This Friday, Cut & Paste will have one final international showdown between 48 champions in 2D, 3D, and motion design from 16 cities around the world.

A new display technology lets users touch and interact with a tactile virtual object.

A group of computer scientists from the University of Washington’s Graphics and Imaging Laboratory have created an algorithm that improves the technology behind Microsoft’s Photosynth to render massive environments in 3D.

Fans of three dimensional flicks rejoice, the immersive experience is headed towards home television. Satellite-TV operator British Sky Broadcasting is taking steps to launch an entirely 3D channel in the U.K. sometime next year. It will be the largest push for three dimensional television yet with the company brainstorming content ideas beyond pure “gimmicks.”
Price will initially remain a hurdle for the technology to become widely adopted. To view Sky’s content, expensive 3D ready television sets are necessary. The cost of the subscription service itself has not yet been specified.
3D television shows are nothing new. Ever since NBC’s 1989 Super Bowl [...]

Image credit: Getty Images, mortimerphoto.com.au/Flickr
The light bulb is the key image used to represent the moment an idea is sparked. The Economist wants to know exactly where these epiphanies happen. 

Thinking Space is an exercise in interactive sharing and discovery. A stunning 3-D micro-site is the visual playground where the question is posed and answered. Clicking on the “Explore” button reveals the intimate launch pads of nine people, ranging from writers and musicians to CEOs. Each thinking space is divided into cubes when rotated and aligned together create the original photograph. The red dots appearing on the image one reveal detailed audio clips [...]

There’s always been something quirky and practical about German design. From the avante-guard glass work of Berlin’s Reichstag building and Hauptbahnhoff station to to the Volkswagen Beetle, the Teutonic spirit seems to crave innovation.
It should come as no surprise then, that it would be a German designer that would rework the Skolpen ( a classic knitted ski pullover from the 80´s) for the new millennium. Bless, which is one parts design company one parts lifestyle brand, has teamed up with sportswear producer OXBOW to offer 3 new and exciting versions of the Skolpen. The most exciting of the three designs [...]

YouTube recently added 3D options for their videos, seizing on the growing trend to bring 3D content into our everyday lives.  Whether in our online interfaces or in new cameras, three dimensional content is becoming more accessible.  YouTube’s library of 3D videos is understandably sparse, but they have embedded options to suit your preferred viewing style.
The move brings 3D technology possibilities into a new arena and hopefully YouTube videos will surface that are actually enhanced by the third dimension such as this flower experiment, rather than otherwise flat videos like this example from Engadget.  We don’t suggest viewing videos if [...]

There’s something about 3-D imaging that keeps people coming back for more.  For well over a century, inventors have pursued the seemingly impossible goal to create the perfect illusion of depth through stereoscopic imaging.  Fujifilm’s latest prototype digital camera continues that tradition with a point-and-shoot equipped with two lenses.  It’s called the “FinePix Real 3D System” and Fujifilm hopes they can carve out a market share better than their current standing at 6.7% in the digital camera field by creating an entirely new market.
Fujifilm’s new 10-megapixel camera can use the two lenses to create simultaneous images of a single scene [...]

Minsh is a unique site that visualizes Twitter users as fish in a 3-dimensional, underwater world. Schools of fish gather based on their tweets. The site is in Alpha now with the Alpha 2 version to be released on July 13, 2009.
Richard Banks explains:
The concept behind the virtual world is that the social behaviour of fish will represent what people are talking about online. In the world of Minsh, people writing about a given subject find themselves swimming in the same school. When a person updates his or her Twitter status, the fish swims away to join people with similar [...]

Yesterday we finally got around to checking out Alioscopy USA’s “glasses-free” 3D LCD display on 50th by 7th in midtown New York. The display is being used as a part of a storefront ad for TWBA’s middling, yet unavoidable “snacklish” campaign for Mars’ Snickers brand of candy bar.
We found ourselves underwhelmed, as the display — little more than an LCD TV placed behind a lenticular screen — appeared to be clunkier and choppier than its analog counterpart. At the same time, we couldn’t help but to wonder if the content simply did not showcase the technology’s potential for immersive experience. [...]

Last year, during the Festival of World Culture in Ireland, German artist Edgar Mueller painted one his iconic optical illusions over a 250 square meter patch of asphalt.  Using acrylic wall paint to create the scene, it took the artist five days, working 12 hours a day to paint the massive crevasse; which, from the right perspective, looks remarkably realistic.
The below video is a great time lapse piece depicting the creation of the illusion as well as the curious interactions people have with it.

Be sure to also check out the Mueller’s Lava Burst.

Recently, a game between the San Diego Chargers and the Oakland Raiders was broadcast live in 3-D to theaters in Los Angeles, New York and Boston.  This is not the first time that the NFL has experimented with 3-D, but only recently has live streaming of 3-D footage become a reality.  Real D, is responsible for powering the in theater 3-D application and has rolled out their system in 1,500 theaters around the world.  While 3-D movies have been around for many years, live events such as rock concerts and circus performances have slowly been creeping into theaters. The demonstration, [...]