First Look At Acer's 3D Laptop 151
Barence writes "Acer today revealed the world’s first 3D laptop, the Acer Aspire 5738PG, which will launch alongside Windows 7 on October 22. It uses a combination of software and specially coated glass on the 15.4in screen, along with a standard set of polarised glasses. Initial impressions were a bit iffy, and whether anyone actually needs a 3D laptop is another question entirely, but we'll find out this month."
Games (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder whats the use for 3D laptop, and if this works better than the existing tech?
NVIDIA 3D Vision [nvidia.com] is great with some games, but laptops aren't usually used for that and you would probably want atleast 17" screen if you'd get it for gaming. So whats the use?
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Build it and they will come.
Just because we don't know what the uses are, doesn't mean it's useless.
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I think this kills Sony's shutter glasses for 3D TV. It appears I've been vindicated; when that FA was on slashdot I wondered why they would use shutter glasses instead of polarization (more $?), and was assured by many here that it was impossible or too hard.
Not "3d": *stereo* (Score:5, Interesting)
A 3D display produces a 3D representation; that is, if you change your angle of view, what you see changes accordingly. Likewise, if the display is turned 180 degrees, you'd be looking at the back of the scene being displayed.
Stereo displays provide a fixed perspective generated by providing two single-angle images of a scene that are designed to replicate the angles your eyes would achieve from the (single, unchangeable) desired vantage point. Moving your head will not reveal other portions of the scene in any way, nor will moving the display.
Stereo image technologies can become 3D when they use the actual angle of view of your eyes and change the stereo angle appropriately. This requires far more interaction with your eyes and physical orientation, not to mention actual 3D media to display. A half-measure most of us are familiar with can be observed in a game like Mechwarrior (XBox), where you can change your angle on the scene by moving your mech's position or rotating its turret; here, we have the 3D media that is required, but we still don't have the eye and body tracking that would give you the sense that you're looking at something in full 3D.
There's a huge push right now to get the public to call stereo, "3D." As proper geeks, we should resist this strongly, not only as a matter of incorrect (highly exaggerated) terminology, but to make it clear that there is a long way to go yet before we actually get 3D displays, and that we're interested in getting them.
Quite aside from the issue that until or unless we're all normally wearing display capable contacts or something similar that conveniently and as a matter of course feeds us dual images, the entire "here, put these glasses on" approach is a sorry mess. No matter what technology the glasses use.
Correction (Score:2)
I meant to say "MechAssault", rather than "MechWarrior." Sorry. Mechwarrior is a similar (for the purposes of my example) PC game.
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I agree with you. Stereo Video just mildly interesting. The illusion of 3 dimensions on a video game displayed on a normal 2D monitor is almost completely convincing and less computationally costly with a positional sensor system. The Wii comes with one, we just need a game to use it for that.
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That is idiotic. The depth of objects in the scene displayed on one of these monitors is interpreted identically to the depths of objects in the world around you. What difference does it make if you need to move your viewport on the scene by using your mouse-hand muscles instead of your neck muscles?
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Replying to one's own post, bad form and all that, but I just can't get over how idiotic your comments are.
Think of poor Stephen Hawking, confined to a wheelchair and unable to move his head. The unsung tragedy: somehow, he also lost the ability to unambiguously determine the relative distance to objects in his field of vision.
Your argument is as stupid as saying that a drawing isn't 2D, because you can't see what's beyond the edge of the paper.
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Take a deep breadth, have another think about what fyngyrz said and consider for a moment who the idiot is. The whole point of these technologies is immersion. Clearly depth perception + parallax is more immersive than depth perception alone. A "real" 3D experience - i.e one which provides visual immersion in a 3D world will be one that does not provide jarring cues to break you out of that immersion. The failure to provide parallax stops it being full 3D.
As you've provided two posts without any actual cont
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I read the post well, and I have heard these arguments before. Your misunderstanding is based around your idea 'A "real" 3D experience'. A real 3D experience has nothing at all to do with immersion, it has to do with DEPTH. That's the definition.
