3D Display Goes Vertical

" The beam splitter separates images into two opposite polarizations, one of which is used to widen the horizontal angle and the other the vertical. The system switches between the two polarizations faster than the eye can detect, creating a single, three-dimensional image that has twice the viewing angle of the original.

The technique could be used in simple applications like three-dimensional advertising displays within two years, and in three-dimensional TV systems in a decade, according to the researchers. The work appeared in the June 16, 2003 issue of Optics Express."

Connected Selves

Danah Boyd: As a researcher in social networks, i noticed that i was regularly blogging about Friendster and the emerging social network tools that are emerging. Since this is my area of research, i decided to dedicate this blog to tracking the digital discussions on social networks tools and record her own reflections on the matter. This blog is intended as a resource for myself and the general academic community as a consolidated space for me to process what i'm learning.

Electronic Paper

It's a Philip K. Dick kind of world!!

" If computer screens were as lightweight and flexible as a sheet of paper, your newspaper could update you every hour and still be portable. As this ScienCentral News video reports, some nanotechnologists say that soon everyone could be reading off electronic paper."

Yet another in the infinite supply of examples of legislative stupidity.

Not surprisingly, from here in Orlando.

"A judge reluctantly gave a man life in prison after a $20 burglary, saying he had no choice under a state law that requires such terms for repeat offenders.

Circuit Judge Bob Wattles called the punishment unjust and unfair.

"I don't have the authority or the power to not sentence you to life," Wattles told Maurice Leonard Reed, 37, of nearby Apopka, at his Tuesday sentencing."

Scarcity and Spectrum Regulation

ALright, so I couldn't get throught the whole thing...it's the legal writing thing that always puts me to sleep after a while. But, it does have some interesting things to say about constitutional issues and spectrum regulation. Who knows? It might prove as a useful reference material later on.

The Article begins in Part I by discussing situations in which there is a strong argument that government actions have resulted in unused or underused frequencies. Part II turns to the First Amendment, framing the issue by considering the constitutional objections to a regime that licenses printing presses. Part III addresses the basis upon which the Supreme Court has distinguished spectrum from print -- the scarcity rationale. The problem for the government is that the scarcity rationale does not support, and instead undercuts, government actions that diminish the number of users of the spectrum. And no other rationale distinguishes spectrum from printing presses in a way that justifies the government limiting access to the former but not the latter. One obvious objection to this argument is that it is inconsistent with NBC and Red Lion, the two main cases articulating and relying on the scarcity rationale. Part IV takes up those cases, finding that nothing in them suggests that scarcity applies across the board, and that there are good reasons to conclude that scarcity does not apply when government limits the supply of frequencies. Part IV then argues that, in the absence of scarcity as a justification for more lenient scrutiny, the scrutiny applicable to government decisions that keep potential users off the spectrum is the intermediate scrutiny articulated in Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC.14 Part V applies that scrutiny to the various interests that the government might allege, concluding that, in most cases, only nontrivial interference will constitute an important or substantial government interest. Part VI considers how broadly the principle against government wasting of the spectrum applies. I contend that it is not limited to broadcast spectrum, and that it applies not only to unused but also to underused spectrum. Finally, Part VII addresses those situations in which adding users to the spectrum might be a less restrictive alternative to other forms of regulation. The import of my analysis is that, if a potential licensee challenges government actions that keep frequencies unusable or underused, in most cases the only legally sufficient basis for the government's action will be the need to prevent nontrivial interference; and the government's argument that interference is a problem will be subject to intermediate scrutiny.