Platforms – Page 82 – Digital-Lifestyles

Thanko Silent Mouse and Silent Keyboard

Thanko Silent Mouse and Silent Keyboard Is your late night keyboard clattering keeping your partner awake? Is your incessant mouse-clicking sending your friends mad? Or have you just got a bit of a problem with clattering, clicking things?

Then be thankful for Japanese manufacturers Thanko, who have produced a matching silent keyboard and mouse combo for the noise-bothered.

Silent Mouse, Scrolly Mouse
The silent mouse is a standard looking affair with two mouse buttons and a scroll wheel, but the makers claim that both the wheel and the mouse buttons have been silenced to one-fifth that of a normal mouse.

Thanko Silent Mouse and Silent Keyboard The illustration on their site seems to suggest that they’ve achieved this hush factor by simply slamming in a slab of silicone stuff into the mouse, but we’re sure there must be a bit more hi-tech jiggerypokery involved than that (surely?!!).

Sporting an 800 dpi optical sensor and measuring up at 60x105x35mm with a weight of 90 grams, the USB Silent Mouse is compatible with both Microsoft Windows 2000/XP and Mac OS X, and is available from dynamism.com for $35 (~£19, ~€28).

Thanko Silent Mouse and Silent Keyboard The keyboard that’s as quiet as a, err, mouse
Partnering the shhhhhhhh-tastic mouse is Thanko’s new Silent Keyboard, a silver and black USB affair.

Once again, Thanko have broken out the silicon to dampen the rattle of keys down to a hush-hush 30.2db, which should let you bash out your magnum opus late at night while your partner/cat/pet donkey snoozes on undisturbed.

Thanko Silent Mouse and Silent Keyboard It’s a pretty basic looking affair with none of the groovy extras that Logitech like to bolt on, so gadget freaks are unlikely to be impressed.

Release date is set for the end of the month, priced at around 4,000 Yen (~£19, ~€28)

thanko.jp/silent_keyboard/ [Japanese]

Sony Alpha A100 dSLR: Brief Look

Sony Alpha A100 dSLR: Brief Look We had our hands on the Sony Alpha A100 last week, Sony’s first step into the Digital SLR (dSLR) market.

We’ve known for a while that Sony and Konika/Minolta would be producing a dSLR, following Sony’s purchase of the traditional SLR company. The A100 is the first product of the deal.

Sony tell us that they see the market for dSLR’s growing by 30% over the next year, which is lucky as the compact digital market appears to be stagnating. They’ve got grand plans for this market, with their stated ambition to be ‘challenging for the top position’ by 2008.

The key message from Sony with the whole of the Alpha range is “We want to make you a better photographer.” Highly appealing to those who may be scared off by crossing over from a compact camera to the SLR world.

Sony Alpha A100 dSLR: Brief Look What’s Hot
Sony have brought their own CCD technology to the party, giving a 10Mpx image, but it’s not full-frame (the sensor isn’t the size of a full 35mm film frame). They’ve combined this new CCD with anti-shake features seen on the Konica Minolta Dynax/Maxxum 5D, which stabilises the sensor instead of the lens element. Sony have labeled this Super SteadyShot.

The new Bionz image processor also adds a lot like the Dynamic Range Optimiser, which balances light levels between subject and background when taking photos into the light from a dark place.

A feature brought over from the Konika/Minolta includes EyeStart. Two sensors just below the viewfinder detects when the camera is brought to the eye and prepare the camera to start shooting.

As with previous cameras, Sony are working with Carl ZeissThe SLR lenses from Konika/Minolta will fit the A100, so the brave might be able to pick up a bargain or two buying them second-hand, quite likely when there have been 16 million of them sold worldwide.

Sony Alpha A100 dSLR: Brief Look First impressions
These are all based on the brief time we had with it. We plan to do a more in-depth review in a few weeks time.

First impressions are that of a quality camera. The battery grip is solid and comfortable, giving the impression that handling it over an extended period wouldn’t be tiresome.

The materials used vary over the body depending on the function and need. It’s with interest that we saw that the material around the shutter button was highly reflective providing a good feel, and we assume, reducing the risk of the area wearing excessively.

Sony Alpha A100 test shot – See the whole set at original resolution

When taking photos, small things like the solid sound that the shutter makes after you press the shutter button, as it raises out of the way to expose the CCD, also reassures you that it’s quality.

