Transparent OLED

Okay, this one is real, what we have been waiting for. In CES 2010, an OLED screen laptop was introduced as prototype of future OLED technology. Now it has 40% of transparency.

It’s not a first time we see the transparent screen, but let’s think about how this will change our display. Samsung technitions mentioned that they would look for implementing touch screen interface to this OLED technology. Which means, at least for me, this will change our computing paradigm.

Let’s imagin that this display is applied to car windows. Navigations will be shown in interactive way wherever you drive your car, weather forecast and traffic view will comfort your sight. Just like the augmented reality that we have been dreaming for.

Now, let’s check this video:

It has been a while we got used to the touch screen devices, probably smart phones engaged IT users to have more touch-screen-experiences. We can say that touchable UI is more intuitive than ordinary computing. Microsoft Windows 7 is designed for touch screens, and also applications are ready for Tablet PCs. Especially in CES 2010, Hp tablet has triggered the beginning of Tablet pc war.

Hp tablet: Slate with Android OS?

It’s written already that OLED and touch screens will lead our computing from now on, they will be spreaded more and get into our lives. So, 3D or OLED displays, augmented reality, touchable UI.. Yes, Let’s find which are the key elements that we need to focus for the future.

Probably, the biggest problem of indoor photos -or night scene photos- is the bad quality of picture with noise. We can use a flashlight but it often does not express well the right expression of the moment; the background does not appear well, the foreground(person) is too bright to be seen naturally.

However, Image sensors has been evolved through the time. Sony, Omnivision have been designing new type of image sensor which is called Back illuminated CMOS. It’s a tweaked CMOS sensor that takes more light than ordinary one. Now, Toshiba announced another Back illuminated image sensor which is applicable for cameraphones. Here you can see how it works :

Theoretically, by using this kind of image sensor we can take brighter and less noise images even in the dark places. (Company claims that light absorption is boosted by 40%, resulting in bright pictures despite the high-density 1/2.3-inch sensor) This will bring cameraphones to be more effective gadgets for photo shooting, catching up the image quality of the advanced digital cameras such as high-end models.

Photographers are always concerned about a battery life and a storage. Even the battery technology is improving everyday, still we have chances to miss the shot because of low battery.

Probably in the future, we will be able to charge the battery ourselves. Just by shaking the camera for a second.

This camera is called ‘one shot’ designed by German designer ‘Tino Klaehne’. This product represents true ‘minimalism’ by its appearance. No lcd-screen, just a lense and a shutter to take pictures. It is said that it can charge enough battery to take a single picture just shaking it for 1~2 seconds. It’s funny but usable.

What would be possible methods of power supply in the future? Since IT is getting mobile, maybe we will have portable mini solar charge pannel -or similar self chargeable power battery- for digital cameras, cellphones, and even for laptops. As we all know, technology is already availble. It’s time to design applications.

Not really a news, since Nintendo DSi appeared on the market some time ago. It has two cameras one on each side. What’s so special? It’s special because Nintendo’s products are designed for entertainment. Not just using DSi as substitution of digital camera or camera phones, users can alter their pictures with the facial manipulation software that Nintendo has featured prominently.

Now, Gaming consols don’t want to stay in their own “gaming place” anymore. Since Iphone became one of the competitor to Nintendo, DSi is also embedding social network features. Yes, uploading photos directly from DSi to Facebook is now possible. Easy, fun, and seamless.

Please watch the video for a better understanding :

What can we be reminded from Nintendo’s approach? We all know that ‘Social Network’ is a main keyword, and that users always expect something more : Unique experience, and entertainment.

Hologram technology is growing. Now we can touch and sense 3d holgrams projected in the air. It’s impossible to touch light, but by using ultrasound it can be simulated. Called ‘Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display’ developed by researchers at The University of Tokyo.

Hologram that you can touch

This technology connects virtual and real world. Not only the visual but also haptic experiences.Virtual reality is now one step closer. Let’s see how ‘Touchable Holograms’ can change our life.

*watch the video

Nikon has unveiled the world’s first compact camera with a built-in projector. Nikon Coolpix S1000pj projects images in size with a VGA resolution and a maximum distance of 2 meters. Really.

