Mike Slocombe

Sony Cybershot and W Series Digital Cameras Announced
In a flurry of press announcements, Sony have announced no less than four shiny new cameras to add to their popular range of digital compact cameras.
Sony Cybershot DSC-H5 and DSC-H2
It seems that they liked their Cyber-shot H1 so much that’s it’s spawned two new updates, with both featuring an image stabilized 12x optical zoom, electronic viewfinders and a host of exposure modes including manual, aperture and shutter priority.
The bigger brother Cybershot DSC-H5 sports a 7.2-megapixel CCD with a man-sized three-inch LCD screen, while the DSC-H2 serves up 6 megapixels and a more modest 2.5 inch screen.
Both cameras come with optical zoom lens offering a huge range of 36-432mm (35mm equiv) at F2.8-3.7.
The combination of Sony’s Super SteadyShot optical image stabilisation and high sensitivity settings (up to IS0 1000) should let all but the shakiest folks on wobbly shoes get sharp pictures.
Offering 32MB of internal memory, both cameras take Memory Stick Duo or Memory Stick PRO Duo cards (now available in capacities up to 4 GB).
The DSC-H5 camera will be available in May for about $500 (~£287, ~€420) and the DSC-H2 a month earlier for around $400 (~£230, ~€337).
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W70 and DSC-W100
Slipping in to the front of the W series pack are the DSC-W70 and DSC-W100 compact cameras.
Featuring 8.1 and 7.2 million pixels respectively, the DSC-W100 cameras offer a 3x zoom (38-114mm), eye-level viewfinder and a 2.5-inch screen.
There’s some useful manual controls on the DSC-W100, with a manual exposure mode giving up to 46 steps of adjustable shutter speeds (30 – 1/1000 sec) but there’s only two steps of aperture control available.
Both cameras offer a wide range of ISO sensitivities with the DSC-W70 covering 100-1000 ISO and the W100 managing an impressive 80-1250 ISO.
Battery life is an impressive 360 shots on a single full charge, with the W100 coming with 64MB of internal memory and the W70 58MB. Both cameras use Sony’s Memory Stick storage.
The Cyber-shot DSC-W100 will be knocking out for $350, and the DSC-W70 for around $300 (~£172, ~€253). Both models are scheduled for release in April and will be available in black and silver.
Sony
27 February, 2006
Lumix DMC L1 SLR Announced by Panasonic
Panasonic’s first digital SLR camera with interchangeable lens has been announced at the PMA show.
The DMC-L1 utilises Olympus’s Four Thirds System and employs an attractive, solid, traditional design that could prove mighty tempting to old school photographers fed up with fiddly dials and rummaging through onscreen menus.
Coupled with the new Leica D Vario-Elmarit 14-50mm/F2.8-3.5 lens (also announced yesterday), the DMC-L1 serves up a tempting array of hands-on controls, with a large shutter speed dial on the camera’s top plate and manual aperture, focus and zoom ring controls (as well as built-in image stabilisation) on the lens.
Do we like the sound of that? You betcha!
The 7.5 megapixel camera uses a new Live 4/3 MOS sensor using Panasonic’s Maicovicon technology, which claims to deliver “the beautiful images of a CCD sensor with delicate gradation and a wide dynamic range,” along with low noise and power consumption.
The camera’s innovative mirror box unit offers a Live View function that lets users preview scenes directly on the 2.5inch, high resolution, 207,000 pixel LCD as well as through the viewfinder.
This function can be selected in both Auto Focus and Manual Focus modes, so snappers can enlarge part of an onscreen image to fine tune a picture, with the option to also check the depth of field. Nice.
Onboard is Panasonic’s Venus Engine III image processing LSI, claimed to consume only 80% as much power as its predecessor, the Venus Engine II.
The camera also utilises Olympus’s excellent Supersonic Wave Filter which uses high frequencies to blast pesky dust off the camera’s sensor – a real Godsend for photographers fed up with seeing thumping great blotches all over their masterpieces.
The beautifully finished DMC-L1 uses the SD Memory Card format and includes compatibility for the upcoming super-high-capacity 2GB+ SD Memory Cards.
Although full details have yet to be announced, the camera does seem to share quite a bit in common with the Olympus E-330 EVOLT, although the new, Leica-branded lens looks to be a very classy number indeed.
Pricing is yet to be revealed although we suspect your wallet isn’t going to like it one bit.
