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The WAVE Report on Digital Media
3D --- Media Creation --- Shared Space ---Published by 4th Wave, Inc.--- Issue #0507------------------2/18/05 |
The WAVE Report is Searchable on
http://www.3dlinks.com
http://www.wave-report.com
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0507.2 Techology Futures
0507.3 Processor Advances
BOXX Announces Workstations Featuring 64-Bit Intel Xeon Processors
0507.4 Information Warfare
Larstan Business Reports Information Warfare a Worsening Threat
0507.5 Finance on the Blackberry
0507.6 Fuel Cell Technology
United Defense, Battelle Demonstrate Prototype Fuel Cell Power Unit for Bradley Fighting Vehicle
0507.7 Large Scale Displays
0507.8 File Recovery - Undelete
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0507.1 Story of the Issue
***Electronic Imaging 2005
By John Latta
San Jose, CA
January 17 – 20, 2005
This is the combined technology event between The Society for Imaging Science and Technology and SPIE (The International Society for Optical Engineering). Electronic Imaging has 6 programs on going at the same time. The conference description is 232 pages. Thus, the task is to find sessions and presentations of high interest.
It is no longer just imaging but now mobile media. We saw it in presentations on 3D animations and digital photography. The impact of the large market of personal-use media is impacting the ecosystem from content production to delivery. There is much more to making media happen than taking or receiving a picture. Welcome to the Electronic Media conference.
3D stereo technology was everywhere. Many required glasses but there were quite a few auto stereoscopic displays. There is this magic appeal of creating a 3D display technology that gains a presence in the market. Here at Electronic Imaging there was no lack of effort.
Roadmap for CMOS Image Sensors
Professor Peter Catrysse of the Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University gave an overview of the issues around CMOS sensors. This was basically a summary of the research efforts of the students in the department. An important part of this research is the tool called Image System Evaluation Tool (ISET). This is basically an image chain tool. It includes the following chain elements:
Original Scene
Optics
Sensor
Image Processing
Perceptual Evaluation
A recent research result is the there is a visual threshold at 1,000 photos for noise in imaging. This happens at 3% contrast from uniform photo noise. Micro-lenses which are used to effectively increase the fill ratio of the sensing array play an increasing role in the image chain.
The talk concluded that the tradeoff in image quality happens as the sensor size continues to decrease. As the sensor gets smaller the likelihood of photon noise becomes visible increases while there are also limits on the effective use of micro lens arrays.
Integrated Optics Design for Digital Cameras
Patrick Maeda of the Palo Alto Research Center gave an interesting talk on the techniques of doing and end to end camera simulation. The talk showed how it was possible to follow the ISET model for image analysis but to also perform traditional lens analysis. The simulations had at the center of image chain either CodeV or Zemax lens design programs. The macro and programming languages in these programs were used to support the integration with the image chain analysis.
The approach to characterizing the imaging process is that of a convolution. This is the convolution of the ideal irradiance distribution with the point spread function (PSF) of the optical system. In the spatial frequency domain this is a linear filtering process. However, this approach is shift variant. That is, the PSF varies across the field of view and the wavelength. To get an accurate image simulation one much segment the object plane into isoplanatic regions. The image analysis becomes:
Generate an irradiance distribution for each wavelength (object plane)
Generate a PSF for each wavelength and object position
Generate the image plane image for each wavelength and sum to form the final image.
The technique was shown for two lens examples. To determine one PSF required the tracing of 100m rays. One complete image chain analysis would take 10m of computation on a PC.
Comparison of CCD and CMOS Sensor in two DSLR Cameras
Kartik Venkataraman, Micro Technology, did an assessment of the sensors in the Nikon D100 and Canon Rebel 300D cameras. This was done without lenses and thus a direct analysis of the sensors. The following tests were performed:
Dark Noise and Signal Analysis
Photo Response – Linearity, S/N and Dynamic Range
Spectral Sensitivity
Spatial Resolution – MTF
Visual Image Quality and s/n
What was so surprising is that the Nikon D100 with a CCD sensor and the Canon with CMOS sensor were in a virtual dead heat in performance.
Facial Animation on Cell Phones
There were actually two presentations. The first was by Thomas Riegel of Siemens AG and the other by Ennco Sandali of the University of Genoa, Italy.
