If you have been following my photography, you might have noticed the last week of pictures haven’t quite all been in focus. Alas, this is somewhat my own fault, but only because I took horrible care of my equipment. My flash unit got slightly smashed causing the autofocus on the unit to go haywire. I am not sure when this happened, but it must have happened because of the way I pack my equipment into a makeshift camera bag that in a former life served as an insulated cooler. I received the replacement part this evening and will hopefully be back up and running with ultrasharp shots by tonight. (more…)
March 30, 2006
March 29, 2006
High Speed Digital Photography using a Reflective LCD Screen
What we need is a non-mechanical shutter implemented in an SLR camera. This non-mechincal (aka - digital) shutter could be made by making a very special type of LCD screen. Rather than going from transparent to opaque, it should go from as reflective as a mirror to transparent.
If you replaced the mirror inside an SLR with this special LCD screen, you could “flip” the shutter digitally by simply passing a voltage through it. When the voltage passed through the LCD screen, it would turn transparent and the underlying CMOS sensor would record the image. When the voltage is stopped, the crystals would return to a reflective state and the light would bounce through a series of mirrors to the viewfinder - just as SLR cameras work today. The benefit would be that you could digitally change the state of the LCD rather than wait on a mechanical shutter which can only shoot around 8 frames per second in the most expensive digital cameras.
Of course, the ideal situation would be a shutterless camera. The problem with this design - from ‘rumors’ I have heard are that:
- The CMOS sensor will eventually “burn out” due to overexposure to light (not sure about this…)
- The CMOS sensor is highly sensitive to light and can’t ‘reset’ quick enough. In which case, this new idea might not help anything - but would at least probably reduce the point of failures (those shutters don’t last forever), increase battery life, and eliminate ’shutter vibration’ which can cause blurring in long exposure photography
No sleep, but job possibilities and scholarship
I haven’t slept in the past two days. Why? This EECS 430 project while fighting off a cold. I might not do well on this project, but at least there are some good things happening in my life.
For one, the Case Alumni Association has extended me a generous scholarship for the next two semesters. I’m not sure if I will still be around in two semesters - but that is a whole other story (which I should be able to tell by Friday). I actually showed up to that interview sans suit (because they never told me to wear one…), but I guess I did a good enough job impressing them.
For two, I have be contacted by Google - you know, that company with the search engine - for a possible internship/job. w00t is not quite strong enough a word to describe the feeling I got when I saw that email. w00t++ will have to do. More info on that later as the story develops.
For three, I am being flown out to Chicago for an interview with Avanade next Friday. They are ‘a joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft to provide business- and industry-based solutions utilizing Microsoft technology’. Sounds cool to me. I’m looking forward to the trip.
On the whole, I’m kind of down right now.
March 27, 2006
Preventing Mod Chips using Sandwich boards
As far as I know, nearly all electronics manufacturers allow their printed circuit boards to be exposed inside their products. This allows ‘hackers’ to create and sell mod chips that circumvent digital rights management and use illegal pirated software. Instead of leaving the circuit exposed, they could create a sandwich layer boards that adhere to the circuit board with a thermal epoxy. To prevent heat buildup, the sandwich board would contain metal heatsinks embedded in it.
Of course, this adds additional costs to the product. It also creates a new point of failure in the manufacturing process. These two factors alone are probably the reason why we don’t see this idea implemented. In addition, it could make troubleshooting a defective product difficult, if not impossible.
In order to justify this idea, it would be necessary to estimate the lost revenue due to piracy created by exposed circuit boards. I suppose this idea is not cost effective in many situations.
the average doll
A webstore selling dolls that are modeled on the exact “average” based on US/world census data. Make one for each gender, racial group, etc and include a fact sheet on what their name is, profession, salary, etc.
Heh, it might catch on 
Probably not…