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Good 3D engines for browsers seems to been always just a few years away but has never really happened. Any attempts to actually make this happen in the past have resulted in a lack of penetration over the internet. Generally it also seems that people seem to be unable to interact with 3D interfaces. I seems to me that 3D on the web will continue to be used as gimmicks on marketing websites rather than being useful for providing any real information. Like the use of "Augmented Reality" to sell cars. What ever happened to VRML? Why have we lost Apple's support for QTVR on 64bit operating systems including future Apple OS 64 bit systems? Why has Adobe failed to include a 3D engine in Flash instead of having to fiddle around with Papervision 3D? Google's O3D plugin is showing promise, but the quality of the graphics I have seen so far arn't anywhere near what you would expect from even the lowest quality graphics on today's video game systems. It seems we have this romance with 3D on the web much like the romance we have with the idea of robots in our homes. We all seem to think it's a neat idea, we have been perpetually promised that it's only a few years away and once we finally get this, we have no idea what to use it for. All this said, I'm interested to see if they do in fact get around all the roadblocks of previous attempts to make 3D on the web really happen. Tim

Actually it seems to me that not all the information is included in the story here. The scanner used isn't just a normal flatbed scanner. John Mahoney seems to have left this detail out of his story. It's a higher quality Epson 4.5x6cm scanner of very high quality rather then a typical scanner used for documents. It's an old Epson gt-s620, I actually can't find anywhere to buy this. I wonder if it was only ever sold in Japan or it's just too old. This together with a 50mm lens should be able to produce an image, but not likely filling the entire area that the scanner can scan. 3DTOPO is correct when he says that a standard 50mm lens could not resolve an image once the distance between the lens and the sensor is increased. But 3DTOPO also has no right to be a jerk about it. I can prove this point by using a D700 with a 50mm lens and a set of Nikon bellows. (I realize that this is a Canon lens, but both companies Canon and Nikon work under the same laws of physics) Once you start moving the lens away from the sensor, the image becomes blurry and the lens can no longer be focused, it will only focus on subjects within 1" or so of the lens. If you like I can post a sample image somewhere. You can tell by the images from the scanner camera that he seems to be using the lens in it's standard configuration. The subjects are not that close to the lens. Some samples from the builder's flickr account show the lens focused to infinity, this wouldn't be possible if the lens had too much space between it and the sensor. The images you see here are only possible if the lens is the standard distance from the sensor. The lens would work if it was closer to the sensor however, but you would have to crop the image even smaller an loose resolution. This happens when you use a standard lens on a DX camera. With this high quality scanner and lens combo you should be able to produce sharp images at a high resolution, but it's possible there is some software interpolation going on here to up scale the image, but this is a really high quality scanner so it could be 1:1. 3DTOPO said: "He hardly came up with an original idea either." Please read the article: "Tinkerers have been turning flatbed scanners into cameras for a while, but this version by a Japanese modder is one of the finest I've seen" We all know this isn't a new idea. It's just a good example and execution of an interesting idea. Yes I would rather shoot on a D700 most of the time, but the tinkerer in me has always wanted to build my own camera and wooden tripod. Not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

What about a tried and tested way of generating power for a boat. A sail! It looks nice, costs very little to maintain, and makes very little noise. Add a small turbine generator under the water's surface to generate power while in motion and store the power in batteries for use while the boat is stationary. Oh wait I forgot, these people don't want a sailboat, they want a power yacht. What about a bunch of wind turbines out at sea that generate hydrogen fuel for a hydrogen fuel-cell powered super yacht?

I'm sure I'm not the first person to question this type of action. Sometimes I wonder if the added complexity of including a ballast in every unit is a huge drawback to the technology. Being from Canada I question how reliable this type of bulb would be in hash winter conditions. I hope that our government does not ban incandescent bulbs. While incandescent bulbs may not be the best choice for all situations, there are many situations where incandescent blubs simply do the best job. In Canada, many people still heat their homes with electricity. Wouldn't using incandescent bulbs in the winter just mean that their electric heating is used less due to the heat created by the lights? This would make the bulbs more efficient in reality than they are on paper. If this is the case, than using the good old bulbs would be better in that situation, since disposing of the old bulbs is a more simple process? I do agree that it seems silly to turn on the AC in the summer in a room filled with incandescent blubs, but wouldn't the cost of electricity help people make the more energy efficient choice, with a bit of education? I know that every little bit helps, but sometimes I feel that the government is resting all it's hopes for reductions in energy consumption on Joe the homeowner, while the big consumers are free to act how they please. Around 60% of residential energy in Canada goes to heating, and 20% or less goes to lighting. Somehow the savings seem less significant when you consider the other ways you can reduce energy consumption in the home. Like the use of better insulation. Somehow I feel like the developed world keeps placating itself with solutions that really arn't getting root of the problem. We keep using more energy, more efficiently, instead of using less energy, more efficiently? Tim

I would be happy to fly without this type of aircraft, as long as it's faster and cheaper. As mentioned before, even with current aircraft, you arn't likely to have a window seat. I think they just need to think about a new way of laying out the seats in the aircraft. I think if we are creative about placement of seats it could work well, people may have more leg room. Also, even on a normal aircraft it's a problem finding fast ways of getting everyone off the airplane.