vision

The company is already installing LTE equipment and has been field testing the network in select areas, according to people familiar with the situation. It hopes to launch commercial service by the end of the first quarter or beginning of the second quarter, although the target could move up. It's unclear how many markets would get the service initially.

The LTE rollout is part of the company's broader Network Vision plan. With the costs already accounted for in its prior forecast, the LTE network won't … Read more

Underneath the seemingly predictable veneer of the 14-inch Toshiba Satellite P745D-S4240 are two new stories, albeit ones that might not interest the average person much. The Satellite P series is a new laptop line for Toshiba, although you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between it and the M, A, and L series of Satellite laptops (the P replaces the M and A). Under the hood is a quad-core AMD A6 processor, part of a new line of budget-targeted AMD Vision A-series APUs that include better-than-Intel-integrated graphics to accompany mainstream processing power.… Read more

Those with a condition commonly referred to as lazy eye may soon be assigned video game therapy, thanks to results of a new study published in the August issue of the journal PLoS Biology.

Participants in the UC Berkeley study who spent at least 40 hours playing off-the-shelf video games throughout the course of the study enjoyed better visual acuity and 3D depth perception scores than prior to playing the games. (Don't get too excited; these improvements have not been seen in people with normal vision.)

"This study is the first to show that video game play is … Read more

There are all sorts of cool things that you can do with the wide array of cabin technologies available in cars today. You can make calls, search for destinations, and even remotely control certain aspects of your vehicle via a smartphone, but could you use your car's cabin technology to rip off a jewelry store?

BMW seems to think that you can and goes as far as to put together a video detailing how to do it in just 10 easy steps using its ConnectedDrive suite of conceptual cabin tech. The video also features the automaker's Vison ConnectedDrive … Read more

Upmarket Huawei phones are rare on U.S. retail shelves, but the Huawei Vision, announced today in Beijing, may just provide that glimmer of light for Android enthusiasts looking for something new.

Running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the Vision also touts a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 processor, a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash, and 720p HD video capture and playback. In addition, Huawei reaches for style points with the Vision's more premium-looking hardware design, a unibody chassis made from an aluminum alloy, with a curve in its design. It comes in rose gold, silver, or charcoal color. … Read more

In stark counterpoint to small, fast systems like the MacBook Air, big-screened, heavy, packed-to-the-gills desktop-alternative laptops are still alive and well, although sometimes a little hard to justify. Toshiba's Qosmio line of laptops has been a well-known example of that type of massive machine for years, and 2011's update to the Qosmio largely continues the trend with a new design. The $1,899 Toshiba Qosmio X775-3DV78 is bulky, heavy (8 pounds), and expensive, but it's also got top-of-the-line features. A quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, powerful Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 graphics, and dual hard drives with a … Read more

If you've ever watched stereo 3D on your smartphone and found yourself rubbing your temples, you're not alone.

New research out of U.C. Berkeley suggests that eyestrain and the ensuing discomfort is the result of a phenomenon called the vergence-accommodation conflict, by which the eyes have to manage both watching a screen at a certain distance and simultaneously making sense of images that are either in front of or behind that screen.

"When watching stereo 3D displays, the eyes must focus--that is, accommodate--to the distance of the screen because that's where the light comes from; and at the same time, the eyes must converge to the distance of the stereo content, which may be in front of or behind the screen," says Martin S. Banks, the professor of optometry and vision science at Berkeley who published the report in today's Journal of Vision.

Though his series of experiments was conducted on just 24 adults, a sort of discomfort trend emerged: Watching stereo content in front of the screen (which appears to jump into the viewer's space) was less comfortable from a shorter distance more typical with cell phones and laptops, while stereo content placed behind the screen (appearing as though the viewer is peering through a window) was less comfortable when viewed at greater distances more common in movie theaters.

Banks suggests that more studies be conducted across larger sample sizes that include children, and that those pave the way for actual guidelines on appropriate viewing distances.

"This is an area of research where basic science meets application, and we hope that the science can proceed quickly enough to keep up with the increasingly wide use of the technology," he says.… Read more

Sprint Nextel will confirm its network-sharing agreement with LightSquared in conjunction with its earnings announcement on July 28, according to people familiar with the situation.

The agreement, in which Sprint's network will be used as the infrastructure backbone to LightSquared's upcoming 4G Long-Term Evolution network, will shed some light on where Sprint wants to head with its own 4G ambitions. The company was supposed to have provided an update on plans for its next-generation network by the middle of the year, but has pushed back its announcement.

While Sprint came on to the 4G scene early with partner … Read more

What exactly is Firefox for?

With a new Mozilla chief executive, a new six-week rapid-release cycle, and new Firefox management, apparently the organization has concluded there's no time like the present to pin down an answer.

"Now that we have a solid base to work from, and greatly improved agility, it's a good time to look at the quickly-evolving landscape and chart our path forward," Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's vice president of product, said in a mailing list message on Friday. "To that end, I've tried to synthesize and distill countless discussions and ideas … Read more