As soon as you take a picture, you can project on the wall

The projector boasts up to 10 lumens of brightness. It will be able to display photos and movies as small as 5.0 inches up to 40.0 inches. According to Nikon, a fully charged battery will be able to support continuous use of the projector for up to an hour.

Projectors have been considerated that they take a lot power to be operated. Therefore, they were often big sized and overheated. But not anymore, Optoma’s mini projector is a good example.

Optoma's pocket projector. PK102

it’s not a big surprise that digital cameras getting new functions inside. Digital convergence is very active specially in mobile gadgets. Now, Let’s see what other features digital cameras will take, something that we thought it was too big to put together. (Printer, Projector)

>> Micro Four Third Camera

Olympus Pen E-P1 is a hybrid camera designed to combine advantages of both compact cameras and DSLR. As we all know, SLR cameras are bigger than compact one because of designing mirror box, penta prism, viewfinder etc. Those ‘Reflex Camera’ components are vanished in E-P1. So it’s minimized as high-end camera size, but lens shiftable.

- Olympus Pen E-P1-

Casual photographers prefer mini-sized and high qualify camera, unfortunately it is trade-off. (The Bigger camera, the better pictures you get) Olympus Pen E-P1 try to get both by chosing Micro four third system.

>> Full touch screen digital camera

This fuji’s new model is different from the other touch screen cameras. It has full touch screen, and get focus on the point where you touch. It is worth to notice because of its interative UI.

- Fuji Finepix Z300 -

>> Real 3d Camera

Now it is 3d camera, fuji’s another big challenge. It captures 3d image by using two lenses and two image sensors.

- Real3D, Fuji FInepix-

I’m not sure if we’d prefer 3d digital pictures or not, but finally we’d be able to capture our vision with 3d technology. It seems like digital imaging trends are moving toward to Not only the quality of pictures, but also mobility, interactivity and 3d.

Bookseller Barnes & Noble has launched an iPhone application that will let users search for book, CD and DVD titles by simply taking a snapshop of the cover. This app for iphone truly showed what is the ideal application of image recognition.

The book store application : Barnes & Noble

Once users take a picture of book, app finds the product from database and users get relevent information what they are looking for. Price, editorial reviews and customer ratings, even purchsing the item for home delivery.

It’s practical and effective for current image recognition technology. As we know, identifying the object in the picture is a difficult task, but recognizing patterns of texture is easier and applicable.

Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Golden Gate Bridge… it’s not difficult to identify famous landmarks for us. But how about computers? Unlike humans, it’s a quite complex work for them without any tags.

Last week(June 22nd), at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) conference in Miami (IEEE), Google presented a image recognition technology that identifies lanmarks with 80% of accuracy.

*download the paper

Google’s recognition engine has proven capable of identifying 50,000 unique landmarks from around the world without any human intervention. Google declares CVPR is a part of research not a new service yet. Nevertheless, recognizing certain pattern of the pixel in a image is a remarkable technology that enables new services possible. For instance, we will be able to know what landmark is by taking photos with smartphones.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/new-landmark-in-computer-vision.html

When you edit your photos and videos, obviously you are using graphic softwares like photoshop, premiere, lightroom or picasa for the quick improvements. Every single project that you are doing on your computer requires relevant software or application installed. What if you can do your work online. Just using your favorite web browser can make things done. Digital life is getting mobile, and web applications lead you to the cloud computing environment.

Here is my favorite web-based image editor : pixlr

http://www.pixlr.com/editor

As you can see, users can edit their photos like using photoshop. Not only photos but also you can edit videos on the web. Korean web-based application ‘flaon’ enables to edit video clips by accessing to the server.

http://www.flaon.com

You don’t need expensive equipment anymore. Cloud computing and web-based applications make your laptop as fast as supercomputer and it’s available anywhere you have internet connection.

Cloud computing overcomes handicaps of devices and break the limitation. It can also provide the solution in realtime. Since web-based application is a new paradigm of computing, our digital life is getting lighter and stronger.

Pretty sure that cellphones are suitable devices for the cloud computing. We’d be able to do with cellphone what we are doing with computers now, or even more.