On the back of the body is a 2.5″ Clear Photo LCD which provides a very wide viewing angle, useful for showing off your recently taken shots. We can also confirm that Sony’s efforts to make the screen viewable in sunlight have been successful.

Sony claim that all of the commonly used functions are placed on dials, close to hand on the body, rather than burying it within on-screen menus.

Showing that the camera is a transition between Konika/Minolta and Sony, the storage on the camera is the size of compact flash. Not wanting to appear lacking in their support for their own format, Sony provide a converter to support Memory Stick.

Sony Alpha A100 test shot – See the whole set at original resolution

The lenses that come with it, especially when the two pack is considered, give good value, but as is so often the case with bundled lenses, we wonder if these will be cast aside after a short time. Although appearing to be competent, small differences from after-market lenses like the mountings being plastic, not metal, give pointers to the build quality.

Our only reservation is over the quality of the photos taken. Initially they looked great, but when zoomed to full screen we were alarmed to see the pixilation of the image. We’re not sure if this was down to the camera we used being on some strange settings or if the camera has a problem. We’ll know more when we get our hands on it for a longer period.

Sony Alpha A100 test shot – See the whole set at original resolution

Pricing and availability
The Alpha A100 is keenly priced

£599.99 – Body only
£699.99 – Body and 18-70 Lens
£849.99 – Body,18-70 and 75-300 Lenses

Sony are quoting that the whole kit and caboodle will be available in July 2006.

Nokia N80: Screen and Browser Set To Stun

Nokia N80: Screen and Browser Set To Stun The dream of effortless – and easy to see – mobile Web surfing has taken a step forward with the release of Nokia’s N80 smartphone. The new device is rapidly garnering praise for its stunning screen which takes the stress out of Web browsing and picture viewing.

With a resolution of 352 x 416 pixels and the capacity to display 262,144 colours, the N80 leaves behind some of its N-series brothers and outdoes most QVGA (that’s Quarter VGA or 240×320 resolution, to you) devices.

The holy grail of mobile screens is full VGA – a massive 480 x 640 pixel resolution. The first full VGA device, Sharp’s 904SH, has already been launched in Japan and though there’s no release date as yet for the technology over here, it’s just a matter of time. Until then the N80 is causing industry commentators like 3G.co.uk to proclaim it the best display they’ve seen on this class of phone.

Nokia N80: Screen and Browser Set To Stun The increased density of the display makes the interface more crisp and easier to read and Nokia have taken advantage of this by utilizing vector graphics to sharpen up icons and fonts, reducing the blockiness associated with lower resolution devices.

The browsing experience is enhanced by Nokia’s new Mini Map feature. Mini Map allows full HTML Web pages to be navigated by clever use of multiple, semi-transparent windows, offering different views of the page. The phone also utilizes the impressive S60 browser recently covered which now sports a visual history feature and RSS support.

Nokia N80: Screen and Browser Set To Stun The N80 is pretty sharp on taking pictures too. With a 3.2 megapixel camera built-in, the N80 can deliver stills at 2048 x 1536 pixels, substantial enough to challenge regular digi cameras. Video recording is good at 352 x 288, the same resolution as the N70 and N90, and a VGA camera is mounted on the front for video calls.

The N80 is bursting at the seams with impressive features including connectivity in just about every standard going (UPnP, Bluetooth 2.0, 3G,Wi-Fi), playback of music files (WMA,MP3, AAC, AAC+) and integrated video-sharing and blogging tools. With all that and the eye popping display, the N80 might be the phone of the moment.

Samsung Announce True VGA Mobile Display

Samsung Announce True VGA Mobile Display Mobile phone companies have been striving to develop high resolution displays to capitalise on the potential of multi-media content. This week, Samsung joined the growing list of manufacturers who have created a true VGA display suitable for mobile phones.

The 1.98″ LCD panel was debuted on Tuesday at the 2006 Society for Information Display International Conference and Exhibition in San Francisco. The screen uses the company’s proprietary amorphous silicon (a-Si) technology to achieve the same resolution as most desktop PC’s. It can display up to 16 million colours and supports extremely fast data transfer rates making it ideal for viewing video content.

According to Samsung, the screen has 10 times as many pixels per square inch as a typical 40″ HD TV meaning that your Big Brother clips will be rendered in super high definition.

