Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The rumors were true. Canon has crammed the $1500 50D's sensor and 5D-Mark-II-like 1080p video capture into an $899 entry-level Rebel. We ran it through its paces for a few hours, and it's awesome.So what we have here is almost the exact sensor from the 50D-a 15.1 megapixel CMOS with sensitivities up to ISO 12,800 at its top-end H2 boost setting. And almost the exact same HD capture from the 5D Mark II-the only change is that 1080p video is captured at 20fps, down from the 5D Mark II's 30fps.
*~*~*
On Tuesday night, a Los Angeles Times blog post pointed to an soundbite that Facebook "gaming guru" Gareth Davis produced at the GamesBeat conference in San Francisco: that the company is "looking at" offering a virtual currency to developers. The virtual goods industry, the article notes, is a $1.5 billion behemoth.
This would mean that games and other apps with a presence on Facebook could use a universal "Facebook currency" that would not only be interoperable between apps, it could also line Facebook's pockets with some extra cash. But Davis' language ("looking at") is about as ambiguous as it gets, so my advice to potentially-excited developers would be "don't hold your breath."
Late last year, Facebook switched the payment system for Facebook Gifts from U.S. dollars to "credits," making it easier for the site to charge more or less than its previous standard $1 for the virtual items.
*~*~*
If you're planning on any outdoor parties, like camping out or just hanging around a bonfire, it's always nice to bring some music with you. This BoomCooler is easy to wheel around no matter where you go, although you might want to keep a tarp or something around to protect it just in case it rains. It has a built-in CD player or you can hook up your iPod to the cooler. They actually recommend for better sound using something plugged into the aux input or USB input as opposed to using the CD player.*~*~*
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's GDC keynote today has revealed that the Wii will not be on the receiving end of a new hard drive, but will instead support the SDHC memory card format. Owners of the Wii will be able to do so using the Wii Menu 4.0 by downloading content straight onto the SDHC card from the Wii Shop Channel, where up to 240 SD channels are supported. With the SDHC standard to hit 32GB in the near future anyways, it makes perfect sense to use this relatively diminutive card instead of a portable hard drive.
And a new Zelda in the works?
Nintendo's CEO Satoru Iwata took the keynote stage at GDC this morning to encourage the developer community, talk about the DSi handheld and unveil some new titles for the Wii and DS platforms including a new Zelda game called Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (working title).
Labels: boomcooler, camera, canon, digital, dsi, Facebook, nintendo, photography, video, wii, zelda
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The parent company of the Discovery Channel (Discovery Communications) has filed a lawsuit against Amazon.com, claiming that the Internet retailer's Kindle e-book reader infringes Discovery's U.S. patent 7,298,851, titled "Electronic book security and copyright protection system".
It was filed in 1999 as a "continuation in part" from patent applications dating back to 1992. Among the prior-art disclosures listed are 52 U.S. patents or applications, 34 foreign patents or applications, and 15 nonpatent publications. It has 171 claims, three of which are independent. Those are all signs of a strong patent.
*~*~*
The Startup 2009 conference, which will take place in New York in June. The conference is co-hosted by Silicon Alley Insider, New York University's Stern School of Business, General Catalyst, SoftBank, and Venrock. Startup 2009 will showcase 10 top startups competing for bragging rights, buzz, and a $50,000 prize.
Startup 2009 will be a one-day conference featuring interviews with entrepreneurs, expert panels, networking, and a 10-company startup contest. Committed speakers include:
* Jason Calacanis, Founder/CEO Mahalo, founder Weblogs, former EIR at Sequoia.
* George Bell, partner General Catalyst; former CEO Excite, Excite@Home, and Upromise; board member Big Fish Games; Going; HubSpot; PhotoShelter; ShortTail Media and WonderHowTo.
* David Pakman, partner Venrock, former CEO eMusic.
* Kevin Ryan, CEO Alleycorp; former CEO Doubleclick; founder Gilt Groupe, Silicon Alley Insider, Shopwiki, Panther, 10gen.
*~*~*
Media regulator Ofcom will take over the regulation of video on demand services, but will delegate it to an industry-formulated co-regulator, the Government has said.
The Government has published details of how it will ensure that the UK complies with the European Union's Audio-Visual Media Services (AVMS) Directive, which extends regulation to television-like programmes regardless of the medium used to show them.
*~*~*
New iPhone uses
A host of companies took the stage at Apple headquarters in Cupertino on Tuesday to explain what their new applications can do on the much-vaunted personal communications device.
NBC Bay Area tech reporter Scott Budman tweeted all the updates as they occured.
Developers will gain access to thousands of new application "API's" because of the updates. The API's will allow developers to create and change the applications they want, Budman reported.
Designers unveiled new audio file and texting features for the iPhone. There is also a new voice memo feature built into the phone's home screen, as well as a more synchable calendar, Budman reported.
