Full immersion in a holographic experience is in the demonstration stage. While it’s not yet the holodeck, no tactile feedback to users, it can’t be that far off until we can actually experience a fully interactive holographic display. Combining multitouch software from Obscura Digital and the Musion Eyeliner hologram projection system is the first step.

Look, ma, no hands!

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In this blog I’ve highlighted three-dimensional printing processes to create items out of sugar and to “print” human tissue. I’ve seen similar equipment used to fabricate a wide range of products.

While the equipment for fabricating sugar sculptures was a DIY - do it yourself - project, you can expect a technology price tag to be in the low to mid-five figures for hardware and software to fabricate sophisticated and detailed items.

Now you can take advantage of an online service that provides rapid prototyping at what some would call realistic rates.

MIT Technology Review - always a good source for new and different technology - recently published 3-D Printing for the Masses, an article about a new service called Shapeways that offers services at a per-piece price generally between $50 and $100. The cost is not driven by the complexity of the item, but by the amount of material needed.

The new service makes rapid prototyping accessible to anyone: budding artists, architects, product designers, and general hobbyists. A small design company might want to make samples to show a client, or an artist might want to make copies of the same sculpture created digitally, for example.

Someday we’ll just go online, pick out a “plan” for something we’d like to produce, and feed it to our 3-D printer, just like we download a greeting card template and print on our desktop printer now.

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The British Library has been developing it’s Turning the Pages project for several years, but now the project is coming to fruition. The project intent was to put rare books stored in its archives online, so that anyone can virtually thumb through them from the comfort of their home. No worries about getting finger smudges on the delicate, highly valuable pages.

So far, around twenty books have been added to the Turning the Pages project, including rare religious texts, Jane Austen’s early work, the first atlas of Europe, Diamond Sutra, printed in China in 868, Lewis Carroll’s original “Alice in Wonderland,” sketches by Leonardo da Vinci, and Mozart’s musical diary.

You can see images from 15 books in the series on the British LIbrary’s Turning the Pages site. The colors and detail are unbelievable!

Here’s a peek at the technology that makes this all possible.

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Paper has a huge number of uses, but to build a house - and furnish it - that is still standing after 80 years is amazing.

Begun in 1992 as a summer house in Rockport, Massachusetts, Mr. Elis F. Stenman, a mechanical engineer who designed the machines that make paper clips, went on to build furniture and wall coverings after the walls were done. Mr. Stenman lived there during the summer until 1930.

(Read the article)

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Announced in the New York Times, on July 21, the magazine industry is about to take a giant leap forward. In a step to change a format that is 150+years old, Esquire will put a digital cover on a printed magazine. The October issue of Esquire - 100,000 newsstand copies only - will sport an electronic cover incorporating technology from E Ink. (Read the article)

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It’s heeeeere! And I’ve got a big smile on my face!

A little background for you: many years ago - in reality, just one year ago - I read books on my Treo. In fact the first book I read as an ebook was the DaVinci Code.

It was a perfect book for reading on the little screen. First, I was likely to read it only once. While I never throw away books, I do call some books “throw aways.” You know, those trashy murder mysteries they sell in the airports? I’ve been known to buy one every now and then; and leave it in the seat pocket when I get off the plane.

Second, the story moved so quickly, that reading in “gulps” was perfect! I could pull my Treo out of my pocket, whip through a few pages and tuck it away for another opportunity. It was almost like guilty sips!

So why not buy a Kindle? After all, a neighbor - and Amazon employee - brought his over for a test drive one Sunday afternoon not so long ago. Nice toy, but no color; and besides, do I really need another hand held to put in a bag somewhere?

One note: With the Kindle, you can download books with “one click,” with the eReader it’s a two step process. First you buy the book online and it gets moved to your “bookcase.” Then you use the iPhone to move it from the bookcase to the phone. Not a quick and easy, but certainly  not difficult. It’s a similar process to the Treo.

So how big is the screen? About this big:

Now I’m a happy camper! With the new 2.0 software for my 1.0 iPhone, I can now read books on my favorite tool again! And I didn’t even have to buy a new one!!

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