You may think 3D TV is the kind of technology that will only ever appear in pages of a Dan Dare comic – a pipe dream.
Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications feel differently. They have stated that they plan to make it a commercial reality by 2020.
Japan is well advanced in TV technology – they’ve had HDTV for _ever_, so it makes sense that they start to purse what many feel should be the ultimate extension of TV.
Given their HD TV background, the 3D TV would be displayed at HD resolution, but it doesn’t stop there, they’d also have the sensation of touch and smell. This isn’t 3D with big clumpy glasses, but is watched with the naked eye.
There have been a number of research projects working on this over the last few years, indeed I was lucky enough to see one demonstrated last year. It was impressive.
A US company deepLight is claiming that they will be shipping displays in the first quarter of 2006, initially for commercial use, but as prices reduce home use will become practical.
Reuters interviewed Yoshiaki Takeuchi, director of research and development at the Ministry, giving an interesting example of, “Can you imagine hovering over your TV to watch Japan versus Brazil in the finals of the World Cup as if you are really there?”
3d TV forms part of a grand national project, formed around “universal communication,” which Reuters define as “a concept whereby information is shared smoothly and intelligently regardless of location or language.” Their serious about it too – the ministry will be requesting a budget of 1Bn Yen for the project.
It could be argued that a keyboard’s beauty lies in its simple elegance. No flashing lights, no blinking screens, no whirring eye candy, just several rows of dumb keys obediently awaiting your input. 
The MX5000 reflects the trend which sees dumb-as-a-rock keyboards slowly turning into smartypants devices, capable of both sending and receiving info from the computer and, in this case, even acting as a Bluetooth 2.0 Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) wireless hub. 
“The Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5000 Laser desktop pushes that information to a peripheral screen so that people can choose when to glance at their notifications and status information, and can therefore clear their monitors — and their minds,” he added. 
The Mozilla Foundation has released a technology preview of a mobile-phone browser, based on the same code that powers the popular Firefox browser. 
Hackers have made chumps out of Microsoft, successfully bypassing their Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) Programme only days after the anti-piracy scheme was activated. 
Figures from the Mobile Data Association (MDA) reveal that U.K. mobile phone users sent an astonishing 2.6 billion text messages in June. 
In an interesting reversal of new media trends, online leisure retailer lastminute.com is to launch its first print magazine. 
Not to be outdone, Brent Hoberman, chief executive of Lastminute.com, brewed up his own beefy brand of buzzword blather: “The launch of this magazine is a fantastic opportunity to engage with our most loyal customers and reinforce our brand values through inspirational and informative editorial. 
Smarting daily from the soaring popularity of its upstart rival Firefox, Microsoft is hoping to stem the exodus by bolting on new security features to their next version of Internet Explorer browser. 
With Internet Explorer losing friends fast because of its unsavoury reputation as a honeypot for homepage hijackers and skulking spyware, these new security features can’t come too soon for Microsoft. 
It’s hardly revelatory stuff, but a study by J.D. Power and Associates has revealed that customer service issues dealt with by living, breathing human beings create significantly higher customer care ratings than those with computer-generated interaction. 
“As more companies encourage customers to contact Internet and computer-based customer service programs to save operating costs, they run the risk of increasing churn [techie word for a customer switching carriers] as the number of contacts needed to resolve a customer complaint or issue rises,” said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and Associates. 
The latest National Statistics monthly update to the survey of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) shows that there was a 1.9 per cent increase in the number of active subscriptions to the Internet in the past year (Feb 2004 – Feb 2005) 
Permanent Internet connections rose to 43 per cent of all subscriptions in February 2005 (up 2 per cent from Jan 2005) with a year on year increase of 85.9 per cent for subscriptions for permanent connections. 
Thrill-seeking mobile phone users around the world slapped out US$400 million on pornographic pictures and video in 2004 – an amount that is expected to rise to US$5 billion by 2010, according to a report by research group Strategy Analytics. 
The US$5 billion forecast for 2010 represents a huge upward shift from Strategy Analytics’ earlier predictions, with the company noting that adult entertainment businesses are aggressively building services and customers appear happy to shell out for them. 
It’s worth clarifying that the Internet figures include any listening of the radio on a computer, whether live streaming, using services like the BBC’s RadioPlayer/Listen Again, or Podcasting (download and play). 
The largest area of growth has been in people listening to UK National radio stations over the Internet. This has increased from 8.3% a year ago to 10.8% of the UK population, equating to just short of 4.8m people. It is thought that this is probably due to an raised awareness that the Internet can be used to listen to the radio, helped in no small part by the BBC pushing the service. 