Within MPEG-4 there is the capability to accomplish realistic animation of the face, speech and facial expression. This is done using 84 face definition parameters – FDPs. These parameters include: texture points, scene graph (mesh), face texture and face animation rules.
As a result it is possible to show 6 basic facial expressions such as joy and anger. A typical compressed FAP is about .3 to 2k/bs.
One of the advantages of this technique is that it is possible to apply FAP to either create an avatar of a generic face or to apply this to a real face which is texture mapped onto a face. If one expected to see the equivalent of a real person in 3D it would be a disappointment but given the very modest bandwidth requirements the image representation was quite good.
Enrico Sandali of the University of Genoa, Italy, actually showed a 3D animation engine on a cell phone. The goal of this work was to show MPEG-4 compliant 3D facial animations on the Symbian SmartPhones. The problem with these phones is that there is no floating point and the computation resources are quite limited. Tests were run on a Nokia 6600 and the Sony-Ericsson P800. For smooth shaded facial textures a 3D frame rate of 14.8 f/s was accomplished on the Nokia phone and 15.1f/s on the Ericsson. This was shown in both a video and on a phone that Enrico was carrying. Given the resources the results were quite good.
Mars Pictures – A Sight to Behold
The Plenary presentation was by Justin Maki, Jet Propulsion Lab on the Mars mission based on the two vehicles: Spirit and Opportunity. This is called the Rover Imaging System. Each vehicle has 9 cameras on board, all at 1mp each. There was also a descent camera which makes a total of 10 cameras per rover mission. As Justin stated, this mission has more cameras than all the other mars missions combined and that there have been more images collected than all the other missions combined. So far 70,000 images have been collected with a large percentage of those in 3D. The pancam has 4 cameras and this camera is on a pole above the rover platform. The camera is typically used to collect large area images by rotating about the pole on the rover. The high point of the presentation was the stereo pictures. With over 500 in the audience, each has a set of glasses. Some of the imagery was outstanding. One came away with a real feel for the isolation of Mars and the appeal that such distance exploration has. To date Spirit has traveled 3,600+ meters and Opportunity 1,600+ meters. It is felt that these vehicles could go on for a year or more – well beyond the design lifetime. It was exciting to see the role that imaging has and continues to play as we explore beyond the Earth.
Automatically Categorizing Facial Expressions
Brenton McMenamin, University of Wisconsin, presented the paper “An Anatomically Constrained Neural Network Model for the Categorization of Facial Expression.” One of the goals of this study is related to the report that for new passports “non-neutral” facial expressions will not be allowed since they might interfere with automated facial recognition methods. That is, a smile or sad expression might make it more difficult to do facial biometrics. This technique, reported by Brenton, was to show that it would be possible for an automated method to detect non-neutral facial expressions.
The innovation is that a model was constructed of how the human brain processes images. This modeled the flow of an image from the retina to the thalamus and to the amygdale of the brain. From the amygdala ones emotional response is formed. The model also includes a more cognitive path which goes from the thalamus to the visual cortex to the amygdala. The power of the technique was the use of a single layer feed-forward neural network. This is modeled using MATLAB. “Back-propagation with momentum was used for training.” The training data set consisted of 232 images including some from the CVL Face Database. The results show accuracies of 84% and 86% for two models that were tested. However, the presentation did not show examples of the facial expressions and how the process worked. This was interesting none-the-less.
Real Time Holography on a PC
The MIT Media Laboratory has a project to create video rate holograms for PCs. This presentation by Michael Bove was an update on that project. The research is being done in the Object-Based Media Group. The goal of the work is to make a holo-video display about the same size and cost as a desktop CRT PC display and driven by a PC. Prior work had developed the Cheops which is a 3D engine which uses SDI Onyx and a holographic display using acoustic-optic modulators. The research reported on this paper was to use a GPU for the 3D processing. In this case, it is an NVIDIA Quadro FX3000G chip on a PHY card. They would have liked to put this into one PC chassis but the power and space requirements for the card necessitated that the three cards reside in 3 PC cabinets. As a result the output of the cards had to be synchronized for a single display. The output was based on creating a stereogram. This created multiple 2D views that used diffraction to multiplex them spatially. The system created 32 views in each of red, blue and green which took 70ms. The fringe computation took 450ms and thus the system ran at a 2 f/s rate. When compared to the much larger Cheops system which ran at only .5f/s the advantage of the GPU method was evident. New results were reported which used a new rendering method called RIP – Reconfigurable Image Projection. This combined the efficiency of a stereogram with the geometric accuracy of interference modeling. This system ran at the impressive 1.2 f/s. It had 140 parallax views at 383 X 144 resolution.