Samsung Announce True VGA Mobile Display VGA has been available on handheld devices for a while now. Toshiba debuted the first PDA with VGA display (the e805) back in December 2003 and the first VGA mobile, Sharp’s 904SH, launched in Japan in April this year. The latter has four times the resolution of the average QVGA (Quarter VGA) display and face recognition functions that authenticates users by their facial features.

All of this pixel-mania may be pleasing to electronics CEO’s and geek tech-heads but there are questions about the value of such high definition in such a small device. Higher resolution means greater pixel density which means smaller graphics. This doesn’t, necessarily, equate with ease of use. As one industry insider commented, “The fundamental issue is interface design not resolution. High resolution is primarily useful for viewing pictures – still or moving. Putting a Windows style UI (user interface) on a screen with a resolution greater than the human eye can detect doesn’t deliver a better product.”

Nokia has already had a stab at addressing this issue with their S60 browser Mini Map function which allows the user navigate around full HTML pages by zooming in and out. A feature which may point the way for future developments in interface design.

The World’s Most Expensive Mouse Mat?

The World's Most Expensive Mouse Mat? Designed exclusively for idiots with more money than sense, the official Formula 1 carbon and leather mouse mat can now be bought online for just £260 ($489, €380)

Whereas most folks are happy to go along with some wafer thin promotional freebie or a tatty old mouse mat bought for a fiver, the Formula 1 mat is clearly designed for loaded types who go through life struggling to find a connection between common sense and value.

The ‘none-more-black’ mat has been hand-made in England exclusively for Formula 1 by specialist composite technicians who make Formula One monocoques.

I guess we must be a bit thick here because we had to look up what ‘monocoques’ meant. We can now, however, tell fellow ignoramuses that it means, “a type of vehicle design in which the body and chassis are in one piece”. So now you know.

The World's Most Expensive Mouse Mat? The blurb on the Formula 1 webpage insists that the carbon mouse mat was designed “using state of the art automotive 3D modelling software.”

We’re not entirely sure what 3D car design tools are needed to roll out a piece of flat material, but we can tell you that the mat is made of solid polished carbon fibre with an inlaid leather mouse area.

It looks like it might just be able to take the almighty stress of having an optical or ball-operated mouse rolling over its surface too, with the carbon being “cured to 120º C at 100 psi.” Thank heavens for that.

The World's Most Expensive Mouse Mat? (There is a rather better looking all-carbon version available for ‘just’ £250, but this won’t work with an optical mouse).

Just in case no-one’s noticed that you’re the owner of an outrageously overpriced mat – backed with the finest Italian black suede we’ll have you know – the thing is embossed in carbon with the F1 Formula 1 logo.

We bet that will impress the ladies. Not.

F1 store

LCD TVs To Rule The Roost By 2009

LCD TVs To Rule The Roost By 2009 In a few years time, kids will be clutching their sides and laughing at the thought that their parents used to watch TV on massive great boxes that filled up half the living room.

We know this because a new report tells us that LCD TVs are the future, with worldwide ownership of the slimline goggleboxes overtaking lardy CRT TVs in 2010.

According to a new analysts iSuppli, sales of LCD TVs are positively hurtling along, with shipments expected to rise by 74 per cent to 46.7 million units this year – way up on their original estimate of 41.9 million units.

After wheeling out their extrapolation-o-meter and pulling assorted levers and flywheels, the company predicts that LCDs will account for 48 per cent of TVs shipped in 2009, while chunky old-school CRTs will struggle with just 42 per cent.

By the next year, the report predicts that LCDs will account for a hefty 56 per cent of all TVs shipped.

Sales of rear-projection TVs and plasmas look set to remain a small part of the overall market, claiming just 3 percent and 7 per cent of the market respectively in 2009.

LCD TVs To Rule The Roost By 2009 Style over picture
Although punters are happy to plunge headlong into the lithe, angular world of the LCD TV, many still believe that the ‘umble CRT TV still provides better picture quality – and what’s more, they cost less.

However, declining LCD TV prices brought about by improvements in manufacturing continue to bring the once stratospherically-priced TVs into the economic reach of your average punter, with the average price of 32-inch and 40/ 42-inch LCD TVs falling by 17 per cent and 14 per cent respectively in the last five months.

