AUGMENTED REALITY

Until the release of the movie Iron Man, the world was never interested in the world like Augmented Reality (AR). The scientists researching on the product were at the end of table about this interesting concept still figuring out on the technology they had in hand and the exact application. But what Iron Man showed was just an animation but it led out a possibility that such thing could happen in the real world. Infact, there were gadget in the real world which weren’t tried until the famous British spy, James Bond, implemented him in his majestic movies.

Now, we have this version in hands and slowly these things are actually getting into our smartphones too! Amazed? Yes, you should be. The recent launch of the famous amazon phone, Fire phone, brought an innovative pet named Dynamic Perspective. The concept in the device is- the phone supports a five or three front cameras which decide the correct position of the person according to the gyro sensor and the accelerometer. The position in the sensor is then relayed onto the screen to give the tilt to the angle where you stand or the position in which you are looking at the phone and holding it. This will give a 3D like animation along with the tilt and an effect as if you were viewing the screen with your own eyes. Isn’t that amazing? The specs are but the phone isn’t. 

Now about the augmented reality in real life. The augmented reality uses computer sensory and the imaginary to design the original physical reality in a virtual way. The physical object is measured and actually projected with appropriated dimensions by the computer using proper lighting and camera sensors. The technology is currently a tidbit now, but developers are bringing things into action with Google showing off the Oculus Rift at this year’s I/O. The camera was widely acclaimed but it drew critics too. Google also launched Ingress to the smartphones which is a very famous AR games available. Nowadays, people are also purchasing Augmented Reality setups for their smart homes. Though the technology is presently in the developmental phase but has been garnering a huge amount of response from the Iron Man Fans (Infact, I am a fan too).

Some of the most exciting augmented-reality work is taking place in research labs at universities around the world. In February 2009, at the TED conference, Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry presented their augmented-reality system, which they developed as part of MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group. They call it Sixth Sense, and it relies on some basic components that are found in many augmented reality systems as Camera, Small projector, Smartphone and Mirror. Here the projector turns any of the available space as a screen and more of that the inputs can be taken through the use of capped fingers which are used to demarcate as the inputs for the reality system. The guys from MIT went on to say that it might work with different color of Nail-Polish too. The system at times often responds to various gestures shown to it. For example, a circle on the wrist will show the time on the hand. Many companies has also sold many equipments pertaining to Augmented Reality to the U.S. military.

This Sixth Sense of technology will soon be available to the world with 2 years in even the smallest devices and all the mega Sci-Fi movies will become a reality as we are garnering to enter that stage. As we have seen in the renowned work of Jules Verne” Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea”.

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW 2015

CES i.e. consumer electronics show touted as one of the biggest electronics show in the starting of year. Usually, the CES actually takes place in January, in Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas – Nevada. It has been around the corner since 1967, which showcased the world’s first cathode ray tube T.V.’s to the present curved display OLED 8K content T.V. sets. Though currently we don’t possess the infrastructure to view actually the 4K contents but time again such show bring us to notice the heights to which technology and science can actually reach. The show isn’t actually limited to what we say Electronics i.e. smartphones, smart T.V.s or even Smart Watches, it also did showcase some very great automobiles and their concepts though they are illegal on the streets for time being but they will be around the corner very soon. So let’s go through the brief of what happened this CES:

• ·         Smartphones:

The bar is rising every 2 months, who said that mobiles these days are an investment, right now its fashion. You buy a flagship and a month later they get is updated with a RAM, Processor or Graphic Rendering GPU. It’s a world full of smartphone addiction. This CES LG launched a successor to its old and mighty LG G Flex. Though the present specs are different but still it supports just 1080p. Bad isn’t it? While here we have phones which have Quad HD display. But yes we say” To get something in life you have to give something” and yes it’s true the organic LED (OLED) renders graphics so very well that its gives you very immersive experience. Moreover, we heard the launch of pretty good smartphones from Huawei too. We also had the launch of very famous Xiaomi MI5 on January 15^th. Apart from that KODAK the famous handy camera makers also announced their own smartphone! (Looks like everybody is getting on the smartphones bandwagon). The launched phones were Asus Zenphone2, Yota Phone2 (Must watch), HTC Desire 826 and many more.

·          Television Sets:

Who doesn’t like spending Sundays just in your pajamas and watching a good action flick for boys or your favorite soap Opera Rerun! The mere thought is exhilarating isn’t it? The popcorn and your Sofa. So, to hold you to your seats and give you and experience of lifetime Samsung and LG too introduced more 4K content for your television sets(because they are very costly and you have nothing to watch in it, sad isn’t?). We also saw a bit of 8K and 6K T.V.s too! Please don’t ask me what its use is. Because my reply is it’s an electronics show and they are going to sweep you off your feet. And those actually did!! They also did announce a 5mm television set and it was none other but Sony! (Do you know how thin 5mm is? Take a scale and measure it).

