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ESPN Announces Opening 3-D Slate of NCAA Football

virginia tech in 3-dESPN immediately embraced the arrival of 3-D TV, and the network's compatible catalog continues to expand. With the 16th edition of the Summer X Games already kicking off on ESPN 3D, the network has also revealed the first three college football battles to air on the specialized channel. In total, 13 games will receive the 3-D treatment, with the remainder of the telecasts to be revealed "as the season progresses." The 3-D gridiron programming culminates with the January 10th BCS National Championship game.

The season's first selections all provide serious inter-conference drama, with a heavy dose of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). In the inaugural 3-D match-up, Virginia Tech from the ACC battles Western Athletic Conference member Boise State on Monday, September 6th. The following Saturday, the Big 12's Ten's Ohio State welcomes the ACC's Miami Hurricanes to the Horseshoe. The third contest, to be played September 18th, pits the Southeastern Conference's Auburn Tigers against their Clemson copycats from the ACC. We'll go out on a limb and say the Tigers with orange school colors win this one. [From: ESPN, via: Engadget]

Sergey Larenkov's 'Rephotography' Piques Historic Interest, Doesn't Raise the Dead

sergey larenkov's computational rephotography
We've held off from reporting on Sergey Larenkov's computational rephotography, perhaps due do to the link-bait, ludicrous headlines that other outlets have chosen to run, like "Ghosts Now Officially Exist" and "Camera Software Lets You See Into the Past." Computational rephotography is the process of matching a historic photo's perspective with a new one, and it has lately been automated by the computer geeks at MIT. Larenkov's recent work is essentially a Photoshop-mask-heavy collection of World War II-era prints overlaid on modern snaps.

It seems that some photoshoppers out there have been bemoaning the lack of technical proficiency in the overlays, but that's really neither here nor there. What Larenkov has done is merely updated History Pin's idea, giving more attention to perspective and adding a dose of dissolve (blurring one image into another). We wouldn't hang any of this work in a gallery, but, again, that's not the point. Larenkov's computational photography gives history buffs a chance to compare and contrast the mise-en-scène of times past with the modern landscape. To us, that's really interesting enough, in and of itself. Check out a sample of his work here. [From: Geekosystem]

Augmented Reality Cookies, Anyone? We're Stuffed, Thanks.

the meta cookie system
We understand that SIGGRAPH frequently exhibits the most outre and ridiculous tech experiments -- the ones that could be useful on a larger scale and within a different context. But Takuji Narumi of Tokyo University may be the winner of the Most Insane Research award for his Meta Cookie System, which seems to serve no purpose but to advance the idea that our future lies in a simulated reality matrix. Nerds, you do yourselves no favors by inventing contraptions like this.

First, you strap a giant augmented reality headset around your skull as you are fed a plain sugar cookie, marked with an L-shaped symbol, which the system's camera will detect as it comes near your confused face. On the helmet screen, you'll see a virtual cookie headed toward you, while tubes funnel synthetic cookie fumes into your nasal cavity. Allegedly, this will make the plain cookie taste like snickerdoodle, or whatever your helmet has programmed.

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Dell Tech Swipes Nude Photos of Gullible Customer

Tara FitzgeraldDell is apparently eager to compete with Best Buy and Walmart for the title of most despised retailer in the country. A few months back, a tech support rep got in trouble for turning on a woman's webcam without her permission. Then, last month, the company got nabbed knowingly shipping faulty PCs. And, just this week, the Texas-based manufacturer was caught shipping motherboards infected with malware. Now, a woman from California is alleging that a support technician for Dell stole nude photos of her from her PC and posted them online, and then charged $800 worth of computer gear to her credit card for another woman in Tennessee.

This is not a cut-and-dry case of a misbehaving tech rep, though. This drama has actually been going on for almost a year, and only now is Tara Fitzgerald coming forward with her accusations. Try and follow the sequence of events, and make sense of Fitzgerald's often questionable judgment.

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'The Social Network' Gets a 60-Second TV Spot, NES Cartridge Wedding Invites

The Social Network Trailer

There's a load of great tech news happening out there every day, and, unfortunately, we just can't cover it all. Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey through the wild, wild Web.
  • David Fincher's 'The Social Network' gets a full moody, 60-second TV spot, complete with a Kanye West score, champagne spraying and laptops a-smashing. [From: YouTube]
  • Two Brooklynites recently announced their upcoming marriage via customized NES cartridge. Can you hear our lips quivering? Because this is too cute for us to bear. [From: Reddit]
  • We're not even going to ask how or why this was spotted, but North Korea's official website seems to have gone a bit overboard with the 'strong' tag. HTML humor! [From: Korea DPR, via: TheDailyWTF]
  • Considering a new iMac or Mac Pro for the upcoming school year? Marco.org weighs the long-term costs of Apple's desktop computers. [From: Marco.org]
Got a tip? Want to talk to us? In need of more choice links like these? Drop us a line on Twitter and check out our Tumblr blog.

RIM's 'Blackpad' 9.7-inch Tablet Rumored to Debut in November

For quite some time, rumor had it that RIM has been wanting to get into the tablet game, and who can blame it? Microsoft has had a long history in the market, Apple's iPad has proven popular, and it seems that just about every other manufacturer is trying to cram Android into the form-factor. A couple of days ago, we heard that RIM had acquired Blackpad.com, and the world collectively cringed at ...

NYC Subway to Get Wi-Fi and Cell Service, We Look In To Buying Bikes

The hopes and fears of all New Yorkers will at once come true, thanks to yesterday's announcement that the city's plan to outfit subway stations with Wi-Fi and cell service are, once again, moving forward. We all knew it would happen eventually; three years ago, the MTA and Transit Wireless struck a deal that would outfit stations, but not tunnels, with wireless access. Still, some of us had hoped ...

Obama Says Presidential BlackBerry Is 'No Fun,' But His iPod's Stocked With Jay-Z

It's a well known fact that President Obama has a bit of a BlackBerry addiction -- so much so, the man fought long and hard to keep his beloved device once he entered the White House, making him the first sitting president to use one of the e-mail centric smartphones. But Obama revealed on 'The View' Thursday that, perhaps, it wasn't worth all the trouble. Though White House security and IT ...

Kindle App for Your iPhone and iPad Gets Dictionary, Search

Earlier this week, we reported that Amazon was upping its game with even cheaper versions of the Kindle, but it has also updated the Kindle app on the iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, adding a couple of unremarkable yet needed features. The Kindle app now has a search function, which was inexplicably absent before. It's also able to look up words and phrases through Wikipedia and Google, but not within ...

The Week in Design: Paper-Shredding Coffee Tables and Bacteria-Spreading Soap

The Web is teeming with the unrealized ideas of both students and established designers who set out to produce astonishing renderings and prototypes for unusual products. Unfortunately, due to the lack of time, money, or technology, many of those products never progress from the planning stages to the mass market. But that doesn't mean we can't salivate over them, nevertheless. The simplest ...
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Latest Reviews from CNET.com

CNET provides the latest tech news, unbiased reviews, videos, podcasts, software, and downloads, making tech products easy to find, understand and use.

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