rear

Along with a few other tech journalists, I spent a couple of hours today over at the Westchester Country Club, which is gearing up for The Barclays PGA Tour event. What the hell was I doing there? Well, as part of a marketing deal with the PGA Tour, Mitsubishi is the "official large outdoor video display provider" of the Tour, and the PR team wanted us to see some of these displays in action--along with the Tour's ShotLink technology, which tracks players' shots almost down to the centimeter (the info is then displayed on those giant Mitsubishi scoreboards). That's all sorts of interesting if you're a golf fan, but things got a little sexier when Mitsubishi representatives took us into a hospitality suite, handed us each a pair of fancy 3D glasses (a little smaller than the ones shown in the photo), and showed us a demo of some new 3D-imaging technology the company's working on.

The demo was run from a massive Dell desktop and output onto a large DLP set. In an effort to inject new life into the fading rear-projection category, the company's pitch was that the 3D technology worked with existing DLP TVs and projectors (due to DLP's native 120Hz refresh rate, which allows you to split it into 60/60 for 3D) but not with LCD and plasma displays.

Most of us were pretty impressed by the demo, which included clips from movies, commercials, and sporting events. There was real depth to the 3D, and you got that 3D-feeling of objects poking out at you from the screen. All the demo material had been shot in 3D, but the kicker to the whole presentation was that Mitsubishi apparently has a Blu-ray player in its labs that can convert existing 2D movies into 3D on the fly. Better yet, according to company representatives, it may be available early next year.

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Sony has a total of three series of SXRD-based rear-projection televisions for 2007, which works out to eight total models. We can't review all of those sets, but we can give you an idea of how they stack up against one another, and the differences between the baseline versus the step-up models. This info only covers the company's SXRD-based rear-projection HDTVs; Sony also produces a less-expensive line of LCD-based RPTVs, detailed here. For more info on rear-projection technologies, including how SXRD and LCD stack up against DLP, check out our guide.

Sony KDS-A2020 series

This is Sony'… Read more

With all the technology that's poured into the interior of today's cars, perhaps most surprising is the evolution of the lowly rear-view mirror. As we've noted, various automakers are outfitting them with Webcams to check blind spots, including some that fade away when not in use. Now, it's being used as a radar to detect speed traps too.

The "GPSMirror" checks traffic conditions as well, using its built-in database to look for "accident black spots, common mobile cameras, and fixed safety camera locations," according to NaviGadget. It's not clear how that … Read more

To ensure that the kids don't miss too much screen time during this year's summer road-trip season, Disney is about to launch its dual-screen mobile DVD system. The system features two screens with a choice of Disney-inspired faceplate designs (including Pirates of the Caribbean and Tinker Bell) that strap onto the back of the front-seat headrests.

The screens come with built-in speakers and (mercifully) headphones, as well as a 12-volt power adapter for plugging into the car for powering. There's even a subscription-based option to filter out bad language from the programs that the kids are watching. … Read more

Car makers are increasingly looking backward in their visual safety features--as in Webcam screens built into their rear-view mirrors in an effort to eliminate blind spots once and for all. While we're all in favor of the idea, for some reason we have a feeling that the cost of such add-ons will involve bodily appendages such as arms and legs.

But SkyMall, of all places, is offering a "Wireless Backup Camera" that plugs into the license plate light socket and feeds video to a 2.5-inch color display that can be fastened to a visor or the … Read more

Mazda says it's come up with a car technology that's the closest thing to having eyes in the back of your head. The "Back Up Camera with Auto-Dimming Mirror Display" promises to do precisely what the prosaic name indicates: Its rear-view mirror has an LCD screen that appears only when the car is in reverse, otherwise concealed by a special coating (called "transflective," whatever that means).

The idea is to eliminate blind spots with a built-in camera that sends a live feed to the 2.4-inch screen embedded in the mirror, which will be … Read more

Chrysler will be the first car company to offer "Backseat TV" from Sirius. At first glance that reads like a typo--TV from a radio company? But bits is bits and this proves it.

The service gets its name from its target audience: antsy kids in the back seat. They'll have three channels of live, family-oriented stuff to watch from Nick, Disney, and Cartoon Network.

Subscribers will find two small antennas on the roof of their new Chrysler, a receiver box installed inside, and the video showing up screens in the back seat area. Backseat TV and Sirius … Read more

Some of the more notable products announced at the Sony line show today are three rear-projection HDTVs--remember those?--that use LCD technology housed in foot-deep cabinets. Sony has been selling LCD-based RPTVs such as these as its somewhat less-expensive alternative to SXRD-based rear-projectors such as these (more info), but this year there's a new twist: Two of the three LCDs have 1080p native resolution, the highest available today. In other words, just one 2007 Sony RPTV so far, the KDF-37H1000, will have less than 1080p resolution.

The two new 1080p LCDs, the 46-inch KDF-46E3000 and the 50-inch KDF-50E3000, are … Read more

The people at Gadget Universe have some impressive products, but we can only hope that good intentions went into their conceptualization. Last week, we learned that they were selling a pair of 10x digital camera binoculars. Now, we find out that they're offering a telescope with a built-in 3.1-megapixel camera.

The product description talks about such innocent uses as sports, wildlife and vacation photography. But as we all know, any telescope can have entirely different applications in an urban setting, especially one with a lot of uncovered windows around. This one, which goes for $440, magnifies up to … Read more