If you think this system isn't immersive, then argue that. If you think that people overestimate how important 3D vision is for entertainment, argue that instead. I stand by my original argument: to claim that this system isn't 3D is idiotic.
You totally missed the p
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It's really very simple. Our eyes only capture 2D images. For our brains to create a 3D scene there need to be certain cues present that the brain has evolved to trigger from. One cue is depth - but it is not the only cue, nor is it the only important one. Parallax is also a very important cue without which the brain will not fully (or perhaps) effectively generate a 3D scene.
The reason that I use immersion is because if something is immersive then clearly the cues are correct because nothing is breaking th
Some elaboration needed, apparently (Score:2)
Hawking can perceive the 3D nature of what's in front of him by moving his chair, or having it moved for him, or when the scene itself changes perspective, as a 3D display rotated by indirect control (his, or a 3rd party) would. As he moves through the world, he sees it from many different angles. So it is in no way correct to assume that his perspective is limited to stereo, or that stereo somehow equates to 3D because
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I understand what you are trying to say, but you are just wrong.
ALL human 3D vision is 'stereo'; we only have two eyes! Stereo doesn't mean that you can't alter the view position.
Even if you can't change the position of the viewport, that doesn't mean that the scene isn't 3D. That was the point of the Hawking example. Look, you want me to take the example a step further? A guy had his head stapled to the floor, so he can't look around. He then has a shoe-box diorama glued to his face, so even if he could lo
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No, human vision rides on a chassis that can give you a stereo (or mono) look at a scene from any angle. The reason looking from any angle is useful and interesting is because scenes differ hugely depending on the angle of view, and completely different information is available from differing angles. A stereo display would provide no extra information to a person with one eye; a 3D display, however, would.
Stipulating that people's heads are stapl
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That's true, but in a situation where you're not moving your head (as with a stereovision movie using polarized glasses) you do, in fact, see in three dinmentions; in this case, stereo IS 3d. AFAIK the only tru 3d is the hologram, although theoretically you could have a head tracker and computationally move stuff around to give the illusion of true 3D.
True 3D would matter to someone designing an object, but again, if you're playing a videogame or watching a movie, there's no real difference between true 3D
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My first laptop, an NEC versa, was 3D. I mean, it had length, width, and depth. A REAL innovation would be a 2D laptop! Give me a foldable thin sheet with the power of an i7, with >4GB of RAM and 500GB of storage and THAT will be an innovation!
OK seriously though,. There are plenty of uses for 3D: 3D movies, gaming, architects' showing clients 3D models of their proposals, MRIs, "virtual" surgeries, etc. You'd want a 17" laptop for serious graphics work, but when/where portability is key, along with dece
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I wonder whats the use for 3D laptop, and if this works better than the existing tech?
NVIDIA 3D Vision [nvidia.com] is great with some games, but laptops aren't usually used for that and you would probably want atleast 17" screen if you'd get it for gaming. So whats the use?
In the last year I've worked on two different movies that were filmed stereoscopically. There were times where being able to play back a stereoscopic .mov would have been awesome.
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I wonder whatever happened to this, circa 2002:
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-978499.html [cnet.com]
No glasses required. I think some other big company did the same thing.
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I could see this being useful for geological data. Obviously it wouldn't be necessary for just viewing a simple elevation map, but it could prove very handy for exploring ground-penetrating radar and seismograph data onsite.
Bathymetric data might also be a good use for it.
Barring those two applications, the only other logical use would be gaming and 3d movies.
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nvidia's 3d vision is no doubt what has been behind the push. Nvidia can't win on performance so they're trying to sell people into dorky 3d headsets.
No worries, this fake 3d crap will all be over when we get back to holographic graphics. Those aren't that far off.
no form of 3d involving glasses is anything other than inconvenient for a large portion of it's intended audience.
