM. The study is the largest known sample of one-on-one CEO interviews, with over 1,500 corporate heads and public sector leaders across 60 nations and 33 industries polled on what drives them in managing their companies in today’s world.

Steven Tomasco, a manager at IBM Global Business Services, expressed surprise at this key finding, saying that it is “very interesting that coming off the worst economic conditions they’d ever seen, [CEOs] didn’t fall back on management discipline, existing best practices, rigor, or operations.    In fact, they did just the opposite.”

About 60% of CEOs polled cited creativity as the most important leadership quality, compared with 52% for integrity and 35% for global thinking. Creative leaders are also more prepared to break with the status quo of industry, enterprise and revenue models, and they are 81% more likely to rate innovation as a “crucial capability.”

The area of focus the regions can all agree on is customer focus: 88% of all CEOs, and an astounding 95% of standout leaders, believe getting closer to the customer is the top business strategy over the next five years.

via The Most Important Leadership Quality for CEOs? Creativity | Fast Company.

Today’s computers rely on powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) to create the spectacular graphics in video games. In fact, these GPUs are often more powerful than the traditional central processing units (CPUs) – or brains of the computer. As a result, computer developers are trying to tap into the power of these GPUs.

Now a research team from North Carolina State University has developed software that could make it easier for traditional software programs to take advantage of the powerful GPUs, essentially increasing complex computing brainpower.

Taking advantage of a GPU’s processing ability is a big deal, because of the amount of computing power a GPU contains. The CPU from an average computer has about 10 gigaflops of computing power – or 10 billion operations per second.

That sounds like a lot until you consider that the GPU from an average modern computer has 1 teraflop of computing power – which is 1 trillion operations per second.

But using a GPU for general computing functions isn’t easy. The operation telling one pixel what to do is separate from the operations telling other pixels what to do. This hardware design makes graphics processing more efficient, but presents a stumbling block for those who want to use GPUs for more complex computing processes.

“Tapping into your GPU can turn your personal computer into a supercomputer,” says Dr. Huiyang Zhou, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State University.   

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

full article here – http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wmszhoucompiler/

As 3D is pushed as the next big thing in Hollywood films and home theatres, Apple has shown interest in a three-dimensional interactive experience that would allow multiple users to manipulate holographic 3D objects in space without the need for special glasses or headgear.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this week revealed a new patent application from Apple. Originally filed on Jan. 14 of 2010, the application entitled “Three-Dimensional Display System” describes a projection screen with an “angularly responsive reflective surface.”

The new application notes that while 3D has been popular at various points over many years, it usually falls out of favour because users are not interested in wearing the eyewear that is usually required to render a three-dimensional image for the viewer.

full story here: AppleInsider | Apple exploring interactive, glasses-free 3D holographic displays.

According to the latest forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media, over 20 million TV homes globally will be watching 3D TV within five years.

Backed by key industry players including set manufacturers, content owners, broadcasters, platforms and satellite operators, 3D TV is expected to be in just 1.6% of all homes by 2015. 

North America will lead the way with 9.2 million, Western Europe will be the second largest region with 6.8 million and Asia Pacific third with 4.6 million. Although the forecast figure seems quite low, the market will still be very immature by 2015, so significant opportunities exist beyond this date.

This summer’s World Cup will provide an ideal platform for 3D production –  FIFA and Sony have already announced that they will be showing 25 matches in 3D (though none of them feature England).

With the possible exception of the Olympics, the World Cup is the most important showcase for new broadcast technology and it could potentially do for 3D TV, what Avatar did for 3D movies.

Despite the prediction that it will take off, the absence of a glasses-free system of watching 3D TV is bound to restrain growth. 3DTV will take off but 3D TV viewing will be limited until the technology has progressed sufficiently to remove the need to wear glasses.

The latest NVIDIA® Tesla™ GPU’s enable finance experts, biophysicists and computational chemists to push the boundaries of  risk analysis and biochemical research. It turns a standard PC into a “computational laboratory” capable of running complex bioscience codes, in fields such as drug discovery, algorithmic trading orDNA sequencing, more than 10-20 times faster through the use of NVIDIA Tesla GPUs.

Complex molecular simulations that had been only possible using supercomputing resources can now be run on an individual workstation, optimizing the scientific workflow and accelerating the pace of research.

Based on the next-generation CUDA architecture (codenamed “Fermi”), the 20-series family of Tesla GPUs support many “must have” features for technical and enterprise computing including:

• ECC memory for uncompromised accuracy and scalability
• 7X increase in double precision performance compared to Tesla 10-series GPUs
• 1/10th the cost and 1/20th the power consumption compared to the latest quad-core CPUs.

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/page/tesla_computing_solutions.html

Local Wakefield company, Litestructures is very much at home in the high tech, high performance world of Formula One and the latest addition is their Virgin Racing motorhome structure in Barcelona – this exciting new design was recently voted best in its class.