More information is available here >>
It was filed in 1999 as a "continuation in part" from patent applications dating back to 1992. Among the prior-art disclosures listed are 52 U.S. patents or applications, 34 foreign patents or applications, and 15 nonpatent publications. It has 171 claims, three of which are independent. Those are all signs of a strong patent.
*~*~*
The Startup 2009 conference, which will take place in New York in June. The conference is co-hosted by Silicon Alley Insider, New York University's Stern School of Business, General Catalyst, SoftBank, and Venrock. Startup 2009 will showcase 10 top startups competing for bragging rights, buzz, and a $50,000 prize.Startup 2009 will be a one-day conference featuring interviews with entrepreneurs, expert panels, networking, and a 10-company startup contest. Committed speakers include:
* Jason Calacanis, Founder/CEO Mahalo, founder Weblogs, former EIR at Sequoia.
* George Bell, partner General Catalyst; former CEO Excite, Excite@Home, and Upromise; board member Big Fish Games; Going; HubSpot; PhotoShelter; ShortTail Media and WonderHowTo.
* David Pakman, partner Venrock, former CEO eMusic.
* Kevin Ryan, CEO Alleycorp; former CEO Doubleclick; founder Gilt Groupe, Silicon Alley Insider, Shopwiki, Panther, 10gen.
*~*~*
Media regulator Ofcom will take over the regulation of video on demand services, but will delegate it to an industry-formulated co-regulator, the Government has said.
The Government has published details of how it will ensure that the UK complies with the European Union's Audio-Visual Media Services (AVMS) Directive, which extends regulation to television-like programmes regardless of the medium used to show them.
*~*~*
New iPhone uses
A host of companies took the stage at Apple headquarters in Cupertino on Tuesday to explain what their new applications can do on the much-vaunted personal communications device.
NBC Bay Area tech reporter Scott Budman tweeted all the updates as they occured.
Developers will gain access to thousands of new application "API's" because of the updates. The API's will allow developers to create and change the applications they want, Budman reported.
Designers unveiled new audio file and texting features for the iPhone. There is also a new voice memo feature built into the phone's home screen, as well as a more synchable calendar, Budman reported.
More information is available here >>
Labels: amazon, Apple, discovery channel, iPhone, kindle, ofcom, startup 2009, video
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Technology and restaurants have combined at the Imano Restaurant in London, as every table is essentially a computer display. These tables are not like the Microsoft Surface, but they are just as good.As you can see, there are projectors above the tables to obtain the virtual display, and there is a circular touchpad to allow for navigation. From the moment a customer sits down, the user can then select their "placemat" like selecting a wallpaper for Windows.
From there, the customer/user can look at the menu, which includes pictures of the appetizers, main courses, even drinks. Ordering is as simple as pointing and clicking, and a wait-person will deliver your meal to you.
While the customer is waiting, he or she has the option of watching their meal prepared through a camera in the kitchen. The customer also has the option of playing a game with his or her dining partner.
*~*~*
Expedia (EXPE) today unveiled an aggressive new promotion, which it calls "Free Nights and No Fee Flights," offering to pick up the tab for one night in a hotel for stays of three, four or five days at a group of more than 700 participating hotels, and also waiving booking fees for flights booked before the end of May. The hotel promotion currently is for bookings made by April 9 for travel through May 15; the company said additional deals will be posted for bookings beginning April 9 for travel through the end of May.
*~*~*
Apple's new iPod shuffle is interesting in a number of ways. The most interesting is of course the new VoiceOver feature which communicates the name of songs and playlists through speech. But perhaps even more interesting is that there is a different voice you hear based on if you're syncing your iPod shuffle with a Mac or a PC. And, not surprisingly, the Mac voice is much better.
Apple's new iPod Shuffle now comes with 4GB of storage, enough to hold 1000 songs in 128-Kbps AAC Format, it is charged via USB and can be fully charged from flat in just 3 hours.
*~*~*
Photobucket, the most popular photo sharing site in the U.S., just announced a number of new features that will give its users easier ways to share their photos and videos across multiple web services like MySpace, Facebook, or Blogger. Photobucket also introduced a new version of its mobile site, which features a streamlined interface, as well as easier ways to access comments, ratings, and subscriptions.
The new sharing feature is powered by widget distribution network gigya.
*~*~*
A Canadian filmmaker named Rob Spence has figured out a way to remove that "I'm-on-camera" factor in his documentaries, as his prosthetic eye has a concealed camera.
Spence plans to film many people, and the eye will transmit the footage wirelessly to a storage device nearby. Of course, he is required by law to tell his interviewees that they are on camera. Oddly enough, the subject of his documentary is about whether people are "sleepwalking into an Orwellian society". I'm sure he realizes that his film could be one step into a surveillance society.
The special prosthetic eye was developed by OmniVision of Santa Clara. Spence got the idea for the camera eye by watching The Six Million Dollar Man and noticing that the tiny cameras in cellular phones could easily be put in a prosthetic eye.
So now Spence can film anything he wants without worrying about his subjects being distracted by the camera.
