<i xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/">Star Wars</i>-style holograms: a new hope? - Nature.com

Novel plastic could enable real-time 3D holographic projections.

Princess Leia could soon be beamed into a room near you.LUCASFILM/20TH CENTURY FOX/THE KOBAL COLLECTION

The fuzzy three-dimensional (3D) image of Princess Leia calling for help in the 1977 film Star Wars demonstrates an effect that researchers have long been trying to achieve: holograms that move in real time. Now, a material that can store shifting holographic data moves the fantasy into the realms of reality. The substance could have future applications in medicine and manufacturing, as well as in the entertainment industry.

"From day one, I thought about the hologram of Princess Leia and whether it can be brought out of science fiction," says Nasser Peyghambarian, an optical scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who has been trying for several years to develop holographic projections that move in real time.

The challenge was to find a rewritable material that could store data encoding successive holographic images. Now Peyghambarian and his colleagues have developed a material that can record and display 3D images that refresh every two seconds. The research is published in Nature this week 1.

The team's system captures 3D information by filming an object from multiple angles, using 16 cameras that each take an image of the object every second. The 16 views are processed into holographic pixel data by a computer, which sends a signal to two pulsed laser beams that then write the data into the recording material.

During the writing process, the two beams combine to create an interference pattern of light and dark patches in the recording material. Firing another light at the pattern reconstructs the 3D image.

In a static hologram, the physical properties of the recording material are permanently changed by this interference pattern, so the image can never be refreshed. In contrast, Peyghambarian's team has developed a rewritable recording material from a combination of plastic polymers, dubbed PATPD/CAAN. When the laser beams hit the copolymer, they cause electrons and other charge carriers within it to drift and gather in areas corresponding to dark and light regions of the interference pattern, creating a temporary recording. The stored image can then be overwritten by the next round of image data to be displayed.

“Creating a dynamic hologram of the size and resolution of Princess Leia is a reality.”

Nasser Peyghambarian
University of Arizona, Tucson

In 2008, the team used a similar material to build a 4-inch display that took about 4 minutes to overwrite 2. Now, they have modified the mix of polymers to develop a 17-inch display that refreshes more than a hundred times faster, generating an image that changes in almost "real time", says Peyghambarian.

Although 3D televisions are already on the market, these are filmed from just two perspectives. So they give a sense of depth, but "you cannot walk around an image of a person and see the back of his head", says Peyghambarian.

He hopes that, along with revolutionizing entertainment, the hologram technique will one day enable surgeons to remotely view live 3D images of operations and give advice. It might also find uses in manufacturing, allowing engineers to visualize and modify 3D models in real time.

However, Rob Eason, an optical physicist at the University of Southampton, UK, points out that the holographic images are still relatively slow and small, and questions whether the technique significantly improves on other recent advances in 3D displays. In 2009, for example, Sony unveiled a prototype called RayModeller. It projects a moving 3D image within a cylindrical tube, allowing the viewer to walk all the way around it and see different perspectives.

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Peyghambarian counters that a scaled-up holographic system would provide "superb resolution. We can already make a holographic pixel of 400 micrometres — better than a high-definition television."

He adds that it should be easy in principle to record holographic movies, so they can be played back later. The team is now working to speed up the refresh rate to match the 30 frames per second needed for movies, and to reduce the amount of power needed to read and write images.

Peyghambarian believes that some version of the system could be in homes within seven to ten years: "We have shown that creating a dynamic hologram of the size and resolution of Princess Leia is a reality." Now he just needs to build an R2-D2 to play it on. 

Blanche, P.-A. et al. Nature 468, 80-83 (2010).Tay, S. et al. Nature 451, 694-698 (2008).If you find something abusive or inappropriate or which does not otherwise comply with our Terms or Community Guidelines, please select the relevant 'Report this comment' link.

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Election Day could bring historic split: Democrats lose House, keep Senate - Washington Post

The question around Washington today is not whether Nov. 2 will be a difficult day for the Democrats who control Congress, but rather how bad it will be.

Increasingly, it looks like the answer depends on which chamber of Congress you're following.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report now estimates that more than 90 Democratic House seats are potentially in play; on the Republican side of the aisle, it estimates that only nine appear in jeopardy. As a result, most leading forecasters say it is more likely that Republicans will win the 39 House seats they need to take control.

On the Senate side, however, the battle has narrowed to a handful of true nail-biters in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Colorado - all of which are likely to stay close to the end.

It would take a sweep of nearly all of them, improbable but not impossible, for the Republicans to pick up the 10 seats they need to gain control of the chamber. At this point, it's possible that Democrats will end up losing only three or four seats, and they will count that as a good night.