Why? (Score:1, Insightful)
Stereoscopic 3D = Novelty Technology
Windows 7 = Vista++
I think I'll pass on this one.
3D = Novelty Technology? (Score:3, Interesting)
I do 3D modelling, and I'd love to do it at the beach.
Otherwise, gaming in 3D would be fun.
Novelty technology? Okay, maybe for most folks at this time.
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"Warning! Do not wear outside!" Dunno if it was for spatial awareness or if the polarizing messes with your eyes in higher sunlight.
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Remember the warnings on those polarized glasses?
"Warning! Do not wear outside!" Dunno if it was for spatial awareness or if the polarizing messes with your eyes in higher sunlight.
Most sunglasses have UV protection. 3D glasses have none.
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Polarizing glasses look like sunglasses (they cut out ~50% of the light to each eye). Therefore, some people would have thought "cheap sunglasses". But darkening the visual light you can see, so that you can pick up more details/be more comfortable is only one purpose of sunglasses. A more important purpose is to protect your eyes from UV light, of which sunglasses block far more than 50%.
Hence the warning not to wear them outside.
Afterthought, wearing them outside would also cause your pupils to dialate
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Fetch yourself one of those cheap cardboard polarized stereoscopic 3D glasses, and wear them all day.
I can almost guarantee you that the constant shifting in brightness in odd cloudy patterns on any surfaces that happen to polarize the light (a door at a shallow angle, a piece of fruit, the entire sky when the sun is low-ish) will get to you real quick.
That's for linear polarizers, however.
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merge 2 points of view with X values about 3 inches apart and then you would be looking at a 3d model (btw this is what you would need to do for the glasses to work)
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I did not realize 3d modeling was invented on and solely applies to 3d computer modeling software. Maybe all those clay and wooden models that have been around for hundreds of years are just 2d with a wierd "extra" dimension to them? I dunno.
Oh wait...
You do realize people still make 3d models of products and such, right? As good as computers are, it's hard to get a good feel for a 3d object when viewing it in 2d space. Products are often -designed- on computers, but they still make real-world mockups an
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I never said anything about the model not having all 3 dimensions. I said simply that you see a 2D representation. Your eyes are focused on a 2D display. With 3D display technology your eyes actually do change focal planes.
In both cases, I am not wrong.
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"With 3D display technology your eyes actually do change focal planes. "
As if my eyes don't change focal planes as I read text or shift my head to the side a millimeter when looking at a 2D screen.
Try again!
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As if my eyes don't change focal planes as I read text or shift my head to the side a millimeter when looking at a 2D screen.
Well, no, they don't. They're always focused on the plane of the screen, no matter where your head is. There is no depth.
Try again, yourself.
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There is depth. Most LCD screen matrixes (behind the glass) are SLIGHTLY CONCAVE and not a totally flat plane, this is to compensate for viewing angle issues.
You try again. I know how my screens are built.
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And as a side note, CRTs are built the exact same way, except the phosphor grille was convex.
I'm staring at them right now using a microscope. I move an inch to the right and I have to re-adjust the focus. The screens do have some depth to them, thus the focal plane changes as does the angle of the screen.
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Remind me never to use your designs since you don't know the difference between a 3D model and 3D vision. When you're making a model, no matter what computer you're using, you're still looking at a 2D representation of it on screen.
3D apps are starting to support stereo displays. He may already have a stereo LCD and can't leave the office with it.
We'd very much like to have 3d representations of our models.
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I rarely do this sort of thing, but fuck damn why did someone mod you insightful? Do you have an alt account for karma whoring? The whole point is to see your 3D model in 3D, which you can trick your mind into thinking you are doing. It helps when modeling a 3D object to see the relationships in 3D, as opposed to on a 3D LCD/LED/CRT.
Oh screw it, nothing I can say will help. I'd draw you a picture but you'd probably nitpick that as well. Or if I flip you the bird you'd counter that a thumb isn't a finge
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Nothing you say will help because you're not saying anything useful.