Labels: Apple, expedia, eyeborg, iPod, online tools, photobucket, photos, social network, touchscreen, video
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
South Korea is proving yet again that its PMP designers are truly top notch with the FineDrive iQ500, which proudly sports an expansive 7-inch LCD (800 x 480 resolution), a 600MHz ARM processor, 4GB / 8GB of internal storage, an SDHC expansion slot, WinCE, GPS module, a DMB TV tuner and support for a smorgasbord of audio and video file formats.*~*~*
The latest sad episode of humanity's ugliness allegedly being played out on Facebook's pages has resulted in Facebook itself being sued for $3 million.
Denise Finkel, currently a student at the University of Albany, accused four of her ex-classmates at Oceanside High School of setting up a Facebook group "calculated to hold the plaintiff up to public hatred, ridicule, and disgrace."
The group, whose page was password-protected, allegedly said she had AIDS, was an intravenous drug user, and had "inappropriate conduct with animals."
How do you password protect a facebook page?
Facebook said it would vigorously fight the lawsuit.
*~*~*
Disney CEO Bob Iger told a conference audience yesterday that the company is "is considering creating a subscription-based online movie and TV rental service from the company's huge video library," reports Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke.
Nikki says the "an online Disney video club" the mails out DVDs and lets viewers download and stream them too.
Unless it's way cheap I doubt this will do any good. You can get those movies elsewhere.
*~*~*
Skype has added the ability for its users to get voicemail messages converted to text, and sent to a mobile phone via SMS (Short Message Service), the company's COO Scott Durchslag said at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany, on Wednesday.
The service is based on text-to-speech technology from SpinVox, he said.
It can currently convert voice messages in English, Spanish, French and German to text. However, the SpinVox Voice Message Conversion System currently also supports Portuguese and Italian.
Labels: disney, Facebook, finedrive, skype, video
Thursday, January 8, 2009
What is this iRiver business? Chances are you have seen a review of iRiver P35 on every techie website in the world lately. But really we don't know when it will be released or how much it will cost so all the features in the world are not quite enough to get me hopeful yet.Features of the iRiver P35 include:
* 4.3" TFT LCD touchscreen display at 480 x 272 resolution
* Wi-Fi connectivity
* Integrated microphone
* TV Out
* Full movie codec support
* microSDHC memory card slot (up to 16GB)
* USB 2.0 connectivity
* Integrated FM radio
* Voice recording capability, audio and video playback, Flash support
*~*~*
Looking to bring in some extra money while cleaning house? Why not sell your old video games? Forbes.com suggests there are three approaches to take—easy but low-return chains like GameStop, the take-a-shot nature of auctions or Half.com/Amazon selling, and the higher prices one might fetch at sites with less mainstream recognition like Goozex.
*~*~*
Microsoft has introduced its second iPhone app after dipping its toe with the release of Seadragon Mobile last month. The name of the application is Microsoft Tag (still in BETA form), and it enables users to instantly access mobile content, videos, music, contact information, maps, social networks, promotions, etc. simply by pointing the device's camera to a custom tag.
*~*~*
Divx has announced the newest version of their video player. Divx 7 is based on the H.264 video compression standard and offers video at up to 1080p HD resolution.
The new version of Divx comes in two different formats. The free download Divx 7 for Windows for Divx video playback and Divx 7 Pro which allows for Divx video creation. Both versions contain the Divx 7 video player which offers support for H.264 files.
Labels: divx, goozex, iphone app, iRiver, Microsoft, video, video game
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Oh don't even think I haven't used many a converter in my time. Truth is I am constantly looking for a better one and I am fed up with media converters who claim to be the best when they are NOT. Of course when I read that Blaze Media Pro was a power house I immediately rolled my eyes, scoffed and began my trip down doubt and trial lane.
FINALLY I can say I was wrong and now I have a program I can stick with and even encourage other people to use.
Blame Media Pro is a video converter and an audio converter, but it is also a DVD ripper. Video files can also be created from still frame images and/or other videos. That feature is particularly helpful when you're putzing around and trying to put something fun together for YouTube. Which I have been known to do from time to time, lol. (Yes, it even has a tool to extract the audio from video files.)
Unlike many other software programs out there this one has an extensive list of supported conversions for audio files. Every extension you can think of is supported. Formats supported for audio conversion include CD, MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG, MPEG-4, AIFF, M4A, AAC, AC3, FLAC, and ALAC, and two-way conversions among MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AVI, WMV, ASF, Flash (SWF and FLV), iPod, PSP, 3GP, and MOV are available for video. MPEG options are available for VCD, SVCD, and DVD compliant output.
Above all though I think the best feature is the video compression. I mean this not only converts, but it also compresses the file which then makes burning easier. And since this is the professional version there are even ways to edit video, including deleting frames which is sometimes the only thing I need to do.
Needless to say this is finally a conversion and ripper software that stands up to its name while also killing the competition hands down. Blaze Media Pro.
Labels: compression, converter, software, video
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