Just in case you didn’t know, Panasonic does digital cameras as well, and their latest model to be announced is the LUMIX GH1 Micro Four Thirds digital camera that boasts something most standard digital cameras don’t - HD recording capability. This will surely go a long way in blurring the lines between a High Definition camcorder and a digital camera, and could these new breed of devices eventually see the HD camcorder being pushed out of the window? We can’t really provide any answer to that, but one thing we do know - the Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GH1 is a creative HD hybrid device that is more than capable of capturing professional-level still photos as well as HD video performance without the complicated controls to scare away entry-level DSLR consumers.
What are some of the functions which the LUMIX GH1 delivers? For starters, it is compatible with the Micro Four Thirds System standard, and will be able to record High Definition AVCHD 1080p/24p video. Not only that, users will be able to benefit from a newly developed long-zoom interchangeable lens known as the LUMIX G VARIO HD 14-140mm/F4.0-5.8 ASPH./MEGA O.I.S. This lens is special as it was born out of the necessity to support HD movie recording, and it comes with a silent motor and continuous auto focusing (AF) capability to further help distinguish itself from DSLRs that offer HD video recording capabilities.
There is also a dedicated video record button located on the back of the camera that allows users to instantly begin recording videos, regardless of whether one is shooting still photos at that point in time, allowing you to creatively switch between videos and photo stills without missing a beat. You can also benefit from high-quality stereo sound in your videos thanks to Dolby Digital Stereo Creator that has been incorporated into the GH1. Other features include a Live View Finder system that lets you preview the effects of camera settings before snapping an image, a swivel 3″ high-resolution LCD display, Live MOS sensor and Venus Engine HD for outstanding processing capabilities, O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilization) and AF tracking among others. Photos are stored in the SD/SDHC format, so you won’t go wrong there with compatibility issues.
Apple is one company where their hardware refreshes are looked forward to by nearly the entire industry, and for good reason. After all, Apple products are synonymous with ease-of-use, great design and have that sense of exclusivity. We’re pleased to announce that Apple has recently announced new updates to its iMac and Mac mini desktop lines, and among these include a 24″ iMac which is priced more affordably compared to previous releases, while the Mac mini that has a long overdue update will feature more powerful integrated graphics. Expect to read all about them in greater detail right after the jump.
One thing good about new Apple releases is this - the price more or less remains the same, and you get much more features and functions within the device itself. Take the iMac for example - you will still have to fork out $1,499 for it, but instead of getting 20″ of viewing real estate, this iMac comes with 24″ for 30% more area. In addition, you will also benefit from doubling in its memory and storage capacity. As for the Mac mini, graphical performance has been increased by up to 500% thanks to the groundbreaking NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics that was announced with the aluminum unibody MacBook family in recent memory. Apple claims that the Mac mini is the most energy efficient desktop in the world, sipping under 13 watts of power when idle. Of course, those claims are tested only within controlled laboratory conditions, but we hope that real world use will be somewhere near that figure.
All the new iMac and Mac mini systems are powered by Mac OS X Leopard and bundled with iLife ‘09, Apple’s unparalleled suite of consumer applications for managing and organizing photos, making movies and creating and learning to play music. You planning to get a new Mac mini or iMac now?
Sony might be in the doldrums financially at this moment (who isn’t around the world?), but that doesn’t mean they don’t have new models to tease and tantalize us with. Recently, Sony Electronics has announced a series of additional networked models that boast full High Definition 1920 x 1080 progressive (1080p) resolution, and they will hail from the BRAVIA W-series. These will fall under the economic HDTV option, and you won’t find them to skimp on functionality as they will deliver similar interactive capability compared to the recently announced higher end BRAVIA Z5100 and XBR9 models.
All of these new networked models will come with an Ethernet connection, allowing users to access Sony BRAVIA Internet Video content directly as long as they have a decent broadband connection in the house. This service will definitely benefit those who love everything free, as it offers a wide selection of free and premium movies, TV shows, sports and music. In addition, Sony has partnered with other content providers including Amazon Video On Demand, YouTube, Yahoo!, Sony Pictures and Sony Music among others to add to its level of interactivity. With the help of BRAVIA Internet Widgets (powered by the Yahoo! Widget Engine), you can expand and personalize the experience by interacting with your favorite Internet content - these comprise of Yahoo News, Video, Finance, and Flickr, while indulging in a hash of TV shows.
All three models - the 52″ KDL-52W5100, 46″ KDL-46W5100 and 40″ KDL-40W5100 (diagonal) will come with Motionflow 120Hz technology that is touted to improve sharpness and detail in fast-moving images. They are also powered by Sony’s BRAVIA Engine 3 for a crystal clear picture even when the content is less than ideal for the eyes.