Four Thirds system
PMA 2006
27 February, 2006
Google Digitises US Video Archives, Iraq Censorship Rumours Debunked
Google has struck up a partnership with the US National Archives to digitise their historic movie collection and provide free access to the public through their video search service.
Initially offering 101 digitised films, the public will be able to view World War II newsreels and footage of the Apollo 11 mission and other Nasa material online.
Also included in the pilot are reels from a 1930s documenting the establishment of the national park system (be steady, my beating heart).
In a statement, US archivist Allen Weinstein declared the partnership as, “an important step for the National Archives in its goal of becoming an archive without walls.”
“Our new strategic plan emphasises the importance of providing access to records anytime, anywhere. This is one of many initiatives that we are launching to make our goal a reality,” he added.
Google censoring Iraq content?
But what Google gives with one hand it appeared to be taking with another as The Register reported that the search engine giant was blocking US viewers from seeing a piece of Iraq footage on their video service.
Although available to non-US viewers, the innocuous clip – which showed US military personnel detonating a roadside bomb in a controlled explosion – was unavailable in the US with The Register (and, to be fair, several others) citing this as an example of a new regime of political censorship at Google.
Happily, this was not the case, as a Google spokesperson explained: “Video uploaders, using Google Video’s ‘Advanced Options’ feature, can choose to blacklist countries. In this case the uploader blacklisted the US and only the US. When uploading the video the content owner set a preference not to show this content to users in the US.”
Of course, had Google not agreed to their highly controversial deal with China to censor search results recently, people would be less inclined to think them capable of censorship closer to home…
Google Video censors Iraq footage – for US only
National Archives via Google Video
27 February, 2006
Ask Jeeves Rebrands, Adds New Search Tools
The site formerly known as Ask Jeeves has retired its long serving butler, rebranded itself as ‘Ask.com’ and served up a new, simplified homepage offering access to new tools like enhanced maps, driving directions, encyclopaedia search and a Web-based desktop search.
With the butler now booted off the homepage, ask.com presents a simple, Google-like interface with a text search box and a collapsible, customisable sidebar with shortcuts to 10 default search tools including maps, bloglines, images, weather, dictionary and weather.
New map features galore (if you’re in the US)
Ask.com says that the map search service has been considerably improved, employing the new AJAX-based technology to let users add new locations (pins) on the map, and then move the pins around on the map to get instantly updated walking or driving directions.
Aerial photos can also be overlaid or combined with regular street views, with the option to print aerial shots for a fee.
After several minutes frantically looking for some pin-pushing, drag’n’drop action of our own, we realised that it’s not for the likes of us Brits and all the groovy functionality is reserved for US maps only.
Were we impressed? Not at all.
And as if to wind us up a bit further, we then discovered that ask.com’s much-touted new encyclopedia search function was also noticeable by its absence on the UK homepage, as was the local search function.
Here’s an idea Ask.com – how about you include a help file to explain this to users, or, even better, give us the same goodies too?
Keeping it simple
In an attempt to stand out from a highly competitive (and Google dominated) market, Ask executives are aiming to provide a super-clean interface with fewer ads and editorial results displayed above advertisements.
“We want to get the message out that Ask.com is a serious alternative to any search engine out there,” said Daniel Read, vice president of consumer products at Ask.com.
Old Danny boy’s got his work cut out for him as Ask Jeeves has remained the least used among the largest search engines, way behind market leaders Google who currently hog an estimated 40 per cent of all queries.
Trailing behind Yahoo, Microsoft, MSN and AOL, Ask Jeeves can only muster a paltry 6.5% of the market, and until we get the same advanced functionality that our US counterparts enjoy, we’ll be sticking with Google, thanks.
Ask.com
27 February, 2006
Xara Xtreme Review (93%)
Xara has been around for over a decade now, and although it may not be as well known as expensive rival programs like Illustrator and Freehand, it continues to offer astonishing value for money, providing ample power under the hood and enough tools to satisfy anything from graphic smudgers to arty pros.
Now known as Xara Xtreme, the vector-based program claims to be “the world’s fastest drawing program”, and we’ve certainly never seen anything as fast on our machines.
Compared to its big name rivals, this fella is a Billy Whizz in a world of Billy Bunters.
Screen redraws are instantaneous, and changes you make to blends, bevels, shadow effects, feathering, graduated transparency and other effects appear on-screen in real time.
Complex objects can be moved around and transformed in real-time, so you won’t be entertained by egg-timer pointers or have to view pesky wireframe or boundary boxes when shunting graphics around the screen.