This project took advantage of the continuing improvement in GPU and with impressive results.
3D Demonstrations
3D Consortium
The 3D Consortium was announced. Its objective is to promote the formation, expansion and development of the market for three dimensional imaging.
Toshiba 3D Notebook
Toshiba was showing a notebook computer with a 3D LCD display. Autostereoscopic and the quality was quite good.
Video2Stereo
The company, using technology developed by RAFAEL, an Israeli, defense company, can covert video movies to stereoscopic movies.
Stereoscopic Player
Peter Wimmer of Austria was showing a stereoscopic movie player. This allows one to play stereoscopic videos and DVDs (external decoder required) and also allows you to watch live video from a capture device. Since it is based on DirectShow, it can handle almost any media format, e.g. AVI, MPEG, WMV and ASF.
http://mitglied.lycos.de/stereo3d/
StereoGraphics
StereoGraphics has 3 LCD panels from 22” to 40” which show autostereoscopic images. A lenticular array is placed in front of the LCD panel which is directly against the LCD surface.
http://www.stereographics.com/
3D Stereoscopic Desktop Display
Planar had an example of its SD displays. This is two displays with a combiner glass which they call the StereoMirror. Polarized glasses are required.
http://www.planar.com/advantages/innovation/
dep3D – Large Screen 3D Display
Shown was a 40” rear screen projection 3D display. The depth was quite good. It requires passive glasses.
3D Video Camera
21st Century 3D was showing the 3DVX. This is a small form factor 3D motion picture camera. It is basically two video cameras linked together and it used the Panasonic AG-DVX100A..
2D – 3D Conversion Software
VREX was showing its 2D – 3D conversion software for both still and video images.
Watch Movies in 3D
DDD was showing its TriDef DVD player which is capable of playing conventional 2D DVDs in 3D in real time.
Is Computer Graphics Headed in the Right Direction?
Pat Hanrahan, Stanford University gave the Plenary and asked the question: Realism or Abstraction: The Future of Computer Graphics? In it he questioned if the drive to make increasing 3D realism with computer graphics the best direction to go. Along the way Pat also questioned that there may be better ways than gaming to use the processing power in today’s GPUs.
The holy grail at the annual SIGGRAPH event has been ever better computer generated images of objects including animate objects, especially humans. Pat Hanrahan goes so far to ask the question - Are we focused on the wrong goal for computer graphics? He notes the progression from Renaissance Art which brought the invention of perspective and shading then to computer graphics with realistic image synthesis. Now the next step is virtual reality with teleimmersion and the complete control of the sensory field. Yet, with this focus on technology, we are missing the power of immersive effects of the “The Glorification of St. Ignatius,” in the ceiling of the Church of St. Ignazio. This painting, when viewed from the correct location is immersive. What computer graphics is about is not creating realistic images but abstract forms of what will look to be realistic. He cited examples, including the development of his own subsurface scattering and the use of glare, contrast and blur in wide dynamic range images which has the impact of looking more realistic. Pat then used a number of examples to show how even simple representations can be very useful. These included: engineering drawings including those nearly 100 years old, graphical reasoning in plots that go back 250 years, and the use of abstraction in thematic maps. He ended by stating that we should look beyond just the realistic representation of objects but to consider those that are informative, expressionistic and more. During the Q & A session we discussed the open issue – cannot we do more with the powerful GPUs now developed for more that the realistic form of expression.
Integral Photography – Looking for better 3D Displays
Integral photography dates back to Gabriel Lippmann with his invention in 1908. Here at Electronic Imaging we have seen more on Integral Photography than in the last 20 years. The papers today point to sophisticated electronic integral photography systems. This could well point to the future of autostereoscopic displays.
