| MacUpdate Weekend Sale | :This weekend MacUpdate has slashed prices on Painter 12 and Painter Lite. Painter 12 retails for $429, but has been reduced by 54% to $199. Painter Lite has seen a 58% price cut from $69 to $29. Hurry, because these deals are only available until May 19th 2013. |
Nanosys and the Optical Systems division of 3M are collaborating on a way to improve LCD screens. The Quantum Dot Enhancement Film (QDEF) uses the light emitting properties of quantum dots to enhance the backlight for LCDs, improving color by a claimed 50 percent compared to normal methodologies.
HP has teamed up with 3M to release the T410 One Wire PC. Aimed at enterprise and education, the all-in one thin client computer uses an Ethernet cable for both networking and drawing power, removing the dedicated power cable from the system.
Apple has taken first place in a Harris Interactive poll on corporate reputations. The company scored a quotient of 85.63, giving it enough to beat out last year's winner, Google, which in the new poll has claimed second place with 82.82. Remaining companies in the top five include Coca-Cola, Amazon, and Kraft Foods.
3M's New Ventures organization has invested in Pixel Qi Corp., a developer of next generation LCD panels. Pixel Qi's unique screens can generate either e-paper output or high-intensity images for much better outdoor visibility than other contemporary LCDs. Mary Lou Jepsen, co-founder and CEO of Pixel Qi, said the funding would accelerate the company's product into the mass consumer market. She also said the company would continue to pursue mobile device manufacturers and digital signage applications.
IBM and 3M are reportedly collaborating to develop new adhesives that will be designed for layered microprocessors. The stacked technology, which could be composed of up to 100 separate layers, is said to be geared for enterprise equipment, such as servers, or consumer electronics such as computers, smartphones, tablets or gaming devices.
While showing off its 3M Cloud Library at the annual American Library Association conference, 3M showed off its new e-book reader. While the hardware (pictured) was said to be in concept stage and may change before it reaches production, it shows the device is at least on track for a release. It's a design seen before in the form of Wizpac's txtr and saved 3M the significant expense of designing and building its own.
3M Library Systems announced it will launch an e-book lending service that will let iPad, Nook and Android tablet owners borrow e-books from local libraries. The service, called 3M Cloud Library, will include software, hardware and content accessible from special apps or in libraries via touch-screen terminals. Publisher partners include Random House and IPG, with more expected to arrive soon.
Apple's iPad 2 is as fast as a Cray 2 supercomputer from a quarter-century ago, Top 500 and Linpack co-manager Dr. Jack Dongarra said late Monday. At 1.5 to 1.65 gigaflops of computing power, Apple's tablet would compete with the eight-processor, 1985-era system despite being just a sliver of the size. Where the Cray 2 was the size of a washing machine, the NYT said, the iPad 2 can manage the same performance in the space of a large notepad.
For a fourth year in a row, Fortune has once again identified Apple as its Most Admired company in the world. Apple has an overall score of 8.16. "The company's blistering pace of new product releases has continued to set the bar high for tech companies across the board," Fortune writes.
3M has just unveiled a new pocket camcorder that has a built-in pico projector, the Shoot 'n' Share CP40. It can throw up images and videos up to 65 inches in size at VGA resolution, though it has the ability to record 720p videos or five-megapixel photos. While there is just 14MB of built-in memory, a microSDHC memory card slot lets users add up to 32GB of storage, good for about 20 hours of video.
3M on Wednesday introduced two new pocket projectors with the MP160 and MP180. Either sports 30 lumens of brightness and can produce 800x600 pictures. The portable devices are also said to provide a record-setting two hours of operation from a single battery charge despite their miniscule sizes.
3M at an event today showed the first example of a USB 3.0-based display. The 18.5-inch LCD is powered entirely by the bus, albeit over two ports, but should have much better refresh rates for video and other visually intensive tasks through the roughly 10 times larger, 5Gbps bandwidth versus USB 2.0's 480Mbps. The panel uses just 8W of power, or about half of what a similarly sized LCD would need.
We stopped by the 3M booth at CES and experienced the company’s latest pico projector, the MPro 150. Unlike the existing 120, the 150 has 1GB of built-in memory for PC-free presentations and ships with a 2GB microSD memory card slot for adding even more data. There is now also a USB port to transfer files directly from the PC to the projector.
3M today unveiled one of the first multi-touch desktop displays that supports more than two input points. The M2256PW has a typical 22-inch, 1680x1050 display but can recognize as many as 10 points, or two full hands, without an increase in lag. It's designed for Windows 7 but should work with any computer that can recognize the input.
The optical systems division of 3M on Monday said it will soon sell a newly developed 3D optical film for handheld devices that will let users view stereoscopic 3D images on handhelds without having to wear 3D glasses. Vikuiti uses directional backlight technology to send and focus left and right images sequentially into the viewer’s eyes. This allows for full resolution to be displayed for each eye. It only requires one LCD panel and operates at a fast 120Hz refresh rate that more naturally mimics what the human eye sees.
3M today based its CES unveilings around an update to its MPro pocket projector hardware. The MM200 is a new variant built to be integrated into other devices rather than operating separately. While it can be used in a dedicated projector, the new liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) unit can be built into a cellphone, camera or other handheld and generates a 640x480 image at up to 50 feet away. Using LEDs helps keep power consumption down to one watt.
3M on Wednesday announced the release of its first handheld digital projector, the MPro110, meant for use in business, entertainment and field applications. Capable of projecting images between 6 and 50 inches, the MPro110 is just 4.5 inches long but can still output a 1280x768 resolution. 3M points out its new mini projector is the only one on the market with an integrated VGA port. The Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) projector can display content from connected personal multimedia devices such as digital cameras and certain MP3 players.
