New 3D TV Tech Emerges and Best 3D TV Technology
Best 3D TV for anyone
LAS VEGAS Best 3D TV isn’t just plain old 3D anymore.
January 10, 2011 4:00 AM PST
Later this year when the 3D televisions sets that debuted at CES 2011 start hitting store shelves, shoppers will find more than one type of 3D technology. CES a year ago was 3D-at-home’s big coming-out party, led by Sony and Panasonic, which came with HDTVs that with the aid of special glasses could show 3D movies. Both brands used the same technology in the accompanying glasses: active-shutter. The same went for models from manufacturers like Samsung 3D TV and Vizio 3D TV that followed.
Flash forward to 2011: While many of the heavy hitters in TV are staying with active 3D technology, other big names like LG and Vizio are either adding or completely switching to passive polarized 3D tech for their sets.
3D at home is still a new idea, and the consumer electronics and film industries haven’t yet proved to mainstream consumers that this is a must-have thing around the house. Just 3.2 million out of 24.7 million TV sets sold in the U.S. in 2010 were 3D-capable, according to market research firm DisplaySearch. So why would the TV industry split over the kind of technology powering 3D sets so early in the game?
read moreEmerging Technologies May Fuel Revolutionary Launcher
As NASA studies possibilities for the next launcher to the stars, a team of engineers from Kennedy Space Center and several other field centers are looking for a system that turns a host of existing cutting-edge technologies into the next giant leap spaceward. An early proposal has emerged that calls for a wedge-shaped aircraft with scramjets to be launched horizontally on an electrified track or gas-powered sled. The aircraft would fly up to Mach 10, using the scramjets and wings to lift it to the upper reaches of the atmosphere where a small payload canister or capsule similar to a rocket’s second stage would fire off the back of the aircraft and into orbit. The aircraft would come back and land on a runway by the launch site. Engineers also contend the system, with its advanced technologies,
read moreNASA launching mission to study hurricanes
A new NASA mission aims to come to grips with the way nature whips up hurricanes.
Set to begin Sunday, the agency’s six-week Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) mission will see a series of planes outfitted with sophisticated instruments take to the skies in an attempt to understand the birth of a hurricane, in order to give people a better chance to prepare for them.
This is NASA’s first domestic hurricane project since 2001 and its largest ever. Three NASA planes, several satellites, and four planes from research partners will team up to measure tropical storms as they build in intensity or die out and weaken. The goal is to gather data into the process that transforms tropical storms into full-blown hurricanes to better forecast what they’ll do when they hit land.
Currently, weather forecasters can predict the path of a storm fairly accurately. But they have trouble predicting its intensity, one of the biggest challenges in the field. Both factors are needed to help people determine how best to prepare before a hurricane reaches shore. If the hurricane is more intense then forecast, lives can be lost. If it’s weaker than predicted, the public may start to ignore warnings to evacuate future storms.
Aircraft flying in the GRIP mission over the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean will include NASA’s Global Hawk, an unmanned aircraft built by Northrop Grumman and typically used for surveillance; the WB-57, which conducts high-altitude research; and the DC-8, which also specializes in scientific research. The various planes will fly a precise and coordinated pattern at different altitudes and locations over the storms to monitor them as they develop.
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