Written by admin on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 in Gadgets.
According to: Logan Ward and the Editors of Popular Mechanics
(Popular Mechanics – 2008 Breakthrough Awards)
The early 20th century produced a breathtaking succession of innovations – the Wright Flyer, the Model T, the Panama Canal. It was a golden age of engineering. A century hence, observers may well look back at our era in much the same way: Cars are being reimagined from the wheels up. Advances in solar energy show the way past fossil fuels. And space probes explore planets that could become our future homes. These pages salute the product designers who have already transformed the present.
Microsoft Photosynth | Free
This remarkable software, which can be downloaded for free, analyzes dozens (or hundreds) of photos taken of a location or subject – the Eiffel Tower, say, or a room in a museum. It looks for overlapping points in the images, then arranges the snapshots into a browsable 3D model. The result is a fresh way to organize and share photography – opening up new possibilities for a 180-year-old art form.
Spore | $49
Few video games have built up as much anticipatory buzz as Spore, and it’s not just the game’s pedigree (it was designed by Will Wright, the mastermind behind SimCity and The Sims) or its grand scope (players guide the evolution of a universe). It’s the technology. Spore doesn’t rely on stock characters stored in a library of animations. Instead, the software uses sophisticated logic to allow players’ creations to interact spontaneously.
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