Other features include :-
24p True Cinema
XrossMediaBar (XMB) with enhanced 3D favorites menu
Internet-powered TV Guide Onscreen
BRAVIA Sync
BRAVIA Link Compatibility
4 HDMI inputs
Single PC, component, composite and S-video inputs
Trust the folks at NVIDIA to remain ahead of the competition when it comes to graphical performance on the computer, and this time it is the notebook that receives their touch of expertise. NVIDIA has recently introduced Graphical Unit Processors (GPUs) in four different categories that offer varying levels of performance which will appeal to folks who use their notebooks as the primary computer gaming platform. Out of the four, the GeForce GTX 280M is hailed to be the fastest of the bunch and in the market, capable of pumping out up to 50% more performance compared to previous generation enthusiast notebook GPUs. More on these GPUs right after the jump.
The GeForce GTX 280M and 260M GPUs were specially designed for enthusiast notebooks, while the GeForce GTS 160M and 150M GPUs target high-performance, sleek notebooks. Both the GeForce GTX 200M and GeForce GTS 100M Series GPUs were delivered in order to make High Definition games possible on a notebook without sacrificing power consumption. Thanks to the wonders of incorporating NVIDIA SLI technology for nearly double the graphics performance over a single GPU, a couple of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M GPUs is what places it at the top of the food chain for today (and at least in some time to come, until rivals ATI can come up with something better or NVIDIA themselves release a newer version). HybridPower technology has also been included in order to dynamically power down the powerful discreet GPU and transfer graphics operation to an integrated GPU whenever there is no need to run graphically intensive programs - such as typing out emails for example.
The GeForce GTX 200M and GeForce GTS 100M Series GPUs boast NVIDIA’s CUDA computing architecture while offering Graphics Plus capabilities which are not available in its competitors. In addition, owners of notebooks with NVIDIA GPUs are able to download upgradeable graphics drivers straight from NVIDIA.com in order to take advantage of new features immediately. NVIDIA is currently the only GPU manufacturer in the world who offers notebook driver downloads direct to consumers.
This YouTube video that you see here reminds me why I love the tech and gadget business. It shows what the world could look like in 2019, and it has been made better with technology.
As you can see, ten years has given us much progress including giant touch-screen displays for communication, tickets on e-paper that guide us to our next location, and completely interactive newspapers.
So who has provided us with this vision of the future? Would you believe Microsoft? This clip was given by Microsoft’s Business Division president Stephen Elop at the Wharton Business Technology Conference.
Even though this video uses a lot of special effects, you have to ask yourself if it paints a realistic depiction of where technology is headed. If you ask me, then I would say “yesâ€. Most of this technology demonstrated in the video clip is just an amplification of technologies that we already have now, such as the Surface and e-paper.
Let us all hope that ten years from now, the future will look like this. Then all those dreary science fiction writers will be wrong, and the future won’t be dystopian like 1984. Hopefully Microsoft will not be Big Brother.
So what do you think? Is this video clip another cog in the Microsoft propaganda machine, or is really what the future will be like? Drop me a comment with your answer.
Here’s a great way to keep track of the time and keep those around you on their toes. Instead of having one clock to display the time, you’d have three. Yes, it would use wall space more properly to just hang one, but this way is far more entertaining. Besides, with this you get the joys of deciding how exactly to hang them up and in what order. If you’re feeling particularly anal you could hang them in a row from smallest to largest, or for the eccentric ones you could hang it in this cluster.
Each face shows a different type of time, one is seconds, the other minutes and lastly are hours. These are made in Italy and made of painted wood. The clock comes in only the black shown here and each face in a varying size. The largest is .75d x 11.5†diam and the smallest being 1.75.d x 7.5†diam. They are all run by AA batteries, three to be precise, that are actually included with the purchase. Which is highly nice of them, considering this set of clocks will run you $295.
I still have fond memories of the early 80’s, when the Rubik’s Cube was everyone’s favorite puzzle. Its success was seen by its number of imitators at the time, including the bar-shaped Missing Link and the Pyramid-shaped Pyramix. It appears that these puzzle toys have survived many incarnations since then, the most recent being the TouchCube.
Even though the fad of Rubik’s Cube and its other puzzle variations ended decades ago, the Petaminx Dodecahedral Puzzle could have been the challenge that Rubik’s Cubists could have used back in the day. Remember the “cube-offs†they had back then? These geniuses would frantically twist and turn to complete their cubes in under a minute. Something tells me that the Petaminx Dodecahedral Puzzle would take a lot longer.
As you can see, the Petaminx is a twelve-sided figure, which is twice the sides of the Cube. As I recall, the Rubik’s Cube had about 54 individual colored squares, but the Dodecahedral puzzle has about 1,212 individual spots that are various shapes and sizes.