LG.Philips remain the raging King Kongs of the LCD TV manufacturer jungle with the biggest slice of the market, followed by Samsung, China’s Chi Mei and Acer-owned AU Optoelectronics.

In the fourth quarter, South Korea produced nearly 45 per cent of the world’s LCD TVs, with Taiwan grabbing 40.1 per cent.

iSuppli

Scythe PowerWatch Panel For PC Modders

Scythe PowerWatch Panel For PC Modders Look, we know there’s something a bit sad about wanting a PC that glows brightly with useless dials, flashing lights and obscure read outs, but we just couldn’t hide our juvenile excitement when we saw this new gizmo from Japanese manufacturer Scythe.

Available in a silver or black finish to match the PC case of your choice, Scythe’s new PowerWatch panel comes with enough buttons and dials to keep Lieutenant Uhuru busy through a Tribble onslaught.

The PowerWatch panel is a bit of a hefty beast (148×84× 71mm deep), hogging two CD/DVD-sized slots on your PC, but you sure get a lot of glowing widgets in return.

Scythe PowerWatch Panel For PC Modders The panel is dominated by a large, circular colour LCD display giving readouts for computer temperature (centigrade/Fahrenheit, with up to four temperature sensors supported), fan speed, warning temperature and current time.

As well as the built in disco, the panel also adds two of the new PoweredUSB 2.0 ports and a card reader supporting SD and miniSD cards, MMC, RS-MMC and smart media, Compact flash, micro drive and Memory Stick (PRO and DUO).

Wrapping up the feature set, the Windows Me/2000 and XP-compatible panel also includes a microphone in/ audio out connector.

Scythe PowerWatch Panel For PC Modders Pricing and availability to be announced. We’ll take two please!

Scythe [Japanese]

Scythe PowerWatch Panel For PC Modders PoweredUSB
In case you hadn’t heard of it before (to be honest, we hadn’t), PoweredUSB is an enhanced form of USB that comes with two additional wire pairs.

These wires get past the current USB power limitations and can carry enough juice to power certain components – thus reducing cable clutter.

That all sounds great of course, but only if enough PoweredUSB peripherals start appearing – and we can’t say we’ve seen many in the consumer maket.

PoweredUSB

Suekage SOIOS Panoramic 55-Cam 360 Webcam

Suekage SOIOS Panoramic 55-Cam 360 Webcam Japanese manufacturers Suekage are hoping that their new SOIOS 55-Cam 360’s unique ability to provide panoramic viewing angles and then relay them to 3G phones may make them a hit in the home security market.

The curious looking camera (it looks like an overgrown egg-timer to our eyes) offers three different vision angles; a conventional webcam ‘standard lens’ viewpoint, a panoramic 270 degrees and a complete 360 view. The system employs a CCD camera to take video images reflected on a hyperbolic mirror measuring 55mm in diameter.

Suekage’s omni-directional optical sensor (“SOIOS”) provides an ascending angle of 12 degrees and a descending angle of 50 degrees – measured vertically from the mirror’s focal point – giving a horizontal field of view over 360-degrees.

Suekage SOIOS Panoramic 55-Cam 360 Webcam Well, that’s what their blurb said, and we’re not in the mood to get out a protractor and argue the toss, but that basic principle is: big curvy mirror = 360 coverage.

The webcam hooks up to PCs through a Firewire/IEEE 1394 interface, and images can then be streamed to a website for viewing on the user’s computer or mobile phone.

Danger Will Robinson! Burglar Ahoy!
A newly developed software component (SOIOS +alpha) offers a notification system to send out security alerts.

As soon as the system spots a purloiner in da house, the system bangs out an an e-mail to your PC or mobile phone with the ability to download a 15 second video clip of the bad boy in action.

Suekage SOIOS Panoramic 55-Cam 360 Webcam The advantage of this system is that the webcam’s 360 degree all-seeing eye does away with the need for expensive motorised systems

The disadvantage is in its 0.35 megapixel sensor which is only capable of delivering low quality VGA images. So low in fact that you may only end up seeing unrecognisable blobs for faces on your fancy-pants 360 webcam.

No pricing or availability has been announced yet.

Suekage [Japanese]

Sony Alpha 100 SLR Camera Specs Leaked

Sony Alpha 100 SLR Camera Specs Leaked Some details of Sony’s eagerly-awaited debut into the dSLR market have begun to emerge online.

