Kathleen Maher

3D now and forever

3D now and forever It never hurts to be skeptical, and after so many false starts, it’s hard to believe the crazy huge numbers predicting the success of VR and AR. So, go right on ahead, don’t believe them. If people don’t want to wear 3D glasses in their living room, and openly make fun of the poor brave Google … Read more

Paint gets new dimensions

As part of the upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft plans to feed the 3D ecosystem with easy tools and free content. One of the most obvious new additions is the remodeling of an old friend, Microsoft’s Paint application. The updated Paint will be a 3D version that will let users combine 2D and 3D elements. Such as create 3D … Read more

HDR Gaming gets a better view

Variable refresh meets new HDR monitors Nvidia and AMD have helped solve the conflicts between monitor refresh and game performance with their introduction of their variable refresh rate technologies GSync and Freesync, respectively. That happened in 2013 and both technologies have done their jobs to make the lives of gamers happier. At CES 2017, both companies upped their game and … Read more

Choosing corners

Microsoft acquires Donya Labs, makers of Simpygon As VR and AR find their way to markets middle ware companies are finding new opportunities with the major ecosystems forming around the technology great powers: Apple, Intel, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Qualcomm. Microsoft has announced the acquisition of Swedish-based company Donya Labs, developers of Simplygon, a tool widely used in the game industry … Read more

Bellus3D Face Camera

As work progresses on AR, VR, 3D printing, scanning, we’re seeing more tools for creating 3D models. Bellus3D is taking on the challenge of capturing faces with a mobile camera. So far, the method we’ve seen most recently is a large surrounding rack of cameras that captures a 180-degree series of pictures and stitches them into a model with an … Read more

When you add it all up … what d’ya get?

What happens when the sharing economy, the desire for sustainability, and the standardization of hardware meets the cloud. We’re going to find out in 2017. For a hint, we can look at the software industry. Customers may not like it, and many vendors are afraid of it, but subscription or metered usage approaches are going to become the norm. One … Read more

Dell Canvas

A digital artist’s workstation I first saw the prototype of the Canvas over two years ago and have been waiting for Dell to officially introduce it ever since. Microsoft’s launch of its Surface Studio in October may have accelerated Dell’s plans a bit, but the only similarity betwen the two devices is that they both have nice screens. Microsoft’s Surface … Read more

DJI partners with Bentley Systems to bundle ContextCapture with Drones

Bentley Systems is flying high with ContextCapture, its product developed from technology brought in with the acquisition of photogrammetry experts Acute3D in 2015. Most recently Bentley’s Acute3D group announced an alliance with company DJI, a leading Drone manufacturer (according to a Fortune article) headquartered in Guangdong, China. Bentley Systems highlighted Context- Capture at the company’s annual Year in Infrastructure conference … Read more

The PC industry fights back at CES

OEMs giving customers good reasons to upgrade Over the last three years, the PC industry slammed into maturity. Gone were the dependable rising sales cycles based on nothing much more than replacing the semiconductors, updating the architecture, and rolling out a new OS. Finally customers said, no, really, good enough is good enough. Probably, the people who make and sell … Read more

Nvidia wants a place in your home, heart, car, and cloud

AI provdes the vehicle for GPUs everywhere AI continues to be the major focus for Nvidia today. They’re not alone. At CES, Jen Hsun Huang outlined how AI has already come to be an important part of everyday life and that influence will continue as the devices get smarter and more integrated. It’s a huge opportunity for semiconductor makers. For … Read more