Apple [AAPL] have filed another patent that describes interaction with 3D displays. The system works by changing what you see on screen in relation to where your head is. A similar system was created by Jonny Lee where he used a Nintendo Wii remote along with infra red to make a head tracking system (seen in the video below).

The system patented by Apple allows users to see around objects by changing the position of their head. The normal way to do this now is to move an object with a mouse or keyboard, but in the future this might not be needed. [Read more…]

Audi are about to introduce a Google Earth based sat nav system in to their A8 Saloon cars. This will be the first time Google Earth has been installed in to a production car officially.

As well as having the fancy Google Earth imagary the Audi A8 will also support a standard hard disk based system I assume for those times when the car’s GPRS/EDGE connectivity is lost.

By using Google Earth based navigation, drivers will get higher performance graphics that will show 3D buildings, landscapes as well as gradients and terrain modelling. [Read more…]

Google [GOOG] have announced a new service this morning that is capable of shortening URL’s. The service is called Google URL Shortener and is designed for those who like to share links on websites such as Twitter.com where you are restricted to the amount of characters you can tweet.

People share a lot of links online. This is particularly true as microblogging services such as Twitter have grown in popularity. If you’re not familiar with them, URL shorteners basically squeeze a long URL into fewer characters to make it easier to share with others. With character limits in tweets, status updates and other modes of short form publishing, a shorter URL leaves more room to say what’s on your mind ” and that’s why people use them.

[Read more…]

Google [GOOG] have launched a new web service for mobile phones called Google Goggles. The program is free and available now from the Android Market. What Google Goggles does is allow you to take a picture of an object and then Google uses the image to try find a match in it’s vast library of cached images. By mixing the captured image with GPS you also get location based services. An example here could be taking a picture of a shop front with Google then working out where you are and providing details on the local shop.

Although a fantastic idea, it currently is a bit limited and some captured images cannot be recognised. Objects not capable of being recognised could include furniture, clothing etc… I just tested now on a LEXAR 1GB SSD card and within a few seconds the search resulted in a number of LEXAR products being shown which was quite impressive. [Read more…]

The image shown here is a scaled down version of a photo measuring 37 meters in length and 1 meter tall around the edges. The picture was captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope and was put together with an impressive 800,000 individual photos taken by the Spitzer.

Stitched together the images captured show 2.5 billion infrared pixels… “It covers an area of the sky about as wide as a pointer finger and as long as the length of arms outstretched, which might sound small, but covers about half of the entire galaxy, says Robert Hurt, of the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech.” [Read more…]

Google [GOOG] are on a quest to speed up the internet. Just recently they mentioned a new protocol called SPDY they have created that aims to speed up the way browsers get the data needed to render web pages by compressing headers and other functions such as passing more data through at a time. Now they have announced that they have opened a public DNS server that aims to resolve domain names quicker, thus speeding up your internet browsing.

When you enter a domain name such as www.gadgetvenue.com, that name needs to be translated to a number (IP address) that the server is assigned and can be contacted by. It can be thought of as a phone book for the internet. Google have created a DNS server that helps to speed up these lookups by using a number of methods such as provisioning servers where there is a need, prevention of DDoS attacks (that can slow DNS resolution down), load balancing and prefetching of DNS data and storing that data in a cache. [Read more…]

Google [GOOG] is looking in to a pay TV system on their YouTube site that will allow users to pay to watch episodes of premium content. The service is said to be taking on the iTunes service.

The cost per episode is rumoured to be $1.99 which would be the same was what Apple charges iTunes users although in the early stages it seems that Google and YouTube will be offering a lot less. The reason being that if you download from iTunes the episode can be shared among a number of Apple devices that includes iPod’s, iPhones as well as Apple TV and your Mac. [Read more…]

Microsoft have confirmed that Microsoft Office 2010 will launch in June next year. If you don’t want to wait till June 2010 to get your hands on a copy of Office 2010 then perhaps you could download the free Beta version now.

The Office 2010 download is available over here and from what I have tested appears to be fully functional. [Read more…]

When booting up Microsoft Windows you may be having problems with what is being called a black screen of death. The black screen of death was reported after a number of users installed the latest patches on what has now been named Patch Tuesday. It seems that one of the security fixes actually causes a bit more damage rather than fixing a security hole.

At the moment, Microsoft are still looking in to the issue. If you are seeing a BSOD (black, not blue) and are just seeing a My Computer explorer window then luckily there is a fix thanks to Prevx (a security company). [Read more…]

“The Cloud” is a company based in the UK that provides wireless internet in pubs across the UK. The managing director of the company mentioned recently that a pub owner was recently fined £8,000 due to one of the people logging in to the wi-fi service downloaded copyrighted material.

It’s an interesting case which I wont go fully in to here, but it’s certainly an eye opener for those offering a Wi-fi service as part of their business in that they need to be more vigilant in keeping track of who logs in and what they do. [Read more…]

Google [GOOG] just recently announced that their Youtube service would soon allow full HD video to be uploaded in 1080p. I’m not sure if The Muppets Bohemian Rhapsody is the first video, but it certainly is one of the first to be uploaded in the higher 1080p resolution.

To get the video to play in FullHD, click on the video below which takes you to the Youtube site then click the HD button at the bottom left of the video and then select the 1080p option. [Read more…]

If you want to know what Office 2010 Professional will look like then Life Hacker have put together some details about the program.

Office 2010 isn’t a huge leap forwards from what Life Hacker mention although a lot more features are now built in that used to require installation of plugins on previous versions of Office. [Read more…]