If these trends hold - if the Republicans do gain the House without also taking control of the Senate - that would represent a historic anomaly: Not since the election of 1930 has the House changed hands without the Senate following suit.

Two national party officials, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele and Democratic National Committee Chairman Timothy M. Kaine, gave very different predictions Sunday of what would happen on Election Day.

Steele said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that an unprecedented GOP wave would win control of both chambers as well as state legislatures, in a broad condemnation of President Obama and Democratic policies.

"The voters are tired of the fact that the federal government has not listened to them over the past two years, has moved in its own direction, at its own rhythm, and they want to pull back on that," Steele said.

Kaine, speaking on ABC's "This Week" pointed to strengthening poll numbers for his party's candidates as a sign that the Democratic base was getting energized.

"Four or five months ago, the Republicans thought they had a great chance at taking both houses," Kaine said. "For a variety of reasons, the Senate has gotten much more difficult for them. And again, we're seeing this week strong moves in polling for our Senate candidates" in several states.

Reflecting that potential trend, a Los Angeles Times/USC poll released Sunday found Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) eight points ahead of Republican challenger Carly Fiorina, and a Denver Post/SurveyUSA poll found Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.) tied with Republican challenger Ken Buck, whom he had trailed for months.

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Apple to triple iTunes music previews from 30 to 90 seconds - IntoMobile

A leaked memo from Apple to the music labels suggests Apple is increasing the length of music previews on iTunes from 30 seconds to 90 seconds. The change would only affect music files that are longer than 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Tracks shorter than this arbitrary limit will keep the 30 seconds preview. Previously rumored to be announced at Apple’s Fall event, this feature was reportedly delayed because of licensing problems. This latest leak implies that these licensing issues have been resolved and the feature is ready to roll out.

While this change may seem to trivial to users, it reflects the ongoing battle between Apple and the music industry. The struggle over DRM, pricing, previews, and more started when Apple launched iTunes  Music Store back in 2003. Steve Jobs has pushed the music industry to offer music tracks for 99-cents and then to offer tracks without DRM. This music preview is the next skirmish, but a bigger battle looms in the future.

The next battleground will be the cloud as Apple is rumored to be turning its LaLa acquisition into an iTunes-in-the-cloud service. In this scenario, iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad owners would be able to store their media in the cloud and use iTunes to stream their favorite music or videos while on the go. A subscription-based iTunes service is also reportedly close to launch. Steve Jobs has been able to successfully negotiate with the recording industry thus far, let’s hope they can pull off another coup d’etat and move our iDevices away from the desktop and into the cloud.

[Via MacRumors]

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Before 2010 MacBook Air, there was 2004 Sony - CNET

Shades of the 2010 MacBook Air?

(Credit: Sony)

Though a moot point now for consumers, in 2004 Sony came out with an ultrathin wedge-shaped laptop that was a progenitor of the MacBook Air, particularly Apple's 2010 incarnation.

At the Apple event this week in San Francisco, Steve Jobs said the new MacBook Air "is the future of notebooks." That's debatable of course but it's clear that PC makers like Sony and Hewlett-Packard already saw that kind of future a long time ago. The problem was that either their timing was off or they didn't execute the designs as well as Apple--or simply that the laptop was too expensive.

Back in 1998, HP released the ultrathin, 3-pound Sojourn made from magnesium. (And more recently the wafer-thin Dell Adamo XPS eclipsed the older Apple Air by using a heavily wedged design.)

But Sony's offering may be one of the best examples of a laptop that pretty much matches Apple's design--except Sony did it six years ago. The nickel carbon body Vaio X505--no longer available--had some very impressive specs for its time. (See 2004 review.)

Similar to the MacBook Air, the pronounced wedge design was 0.38 inches at the thinnest point and 0.83 at the thickest. The nickel carbon body also squeezed in an Ethernet port, a PCMCIA slot, and a 1394 connector

(Credit: CNET Reviews)

Like Apple's new Air, the Vaio X505 used an ultralow voltage Intel chip: a Pentium M "ULV" 1.1GHz processor. And similar to the Air, it was 0.38 inches at it thinnest point and 0.83 inches at its thickest (and keep in mind this was remarkably thin for a design that was probably conceived in 2002). The Sony X505 was smaller than the 11.6-inch Air, packing a 10.4-inch display, but it was only 1.85 pounds.

2010 MacBook Air

(Credit: Apple)

And the price? When the Sony Vaio X505 came out, it was about $3,000. And that's probably where Apple's new Air breaks the most ground. The ultrasvelte, 2.3-pound Air--which I would argue is the most impressive Apple MacBook design--can be had for $999. Still a bit pricey but far below the boutique, Rodeo-Drive ultrathins of the past. (Note that Apple's original high-end MBA was about $3,000 but mainstream Air models eventually settled in at about half that price.)

