Cutting Edge

A woman uses virtual-reality technology to preview a vehicle's options.

(Credit: CATER)

Many new car buyers face a similar dilemma: You want to customize a new car, but don't know if you'll like the maroon leather interior that looks great in the catalog but always seems too pimplike in person. Not wanting to make an expensive mistake, you go with the safe silver-and-black combo, just like everyone else.

Cater, a technology group funded by the European Commission, is working on software that could help shoppers customize with confidence.

Using virtual-reality technology, Cater is building a car customization application that helps customers picture more realistically, and spatially experience, what their configured vehicle will look like.

New Web-based software can help car buyers in Asia and the European Union customize a new vehicle based on image keywords. Customers can view their selections from several angles, inside and outside the car.

(Credit: Cater)

The system is based on a stereoscopic TV set that enables stereo vision using so-called shutter glasses, according to Cater's Web site. The relatively inexpensive virtual-reality system can be installed for between about 10,000 euros and 12,000 euros. The technology ideally will enable customers to make more informed customization choices and enable dealerships to offer a greater range of vehicles to the public without having to display them on the showroom floor.

For online shoppers, Cater has also developed a Web-based customization tool that takes into account a person's age, country of residence, gender, and image keyword (aggressive, sporty, sexy) when suggesting products.

Using the Cater system, customers would select a package and view how the products will look in the car from a variety of 3D angles. A Web-based demo of the product is available online, though only for PCs.

(Source: ScienceDaily)

NBC's Chuck aired in 3D Monday, and it left many viewers wanting to do exactly that with the paper 3D glasses: chuck them.

The overriding opinion of many people interviewed who tuned in to the 3D television event was disappointment.

"I thought it was a gimmick and did not add anything to the show," said Jamie Knapp of Columbus, Ohio. "The red/blue (glasses) did not look good and gave me a headache."

Maybe Chuck is better the old-fashioned way.

(Credit: NBC)

The 3D promotion was intended to raise awareness of 3D movies, specifically ones coming to theaters soon, like Monsters vs. Aliens from Dreamworks. But the entire effort may have been wasted if it just left a bad taste in the mouths of potential ticket buyers.

Intel sponsored the distribution of the red and blue paper glasses because Intel's InTru3D processing technology helped Dreamworks Animation create the 3D versions of its films.

"We are excited that the 3D commercial and the episode of Chuck have helped raise awareness of the industry's move to 3D. As you know--the technology used for the Super Bowl does not give you the full (theater) experience, but is the best available today that will work with your standard TV."

That's what's unfortunate. What was shown to viewers Sunday during a 3D commercial and Monday night's Chuck episode is nothing like the 3D technology available today in theaters. Instead, the paper blue-and-red lensed glasses reminded many of them of cheesy 3D films of the past (one viewer, Ken Lee, told CNET News that Chuck in 3D was at least "better than Captain EO.")

And worse, it didn't make everyone want to rush off to the next 3D screening, which was ostensibly the point of the whole exercise.

Analyst Michael Gartenberg said the Chuck episode actually made high-def TV look worse. "The effect was weak and made the HD signal looked washed out," he said. "(There's a) long way to go before the home version is more than a gimmick."

Mathematica 7 gets genetic data-processing abilities.

(Credit: Wolfram Research)

Wolfram Research on Tuesday released version 7 of Mathematica, bringing new techniques for image processing, building in the entire human genome, and improving the software's ability to run on multicore processors.

The software, not for the faint of heart at $2,495 for the standard version, began as a mathematical and statistical engine, but it's been sprawling across ever more fields where technical processing is required.

For example, with new image processing abilities, the software can convert patterns at a digital image into numeric data. A basic example would be counting spots and recording the position of each.

Some interesting data sets are now built into the software. One is the entire human genome, so researchers can, for example, find the chromosome location for a particular genetic sequence. Proteins also can be shown as 3D models. Another is global weather data stretching back decades, which the company thinks will be useful for economic and marketing research.

The software can automatically take advantage of multicore processors in some cases, but users can also explicitly direct the software to run multiple tasks in parallel on separate cores, too. Support for four cores is standard, but more can be used as well.

Check Wolfram's site for a longer list of new Mathematica 7 features.

Some of the new features of Mathematica 7 on display.

(Credit: Wolfram Research)

Fiber-optic technology has long helped doctors get at problems in a patient's body without having to resort to major surgery. But for all the technological wonder of being able to see deep inside the body through a tiny tube, the view has been largely limited to the typical two-dimensional rendering of a TV or computer screen.

Now, however, surgeons are able to make use of 3D imaging--best known as a sometime Hollywood special effect--for delicate procedures such as removing tumors from the brain. One such surgeon is Dr. Theodore Schwartz of the Weill-Cornell Medical Center in New York, who can get a vivid look at the brain he's working on via 3D goggles.

Those goggles deliver the lifelike images because the other end of the fiber-optic system has "an array of about a thousand lenses" on a 3-millimeter chip, inserted into the patient through the sinuses. Electrodes on the patient's face help to generate the images.

In the video here, CBS News medical correspondent Dr. John LaPook talks to Dr. Schwartz about the technology and how it helped him tackle a tumor at the base of the brain of 44-year-old Larry Perkins, a New York City detective.