Although it isn’t the most modern-looking of programs, Xara’s sheer simplicity and power makes it a far less daunting program to master compared to many high-end vector programs, with new users guided by a set of excellent help files and 80+ short movie tutorials.
With an intuitive, customisable and familiar interface, there’s a refreshing lack of dialogue boxes floating about, with most changes being made via an option bar that instantly updates to show the relevant options for the active tool.
Bitmap editor
As well as the usual Bezier, freehand, shape, blend and text vector tools, there’s a handy ‘Picture Editor’ photo enhancement module available for bitmap editing.
This launches when you double-click any imported bitmap image and offers basic photo adjustments like brightness, contrast and saturation, along with useful tools like cropping and red-eye removal.
Imported images can be resized, have text added and then exported as JPEGs with control over compression settings.
Interestingly, Xara also offers Photoshop plug-in support, opening the door to more advanced digital editing and effects.
Xtreme comes with tools for outputting optimised graphics for the Web, a NavBar tool, image slicing and image map support, but if you’re feeling low on inspiration, there are Gallery palettes packed with thousands of ready-made items which can be downloaded off Xara’s site.
Xara should easily fit into most user’s workflows too, with support for all the common vector and bitmap graphic formats, including Flash, AI (Illustrator), Corel DRAW, TIFF, GIF, PNG and PDF, and offers integration with Adobe/Macromedia’s Dreamweaver and Flash software.
The verdict
Once again, we were knocked out by the performance, superlative speed and graphics capability of Xara, but we’ve kept the best bit until last: the price.
At just $79 (~£46, ~e66), Xara Xtreme retails for a fraction of the price of its rivals and with its sophisticated and powerful set of tools can only be considered an absolute bargain!
Highly recommended.
Ease Of Use: 85%
Features: 85%
Value For Money: 95%
Overall: 93%
Xara Xtreme
24 February, 2006
Globalsat GH-601/602 Wrist GPS For Sporty Types
Jogging geeksters! Set your wallets to ‘buy’ as GlobalSat are set to release a wrist-type GPS Receiver aimed at sporty types who get their kicks from running around all over the place on foot, bike, board or ski.
The Globalsat GH-601 is a fully-sealed, waterproof box of gizmos that comes with a GPS training system capable of locating and tracking points on the map.
Calling it wristwatch-sized would be pushing a bit, but the chunky device certainly straps on the wrists of sweaty outdoor types and comes with a variety of modes to keep them moving.
The Globalsat has a large 80 x 120 pixel monochrome LCD readout and employs a SiRF Star III high performance GPS chipset and omni-directional GPS antenna.
The GPS functions let users map a location, mark a trace point, find a marked point and comes with backtrack mode and Ahead / North Direction.
A ‘coach mode’ nags users to keep up to predefined performance targets while ‘workout projects’ offer a variety of ways to keep the perspiration flowing.
Flagging, flailing users failing to meet targets can expect to be alerted by the device to get a move on, and knackered users can be reminded of their crap performance thanks to the unit’s built in history.
Session information can be downloadable to PCs via a Mini-USB port, letting others laugh at your failure.
Training projects and analysis come with the bundled Windows-compatible “professional self-training” package, but Apple users can stay at home because we couldn’t find any mention of Mac support.
The 602 Series also offers an electronic compass (resolution 0.6uT/count) and a barometric altimeter (15~115 kPa), and both devices can be used as GPS receiver on PCs through the USB interface.
Powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion cell, battery life is claimed at 16 hours with GPS on, and the thing comes in a variety of ‘outdoor’ colours for cutting a dash on the slopes.
Specifications:
Item: GH-601, GH-602
Number of Waypoints: 100
Display Size: 24.9 x 39.88 (H x W in mm.)
Display type: Black & White LCD
Pixels (H x W): 80 x 120
Unit Weight: 72.87g
Waterproof Standard: IPX7
Unit Size: 46 x 82.5 x 18.5 (H x W x D in mm.)
