You can’t swing a dead Na’vi without hitting a new 3D display product these days. Three-dimensional imaging was actually invented in the 1800s, and has been used sporadically in movies since the 1920s, but James Cameron’s sci-fi epic Avatar is bringing it into the mainstream.

Now that 3D is less of a gimmick, TV manufacturers are beginning to incorporate the technology into their products. Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony all announced new 3D TVs at CES this past January. And Avatar could be the best thing to happen to Nvidia and Zalman in their efforts to sell PC gamers on their respective videocards and 3D displays. Market research firm DisplaySearch projects that annual sales of 3D-ready monitors will grow from 40,000 units in 2009 to 10 million by 2018.

So, given that at least some early adopters will buy a 3D display in due time, it’s worth knowing how this visual trickery works. Knowledge is power in the world of upgrading.

Competing technologies may use different implementations, but all 3D video is based on stereoscopic imaging: An illusion of depth is created by presenting a slightly different image to each eye. Each image is of the same object or scene but from a faintly different perspective. Your brain then synthesizes the two images into a spatial representation. The most common 3D applications depend on the viewer wearing either active eyewear (e.g., liquid-crystal shutter glasses) or passive eyewear (e.g., linearly or circularly polarized 3D glasses).

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Batteries are everywhere. They’re in our phones, mice, cars, laptops, game machines, controllers, remotes, cameras—you name it. Battery technology influences the design, capabilities, and feature set of nearly everything portable, from laptops and cell phones to hybrid and electric vehicles.

Most of the batteries in our lives are rechargeable, and our more eco-aware world is quickly replacing standard alkaline AA and AAA batteries with rechargeable equivalents. Still, few people know how all these batteries work or how to best take care of them.

We’re going to focus on common rechargeable battery types, but before we get into that we should cover a few basics about how batteries work and go over common terms. 

Organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, are often touted as the next big thing in display technology, offering brighter colors, true black, lower power consumption, and better off-axis viewing than traditional LCD screens. They’ve popped up in gadgets from high-concept to mundane: The infamous Optimus Maximus keyboard, for example, utilizes many tiny OLED screens in its programmable and customizable keycaps, and both Sony’s new X-series Walkman and Microsoft’s new Zune HD have OLED screens. OLED technology has made great strides in the past 10 years, and cheaper and better manufacturing processes mean they’ve started appearing in everything from media players to phones to high-definition televisions—even keyboards. But what are OLEDs?

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