Tag: Technology »

TechCrunch, probably the most widely recognized news source for technology and start-ups, has just released an iPad app. The app, TechCrunch - The Inside Story on Innovation (I think I would've just gone with TechCrunch), is an optimized reader app for all of the free content on the TechCrunch website.

The app has standard news reading features plus some cool extras like a trending and tweets list on the right side of the app. The "trending" list shows the most popular articles (with green or red arrows by them showing if they're rising or falling). And the "tweets" list shows updates from Twitter feeds that I assume most of the people at TechCrunch follow (like All Things D, The Next Web, Netflix, Daring Fireball, and much more). The app also includes "comprehensive integration with CrunchBase."

The design seems to suggest that users use the app in landscape mode (portrait mode just cuts off the right side until someone slides it back over). Like the TechCrunch website, readers can browse the news on the home page or sort specifically by section (mobile, start-ups, etc).

The app is free, of course. Most TechCrunch readers will want to give it a go.

3D screens have come a heck of a long way in recent years. Once seen as a gimmicky technology that never quite achieved the desired affect, they're now taking over the technological world. 3D screens at the cinema work great with the current biggest film at the box office being a 3D version of classic Disney flick, The Lion King. 3D TVs are spreading throughout people's living rooms and even the handheld world benefits from the Nintendo 3DS and its glasses-less 3D capabilities. Now the potential of 3D reaches iOS devices courtesy of the CineXPlayer.

The potential is pretty impressive with users being able to watch 3D movies on their iPad with or without 3D glasses. The CineXPlayer software supports viewing with regular standard glasses, otherwise known as anaglyph (red/blue) glasses. These work by providing different images to the left and right eye through different colored filters. Another option is thanks to a partnership with GRilli3D. Users can also watch without glasses thanks to the GRilli3D protective filter on the screen that provides the glasses-free experience by placing a series of 'barrier lines' across the display, thus blocking different parts of the image to each eye. This 3D filter sheet is available for about $30.

Even more exciting is the potential for converting 2D imagery to 3D courtesy of CineXPlayer's real-time conversion capabilities which can generate a 3D effect for any Xvid video file. CineXPlayer's 3D capabilities also work with 3D content from 3D cameras providing a well rounded experience for those users keen to embrace all things 3D.

To further enhance such technological innovations, come October 28th, CineXPlayer will be updated with AC3 (Dolby Mobile) support making it the first app with official Dolby support. Impressive stuff, indeed, and a mere glimpse of what the future could hold for handheld technology.

CineXPlayer is available now for $2.99 with an in-app purchase for $1.99 to enable 3D support.