Backlit Display:Single level
Operating temperature: -20 °C to 60 °C
Humidity: 5% to 95% Non-condensing
Voltage: 3.7V for a rechargeable battery, 5V for charging input
Charging connector: DC 5V
Battery: Rechargeable 1600mAh Li-ion battery
Battery life: 16 hours (GPS turn-on; Compass and Altimeter turn-off)70 hours (GPS, Compass and Altimeter turn-off)
Connect to PC Interface: Mini-USB port
Electrical compass: GH-601, no; GH-602, yes
Barometric Altimeter: GH-601, no; GH-602, yes
GPS Parameters
GPS Chipset: SiRF Star III
Frequency: L1, 1575.42 MHz
C/A code: 1.023 MHz chip rate
Channels: 20 channel all-in-view tracking
Antenna Type: Built-in patch antenna
Position: 10 meters, 2D RMS 5 meters, 2D RMS, WAAS enabled
Velocity: 0.1 m/s
Time:1 us synchronized to GPS time
Default datum: WGS-84
Reacquisition: 0.1 sec., average
Hot start: 1 sec., average
Warm start: 38 sec., average
Cold start: 42 sec., average
Altitude: 18,000 meters (60,000 feet) max.
Velocity: 515 meters/ second (1000 knots) max.
Acceleration: Less than 4g
Jerk: 20 m/sec3
Physical properties
Top Cover: PC with TPR
Bottom Cover: PC
Wrist Strap: Weaved cloth
Waterproof Stopper: TPEE
LCD Faceplate: Acrylic
GlobalSat
23 February, 2006
Samsung Helix XM2go Portable Satellite Radio/MP3 Player
Announced at the CES 2006 show earlier this month, the Samsung Helix XM2Go has now appeared for pre-orders on Amazon.com (US).
There’s been quite a lot of excitement about the Helix, which comes with an alluring feature set, offering a portable satellite receiver and mp3 player/recorder in a highly pocketable package.
The big news about this unit is its ability to receive XM satellite radio transmissions, letting users combine live XM radio with their personal digital music collections (MP3s and WMA).
XM Satellite Radio may not mean a lot over here in Europe-land, but in America it’s the country’s most popular satellite radio service, offering 160 digital channels, including news, sports, talk and entertainment, traffic & weather with “the deepest playlist in the industry” covering over 2 million titles.
The good news is that the service is commercial free – the bad news is that it’s a subscription service, with plans starting at $12.95 a week.
The Samsung Helix XM2Go lets users record up to 50 hours of broadcast on its built-in flash memory, with users able to build their own playlists on the device, mixing XM radio content with their own digital music.
A handy built-in memory buffer lets listeners save an entire XM radio song even after the song has already played halfway through, and a built-in FM transmitter means that music can be beamed to any FM radio frequency, making it easy to listen to XM content on any home or car stereos.
The Helix offers a neat TuneSelect feature, which alerts users when one of their favourite artists or songs is being played on an XM channel and there’s also built-in support for the XM + Napster music service.
This lets users ‘tag’ a song they hear on the XM radio, and then buy and download the tune song via Napster.
The attractive looking device measures a cutesy 3.7 x 2.2 x 0.6 inches, weighs in at a lightweight 4.5 ounces, with a large 2.2 inch 180 x 180 TFT colour screen dominating the front of the unit.
It’s not cheap at $399.99, (~e335, ~£229) but that’s the sort of price early adopters can expect to pay for such a cutting edge gizmo.
Shipping is expected in early April, with the optional YA-CP100 car kit retailing for $69.99 (~e58, ~£40).
Amazon
XM Radio
22 February, 2006
2 Mch SMS GIVz U RSI (Click To Translate)
According to a new survey from Virgin Mobile, mobile telephone text messaging has become so popular in the UK that millions are complaining of injuries to their thumbs and fingers.
With more than 93.5 million text messages sent every day, there’s a whole load of keyboard action going on all over Blighty, and all that button pushing has led to a massive growth in the number of people suffering RSI (repetitive strain injury).
The survey found that thirty-eight per cent more people suffer from sore wrists and thumbs than half a decade ago, with 3.8 million people complaining of text-related injuries a year.
Despite the agony, it seems that Brits are prepared to go through the pain barrier to keep bashing out their texts, with more than twelve per cent admitting to sending 20 text messages a day – with a seriously obsessed ten per cent blasting out as many as 100 texts a day!
You probably missed it – we certainly did – but yesterday (Feb 21) was apparently National Text Message Injury day in the UK.
Designed to highlight the very real problems of RSI, Virgin have sponsored a very useful site, practisesafetext.com which comes with useful tips and advice on how to keep your textin’ digits in full button-pushin’ order.
British Chiropractic Association (BCA) spokesperson Dr Matthew Bennett offered a few tips of his own, advising texters to change hands if it starts to hurt, vary the hands and digits used and don’t text for more than a few minutes without a break.
