Gather round the coffee table family. You’re about to see one of the most gut-grabbin’, practical applications of touchscreen tech yet. Your coffee table serves a lot of purposes, but Media Interaction Lab has one more to make your odd-looking neighbors peer in amazement, through the back window.. The premise is simple. Make the coffee…

Can you even imagine? No OS? No compatibility issues with this system or that system. Pure 3D CAD applications delivered to your screen regardless of what you ‘boot up’ at your desk, or on the road, or on the plane? Could it happen? While visiting SolidWorks, Jon Hirshtick addressed a question about SolidWorks on a…

Well now. While you’re sitting around waiting for the 3DVia iPhone App or throwing your vote in for an eDrawings app, a relatively small band of developers has slammed 3D model viewing right into your sleek smartphone. Dan Halabe and Chuck Han have release NaviCAD, currently the only way to get silly with 3D viewing…

Don’t ya just get warm fuzzies all over when you hear of new over-priced, high-capacity storage options? Well, prepare to tell your coworkers once again the story of how much 6MB cost 20 years ago, cause Western Digital is dropping the single terabyte beat on your face. Today, Western Digital ships the first 2.5″ 1TB…

After seeing the snazzy video showing future multi-touch support for SpaceClaim, I went on the hunt to find out a little bit more. Fortunately, I had the email of Blake Courter, Co-founder of SpaceClaim. Great chap, hung out with him at SolidWorks World 2009, of all places. He answered some questions about MT capabilities, gives…

Multi-touch will never happen with 3D CAD… OH, except it has… or will be, this fall. The company showing the potential? SpaceClaim. There’s no announcement out of the company yet, but a video surfaced on YouTube over the weekend showing the future of what we’re assuming will be the next release of SpaceClaim. We’ll gather…

Yes, materials, by nature, are 3D, but this one is the thinnest of them all. It’s also super-conductive, super flexible and makes steel look like a 90-lb weakling. At one atom thick, Graphene is the newest in materials being studied for applications in high-speed computers and other nanotechnology. It’s a material that was first discovered…

How many of you would like to take a dip in a pool of GPU’s? No? Something about pain? No worries. Greg Corke from Devlop3D takes a look at How to Buy a Graphics Card for SolidWorks in the next issue of Develop3D. Instead of feeling like your jumping into deep, unknown waters, he lays…

Ok, it’s just too much to take. As if robots partaking of live flesh wasn’t bad enough, now we have robots with the autonomous foresight to continue their steam-powered existence by means of consuming the DEAD. Robotic Technologies Inc. is sending us out with the creation of a proper robot predator – the EATR. That…

For the somber souls chained to 5 minute boot times and 100% CPU usage, take heart. Early yesterday morning, Google announcment Chrome OS. Yes, another OS, but this time one with all the characteristics you would expect from a product put out by Google, namely, speed, simplicity and yeah, totally open-source. An open-source OS. That…

Oh now behave yourself. It’s a simple question, but one we can throw a truckload of speculation at and shake it vigorously to come up with all sorts of outlandish ideas. ya down? Mozilla Labs launched their Open Web Tools Directory today. It’s the new central repository mish-mash of design and coding tools to aid…

Son: But Ma, I can draw my own photo! Ma: Nope son, you attach robo arm to you. The last drawing you did of yourself was hideous and misrepresented. Besides, the robot captures your best features dear. Thomas Ricker states it best, it’s “a device that snaps your photo and then forces you to draw…

Have you ever sat at your table staring into a pile of peas wondering just how a multi-touch workflow would work? Would it be practical for editing 3D content or video content? Oblong Industries (creators of G-speak) and supreme futurist John Underkloffer unveiled TAMPER at Sundance Film Fesitval this year as part of the New…

I’m not saying that, one day, robots will eat and digest you for energy, but yeah, I am saying that. Especially given the state of the two minds that are creating carnivorous robots that run on the juices extracted from various pests and their materials.