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What is so hard to understand about my post? 3D modeling programs are still a 2D representation because they are on a flat screen. A 3D display would increase the realism by making you change focal planes.
On a 3D display the webcam could check where you are looking and focus the appropriate distance accordingly.
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I'm not sure what you're getting at. Yes, I currently do my modelling on a 2D screen, but a stereographic display (what folks call a "3D display") would make many things easier, especially object selections in complex, overlapping setups. That would be a nicer setup, and it would be great to have it on the go.
Sure, such displays don't show objects in actual 3 dimensions, but ... who thinks the term "3D display" means your monitor manifests physical objects?
A stereographic display system (two views, mind y
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Bueller?
If we're inclined to snide and inaccurate allegations, we would do well to also be accountable for them. When we're accountable things can improve and ultimately the whole world has to endure less misinformation and assholery.
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My
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I've never had an issue with an Acer laptop except of my own doing.
I had someone bring me an Acer netbook where they hosed the whole hard drive. Didn't come with recovery disks and the recovery partition was dead, so, I ordered the recovery disks (on their tab). Turns out the disks they sent don't even work, but you don't known until after you spend the 3 hours copying all this stuff to the hard drive. (you'd think it was doing it bit-by-bit.)
They've taken quite a fall downhill, IMHO, after getting into bed with the likes of Gateway and eMachines.
3D laptop? (Score:2)
Aren't all laptops already in 3D?
Oups, sorry.
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I don't know, Apple is trying their damnedest make a laptop that you misplace between two sheets of paper.
Re:3D laptop? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I have one. The stylus input device works quite well for drawing, but the UI sucks. There's not even a delete function.
The erase function only works with Apple's special stylus that features a carbon-based tip. And *then* you have to fork out more for the "erase" tool itself.
What a load of lock-in crap.
Some people are even complaining that the carbon styluses appear to be wearing down after a relatively short time.
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But does it run Linux?
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Better Idea on a Desktop (Score:3, Insightful)
Using 3D glasses in the privacy of your own home (on your desktop PC) makes far more sense.
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I have to wonder why wearing glasses makes you "a pretty big nerd".
Regardless, as soon as Apple comes out with a product that requires special glasses they will become cool, no matter how dorky the exact same glasses looked the day before the Apple product was introduced.
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But the Apple glasses won't look dorky - they'll look like not-quite-designer sunglasses, which is perfectly acceptable.
Then 2 weeks later, somebody finds this site... ...and will claim that the Inition's glasses look *just like* the Apple ones, despite being quite different, and accuse them of just copying Apple.
http://www.inition.co.uk/inition/product.php?URL_=product_stereovis_inition_glasses&SubCatID_=3 [inition.co.uk]
Of course 10 months later some Mac website uncovers some obscure magazine interview with some..som
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Agreed; it would be great for watching 3D movies.
When do we get holographic displays?
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This would be a better idea for a desktop system since laptops are supposed to be portable. You'd have to be a pretty big nerd (even by Slashdot standards) to wear special 3D computing glasses in public.
Using 3D glasses in the privacy of your own home (on your desktop PC) makes far more sense.
Yeah because laptops are only used for taking to Starbucks to write your screenplay.
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Most people aren't thinking about you, they are too busy wondering what you think about them.
To think otherwise shows an incredible ego, thinking that everyone's focus is on you, what you look like or are doing. Others might find your glasses amusing for a minute, but quickly move to another subject.
I'd use it and expect people to ask me about it, but they won't cos the glasses are like sunglasses.
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> Most people aren't thinking about you, they are too busy wondering what you think about them.
> To think otherwise shows an incredible ego, thinking that everyone's focus is on you, what you look like or are doing.
So by that definition, most people have incredible egos? Sounds about right if you ask me but why wouldn't "most people" include the GP?
3d glasses? at cafe? (Score:2)
Even if Acer and MS provided that laptop for free, I wouldn't use it in public places.