The puzzle was created by Andrew Cornier, and assembled by Jason Smith of PuzzleForge.com. It takes about 75 hours to complete the molding process, and there are 975 individual parts.
So far, there is no word on releasing the Petaminx Dodecahedral Puzzle to the general public, but here is a YouTube video if you want to see it in action.
Remember those cartoon fishbones? Well now there’s a USB hub modeled after them. I’m not sure if it’s some statement about death or if they just for some reason find fishbones to be cool. Despite that it’s a bit on the eccentric side, it is a great design for a hub. The way it’s set up gives convenient spots to plug them in and still leave a little room.
Of course I’m sure your cat will be driven mad by such a USB drive. It’d be a little more funny if for some reason your desk is decorated in a cat theme. Then it would appear as if your fake cats managed to find a fake fish to devour. Of course it’d also solidify you as the crazy cat person, which can’t be good. The clearly exciting news on this fishbone is that it will work with windows ME. I know, I was really worried that it wouldn’t work with that one, given my vast collection of computers that use it. You can pick this up on USB Geek for $10.
We’ve reported on a lot of devices that can stream video from the computer to your television, like the Internet TV Player from NetGear as well as devices like the Roku that can stream movies to your television. It appears ZillionTV has taken both devices and merged them into one.
ZillionTV is like watching Hulu on your television, which is fine by me. I watch Hulu all the time for their mediocre movies, but mostly for the recent episodes of my favorite TV shows.
It appears that studios like ABC/Disney, 20th Century Fox, NBC, Sony, and Warner Brother are all backing ZillionTV. The content that they will provide for it will be on demand, and ZillionTV users will not be charged a monthly fee for services. Customers will be charged rental fees for TV shows and films for a price between $1.99-3.99, and the box itself costs about $100.
What makes ZillionTV different from other content-streaming devices is that the user can select advertising “based on their interests and preferencesâ€. Are they trying to tell me that I can watch the commercials that I want to watch?
ZillionTV has also stated that they are teaming with Visa Inc. to offer the viewers a way to make purchases directly from their television. Is this the beginning of television commerce?
I suppose the future will answer those last two questions. I do know for sure that the remote for the ZillionTV is designed by Hillcrest, makers of very advanced motion-control remotes like the Loop that I reported on at CES. If only ZillionTV came with that remote.
Here’s another accessory for the iPhone, this time it’s for those that like to hear themselves talk. Actually, it’s not just for the iPhone, but for the iPod Touch 2G, iPod Nano 4G and the iPod Classic 120G. It makes it possible for you to record the sound of your own voice in order to make notes of whatever it is you deem important enough. If you thought a bluetooth headset wasn’t making you look self important enough, making audio notes on your iPhone/iPod will finish off the job.
Just plug this in and with some of them you’ll be ready to go immediately. However, with the iPhone and iPod Touch you’ll need to download recording software like iTalk Recorder or Easy Recorder. With the Nano and Classic, you’ll be ready to go though. It would be great to record lectures if you’re a student that can never quite seem to keep up with your rambling professors. The microphone is cheap too, you can pick it up for $12.90. That’s far cheaper than a lot of stand alone recording devices I’ve seen.
I believe the last time I reported on what iRiver was doing, it was the WAVE-HOME, which they had prominently on display at CES. I’m surprised they didn’t have this new product out on display at Las Vegas last January.
This product is an e-book reader. I suppose we’ve been hearing a lot about e-book readers since the unveiling of the Kindle 2. The iRiver e-reader, which I believe is called the Libre, kind of looks like the e-reader sequel from Amazon.
Then again, iRiver’s aesthetic seems to be very minimalist, with white as the most prominent color. Check out their product line and CES booth if you don’t believe me. There is no QWERTY keyboard on the Libre, just a funky button that looks like a joystick interface.
The iRiver e-book reader can handle PDF files, and is also capable of audio file playback. It also comes with an SD memory card slot so you can get your text or audio files where you need them.
The Libre, which my source does not site as its official name, is to be released by iRiver Japan. I’m not certain if this product is going to make its way into other countries, and I’m also not certain if there is a huge market for e-book readers. So what is the state of the e-book market? Drop me a comment if you know.
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Trust the folks at NVIDIA to remain ahead of the competition when it comes to graphical performance on the computer, and this time it is the notebook that receives their touch of expertise. NVIDIA has recently introduced Graphical Unit Processors (GPUs) in four different categories that offer varying levels of performance which will appeal to folks who use their notebooks as the primary computer gaming platform. Out of the four, the GeForce GTX 280M is hailed to be the fastest of the bunch and in the market, capable of pumping out up to 50% more performance compared to previous generation enthusiast notebook GPUs. More on these GPUs right after the jump.
