Nintendo Entertainment System / Duck Hunt

Today is the 25th birthday of the NES, the Nintendo Entertainment System. That's 25 years of gaming-at-home Nintendo fun (as long as you don't count its sister model, the Family Computer, which was the Japanese version of the NES that debuted two years before its American counterpart.) In honor of the venerable NES, today I'll be discussing one of its most iconic games and how it worked.

Duck Hunt, a game instantly recognizable by gamers and non-gamers alike for its light-sensitive gun, was one of the original NES games. It came pre-packaged with the system and after a few years was even included on the same cartridge as Super Mario Bros. for the now-famous Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt combo cartridge. What made the game so special was its innovative Zapper gun. The Zapper was a hand-held "gun" that plugged into the TV and worked just like the real thing. Point it at a duck on the screen, pull the trigger and poof! Dead duck. While current socio-political sensitivities might suggest that a hunting game complete with a model gun is a poor choice of game to pre-package with something ultimately aimed at children, there's no denying that the game itself was fun and different.

Conceptualizing Science

Walking down the hallway on a perfectly unobstructed day at school or work…it happens: a voice shrieks out “Who is GALILEO?!?!” While the question may have merit for a person that missed out on this subject earlier in life and simply needs to learn the subject matter…those who have made it through the majority of their high-school careers without the simple knowledge of one of science’s greatest contributors, Galileo (the man that perfected out model of a heliocentric solar system, have a serious lack of scientific understanding.

3D Displays

Anyone that knows me knows that I'm really excited about the Nintendo 3DS handheld system that will be released to the US market next March. Nintendo has a history of staying one innovative step ahead of other game companies, and the 3DS marks a major jump with its built-in 3D screen. It's not your father's 3D screen, though...it looks convincingly three-dimensional without any sort of glasses or extra eyewear required (Nintendo). 

Many people know how traditional 3D movies and games are shown, but how did Nintendo manage it without glasses? The process is called autostereoscopy. While there are several different types f this technology, we're focusing on the 3DS for now. The method Nintendo chose to use was a parallax barrier display. What do all of these big words mean, though?

Digital Cameras

Cross-section of a Canon S2-IS camera (produced 2005),
a camera model I used to use personally.

I sold a camera on eBay today for $800. It's a super awesome camera worth several thousand dollars that records video in double-HD (2k) resolution and is usually used in laboratory settings. One of the neat things about it is that, just like on a high-end consumer camera and all professional cameras, its digital sensor is plainly visible when the lens is detached. I started thinking about the sensor and how cool they are then realized many people might not know how these devices actually work. So, how does a digital camera work?

Electronic Displays

When I say "The TV first debuted in -" you say...

"1960?" No, way off.

"1950?" Nope, it was maturing pretty steadily by then.

"1940?" A common answer, but no.

"1930?" It wasn't yet commercialized then, but you're still way off.

"What's the answer, then?" Believe it or not, 1878.

Wireless Charging

I have always been an early adopter of new technologies. I've played the newest video games on the newest systems my whole life, sure, and I even had a CEO-quality PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) when I was in seventh grade. I still have that PDA, in fact, and honest-to-God it STILL holds up to modern smartphones and iPods. One of my proudest early adoptions, however, was of a technology that came and went in the span of a few years with little fanfare. Most people were never even aware of its existence.

That technology was Microsoft's Wrist.NET line of watches. These watches were only slightly larger than normal (although my special-edition Dick Tracy model stuck out obviously and made for fascinating conversations) and were capable of checking email, receiving IMs, checking the news, weather, sports, and stock reports, giving local movie times, and a laundry list of other life-related tasks. They could even tell time. In typical Microsoft fashion, the watches were actually built by third-party manufacturers such as Fossil and Suunto. All of them were more-or-less equals, but Fossils' stood out from the crowd (in my mind) for one key feature: the watches could be charged without wires.

This was not only handy - they had the battery life of an average cell phone - but just downright COOL in my book. It seemed magical that somehow electricity was being transfered from one place to another, and the only parts touching were made of PLASTIC.

Blade-less Fans

If you've been into Best Buy at any point in the last year or so, you've almost certainly done a double-take as you walked past a seemingly benign end-cap displaying two flashy window fans. Last year, Dyson (the company that introduced to the world the bag-less cyclone vacuum that never loses suction) came out with yet another elegant, innovative, and very expensive product for the market...the blade-less fan.

When I say blade-less fan, that's literally what I mean (although Dyson has decided to name it something a bit more inventive - the "Dyson Air Multiplier.") The fan consists of a cylindrical pedestal with dial and button controls, on top of which is an over sized wedding band with nothing in the center. Essentially a donut on a stick, except the stick is really fat and the donut rather thin.

The Retina Display

If you've heard anything about the new iPhone 4, you've probably heard all about the fact that it can now (finally!) multitask - that is, run more than one app at a time -as well as store apps in folders, show a desktop wallpaper, all stuff that computers have been able to do for decades. One of the truly innovative components of the iPhone 4, however, may or may not have graced your synapses as of yet.

The screen on the iPhone 4, dubbed the "retina display" by Apple brass, is the highest resolution display ever mass-produced on a phone. This doesn't mean that it has the most pixels of any display ever made (even for a phone), however it does mean that the screen has the most pixels per square inch of any other portable consumer display in history (Apple).