LO2

It would probably start a flurry of anti-trust lawsuits, but here's the idea:

Start outfitting PocketPC/Phone combos and Palm/Phone combos with a UPC Code scanner (pictured here on the top left corner). Let's say you're in Best Buy, and you see a DVD you want (The Firefly box set, in this example). Take the box, scan the UPC, and the PDA will access the sale price data for that item on Amazon, either through the phone's wireless web access or 802.11, if available. You get the purchase data for Amazon, and if the price is notably cheaper, you can buy via Amazon instead of Best Buy. A preset account can charge your credit card, and ship to your home or other pre-assigned address. Alternately, you can add the item to your wish list or wedding registry. If the prices are equal, or the item in Best Buy is cheaper, you can select "See More Product Details" and read reviews to decide whether it's worth buying in the first place.

The software cost would be nothing. The UPC scanner would be cheap to tack on to PDAs. Amazon could cut hardware manufacturers in on the deal by making them affiliates. If you buy Firefly from a Dell PDA, Dell gets 2% of the purchase price. I think that would be quite an incentive. Get on the ball Amazon!

I'll replace this text with my Creative Commons liscence soon.

This is really amazing. Three guys at Carnegie Mellon developed software that can take a 2D image and automatically extrapolate the 3D elements from it. Very cool.

Give it about a year, and you'll see this in home use. Two I can think of right off the bat:

1. Scan your home photo collection in, and display your memories in 3D. If it's the same room, have the people in the room fade from shot to shot while the room stays the same.

2. Gamers can photograph their real life surroundings and have the software stitch and render the photos into FPS maps. You could do whole apartment complexes/universities/etc. in no time.

Ooo! I thought of another one. You could integrate photos into Google Earth, and import old photos of buildings with the date in case they ever incorporate a "time travel" setting. Keen.

Gotta love technology.

Video found via Gizmodo.