Where do we spend our time online?

New data suggests that online entertainment sites are only 4th most popular among visitors, with higher categories being Portals, instant messenger services and conversational media.

That’s not the most interesting part of all this though.

Number 4 on a list of growing trends: 3D Internet!

The 3D Internet will become a reality, with consumers able to virtually experience a holiday resort before they book, students will be able to attend virtual lectures and shoppers will be able to see how an armchair would look in their living room before they buy it.

I for one bow before our 3rd dimensional overlords. That is all.

Monsters vs. Aliens 3D Superbowl Ad with FREE Glasses!

Roll up, roll up and grab your pair of free 3D glasses from Pepsi/SoBe Life Water displays at 28,000 locations including grocery, drug and electronics stores and big-box retailers.

A taste of things to come?
Word is that NBC will distribute 150 million pairs of Monsters vs. Aliens branded 3D glasses in preparation for the 3D advertisement broadcast during the Superbowl on February 1st.

The Great 2009 3D Movie Timeline

Update: The Great 2010 3D Movie Timeline has just been posted!

With 2009 shaping up to be a big year for 3D movies and technologies we bring you this summary of the most anticipated 3D movies scheduled for release in the upcoming year. A big list of movie release dates for 3D films coming out in 2009.

Cast your eyes upon this list of all-encompassing 3-dimensional glory!

My Bloody Valentine 3D

Release Date: January 16 2009

More: My Bloody Valentine 3D

Ten years ago, a tragedy changed the town of Harmony forever. Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles), an inexperienced coal miner, caused an accident in the tunnels that trapped and killed five men and sent the only survivor, Harry Warden (Richard John Walters), into a coma. But Harry Warden wanted revenge. Exactly one year later, on Valentine’s Day, he woke up and brutally murdered twenty-two people with a pickax before being killed.

Ten years later, Tom Hanniger returns to Harmony on Valentine’s Day, still haunted by the deaths he caused. Struggling to make amends with his past, he grapples with unresolved feelings for his ex-girlfriend, Sarah (Jaime King), who is now married to his best friend, Axel (Kerr Smith), the town sheriff. But tonight, after years of peace, something from Harmony’s dark past has returned. Wearing a miner’s mask and armed with a pickax, an unstoppable killer is on the loose. And as his footsteps come ever closer, Tom, Sarah and Axel realize in terror that it just might be Harry Warden who’s come back to claim them…

My Bloody Valentine is a completely 3D film, using new Real D 3D technology, as seen in films such as Journey to the Center of the Earth. The film will also be available in 2D for theaters that are not equipped to process new digital 3D technology.

Coraline 3D

Release Date: February 6 2009

More: Coraline (Single-Disc Edition w/ 3D)

Coraline is an animated stop-motion horror fantasy film based on Neil Gaiman’s novella of the same name. Directed by Henry Selick, it is scheduled to be released in theaters on February 6, 2009.

The film is about a young girl, Coraline (Dakota Fanning), who unlocks a mysterious door in her new home and enters into a parallel reality, a fantastical and thrilling imitation of her own dull life. In this world, Coraline finds a new version of her real mother (Teri Hatcher) and father (John Hodgman), her off-kilter neighbors, Miss Forcible (Jennifer Saunders), Miss Spink (Dawn French) and Mr Bobinski (Ian MacShane), and the Cat (Keith David). However, this other world soon begins to unravel and she becomes a prisoner to her Other Mother and must count on her resourcefulness, determination, and bravery to get back home.

Monsters vs. Aliens 3D

Release Date: March 27 2009

More: Monsters vs. Aliens

Monsters vs. Aliens is an upcoming 2009 computer-animated 3-D feature film from DreamWorks Animation. The release date was moved up to March 27th, 2009 to prevent competition with James Cameron’s upcoming Avatar.

When California resident Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) mysteriously grows to 49 ft 11 in, she is labelled a monster and taken in by the military to a institution housing four other monsters: Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D., an insect-headed mad scientist (Hugh Laurie), the Missing Link, a thousands-of-years-old fish-man (Will Arnett), B.O.B., an indestructible gelatinous mass (Seth Rogen) and Insectosaurus, a fuzzy 350-foot bug that makes even Susan look tiny by comparison. When a UFO lands and aliens demand that Earth be given to them, General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland) suggests to the President (Stephen Colbert) that the monsters can provide the firepower to defeat the aliens.

Up in 3D

Release Date: May 29 2009 in the USA, October 16 2009 in the UK

More: Up

Up is an upcoming computer-animated 3-D film being produced by Pixar Animation Studios. The film is directed by Monsters, Inc. director Pete Docter and features the voices of Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai and John Ratzenberger. It is the first Pixar film to be presented in Disney Digital 3-D.