How many ways do you think there are to share content online? hundreds? thousands? Who cares, cause we’ve boiled it down to four. Exactly four sites that are changing how people post content and interact online? Not only are these the coolest places to be online nowadays, they’re the quickest and most versatile ways to…

Step back price conscious data storage shoppers. 3 new contenders in the NAS (network attached storage) market have risen from the tera-byte tundra of Seagate Technology. True, they’ll only store billions of files, instead of quadrillions, but for the price and features, I think you’ll be ok for a few months. The Seagate BlackArmor brand…

Imagine, you’re five years in the future, trying desperately to get a handle on the new touch-screen gestures for CAD and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be… for designing products. Suddenly, it seems easier to strangle the people forcing multi-touch tech down your throat, along with the bloggers that keep going on about…

What’s in the wide, wide world of 3D CAD is going on? I’ll tell ya what’s going on, technology that has been presented over the past two weeks at E3 and various display and developer conferences has completely changed the way we are going to collaborate with people and design projects. They’re technologies that will…

Yep, can you believe it? There’s more insanity going on in the whole touch-screen market and 3D CAD is getting in on the action and finally starting to be included in the mainstream coverage. What use could touch-screen technology possible have with developing products in 3D? Is it even feasible? With new highly sensitive, capacitive…

It’s here folks. A new search engine. The new one from Microsoft. Bing. Fresh into Beta and ready for you to compare to all those years spent in the glory of Google’s search results. It’s got some nice features, some nice lag on video, image and site previews and a fresh look at how browsing…

Raise your eyebrow in a menacing way if you’ve ever received a really crumby .pdf, concept print or model data to create a production model from? If only there was a little more info or a way that the data could be transformed into usable 3D parametric data huh? Adobe has just release a interesting…

Oh, It starts innocent enough. First, it’s, “Let’s turn this desk into liquid-cooled, quad crankin’ beast!,” then suddenly it’s, “Papa, can I replace my spleen with hybridized nitrogen cooling units?” Nonetheless, we’ll gladly accept this experiment into liquid-cooled awesomeness from the guys at Popular Mechanics. Yes, choke another one up to excess, the elimination of…

I know your brainpan is sore from beating it against the wall of deadlines you have looming, but if you have a website in one hand and some 3d models in the other, you can smash those together right now to splatter everyone with your 3D genius. Good ol’ Cliff from 3DVia shows you how,…

Yep, SolidSmack is starting to reek of greasy touch-screen bliss. Let’s pummel this iPhone stuff even further into the ground. You remember that eDrawings on iPhone poll last week? The one where over 50% of the people would use it if they could? Well there’s hope for you and it’s all wrapped up in a…

It’s not directly CAD related, but it says 3D and has ‘Graphics’ is the headline, so it’s gotta be kinda interesting. It’s the History of 3D Graphics from MaximumPC and it’s 10 pages choke full of specs and insight to the GPU evolution. Have you ever wondered how much graphics cards have change over the…

So, here we are. the iPhone market is growing like genetically modified corn and SolidWorks ships a million licenses. Seems something should be going on here. Some people I’ve heard from recently think an eDrawings App for the iPhone is in order. They travel, they need access to drawing info, models and yes, even AutoCAD…

This is how it all ends, my friends. They pull us in with their human-like emotions and then crush our wills to live… and also maybe our faces. The mechanical and overly productive counterparts of society, many are anxious to release upon civilization, has seen some intense development as of late, Recon bots and the…

Ah, the wild world of 3D Interfaces technology. It’s bad enough you’re being forced down the multi-touch path, huh? Well, for those that enjoy the bliss of moving graphical elements around the screen with your hand, the research and experimentation continue. There’s two sides of the UI tide – restricting you fingers to the screen…

3D… on the web. It’s here… again, but this time in fine Google form with all the openness you would expect from the crew. Tuesday, Google opened the gates on their interactive 3D graphics accelerator for web browsers, O3D. It’s a browser plug-in, complete with a fresh API for anyone interested to play with. For…

Welcome. It’s knee-slappin’, face-movin’ time again here on SolidSmack and this week we introduce to you Mr. Doob, who thought it a pleasant idea, in his Flash experimentation, to show you what it’s like to have a 3D scene position itself based on the position of you melon. You can play with the mouse-driven version,…

Squeezin’ into that browser just isn’t as easy as it use to be. You’ve got 3D search capabilities busting out all over. It’s even spilling onto your desktop to make your media searching and organizing a multi-dimensional trip to Zoom-ville. ‘3D searching’ – It’s here and it’s getting more intense. From web pages to images…

If you’re a fan of meatballs and Nvidia Graphics Cards or “GPU’s” you’re gonna throw noodles in the air and set the table for the new Quadro FX family that has just come into town. Nvidia has release their 10th generation cards and the “Strongest Professional Graphics Lineup in History” is the byline every GPU…

Put off wondering how cool you could be for a few minutes and check out some spakin’ new multitouch interface, 70 inches of multi-touch in that ever so seductive, yet utilitarian, table-top style we’ve just adore. It’s called Struktable created by none other than… Strukt, convenient, that little play on words, in’t it? However, they’re…

