TOKYO - Not many of us thought of sending 3-D holograms before Princess Leia's plea for help in "Star Wars." Now, two Japanese scientists hope to one day turn the humble telephone booth into a high-tech chamber that can record and transmit holographic images.
At a Tokyo University laboratory, researchers are putting subjects into a booth where a 360-degree digital camera records images that are then sent to a cylindrical tube.
"We can see the 3-D image as if it's inside the cylinder," said Susumu Tachi, a Tokyo University professor of computer science and physics.
Tachi and Tomohiro Endo developed the cylinder - dubbed SeeLinder - by combining fiber optics, electronics and a white light-emitting diode, or LED.
There are limitations, however. For one, the hologram is fuzzier than modern TV screens.
The contraption is also pricey: One cylinder costs $97,100.
-Kenji Hall, AP Writer.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. - Television networks are lending new meaning to time-shifting: TV shows don't necessarily start or end right on the hour or half-hour anymore, screwing up some viewers' video recordings.
More programs are running an extra minute or two longer to keep viewers from switching channels. Shows recently padded include CBS's "Without a Trace," Fox's "Renovate My Family," ABC's "The Bachelor" and NBC's "ER," according to Nielsen Media Research.
The tactic has been used on and off for a few years but has grown more popular as competition in network television stiffens.
As a result of the overruns, people who use VCRs and digital video recorders like TiVos end up clipping the beginning or ending of a show. For some, the time conflict could also prevent a later show from being recorded.
TiVo Inc. officials say they have fielded a small number of complaints about the network time-shifting. This season, the company began advising its 2 million subscribers to watch out for such time conflicts and to adjust their recording settings manually.
-May Wong, AP Technology Writer.
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NEW YORK - "Blog" is now the most popular search word in the online version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
Its frequent lookup paralleled its growth on the political scene this year as keepers of Web logs aggressively chronicled campaign developments they thought were undercovered or ignored by traditional media.
Politics dominated Merriam-Webster's top-10 list, with "incumbent," "electoral," "insurgent," "partisan," "sovereignty" and "defenestration" among the top searches. Rounding out the list were "hurricane," "cicada" and "peloton," the main body of riders in a bicycle race.
Last year was the first that the company kept a list of the top words looked up online. As with this year, the most popular words were frequently in the news.
Last year's winner was "democracy."
As for a blog, Merriam-Webster defines the noun as "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer."
-Ellen Simon, AP Technology Writer.
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LOS ANGELES - Comcast Corp. plans to begin offering music videos on demand to its broadband Internet subscribers early next year, part of a multiyear deal with the television network Music Choice.
Some 6.7 million Comcast broadband customers will have access to the cable company's new service at launch, Music Choice officials said Wednesday.
In addition to being able to choose from a selection of music videos, computer users will also be able to buy song downloads through a partnership with Napster 2.0 and browse dozens of music video and audio channels.
The broadband service will precede Philadelphia-based Comcast's nationwide rollout of the same service for digital cable, which is expected to begin next year in Richmond, Va., and be completed in early 2006, Music Choice chief executive Dave Del Beccarro said Wednesday.
Users will eventually be able to create a video play list or music channel on their computers and access it through their digital cable boxes, a feature Del Beccarro says should help dispatch competition from other online music video purveyors such as Yahoo! Launch and America Online.
"The multiplatform nature of it is what's truly different," he said.
Initially, up to 2,000 music videos will be available through the service.
Music Choice is a private partnership of four major cable operators - Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox and Adelphia - along with Sony, EMI Music, Warner Music Group, Microsoft and Motorola.
By AP Business Writer Alex Veiga
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TOKYO - Equipped with a tiny camera, a high-tech device that recognizes the white stripes of a pedestrian crosswalk and reads traffic lights might help the blind get around without a walking stick or seeing-eye dog.
Researchers at Kyoto Institute of Technology are developing such a technology, the latest aimed at helping blind and visually impaired people lead more independent lives.
Though a working prototype isn't yet ready, the electronic eye has shown promise at signal lights that don't emit songs or sound effects to aid blind pedestrians.
Using a handheld digital video camera, researcher Mohammad Shorif Uddin filmed 196 traffic intersections in Japan. Back in the lab, a computer program examined the footage and correctly detected the crosswalks in all but two instances, when it signaled the presence of intersections that didn't exist.
"The system fails if the white paintings on the road are not perfect," said Tadayoshi Shioyama, who began developing systems for the blind eight years ago.
Researchers aim to make a device small enough to perch on a pair of glasses. It will be run by a miniature computer that can bark verbal instructions.
Ultimately, canes and other travel aids with sonar or lasers can alert the user of approaching objects. Global Positioning Systems can tell what streets, restaurants, parks and other landmarks the user is passing.
-Kenji Hall, AP Writer.
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