Carl Fredricksen (Edward Asner) is 78 years old. When Carl was a child, he met and eventually married a girl named Ellie who grew up in a small midwestern town. Ellie always dreamed of exploring the mountains, but she died before she got a chance. Now, when developers threaten to move him into an assisted living home, Carl decides to fulfill his promise to Ellie. To accomplish this, he befriends a chubby eight-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell.^[4] The two opposites match up for thrilling adventures as they encounter wild terrain, unexpected villains, and all the terrifying creatures that wait in the jungle.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 3D

Release Date: July 1 2009

More: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs also known as Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is an upcoming 2009 computer animated film to be the third installment of the Ice Age film series.

The teaser trailer was released with the film Horton Hears a Who!, and features the films’ familiar saber-toothed squirrel, Scrat. The trailer reveals that a population of dinosaurs have survived extinction, living beneath thick layers of ice in a tropical habitat, and are released when the ice thaws. The trailer first appeared on the official website in May 2008, 14 months before the film’s release in theaters.

The first trailer opens amidst a blizzard. Scrat is trying to get through it, when he notices his acorn. During his struggles to reach it, he is engulfed in snow and frozen. He manages to pop open his eyes, using them to lean himself toward the acorn. He successfully pulls it out, releasing warm gases from beneath the ice, which thaws Scrat. Feeling around with his foot, he discovers he has made a large hole in the ice, and falls through. After hitting a few trees, he slides down to the tip of a scaly back and tail, losing his acorn. He slides down to the tip of the tail as it rises, coming face to face with a Tyrannosaurus rex. The end of the trailer shows the Tyrannosaurus rex roaring at Scrat and cuts to the inside of the dinosaur’s mouth, where Scrat is seen, his eyes twitching before the Tyrannosaurus rex’s mouth snaps shut.

G-Force 3D

Release Date: July 24 2009

G-Force is an announced film to be produced by Jerry Bruckheimer for Walt Disney Pictures.

The film revolves around a team of trained secret agent guinea pigs that take on a mission for the US government to stop an evil billionaire, who plans to destroy the world with household appliances.

Piranha 3D

Release Date: July 24 2009

Piranha 3-D is an upcoming 2009 3D horror film to be directed by Alexandre Aja. It is a remake of the 1978 film Piranha, and is currently scheduled for release on July 24, 2009.

The film takes place in Lake Havasu, Arizona where every year the population of the lake ranges from 5,000 to 50,000 for the 4th of July. Havasu sits in the crater formed by a prehistoric volcanic eruption, and when earth tremors tear open a crack in the lake floor, piranhas are unleashed. Unstoppable killing machines acting blindly under one primeval impulse: to hunt down anything that moves and strip it to the raw, bleeding bone.

Final Destination 4: Death Trip 3D

Release Date: August 21 2009

Final Destination 4: Death Trip 3D is the upcoming installment in the Final Destination supernatural thriller franchise.

On what should have been a fun-filled day at the races, Nick O’Bannon has a horrific premonition in which a bizarre sequence of events causes multiple race cars to crash, sending flaming debris into the stands, brutally killing his friends and causing the upper deck of the stands to collapse on him. When he comes out of this grisly nightmare Nick panics, persuading his girlfriend, Lori, and their friends, Janet and Hunt, to leave…escaping seconds before Nick’s frightening vision becomes a terrible reality. Thinking they’ve cheated death, the group has a new lease on life, but unfortunately for Nick and Lori, it is only the beginning. As his premonitions continue and the crash survivors begin to die one-by-one–in increasingly gruesome ways–Nick must figure out how to cheat death once and for all before he, too, reaches his final destination. The film marks the latest in the highly popular “Final Destination” series, and its first 3D installment, giving horror fans an especially visceral thrill ride.

Toy Story 3D

Release Date: October 2 2009

The original Toy Story is set for re-release this October in Disney Digital 3-D!

Old-fashioned cowboy doll Woody is coordinating a reconnaissance mission around his owner Andy’s birthday party in the days before Andy’s family move to their new house. To Woody’s dismay, Andy receives a new action figure in the form of space ranger Buzz Lightyear, whose impressive features soon see Buzz replacing Woody as Andy’s favorite toy. Woody - the former de facto leader of Andy’s toys - is disappointed by his replacement and resentful towards Buzz. For his part, Buzz does not understand that he is a toy. Instead he believes himself to be an actual space ranger, seeing Woody as an interference in his ‘mission’.

Astro Boy 3D

Release Date: October 30 2009

Set in futuristic Metro City, Astro Boy is a young robot with incredible powers created by a brilliant scientist in the image of the son he has lost. Unable to fulfill the grieving man’s expectations, Astro Boy embarks on a journey in search of acceptance, experiencing betrayal and a netherworld of robot gladiators, before he returns to save Metro City and reconcile with the father who had rejected him

Christmas Carol 3D

Release Date: November 6 2009

Christmas Carol is a 2009 film adaptation of Charles Dickens’ 1843 story of the same name.

A Christmas Carol is a Victorian morality tale of an old and bitter miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, who undergoes a profound experience of redemption over the course of one night. Mr. Scrooge is a financier/money-changer who has devoted his life to the accumulation of wealth. He holds anything other than money in contempt, including friendship, love and the Christmas season.