BIG hat tip to Kevin Quigley for commenting on the Future Design and Engineering post yesterday and mentioning another video that takes a stab ( much better stab) and future design possibilities. FilmMaker Bruce Branit brings reality to life in a big way. No touchscreens, no paper, and no limit to what can be done.…

Ahhh, it’s that time where we sit with a pretend cup of hallucinogenic material and ponder the inescapable existence of highly advanced technology creeping it’s way into our future (as well as the need to still clean it all.) A little over a week ago Microsoft presented, in fine video form, it’s vision of what…

So how many of you tore yourself out of a paper bag this morning ready to play with 3D online? hmm, nobody? Well, some of you may have a bit of an mild obsession itch about getting away from program installations and tedious upgrades to create and manage 3D online. Wild Pockets is on the…

No more slamming your face against the hard surface of your monitor in hopes of gaining the pity of your coworkers. The soft foam that sends you off to dreams of work the next day is potentially a future interface to create 3D models on. DIS.PLAY allows you to manipulate projects objects via touch-sensitive force…

Are you ready to elevate your heart rate a couple notches about extremely powerful computer tech? How does the word ‘Supercomputer’ make ya feel? While the nVidia Personal SuperComputer is bound to have your models streaking across the screen, don’t shove your old workstations down the stairs just yet… Ok, go ahead, but you’re gonna…

You’re running down the isle, pouring consumer goods into your buggy and in the crazed rampage you wonder exactly what that boxed ham slicer is gonna look like sitting on your counter. It’s hard to imagine, but the first word you think is HIDEOUS. You move on to the LEGOs and there, shining in brilliant…

I bet all of you are anxious to have someone stick their donut fingers all over your monitor screen as soon as these touchscreen displays start showing up. And showing up they will. March 2009, marks the month Albatron Technology will debut their 21.5″ Full HD multi-touch display. This sneaks in right on the heels…

3Dtastical. Just look at it. Is it a new kind of treadmill to zap off that flabby mid-section? Not quite. It’s a 3D scanner debuting at CES2009 this week and it’s got all sorts of buzz. The Real-View 3D Scanner claims that’s it the cheap way to create full 360° scan of objects. You’re probably…

Suddenly and without warning all of our robots have become decrepit, obsolete piles of gears and we now depend on virtual synthanoids that require no pre-programmed set of commands. Hmmm. Interesting thought for the future. But apply this to that mass sitting on your desk right now. Is it a workstation desktop wired to the…

I’m telling ya, you wake up one morning and screens are just sliding out all over the place. Soon they’ll be yelling, ‘touch me!’, ‘no, touch me!’ – but for now look what Lenovo is sliding out to the masses January 5th at CES. The Lenovo W700ds. A laptop with a slide-out secondary screen. Magnificent,…

Prepare to wrap yourself in some warm flexible display technology on a cold wintry night. The news is getting more common and the screens themselves are getting larger. Gamers and advertising is getting all excited about being able to wrap ‘experience’ in every corner of a room or building, but how it could effect 3D…

I’ve just picked my monitor up off the floor and guess what I see underneath? The warm glow of a video showing some extremely cool sketch technology coming out of AutoDesk University this week. You remember I (Heart) Sketch? The 3D sketch system that brings conceptualization back to a native hand-drawn environment. Amazing isn’t it?…

Finally, I mean FINALLY were seeing some development come out with those fancy Microsoft Surface multi-touch displays and BMW is the company making it cool to have multiple appendages. The ‘BMW Product Navigator’ allows those in the mood for a BMW to select options, colors, see video of their configurations and save it to USB…

Well, next Friday starts that time of year when many of us cut the wrist of our bank accounts to buy that special someone what we think they want, but actually wanted something totally different. SolidSmack is here to add to the massive bleed out with our very own picks for the best gadgets and…

There is a mess of media with multi-touch this amd multi-touch that, but the single person that inspiring much of it is none other than futurist, John Underkoffler. You may not have seen him, but you would recognize his ideas for human-computer interfaces that have appeared in IronMan as well as Minority Report, Hulk and…

The news about Windows7, Microsoft next OS, has been pouring out of the seething cauldron of Microsoft PDC this week, getting all the fanboys and multi-touch crazies in a ruckus. Are you all just extremely AMPPED? No? Well, for those gnashing their teeth over Vista, the new OS promises to be the escape Microsoft wants…

There’s just nothing like some deep-fried, home-baked HD LCD technology to get your techbuds salivating. 2008 has been the year of Ima-gonna-make-a-better-monitor-than-you and with the prices you’ll see below, you’ll wonder why you spent a cool ‘K’ on one of those ordinary old non-HD monitors. Here we’ll break it down, show ya the main specs…