pano

How Microsoft's Surface tablet was born

Microsoft faced a few key challenges in developing its Surface tablet, according to team leader Panos Panay.

In an interview with the Verge, Panay offered some tidbits detailing the tricky evolution of Surface. The Surface team's general manager said that Microsoft had two goals in mind for Surface RT, code-named Georgetown: news of the tablet couldn't leak beforehand and it had to be ready to ship when Windows 8 launched.

Right from the start, Microsoft wanted to try to build the tablet without upsetting its Windows 8 OEM partners, Panay said. Whether it achieved that goal is debatable.… Read more

Panoramic video on iPhones is about to get really big

LAS VEGAS--This could become the year for panoramic video.

New York-based startup Kogeto, which makes the Dot camera lens, is on a roll. I met up with founder and CEO Jeff Glasse this morning at CES' Eureka Park exhibition, where Kogeto is showing off the device, and he told me that his 1-year-old company just raised more than $1 million in venture funding, which is no easy feat for a hardware marker.

More importantly, the Dot's distribution is about to get a huge boost. He said the lens will be on sale in all U.S. Apple stores on … Read more

From Kickstarter to CES: Video lens does 360s on the iPhone

LAS VEGAS--Some iPhone improvements require more than an app.

One is the GoPano, an all-in-one lens and case that lets you easily take impressive 360-degree videos on an iPhone 4 or 4S. It was on display at CES Unveiled in Las Vegas.

CNET wrote about the company behind the product, EyeSee360, in April when it was raising money on Kickstarter.com, a crowdsourced funding site. Well, the startup, a team of 14 people based in Pittsburgh, picked up $140,000 and then went on to raise an undisclosed amount of funding from angel investors.

Michael Rondinelli, the CTO, said the … Read more

Wide pano shots in one fluid motion

360 Panorama gives you a simple method for creating panoramic images, removing the need to take multiple shots. Instead of matching up shots, this app has you film a scene as you would shoot a movie and then stitches together your shots seamlessly in real time. Just hold up your iPhone and start from one side of the scene. Then, press the button in the bottom center of your screen and slowly pan to the right in one continuous motion. At the end, hit the button again and your panorama is finished. The resulting image lets you swipe to look … Read more

Panoramas made easy

Pano was originally launched in the iTunes App Store in 2008, but recent updates continue to make it one of the best apps for taking great-looking panoramic photos using your iPhone. The interface is sparse, but that only makes it easier: simply point your iPhone at the scene and take up to 16 shots (a full 360 degrees) to make the perfect panoramic image.

You start by taking a shot from one side. Then, Pano gives you a ghost image overlay so you can match up your next shot. You don't have to worry if it doesn't match … Read more

360 panoramas and 3D image apps on iOS

We've all been there at one time or another. You're looking at a beautiful landscape and you want to capture it, but the view is simply too wide to capture it all with your iPhone camera. Or maybe you're selling something on the Web, but taking a flat photograph of the object just doesn't seem to do it justice.

Fortunately, with the enormous abundance of photography apps in the iTunes App Store, there are apps for these specific purposes. These apps go beyond retro images and sketch-drawn re-creations and attempt to offer three dimensions.

This week's collection of iOS apps make 360-degree images. The first creates step-by-step panoramas; the second lets you make panoramas and 360-degree views in one fluid motion; and the third helps you make 360-degree animations.… Read more

How desktop virtualization survived the recession

It's fair to say desktop virtualization has had a checkered past.

As far back as 2005, VMworld had presentations on the topic of desktop virtualization, also known as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. By 2007, VMworld had developed a desktop virtualization track with a number of deep-dive technical sessions. In June of 2008, IDC issued a report on "The Promise Of Desktop Virtualization" touting how desktop virtualization can help rein in the costs of managing and maintaining PC infrastructures.

In February of 2009, CRN reported Gartner's predictions that by 2013, between 10 percent and 15 percent of enterprise PCs would be virtualized. … Read more

360 lens for iPhone 4 looks around for funding

Occasionally we post interesting projects that appear on kickstarter.com, a crowdsourced angel investor site that can help folks raise money to produce products that are in various stages of development (some projects get funded, some don't).

EyeSee360, the small company behind the GoPano Micro 360-degree lens for the iPhone 4, already produces a larger version for cameras and camcorders called the GoPano Plus ($699). But it's trying to raise money to commercially produce the Micro, which allows you to capture 360-degree videos with your iPhone 4.

Read more

New York hospital revives ailing computer network

It's no secret that the installed base of technology at large medical facilities needs refreshing, especially as hospitals work toward digitizing medical records.

At St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Center in New York, a nonprofit with 42 facilities across five boroughs, the constant accessing and updating of patient records through the hospital's shared-bandwidth MPLS network resulted in unacceptable lag time pretty much all day, every day.

So Kane Edupuganti, director of IT Operations & Communications, convinced the higher-ups to retire the hospitals' hundreds of five-plus-year-old desktops and buy more than 600 zero client cubes from Pano Logic.

"… Read more

Shiny office toys galore at Office 2.0

For a conference about getting work done, there are sure a whole lot of toys here at Office 2.0 in San Francisco. Sure many of them are old hat, like the the Nabaztag/tag, but there's some new stuff here too like Pano Logic's zero client desktop. This shiny metal cube is actually a computer--well kind of. Actually it involves setting up a a beefy server to give everyone in your office a full version of Windows sans hardware. Just give give them a keyboard, mouse, monitor and one of these shiny cubes and they're ready … Read more