Nobody with "3d glasses" using a laptop is considered usual, normal outside of NASA and some high end engineering companies.
Go to a 3D cinema and watch people taking off those cool and normal looking 3d glasses as soon as lights on. As Steve Jobs said about tablet PC: "The form is wrong."
If you already have to wear special glasses (Score:2)
Why do you need a laptop? Put a CPU several times more powerful than iPhone in glasses themselves and use a webcam/microphone to let you "type" on any flat surface or give voice commands. Sounds like another case of trying to glue in a new technology without thinking how to integrate it.
Re:If you already have to wear special glasses (Score:4, Funny)
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Why do you need a laptop? Put a CPU several times more powerful than iPhone in glasses themselves and use a webcam/microphone to let you "type" on any flat surface or give voice commands. Sounds like another case of trying to glue in a new technology without thinking how to integrate it.
You're right. Your solution really does sound like trying to glue in a technology without thinking how to integrate it.
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Well, you have the right general idea, but we're a ways off on the glasses tech.
Indeed! (Score:3, Insightful)
And have the Li-Ion battery to power all that in the form of a hat.
It will be great in the upcoming winter months. Not so great in the summer when it explodes and catches fire on top of your head.
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And have the Li-Ion battery to power all that in the form of a hat.
No, a propeller on top of a beanie hat
Been there, done that.... (Score:2)
What a peculiar idea.
Old news/idea:(circa 1962)
Beany and Cecil [wikipedia.org]
At least it would probably come in a neat box.
My propeller beanie not only came in a neat box, but even included a stuffed toy sea serpent!
Batteries not included...:-(
Sounds fine, but not for me. (Score:3, Informative)
I'm on my third Acer laptop in 4 years (one for work, one for personal use, and a spare). I do not by any means consider myself an Acer fanboi -- they just keep coming up with the features I want at a good price point, and they seem to last a good long while (yes, I still sometimes use the one I bought in 2005).
This 'feature', however, is not likely to be among them. Might be cool for gamers and/or designers, though.
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What you mean is that they create useless features and make you think you need them.
Um, no. No. And no.
Dual-core/64-bit/4GB RAM. I work for a company that produces database and related software, and my job requires a portable platform (even when I don't travel, I regularly work in either of 2 offices in neighbouring cities, as well as my home) for doing daily builds and testing of software intended for deployment in a distributed environment (I sometimes need to be able to run 2-4 VMs simultaneously) and on several different operating systems (Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, and Windows); lots of
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That's funny, because my experience on the frontlines of consumer tech support has mostly taught me that Acer laptops in general take a licking, and then the casing breaks, and random components start dying, and then the motherboard fails, same as HP. Are these consumer- or business-class machines we're talking about, here? And are these perhaps not North American models?
--- S
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"because my experience on the frontlines of consumer tech support has mostly taught me that Acer laptops in general take a licking, and then the casing breaks, and random components start dying, and then the motherboard fails, same as HP."
Get yourself some experience working in a REAL repair depot, because you're pretty off there. Most HP laptops sent in for repair are due to crappy third-party hardware (nVidia being HP's biggest PITA next to counterfeit RAM,) or the customer tried installing an upgrade by
Pointless and stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
This is pointless and stupid : here's why.
First of all, 3d gaming requires some serious tinkering. It's still a very immature, rare technology that works best with better displays than you can fit into a laptop. Right now, the DLP HDTVs that support 3d are the best available display with the least amount of ghosting.
Second, rendering 2 viewpoints puts far more load on the GPU than rendering just one. You need the fastest available single GPU nvidia graphics card in order to play recent games. It has to be single GPU because so far nvidia drivers don't support 3d and SLI at the same time. It has to be nvidia because only nvidia currently offers 3d drivers. There's a way to get 3d on an ATI card but it's limited.
Gaming on a laptop is already a bad bargain, 3d gaming is even worse.
