The idea of a 3-D movie has been explored since basically the dawn of the moving image, but now, according to Portfolio, the idea is waxing once again, thanks to Jeffrey Katzenberg and several others. The rationale:
Studios are latching onto 3-D for much the same reason that Bob Dole took Viagra. Most of Hollywood's businesses are making money -- for all Katzenberg's complaining, DreamWorks' first-quarter profit was up 69 percent -- but the sector that makes Hollywood feel best about itself, theatrical showings, is deflating, in large part because the difference between seeing a movie in your local multiplex and on a 52-inch high-definition TV in your family room is not that vast.
Pixar's Toy Story 3 will be produced in 3-D. I like Pixar a lot but 3-D has never been anything but a gimmick, so I don't know. TS3 will be out in June 2010. (2010! We'll go together in my hovercar!)
Re Croquet and the ridiculous breathlessness about it, "3-D isn't an interface paradigm. 3-D isn't a world model. 3-D isn't the missing ingredient. 3-D isn't an inherently better representation for every purpose. 3-D is an attribute, like the color blue. Any time you read or hear about how great 3-D is and how it's going to change everything about computers and services, substitute the word blue for 3-D." (via bbj, who says "YES YES YES!!! ALWAYS REMEMBER: 3D INTERFACES ARE WHY THOSE KIDS ALMOST GOT EATEN BY RAPTORS IN JURASSIC PARK")
Eyebeam's Mike Frumin has released OGLE (OpenGL Extrator), a software package for extracting 3-D data from Windows applications. This means you can do stuff like grab the 3-D likeness of your World of Warcraft character and print it out on a 3-D printer or insert him into a Manhattan landscape (grabbed from Google Earth). Announcement here.