• ·         Automobiles:

The Automobiles sector just stole the show with what they had to offer. The BMW released their much awaited concept cars, which to auto stop when they see and obstacle and yes you could also call your car from where you are standing! It’s just like a Bat Mobil (how cool does it sound!). And BMW releases something Mercedes can never be far behind, it too launched some pretty impressive cars - Cars with actually LASER Lamps that automatically focus on the part of road and intelligently adjusts according to the height of user, so that the light doesn’t affect the eyes of the cars coming from other lanes (Though laser lamps are banned in USA, but for the time being these models will be sold in rest of Europe). Later they introduced rear lamps with LED which can be programmed to reflect the way we like it to be. Another customizability- pretty cool, though! While Hyundai too gave it Android Auto Demo giving support to Android to its newer versions.

• ·         Robots:

The CES also saw the display of a robot who could play you a Piano and yes it was just in a form of Human Being! It sounds creepy but you won’t feel it because you can turn it off with a switch!! This rather a very limited section for the time being but it will boom quite soon. With smart homes around the corner.

·         Smart Watches:

Smart Watches has been stealing the show since quite lot of time with MOTO 360, LG G watch and the Samsung’s whole cavalry of fitness bands (P.S. forgot to mention Sony too). Yet with these around the corner some companies did manage to showcase some watches, but they didn’t manage to steal the light!

• ·         Processor:

The most awaited QUALCOMM Launched its Snapdragon 810 processor with LG G Flex 2, the 64-bit support to Android smartphones, quite a long time when Apple launched its own 64-bit computing to its iPhones. The 810 SoC coupled with Adreno 430 will always be a gamers dream and with such timeless masterpiece of graphic rendering on the mobile phones.

Thus, they were a huge list of exhilarating products around the CES 2015 but as the definition of progress goes” There is still a bit place of improvements” and as we keep on pushing these boundaries we rediscover ourselves and where we can actually go and where science can take us. But the judicious use of these technologies can take us to newer height and yet their detrimental use can shun our growth. But we all know that “Our limits are actually decided by our mindsets”.

Thus, I hereby sign off to DEVELOPMENT….

CAMERA SENSORS (EXPLAINED)!

Helen Keller once wrote:

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt by heart.”

Surprising this quote would hold true during the times when the best and most beautiful things couldn’t be captured. But, today we live in a world of memories where the only thing we yearn is to recreate those beautiful and the best moments of the past. A simple photograph from the past would lead you back to those golden years of magnanimous differences. Though now the meaning of photo has changed since the past eras. Today with all the Pure HD (1080p) content then the famous 4k contents have changed the way we look at memories. It’s just a fact that we don’t want to miss a pixel of that beautiful moments.

A great Greek philosopher Plato once said:

“Necessity is the mother of invention.”

And through those necessities does these inventions spring in and out the world. The modern etymology of Camera obscura signifies a dark room (a black box with lens). While now there is no such definition anything and everything that fits your mobile phone or a SLR is a camera. We will today see through the different camera technologies present in market today. There are chiefly three prominent technologies today present in the market:

(1) Back Illumination sensor- Considered to the forte of Apple, it included this sensor in almost all the latest iteration of iDevices. This sensors are made up of a variety of light sensitive layers that help in maximum exposure of light to take more clear photographs on the low light condition, while on the other hand they restrict excessive light from entering the lens giving grains and noise in the images. Due to which photos from an 8MP iPhone 5s could beat the clarity of 13MP Samsung galaxy devices. Thus, this illumination sensor is so photosensitive to light that they give the best shots in the low light condition. Due to lack of stabilization in it the photos come up with a bit vibration but overall the give very good picture keeping in mind all the hues and colours of the surroundings.

(2) Optical Image stabilization-Almost all modern smartphones and DSLR’s have it. The come with different aperture speeds and focal length, but they help in stabilizing the image. It is also called as the vibration reduction sensor. People usually confuse it to take good picture of moving object though it is not. The moving objects will still be unclear, it will only help in stabilizing a stationary picture and giving a sharper image as a result. Many of the Canon devices use this method. The best example in the smartphone is the google NEXUS 5. The OIS also comes in two types like the IN LENS and IN CAMERA. Both have their own disadvantages and advantages but the IN CAMERA OIS giving very fast images while the earlier one comes with different lens and configurable.

(3) Laser Image stabilization-One of the latest iteration in the smartphone market but an old one for the DSLR’s. This fancy technique has a fancy little laser as in the case of LG G3 following the focus and it can focus on anything simultaneously and faster in less than 5 sec. This method works prominently with the nearing shots which help the laser to reflect properly and thereby focusing properly on the images. One of my Nikon camera has a green laser which falls on the object to be focused. The LG G3 has been making quite a lot of noise for this LIS sensor it does help in delivering picture perfect images in the good light condition but it gives a bit low resolution picture with little noise under the low light conditions.

Here, all the discussed sensors have its own pros and cons and be used according to the way they are utilized. Even if you have the best sensor but then if they are not utilized accordingly by the processor then it is of no use. The one last concept to be dealt with is the ultrapixel configuration in the HTC ONE series. The ultrapixel used here have an ability to record each pixel in denser manner giving very good picture resolution but the only problem with this is – it leads to overexposure of the images giving extremely colour saturation images. There are also complaints of images having a pink hue around the images but that is prominently due to the ultrapixel concept. Though it is currently not worth the money investing for keeping in mind the 40k to 50k selling brackets of such high end camera smartphones.

Here it is all about the best camera sensors. Keep visiting for more information on the smartphones updates.