The Australian Digital Photography Blog website has revealed that Sony’s new Alpha 100 dDSLR will offer 10.2 million effective megapixels and be fitted with an APS-C size CCD sensor.

As previously announced, Sony’s first dSLR camera will use an updated lens mount compatible with Konica-Minolta Alpha/Maxxum/Dynax lenses, with Sony expected to reveal a slew of new Sony G lens using the highly regarded Carl Zeiss optics.

The camera is expected to carry a large 2.5 inch format Clear Photo LCD Plus Screen with AR coating and a resolution of 230,000 pixels.

The bright optical viewfinder comes with a Spherical Acute Matte screen, 20mm eye relief, 0.83x magnification, dioptre adjustment and an interesting EyeStart Auto focus.

Sony Alpha 100 SLR Camera Specs Leaked This feature – inherited from Minolta -begins autofocus and auto-exposure as soon as it detects your peeper gazing through the viewfinder. Neat

The camera is also rumoured to be incorporating Sony’s Super SteadyShot Picture Stabilisation technology, which employs horizontal and vertical motion sensors located inside the lens assembly area.

Although there’s no firm details of pricing yet, some pundits are estimating a street price of $1,000 (body only) which places it in the highly competitive enthusiast market.

Other leaked details include an Anti-dust protection system (We like these – a lot!), 1600 ISO equivalent, Burst shooting, advanced flash modes and BIONZ Image Processing Engine.

Sony Alpha 100 SLR Camera Specs Leaked The onboard high-speed autofocus is said to sport 4 focus modes – Single-shot AF; Direct Manual Focus; AF Automatic; AF Continuous – with centre-weighted, spot and 40-segment honeycomb pattern metering modes.

The Sony Alpha 100 looks to weigh in at 545g without battery, with dimensions of 94.7 x 133.1 x 71.3 mm (L x W x D).

We should point out that Sony don’t actually call it the ‘Alpha’ in print, preferring to use the arty squiggly symbol (a bit like popstar Prince and long forgotten 80s nobby band Freur), but we couldn’t be arsed to try and find that on our keyboards.

Sony is expected to make an official announcement about the Alpha 100 later this month, but if these tempting specs are on the money, Sony could be set to make a big splash in a market currently dominated by Canon and Nikon.

Digital Photography Blog
Sony dSLR

GNER Offer Free On-Train WiFi Trial

GNER Offer Free On-Train WiFi Trial GNER is so chuffed by the fact that all its East Coast trains will be offering Wi-Fi by August this year, it’s offering the service free of charge to all passengers, sorry, customers, this summer.

Of course, the announcement might just be a marketing stunt to make more people aware of the service (and hey! it’s working!), but we’ve no problem bigging up freebies when we hear about them.

Although first class passengers already get free Wi-Fi, serfs in ~~cattle class~~, ~~second class~~, standard class usually have to shell out wildly inflated prices for miserly chunks of Wi-Fi access; £2.95 for half an hour, nearly a fiver for an hour and a whopping tenner for just two hours access.

GNER Offer Free On-Train WiFi Trial Thanks to GNER’s offer, summer travellers on their trains can trial the service and gorge themselves on a freebie, one-off unlimited 24-hour Wi-Fi session, from Monday 5th June to Monday 31st July.

Punters looking to hook up to their piece of wireless freebie action simply have to flip open their laptops, open up a browser window and let it automatically detect the GNER gateway page to Wi-Fi heaven.

GNER Offer Free On-Train WiFi Trial Wi-Fi proves a hit with travellers
GNER has seen strong demand for their in-train Wi-Fi service, bringing forward the cross-fleet rollout from its planned May 2007 deadline to August this year.

The service works via a roof-mounted satellite dish and mobile phone antenna using 3G and GPRS, connected to each coach along the entire length of the train, making a train-long mobile WiFi ‘hot-spot.’

GNER Offer Free On-Train WiFi Trial According to GNER, this will make them the first UK train operator to offer a fully wi-fi-enabled service.

Speaking last month, GNER chief executive Christopher Garnett was awash with Wi-Fi praise: “For a business user, wi-fi creates a truly mobile office, while leisure users can shop, keep up to date with news and sport or book a weekend break at the end of their journey.”

GNER