Integral photography is the use of an array of lenses to record an image of an object. Directly behind the lenses is a recording material, each one capturing an image based on its relationship with the others and the object. It is the spatial distribution of the lens and capture system that captures the 3D detail. When the recorded images are played back, from the recorded image position and the light passing through the lens array, an image of the original object appears in front of the lens array where the object was. This object has parallax based on the original images that were recorded and not that which recreates the object. The number of discrete views is based on the number of images taken. If, for example, the lenses were just vertical and cylindrical the parallax would only be in the horizontal axis. This form of integral photography is commonly seen in posers and other displays. What was discussed here at Electronic Imaging is a more sophisticated integral photography where each recording element was a small lens.
Three-Dimensional Electro-Floating Display Based on Integral Imaging
Technology
S. Min of the Seoul National University, also Samsung, reported on a technique to use a floating lens. This is an electronic system in that the display device is an LCD projector. The lens array is quite modest at 13 X 13 and 10 sq mm each. The floating lens is 300 sq mm. There are a number of limitations of the technique which included a flipped image and the degree of magnification that can be supported
Projection-type Integral 3D Imaging Using Multi-facet Flat Mirrors
Sungyong Jung of Samsung gave this presentation on this technique which uses a segmented mirror instead of an array of lenses. The technique also is electro-optical in that the image can be detected in real time and transmitted. Further it is also possible to create the images on a computer and transmit them. There is a trade-off of the use of the mirrors and the image quality. For example, If the number of mirror elements goes up this allows for the creation of more perspectives but if the radius of curvature of the mirror surface increases the viewing angle goes down and there is greater distortion. Two examples of mirrors were show – a 1D curve which has only horizontal parallax and a spherical or 2D curve which has full parallax. A floating lens is also used to position and magnify the final image.
Autosteroscopic Liquid Crystal Display Using a Mosaic Color Pixel Arrangement
K. Taira of Toshiba gave this presentation on how a integral display can be put on a notebook computer. This was part of the demonstration the prior day. There are two examples – 15.4” with 12 parallaxes and a 20.8” with 18 parallaxes. In this case a high quality LCD display was used to make the 3D display. There is a trade off of linear spatial resolution for depth resolution. In the case of the 20.8” display this is a QUXGA (3200 X 2400) RGB display. The 3D display is 300 X 800. This large screen display showed only still images while the 15.4” display showed movies and interactive content. This 15.4” LCD panel was 1920 X 1200 and it resulted in a 3D display of 300 X 400. During the question session it was asked if Toshiba was going to commercialize the display there was no indication they would do so.
A Long Viewing Distance Integral Photography Auto Stereoscope Display
Hongen Liao of the University of Tokyo described a integral photography technique to gain large object depths. This has application in medicine. One is to allow multiple individuals to see and participate in a surgery. The intent was to create a 3D system capable of depths of several meters both in front and behind the display. One of the trades is a reduction of the viewing angle. The design used a 35 X 35 lens array with 10mm size. The image depth was 7.5m in front of the array and 7.5m behind it. A video was shown that conveyed the image depth. Plans are to make a large scalable display using micro displays and a convex lens.
When does a Virtual Environment Become Real?
Heinrich Bulthoff, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tubingen, Germany gave a compelling presentation on multimodal integration and spatial cognition in virtual environments. The work at his institute has taken the VR experience to higher levels of realism. They are building a 6m 2D treadmill that will allow individuals to walk unconstrained in this walking simulator. This will allow for a platform to integrate all cues: visual, vestibular, haptic, auditory, tactile and propriceptive.
Electronic Imaging had a special session on VALVE: Visual, Action and Locomotion in Virtual (and Real) Environments. The lead off speaker was Heinrich Bulthoff, the head of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tubingen, Germany. He made a good case for the study for psychophysics using virtual environments. There are three factors to be considered: control of the environment for testing, ability to creating an environment for interaction and a the need for a high degree of realism.
Some of the intriguing work explored how perception works when faced with conflicting cues from different modalities. In one case visual and haptic. That is, if eye perceives a certain size and the hand another which is correct? The result of the work is that the brain combines visual and haptic information in a statistically optimal way. The cues are weighted according to the reliability of the cue.