Planet 51 3D

Release Date: November 20 2009

Planet 51 is an upcoming animated film directed by Jorge Blanco and written by Joe Stillman.

The film follows a human astronaut who lands on Planet 51 thinking he’s the first to set foot on it. However, he discovers it’s inhabited by little green people who live in a white picket-fenced world reminiscent of 1950s America.

Avatar 3D

Release Date: December 18 2009

A band of humans are pitted in a battle against a distant planet’s indigenous population. Revolutionary filmmaking techniques and a $190 million budget. Avatar is an upcoming 3-D science fiction film directed by James Cameron, due to be released on December 18, 2009.

In director James Cameron’s original script treatment of Avatar, a man tries to make his way as a miner by combining with an alien during an interplanetary war in which aliens can make themselves manifest by possessing human bodies – avatars.

When Avatar was titled “Project 880″, a casting call was put out in June 2006 with a plot description provided, saying, “In the future, Jake, a paraplegic war veteran is brought to another planet, Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na’vi, a humanoid race with their own language and culture. Those from Earth find themselves at odds with each other and the local culture.”

In December 2006, Cameron described Avatar as “a futuristic tale set on a planet 200 years hence [...] an old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience [that] aspires to a mythic level of storytelling.” The January 2007 press release described the film: “Avatar is also an emotional journey of redemption and revolution. It is the story of a wounded ex-marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in biodiversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival,” and “We’re creating an entire world, a complete ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and a native people with a rich culture and language.”

And there we have it. Stay tuned for our list of announced far future releases, and a look at Pixar’s recent announcement that they will be releasing all future feature films in full Disney 3D.

Update: The Great 2010 3D Movie Timeline has just been posted!

You won’t believe your eyes when 3D TV becomes reality

I’m sitting in Paris and some butterflies are fluttering towards me. Loads of them, perfectly clearly. I could allow one to land on my hand, or catch one of the rose petals being blown towards me - except I can’t, because they’re not real. They’re images on a TV in high definition - and in perfect 3D. They look life-sized and real, and I’m not wearing any silly spectacles other than the ones I wear all the time.

People have been working on convincing 3D without the glasses for a long time and the demo is breathtaking. It’s on a prototype Philips TV, which won’t be available for a while.

The new technology shows actual 3D and it’s impressive. It’s not totally natural; if the camera has focused on the foreground, it’s not possible to focus on the background as there is no clear image there for your eye to pick up. Once you’re used to that it looks perfect. But how quickly will the market embrace it?

via Inside IT: You won’t believe your eyes when 3D TV becomes reality | Technology | The Guardian.

Sky Hi-Def 3D TV Broadcast Demo (Sky+3D)

Sky have a recently announced their move towards 3D broadcasts, revealing that they’ve already begun filming some sporting events using dual camera rigs to capture images for the left and right eye. These two images are then kept synchronized throughout the editing process and finally broadcast side by side via a standard Sky Hi Definition set-top box. A 3D ready television is required to combine these images on the screen, creating the 3D effect.

The current technology still requires polarizing glasses to get the full effect, however Sky and some 3D television manufacturers (Samsung, Phillips) have revealed plans and television models that would display a three-dimensional picture without the use of special specs.

Watch this space.

3D Television Soon to be a Reality for UK Viewers?

With 3D TV displays causing commuters to stumble off escalators in Shanghai’s Metro city and the BBC reporting 3D TV is just around the corner, we’re entering a new age in visual entertainment. Sky also mentions 3d tv is imminent, demonstrating their technology.

Using its High Definition set top box attached to a Hyundai 3D enabled TV, Sky have demonstrated a 3D TV system designed to be delivered direct to UK homes.

Sky’s 3D system works on the same principle as IMAX 3D technology. Polarising glasses filter one of two slightly different images (one for each eye), fooling the brain into thinking it is viewing an image in three dimensions.

It is difficult at this moment in time to judge whether or not Sky are serious about introducing a 3D system for consumers. Interest in 3D has ebbed and flowed for a good few years now and Sky might just be judging consumer interest along with the latest wave of manufacturer interest. LG, Philips, JVC and Panasonic are all working on 3D systems in some shape or form.

Sky have been filming a number of sporting events in 2008 with purpose built 3D cameras. Although you need the special 3D glasses the technology works with an unmodified Sky HD box. 3D TV’s are not currently available in the UK although a number of manufacturers plan to exhibit the technology at this January’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

It remains to be seen whether home 3d television is the way of  the future, but it’s an exciting new technology that’s worth keeping an eye on.

While consumer interest in 3d in general has ebbed and flowed over the years, a technology that provides convincing three dimensional visuals without the use of conventional clumsy cardboard glasses then a diminished interest may well be revived again.

Meanwhile, there are a collection of decent 3D movies available at Amazon that come with glasses and offer an impressive experience on your existing tv and dvd player.