labs

Researchers at MIT like what they see so far from a camera that can perform a nifty trick: peer around a corner.

And it captures a 3D image to boot.

The innovative process is called femtophotography, after the incredibly quick laser pulses involved; they're measured in quadrillionths of a second. Those bursts of light bounce around off ordinary doors or walls or floors -- mirrors need not apply -- and make their way back to a picosecond-accurate detector at the camera (picoseconds = trillionths of a second) that records the elapsed time and then does the math on how the light bursts traveled.

The system runs through the drill multiple times in that blink of an eye, with the light bursts traveling several different routes to provide a more complete 3D image.

Or to put it in a more mind-blowing perspective, the camera captures all that target object illumination at the equivalent of roughly 1 trillion frames per second. Much more detail is available at this FAQ on the Camera Culture site.… Read more

Updated at 8:05 p.m. PDT: The first round of CNET Labs iPad heat testing is complete. Results are available in this blog by Senior Editor Eric Franklin. Though further tests will be conducted, the initial results find the new iPad to be only slightly warmer than the iPad 2, and in no way a danger to users.

Our CNET Labs team is currently investigating claims that the third-generation Apple iPad may overheat under normal operating conditions, such as video playback or gameplay.

Anecdotal reports have pointed out that the new iPad can get a little toasty. A statement from Apple … Read more

In the video game Re-Mission, players are tasked with piloting the microscopic robot Roxxi to blast away cancer cells as she navigates the bodies of fictional cancer patients.

A new study that took real-time functional MRI scans of 57 people randomly assigned to either play the game or watch it being played has found that those who played exhibited increased activity in the brain's positive motivation circuits, while those who merely observed exhibited no increase in activity.

"Identifying a direct connection between the stimulation of neural circuits and game play is a key step in unlocking the potential … Read more

Big week, or at least big gadgets and gear, on the CNET Labscast. Forget about tiny 13-inch ultrabooks, now these slim laptops are moving into 14- and 15-inch territory, and we've got a couple of examples to pass around the room. Then Ty talks up his latest acquisition, a massive 80-inch Sharp LCD TV. It's awesome for sports (or "sport" as Ty puts it), but you can't make an 80-inch LCD for $5,000 without cutting a few corners.

But before all that, we've got the new iPad 3 (yes, that's what we're calling it), and a very eye-opening comparison of text blown up on both that and the iPad 2--be warned, it's the kind of thing you can't un-see.

… Read more

This week, we kill time before New iPad Day by checking out a late straggler to the now-dead Netbook market (no, they haven't gotten any better). Josh Goldman gives us a live demo of the new Lytro camera and its magical refocusing capability, then Scott tries running some PC games on the cool-looking, but potentially underpowered Razer Blade laptop. … Read more

SUNNYVALE, CALIF., - When it comes to splicing genes and replicating DNA, backrooms and basements are not the most ideal labs. The next wave of home hacking appears to be in biotech, and around the country, a handful of collectives have sprung up in the past few years to accommodate these biohackers.

As the members of a loose-knit biohacking group in the San Francisco Bay Area saw the passion for their homebrew hackers club growing rapidly, they decided it was time to expand. What they eventually built opened late last year as BioCurious, the Bay Area's first hackerspace for … Read more

This week, watch us get hands-on with the Razer Blade, a slim gaming laptop with a unique control pad, and with Mass Effect 3 rolling out, we show off all the ME3 gear we could find, from hoodies to light-up console cases.

… Read more

Yahoo has lost a key employee to Google, a new report claims.

All Things Digital reported yesterday that Prabhakar Raghavan, Yahoo Labs unit chief and the company's head of search strategy, has left the online giant. In a follow-up statement to All Things Digital, Yahoo confirmed Raghavan's departure and thanked him for his work over the last seven years.

Although Yahoo made no mention of where Raghavan was going, All Things Digital cited sources claiming he was on his way to Google to fill an undisclosed position.

Raghavan was heavily involved in a host of Yahoo projects over … Read more

Was last week's smoldering imagery of the front glass panel allegedly belonging to Apple's iPad 3 not enough for you? Good news, there's more.

Gadget repair service Repair Labs today (via MacRumors) posts images of a pair of digitizers, the front panel that includes the glass and the touch sensitive layer it says belongs to the iPad 3. The images represent what look like a part that's further along than the one from last week, which appeared unfinished.

Besides the black and white color options, the big takeaway here is that the front of the device … Read more