Another research effort sought to determine why certain architectural spaces were more appealing and satisfying than others. Again, using virtual reality it was possible to develop five factors which explain individual response. This is ranked by: isovist area, enclosure ratio, isovist roundness, number & density of verticies and number of symmetries. Invoist is a “viewshed polygon from one standpoint.” Another definition is “The space that can be seen from any vantage point is called an isovist.”
Heinrich’s work has driven the observation that missing from this research is a architecture walk-through tool. That is, a table which one can freely walk as if on a floor or street and effectively stay in one spot. This implies a 2D treadmill. This is quite difficult to do and still have the individual perceive walking. The laboratory has defined a table based on ball bearings that will simulate such walking. It will be 6m in diameter and housed in a new building. Already the lab has a 3DOF motion platform. As Heinrich the 2d treadmill becomes the ultimate simulator with the ability to integrate all cues: visual, vestibular, haptic, auditory, tactile and proprioceptive.
With such an environment it becomes hard to tell the difference between real and virtual.
WAVE Comments
The dimensions of imaging seen at Electronic Imaging were striking and lie in three domains: Virtual, Real and Imaging in Depth.
Virtual Imaging is about creating a world that does not exist. 3D rendering of objects, places and environments which look real is the goal. Virtually all the effort is focused on entertainment with movies being the form where the best imaging qualities are seen. Computer and console games are another form. Another aspect of the same domain is flight simulators but these are task trainers with very specific objectives.
Taking pictures, video and any form of recorded imagery is capturing the real. This can be either real time or after the fact. The sensory stimulation is based almost exclusively on imagery and audio. The emphasis is on increasing quality of the capture and play back. Higher resolution cameras and larger screens for display is another aspect of quality. Compared to virtual there is a much broader involvement of the mass market in real. An excellent example of this is cameras in cell phones. One aspect of real is that mass market creates their own content and thus directly associates with the end result. There is no expectation to simulate anything.
Imaging in Depth was the surprise at Electronic Imaging – the seriousness of 3D. Much of the technology has been around for 100 years but what we saw was credible research to make 3D a high quality capture and playback technology. The emphasis from the Asian companies, Samsung and others is on auto stereoscopic. This makes sense in that mass market products cannot hinder the viewer with the requirement to wear glasses. Note that early signs of this was seen at CEATEC and now at this event we saw some of the efforts of the research to make 3D a viable electronic technology.
It is important to note that both virtual and real can use the attributes of imaging in depth. In virtual this is mostly done with HMDs (head mounted displays) but these are hardly mass market products. While in the real there is IMAX 3D theaters and some indications that 3D displays and movies may be showing resurgence. Consumer 3D cameras have no indication of a comeback as there are no 3D digital cameras on the market.
At Electronic Imaging we saw many examples of the impressive use of imaging. Yet, only a small sliver of this has any impact on the markets. Sure, this is a reflection of much of what we saw was research or narrow use, such as the Mars photographs. But given that visual modality is the dominant human modality it remains a surprise that more use of the technology is not happening. Today, the only market which exhibits the use of the technology is entertainment: movies or games. Yet, this is on the fringes of visual modality – a tiny portion of what we see.
***National survey: Four in ten technology companies anticipate a change in ownership within the next decade
CHICAGO
Feb. 14, 2005
As competition continues to increase and companies battle to win new customers, executives of technology companies are not ruling out a possible change of ownership in the next decade, reports a new survey conducted by Grant Thornton LLP, the accounting, tax and business advisory firm.
According to the Grant Thornton Survey of U.S. Business Leaders, 42 percent of technology respondents expect a change in company ownership in the next 10 years, while only 30 percent of all companies nationally feel the same. Among those who expect this change, 39 percent believe a merger is most likely, while 30 percent anticipate a trade sale.
The majority of these companies (61 percent) are already starting to make preparations for such a change, with 79 percent already identifying their personal/business needs, as well seeking out external business and/or tax advice. In addition, 64 percent of respondents have also upgraded their corporate governance/internal procedures and communicated with their staff in anticipation of this process.
Additional findings from the survey include:
* Three-quarters (73 percent) report they are optimistic about the economy’s growth in the next six months.
* Almost all (95 percent) say they are optimistic about the growth of their own business.
* Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of respondents also plan to increase their headcount over the next six months; and
* Eighty-nine percent are on pace to meet or exceed their sales targets (22 percent exceed and 67 percent on target).
About the survey
The 10th edition of Survey of U.S. Business Leaders, with a focus on the business implications of branding, is now available. To order a full copy of the report, visit Grant Thornton’s Web site at
http://www.grantthornton.com/blcsurvey
***BOXX Announces Workstations Featuring 64-Bit Intel Xeon Processors
Austin, TX
February 14, 2005
BOXX Technologies, Inc. has announced the addition of the 64-bit Intel® Xeon™ 3.6
processor with 2MB cache to the BOXX 8200 series of workstations and
render nodes. This next-generation Xeon processor allows for 32-bit
and 64-bit applications to run simultaneously, offering BOXX customers
performance and reliability for forthcoming software such as LightWave
3D and Cakewalk for Microsoft Windows XP Professional X64 OS.
BOXX workstations are optimized for media creation applications. Available in single-or dual-processor configurations featuring the latest AMD Athlon® and Opteron® processors and Intel® Pentium® 4 and Xeon™ processors, BOXX workstations support popular software from companies such as Adobe, Alias, Autodesk, Discreet, Newtek and Softimage.
With workstations that offer the ultimate in performance for compute-intensive applications, BOXX workstations offer the capacity for massive internal storage expansion with assemblies that offer six, eight or 12 hard drives for up to 3.6TB of internal storage—all in a compact, custom-designed chassis.
***Larstan Business Reports Information Warfare a Worsening Threat
RSA Conference 2005
SAN FRANCISCO
Feb. 15, 2005
Information security in the corporate sector is woefully inadequate, a growing problem that leaves an opening for "cyber terrorists" to wreak enormous damage to companies and the economy, warned a gathering of the world's leading security experts in San Francisco.
"There has been a bewildering change in how companies protect important information assets," says eBay's Chief Information Security Officer, Howard Schmidt. "Threats have grown more complicated, and so have the solutions."
To underscore the increasingly pervasive nature of the threat, Schmidt collaborated with several influential security experts to write a new book, "The Black Book on Corporate Security," published by Larstan Business Reports, Inc. The book details the nature of the problem and provides the tactics, technologies, standards and strategies to help companies protect their Information Technology systems from internal and external attack.
Schmidt serves as Special Adviser for Cyberspace Security for the White House. He co-wrote a Black Book chapter titled: "Defending the Digital You: How to Fight Online Identity Theft." To download a free copy of the chapter, go to:
http://www.blackbooksecurity.com/samplebooks/idtheft.htm
0507.5 Finance on the Blackberry
***The Wall Street Journal Online and Outercurve Technologies Announce Launch of 'The Wall Street Journal for BlackBerry'
NEW YORK & ISELIN, N.J.
Feb. 15, 2005
The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ.com and Outercurve Technologies have announced the launch of The Wall Street Journal Online for the BlackBerry platform from Research In Motion.
Starting today, "The Wall Street Journal for BlackBerry" will be available, to customers of Outercurve's InfoEdge On-Demand information-delivery platform. To introduce "The Wall Street Journal for BlackBerry," Outercurve and the Online Journal are offering this service free of charge through April 30, 2005.
Utilizing InfoEdge, "The Wall Street Journal for BlackBerry" seamlessly integrates with an organization's BlackBerry Enterprise Server (using the BlackBerry Mobile Data Service feature) to deliver the Journal package to BlackBerry devices via a downloadable application that optimizes the BlackBerry's two-way communications. "The Wall Street Journal for BlackBerry" includes access to continually updated and comprehensive business coverage from around the world, global-markets updates, and thought-provoking articles from the Journal's opinion pages. In addition, users can customize the service to receive headline lists based on individualized criteria, as well as "push-based" alerts for up-to-the minute news on selected public companies.
The Wall Street Journal Online recently launched a mobile edition, "The Wall Street Journal Mobile," which provides business and financial news from the Online Journal directly to a cell phone. For more information about "The Wall Street Journal for BlackBerry," please register for the free trial at
http://www.outercurve.com/fs_wsj.asp
***United Defense, Battelle Demonstrate Prototype Fuel Cell Power Unit for Bradley Fighting Vehicle
FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla.