So, what does Sony have today? It has the X series, but that's a single-core Intel Atom processor-based design and won't deliver the performance of the Air, which uses a Core 2 Duo processor and Nvidia graphics.

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Europeans wake up an hour late as Apple fails to fix iPhone alarm clock bug - Apple Insider

Europeans wake up an hour late as Apple fails to fix iPhone alarm clock bug

By Katie Marsal

Published: 07:40 AM EST

A still-unfixed bug with Apple's iPhone caused alarms in Europe to go off an hour late Monday as the continent switched from daylight saving time, but their phone's alarms did not.

A number of readers contacted AppleInsider Monday to note that their handset's alarms failed to go off Monday morning. Instead, alarms went off an hour late, not automatically adjusting for the change in clocks.

"Both iPhones (3GS and 4) in my house failed to go off this morning," one reader said. "Even after checking and switching the settings in time/date and in the alarm app, there is still no alarm going off. Apparently this happened before. I had to delete, all the alarms, restart my phone then re-set the alarms before they worked as expected."

Most countries in Europe conclude daylight saving time on the last Sunday in October. The same bug affected iPhone users in Australia and New Zealand in September, causing their alarms to go off an hour early in the southern hemisphere.

In North America, the switch from daylight saving time occurs later this week. Clocks will be rolled back on Sunday, Nov., 7, and if Apple doesn't issue an update for iOS, the glitch will likely affect users there as well.

In October, Apple said it was aware of the issue and had "already developed" a fix that would be available to users in an upcoming software update. That fix could be a part of iOS 4.2, which Apple said would be released for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch in November.

Though Apple indicated last month that the software fix had already been developed, it was not issued in time for the end of daylight saving time in Europe.

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Justices Revisit Use of Tax Credits for Religious Schools - New York Times

In 2002, in a 5-to-4 ruling, the court upheld a school voucher system in Cleveland that parents used almost exclusively to pay for religious schools.

Four new justices have joined the court since then, but there was nothing in Wednesday’s arguments to suggest that the issue has become any less polarizing.

The program at issue on Wednesday gives Arizona taxpayers a dollar-for-dollar state tax credit of up to $500 for donations to private “student tuition organizations.” The contributors may not designate their dependents as beneficiaries. The organizations are permitted to limit the scholarships they offer to schools of a given religion, and many do.

The program was challenged by Arizona taxpayers who said it effectively used state money to finance religious education and so violated the First Amendment’s prohibition on the official establishment of religion.

The program was novel and complicated enough that the court’s decision on the merits might not be particularly consequential. But a threshold question, about whether the challengers have legal standing to sue, could give rise to an important ruling.

As a general matter, plaintiffs who merely object to how the government spends their taxes do not have standing. But the Supreme Court made an exception for religious spending in 1968 in Flast v. Cohen.

Arizona, supported by the Obama administration, said the exception should not apply where tax credits rather than direct government spending were at issue.

“If you placed an electronic tag to track and monitor each cent that the respondent plaintiffs pay in tax, not a cent, not a fraction of a cent, would go in any religious school’s coffers,” said Neal K. Katyal, the acting United States solicitor general.

“Flast recognized a special solicitude for taxpayers when money is taken out of their pocket and used to fund religion against their conscience,” Mr. Katyal said. But that is as far as the exception should go, he said.

That approach, Justice Stephen G. Breyer said, could amount to an end to many challenges to religious spending. “Flast is gone,” he said. “There is nothing more to Flast, because it just happened that nobody had thought of this system at the time of Flast.”

Justice Elena Kagan, who was until recently solicitor general, or S.G., asked whether Mr. Katyal’s position on the standing question meant that the court had been without authority to decide at least six other cases “but somehow nobody on the court recognized that fact, nor did the S.G. recognize that fact?”

Mr. Katyal said it was not unusual for the court to wait to decide a question until it was “teed up and presented to the court.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked him whether anyone, in light of his position, had standing to challenge the Arizona program.

“The way this scheme is set up,” Mr. Katyal said, “our answer is no.”

Paula S. Bickett, representing Arizona, said the state program did not violate the First Amendment “because it’s a neutral law that results in scholarship programs of private choice.”

But Paul Bender, representing the challengers in the case, Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, No. 09-987, said the dollar-for-dollar nature of the tax credit meant that the scholarship money effectively came from the state.

The difference between the Cleveland voucher system in the 2002 decision, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, and the Arizona program, Mr. Bender said, was that “religion was not involved in the distribution of the money to the parents.”

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