Without all that said : I think 3d gaming is freakin' awesome. I even built myself a custom planar display a couple years ago in order to play games in 3d.
Re:Pointless and stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you think that gaming is the only possible use for this?
How about: Medical imaging, military imaging, warehouse inventory control visualization, education, biological research, chemistry, physics modelling, and etc.
Really, you just aren't even trying to be imaginative.
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I presume having a 3D laptop would increase the depth of discussions that happen on Internet message boards...
Or not.
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So... by your logic there's no point designing computer products for doctors, architects, etc because they happen to be a smaller market than teen gamers? I'm very, very glad you don't work in marketing or product design. ... ...
You don't work in marketing or product design, do you?
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There have been 3D games out for years. Magic Carpet had red/blue 3D modes, and I think there were 3D builds of Descent as well. Those games date back to the days of DOS/Win98 in real mode.
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Second, rendering 2 viewpoints puts far more load on the GPU than rendering just one. You need the fastest available single GPU nvidia graphics card in order to play recent games.
Only twice the processing load at worst. Simply dropping the resolution from 1600x1200 to 1024x768 will more than compensate for any fill-rate issues, and geometry issues are at least in part still tied to this. As for memory, you'd still only need to store your textures once, and the extra screen buffers and geometry caches for
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Forget 3D (Score:1)
why would anyone need a 3d laptop? (Score:3, Interesting)
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exactly! just think of the porn!
I think TFA even suggests as much:
and, um, I looked at a 3D photo.
Potentially interesting but needs more. (Score:1)
Add head tracking. It would allow the user to look around 3D windows. Items could actually float within the screen (and even in front to an extent).
Everything is a Novelty at first. (Score:1)
The problem (as always) is that until more is done with these laptops in mind it's just a novelty - and until it's no longer a novelty more won't be done for these laptops.
That means the question is which side will blink first. So long as the functionality is relatively cheap and is optional (nobody wants to be wearing the glasses all the time) I think it has a good chance of catching on.
Of co
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Not the world's first--misleading summary (Score:3, Informative)
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First 3D? (Score:2)
WTF!? Every laptop is 3D. Every tool we handle is 3D.
I really hate when people dumb down and say stuff like this. If you want to talk about a stereoscopic display call it what it is.
It's like the cyber this, virtual that....
And they even mention the "3D laptod" stupidity in the FA. Why do they insist in using the term? Aaaahhhh
ps: And the summary is wrong, this is not the first laptop to have a screen capable of 3D. Sharp had one before IIRC.
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WTF!? Every laptop is 3D. Every tool we handle is 3D.
I really hate when people dumb down and say stuff like this. If you want to talk about a stereoscopic display call it what it is.
Okay. It's a 3D display. Width, height, depth.
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...If you want to talk about a stereoscopic display call it what it is....this is not the first laptop to have a screen capable of 3D. Sharp had one before IIRC.
Hypocrisy much?
Wolfenstein3D (Score:2)
Actual display technology, even the ones provided by this kind of laptops, fall into that category. Will be have to wait still several years to see "
3D porn? (Score:2)
About time! (Score:2)
Model in post has the multi-touch screen not 3D (Score:2)
3D is the future of workspace (Score:2)
IM not-so HO, I have thought for a long time that 3D workspace UI will be as revolutionary as the original desktop metaphor in 1975, possible more so. (Don't forget that the same 3D workspace can work on a screen, in an immersion environment, or with head-up display goggles) I presently use Compiz on my desktop, with four separate workspaces floating in space. It's a start...
I am getting due for a new laptop, and so I have two questions:
- How bright is the screen? My new HP netbook is muc
depth? (Score:2)
I've heard that the depth is not enough to accommodate Jenna Jameson's rack at full screen, but works well for most natural sets. I just hope this thing comes with a windshield wiper built onto the screen.
Re:tomax7 (Score:4, Funny)
Ben Affleque suqued in that flique.
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