Feb. 16, 2005
Battelle and United Defense Industries, Inc. have teamed to develop and demonstrate a prototype fuel cell auxiliary power unit (APU) on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle that is designed to increase fuel efficiency and reduce logistics burden for the U.S. Army.
The system is designed to provide sufficient power to operate the vehicle's electronics indefinitely without engaging the main engine. This fuel cell technology was developed at Battelle's laboratories in Columbus, Ohio and Richland, Washington, with funding support from the U.S. Army's Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and its National Automotive Center, The system was integrated into a Bradley Fighting Vehicle by United Defense at its Ground Systems Division facility in Santa Clara, Calif. Both organizations are displaying this technology at the Association of the U.S. Army's Winter Symposium through February 18 at the Broward County Convention Center.
Enhancing fuel efficiency while maintaining effectiveness will further enhance the combat effectiveness of the battle-proven Bradley, a key vehicle system for the Army in intense urban combat and rural scenarios. A large percentage of the tonnage in a military deployment is fuel. Increasing fuel efficiency can enhance military responsiveness by easing the logistic burden.
According to United Defense, fuel cell technology offers a silent, clean, state-of-the-art enhancement for current force vehicles such as the Bradley. Integration of Battelle's three-kilowatt fuel cell will not only give Bradley crews a silent watch capability, it will also reduce the stress on the main engine, lower the overall fuel consumption and reduce the heat level in and around the vehicle.
***Radical New Active Matrix Technology from Rolltronics Will Enable
a Whole New Generation of Large Displays and Affordable Signs
MENLO PARK, Calif.
Feb. 15, 2005
A Vision of the Future. Imagine digital signs that have high contrast, low power consumption, and a lightweight, thin profile. Rolltronics Corporation has invented a new EM switching technology called FASwitch to make this possible.
Rolltronics demonstrated a new technology that may eliminate the need for semiconductor transistors in some display products. At the Flexible Displays Conference recently held in Phoenix, Arizona, Rolltronics unveiled the world's first display prototype using their FASwitch active matrix technology. The display utilized electronic ink technology from E Ink Corporation, a leading developer of electronic paper displays (EPD).
The first commercial application of FASwitch will be large-area displays targeted initially at the signage market. The combination of the FASwitch active matrix backplane, with electronic paper technologies, like E Ink's, creates an ideal digital sign with high contrast, low power consumption, and a lightweight, thin profile.
According to Rolltronics, FASwitch's new approach changes all the rules. A transistor is just a switch. So Rolltronic set out to create an affordable universal switch without silicon to replace expensive transistors currently used in active matrix arrays. The applications are vast. FASwitch has the potential to drive virtually all FPD display technologies, as well as sensors and circuits, to improve functionality and dramatically reduce costs.
FASwitch electrostatically-driven membrane switches are patterned with metal traces to form active matrix switch arrays that can be produced with the same roll-to-roll processes that are used in the flexible circuit industry.
0507.8 File Recovery - Undelete
***New Undelete 5.0 Gets Back Overwritten Office Files
BURBANK, Calif.
Feb. 15, 2005
Executive Software announced the release of new Undelete 5.0 which not only simplifies and speeds up retrieval of lost or deleted data, but now adds automatic file versioning for Microsoft Office files. Users with the least protection, such as students and home office users, now have a powerful and easy-to-use data protection solution.
As users modify and save Word documents, Excel spreadsheets or PowerPoint files, Undelete 5 will transparently capture the earlier versions of these files in the exact state they were in before being modified and saved. Sometimes users need to go back to an earlier version and new Undelete 5.0 now provides that missing version protection as well as deleted file protection.
Now more than ever Undelete saves users the time, trouble and aggravation it would take to recreate work lost due to improvident file deletions and/or file version overwrites. Best of all, users can recover their own files without having to involve helpdesk or other IT staff bandwidth.
Undelete first gained popularity in the corporate market because it was the only software available that could instantly recover deleted files from anywhere on the network, even the many files that completely bypassed the recycle bin. Undelete 5.0 runs on Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP, Windows NT(R), Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003.
Undelete Professional, Home, or Server versions are available through your favorite reseller or at:
http://www.executive.com/file-recovery/file-recovery.asp
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