Paraswift, the Base-jumping Robot

Robots are already smarter and faster than most of us. Now, they're even more adventurous.

Check out Paraswift, the first generation of a new base-jumping robot. The droid can climb the walls of tall buildings, jump off and deploy a parachute to soften its landing.

Although Paraswift was created for entertainment value, it definitely has some potential in the fields of surveillance and 3-D mapping.

1 Billion Smartphones Will be Sold Every Year by 2016

Think we're all overly connected now? Just wait: Once we hit 2016, a whopping 1 billion smartphones will be sold every year.

According to market research firm Juniper Research, 302 million were sold last year. Give us another five years, and we'll be buying three times that many every 12 months.

Not surprisingly, Juniper found that the demand for economical ($150 or less) smartphones will increase. But the number of people buying high-end ($400 or more) phones will stay fairly steady.

Think you'll be willing to spend upwards of $500 for a phone in 2016? Sure, it seems pricey now, but consider this: In another five years, most premium smartphones will have new technologies like near-field communication, 3-D and biometrics. Really, these devices will be more tablet than smartphone.

The View From Above: In Hard Focus Round-Up (July 15, 2011)

Photofly Brings 3-D Models to the Masses: According to the New York Times, Autodesk's Photofly is turning thousands of digital photos into 3D models in seconds. Originally for professionals, they're seeing a ton of adoption by consumers to transform pictures of battleships, Lego men and crab arms, among others. See above. 

iPhone Camera Apps to Bring out the Best Photographer in You: From the Chicago Sun-Times list of top iPhone apps to take pictures, edit them...and 'synth' them. That last one is definitely intriguing. 

Apple Exploring Augmented Reality for iPad -- New Target for Pickpockets? A patent filing published this week suggests real-time 3D mapping is coming to iPads soon. More details here. May beat using a paper map, a tourist walking around an unknown city with an pricey iPad makes for an awfully easy target for pickpockets.

Court OKs Airport Body Scanners: A Wired piece from earlier today reported that a federal appeals court has declined to block the government from using body scanners in airports nationwide. Might be a good opportunity for all of us to take a another look at Privates. 

Simple Film Overlay Transforms Your TV From 2-D to 3-D

With all the expensive 3-D technology out there -- not to mention the pricey glasses that are required to watch it -- could it really be this simple? Check out the video to see how a basic film overlay lets your regular TV project 3-D video -- and you don't even have to wear the glasses.

That's the magic of lenticular lens technology. The lenses, from a company called Pic3D, will be available next month. They'll range in size from 12.1 to 23 inches, and there will be an iPhone version hitting stores soon too. 3-D everywhere!

Teaching Computers How to Perceive 3-D

Two new techniques for computer-vision technology mimic how humans perceive 3-D shapes by instantly recognizing objects no matter how they are twisted or bent, an advance that could help machines see more like people.

As heat diffuses over a surface, using heat mapping and heat distribution, the system follows and captures the precise contours of a shape.

The heat-mapping method works by first breaking an object into a mesh of triangles, the simplest shape that can characterize surfaces, and then calculating the flow of heat over the meshed object. The method does not involve actually tracking heat; it simulates the flow of heat using mathematical principles.

The heat mapping allows a computer to recognize the objects no matter how the figures are bent or twisted and is able to ignore "noise" introduced by imperfect laser scanning or other erroneous data.

The researchers tested their method on complex shapes, including hands, the human form and a centaur.