Clever Camera Card

Ho-hum, another 2Gb SD card, but hang on a minute, this one is different. The Eye-Fi Explore is a Wi-FI memory card. So what, you might be asking, SD Wi-Fi cards are nothing new, the one in my PDA must be at least 3 years old, but there is more. This is a fully self-contained wireless device, so it can be used in any SD compatible camera, and used to beam images across a network to a PC, printer or uploaded to the Internet. In other words the camera doesn’t need to be a special wireless-capable model. All you have to do is pop the card into your PC to activate and configure it then put it into the camera and while it is on it automatically sends image to any wi-fi device in range (around 3 – 5 metres). There’s an added bonus, it uses a system called Geotagging to label or identify where the picture was taken. Read More »

DivX Goes Mobile

If you thought the highly compressed DivX multimedia format was only for PCs and DVD players then you might be interested to know that it has now made its way onto mobile phones and one of the first outings is on the new shiny, slidy LG Secret. Video on titchy screens tends to be a bit jerky and blurry and quite frankly a pain to watch for more than 30 seconds but on this very neat and well-featured 3G phone it is truly immaculate. The picture is clean and crisp with vibrant coilours and fluid movement. The Secret has a neat iPhone-like trick and when you turn it on its side the image automatically rotates, so you get the full benefit of the phones’ 640 x 480 widescreen display. Getting video onto the Secret is pretty straightforward too. DivX files can be uploaded by a USB cable from a PC or copied to a Micro SD card, (conversion software is included with the phone) or there’s the DIY method as the Secret has a built-in encoder, and you can shoot DivX videos on the phone’s camera. Read More »

Digital Thumb Drive

Before anyone writes in, yes, I know this rather bizarre USB ‘Thumb’ drive has been around for a while, but I thought it deserved another outing as I’ve been looking into the weird and wacky world of USB drives, and there’s plenty of them about.

One of my favourites is the humping dog, which does what dirty dogs do, to your PC or laptop, when you download or upload data to the drive. Trust me, this is just the tip of the iceberg, I’ve found Barbie dolls with drives in the most unbecoming places, drives shaped like cakes and cameras, bottles and bones (check out what Vavolo has on offer), and objects one doesn’t discuss in polite company. Read More »

A Wii world with a webcam

How about playing the Wii without the Wii? As intriguing as it may sound, we have the technology and it has already been put to good use for those that want an alternative to Nintendo’s Wii console. The cheaper alternative to the wireless gaming console is named CamSpace, and comes under the form of an executable that can be installed on Windows platforms.

The application boasts with allowing you to play any computer game without abusing the mouse and keyboard, as long as you are also the possessor of a webcam and of the game you want to play. Sounds like a Sci-Fi movie but it is as real as can be and, although it is currently in beta stage and not available to the general public, it is in continuous development - right now, the fifth beta is out. Read More »

Watch and Pen Gadgets

If you’re a gadget fan and have nothing better to do for a few minutes head over to the Chinavision website, where you’ll find some of the coolest-looking, and cheapest electronic gizmos on the planet. Actually this is a wholesale website, offering some of the best (and worst) of what China’s electronics industries have to offer, and if you want the best prices you have to buy in bulk (and don’t forget the import duty) but it looks like they’ll sell one-offs if you’re willing to take a punt. Read More »

Sony Ericsson W350i

The new Sony Ericsson W350i is a mid-level ranged mobile phone that adds to the Walkman series portfolio. As it has been a long time since a famous handset manufacturer launched a flip phone, W350i brings back the Sony Ericsson’s T series feeling. Revamped and improved, W350i’s design has that special retro look that will certainly make it as an ‘eye-catcher’ device. The public targeted is definitely going to love it, while those that are looking for a camera-phone or business-oriented device will probably hate it. In the end, it’s all about personal preferences.

Announced in January 2008, Sony Ericsson W350i was launched on the market in May 2008. The flip phone is available in four different color versions: Graphic white, Ice blue, Electric black and Hypnotic black. Those interested in a good-looking mid-level handset can acquire it for around $230 USD. Read More »

Watch Out Windows

Radio, phone, GPS, MP3 player, TV, camera… been there done that, but just when you thought there wasn’t anything else that could be shoehorned into a wristwatch, think again. A company called Epoq has managed to fit a copy of Windows Mobile onto one, which you drive using a 1.4-inch OLED touch screen, and just for good measure the EGP-98B has built in 1.3MP camera, wi-fi, Bluetooth and a 4-band GSM phone. Now, it might all be a wind-up (pun intended) because details and availability are all very sketchy, and good images are also hard to find. Read More »

3D Camera with 12,616 Lenses

No, it’s not a get rich quick scheme by a company manufacturing lens cleaning tissues, but an idea for future camera technology from the brainy folk at Stanford University. A team led by Professor Abbas El Gamal are working on a camera with a multi-aperture image sensor. This is basically an image sensor with super-small pixels – several times smaller than the pixels on a regular camera. They are clustered together on the sensor chip in groups of 256 pixels, and each group has its own micro lens. It is like having a lot of cameras on a single chip; in effect the 3-megapixel chip the researchers are working on is equivalent to 12,616 separate cameras.

So far so good, but the really clever bit is that by selectively defocusing images captured by the cameras, the data can be processed to produce detailed 3D image maps of whatever it happens to be pointing at. Read More »

Sony Sees the Big Picture

The image sensors in most digital cameras are typically just a few millimetres in size, which is one of the reasons some old film camera hands (i.e. me) get confused when comparing digital and 35mm SLR camera lenses. Well, now Sony may have solved the problem I think with news of a new image sensor the size of a 35mm film frame. It is due to go into production this year, it packs in an impressive 24.8 megapixels and it is capable of capturing up to 6.3 images per second. It’s early days though, so there’s no model numbers or prices but it will almost certainly appear first on high-end cameras and eventually filter down to more consumer oriented models.

HDTV technology improves surgery

You may have watched last night’s Buffalo Bills game on a high definition television. And now, local doctors are now using that same technology to improve surgery. News 10NBC is the first to show you how it all works. HDTV sets like this one are now in many homes. The three dimensional effect increases realism when you watch, that’s why it’s become so popular with TV viewers and sports fans. Now this same technology is being miniaturized for doctors.

Rochester General Hospital is now using a specially designed HDTV camera system that is improving the way surgery is done. Dr. Louis Eichel says, “It gives you better definition of the tissue planes between the different anatomy. It can do more like a precise dissection and minimizes any complications.” Read More »