As a recent sufferer of RSI (brought on by long hours sweating over a hot Logitech as I try to bring you, dear reader, the latest stories), I strongly recommend you try out some of the exercises.
You might look a bit of a berk while you’re doing them, but anything that keeps your pint-holding hand in good shape can surely only be a good thing.
Headline Translation – too much texting gives you RSI.
22 February, 2006
City of London Gets Blanket WiFi
The City of London is to get blanket Wi-Fi, with city slickers able to access the Web anywhere within London’s famous financial district, the Square Mile.
The scheme, run in partnership with London-based WiFi vendor The Cloud, is set to go live in the next few months and provide Wi-Fi access on streets and in open spaces throughout the City.
The Cloud’s unique open network concept lets different service providers offer WiFi services to its customers and supports high speed internet access, rich email access, music, video and other entertainment services, as well as the all-important VoIP services
The City network will comprise around 150 WiFi network “nodes” lurking inside lampposts, closed-circuit TV poles and street signs, offering connectivity to an estimated 350,000 Londoners as well as the hordes of tourists who regularly tramp through the area.
“This will allow people to have continuous online access, whether in a taxi or an open area, across the financial centre,” said Peter Bennett, a spokesman for the Corporation of London.
Unfortunately, unlike the free Wi-Fi service a few miles away in Islington, north London, the service won’t be free, with online access rates dependent on the rates charged by service providers.
Roaming Wi-Fi enabled punters without a provider will have to fork out a fairly hefty £5 ($8.70 US) per hour to use the service.
Michael Snyder, the chairman of the City of London’s Policy Committee, said that the network would help the City maintain its position as the world’s leading financial centre, letting city workers and visitors to stay in touch with their office via handheld devices while on the move.
“The City is a fast moving environment and we are responding to the increasing time pressures faced by workers by providing the technology for them to stay up to date, wherever they are in the Square Mile,” he added.
The move follows an announcement that The Cloud would be installing network hubs and rolling out WiFi in nine cities across Britain, including Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford and Liverpool.
Three other London boroughs are also scheduled to go wireless in the next few months, which should help the UK keep its number two world ranking for wireless hotspot locations
According to figures from the Wi-Fi Alliance, the UK – along with the WiFi-tastic US – accounts for nearly half of the planet’s 10,800 wireless locations.
The Cloud
City Of London
21 February, 2006
AOL Set To Battle Skype, Google And MySpace
America Online is about to come out of its corner fighting as it gets ready to slug it out with Internet heavyweights such as MySpace, Skype and Google.
Ignoring shouts from the crowd that ‘they’re a big organisation but they’re out of shape’, AOL CEO Jonathan Miller told USA Today that they’re ready to KO the opposition with a salvo of killer punches.
New video search tools
First up is a new video search tool which integrates with the innovative Truveo technology which AOL bought in December.
The company claim that by using Truveo’s “visual crawlers”, they can now find and index high-quality video on the Web that traditional search engines can’t see, and will include AOL Hi-Q Videos (DVD-quality) in their video indexes.
The 1.8 million videos already indexed through Truveo will be added to AOL’s existing archive of 20,000+ original and licensed videos, along with the 2.5 million Web videos indexed through Singingfish.
Come mid-March, AOL will also be making 14,000 Warner Brothers-owned classic TV shows available for free (but supported by advertising), as part of its new In2TV service.
Mashing up MySpace
With 43 million active users signed up to their AIM messaging service, AOL is hoping that with their substantial music and video offerings, they’ll be able to mount an effective challenge to the immensely successful MySpace social networking community.
Seeing as they already operate the world’s most popular messaging service, AOL should be in a strong position to take on Murdoch’s company.
As Miller points out, with so many people already using Buddy Lists to chat with others, “the barrier to getting people to use it would be very low.”
With the new service, subscribers could simply click on a name in a Buddy List and be taken directly to that person’s personal website.
Charlene Li, analyst at Forrester Research, reckoned AOL’s plans made perfect sense, adding: “The key is making a strong link with AOL Music. Part of the reason MySpace works so well is it has music.”
Stalking Skype
Miller also revealed plans to turn AIM into a full voice platform which would compete directly with Skype.
Although Google and Yahoo instant message services already offer VoIP calls, AOL’s market dominance could quickly establish them as a force in cheap Internet phone calling.
Expected to should roll out in late spring, AOL also intends to open up the new AIM voice service to outside software developers.
No doubt AIM users will be hoping that this may finally produce long-overdue tools to let them chat with users of other messaging services.
AOL
21 February, 2006