Drop, charge, and lose the cordsI'm not a big fan of anything subterranean, but every time I'm in NYC, for practical reasons, I take the subway.
This time around, it was also because I wanted to find out if the City Transit NYC Subway Guide iPhone app was worth $2.99. I ended up catching something else which, by itself, totally made the one-hour ride from Manhattan to the Bronx worthwhile.
As express train No. 5 started to leave 59th Street and Lexington Ave., two dudes who looked just like regular New Yorker-on-holiday riders turned on their boombox. One called out: "Hi everybody, what you're about to see is the most amazing thing. If you don't like it, boo as much as you want. But if you do, clap and please show your support." Seeing some people taking out their cameras, he added, "You can take video all you want, as long as you pay us."
Without further ado, the two took turns performing the most amazing breakdance I've seen. It was just coincidental that I had my iPhone video on and managed to capture the whole thing. What I didn't capture was the fact that their dance inspired some regular riders to stand up and show off their own moves. I totally heart NYC for this.
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If you're looking for a wireless security camera that supports the high-speed Wireless-N standard, Trendnet has something for you.
On Tuesday, the company announced its Wireless-N Internet Camera Server with 2-Way Audio, model TV-IP512WN. Essentially, this is a Wireless-N security camera that you can assess and control over the Internet without any additional equipment--thus the "server" moniker.
An Internet Security Camera from Trendnet.
(Credit: Trendnet)According to Trendnet, the TV-IP512WN supports throughput speeds up to 300Mbps and provides up to four times the coverage of comparable Wireless-G products. Its two-way radio feature means you can communicate with the person standing in front of the camera from the remote location.
The new TV-IP512WN comes with a free software suite that can manage up to 32 Trendnet security cameras with some advanced features. Examples of these features are multiple various-shaped, motion-detection-recording windows; event-driven e-mail alerts; scheduled recording sessions; MPEG-4- and MJPEG-image compression; and advanced hard drive storage-allocation tools.
The TV-IP512WN supports Wi-Fi Protected Setup, meaning adding it to a wireless network is as easy as pressing a single button. It has input/output ports that can be hard-wired to third-party alarm systems.
The camera also comes with a removable CS lens and features 16x digital zoom. It has a built-in SD card slot to store images on an SD card.
The Wireless N Internet Camera TV-IP512WN will be available for purchase starting May 1, with an estimated price of $250.
Eye-Fi, maker of memory cards that can automatically upload photos and video to the Web, announced Tuesday its two new video-uploading SD memory cards called Eye-Fi Share Video and Eye-Fi Explore Video.
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Eye-Fi)
These two 4GB cards are capable of uploading photos and video clips to more than 20 online photo-sharing and social-networking sites, such as YouTube or Flickr.
The differences between the two: the Eye-Fi Explore Video card can also automatically geotag photos and videos with location information about where the image was captured. It also offers hot-spot access at more than 10,000 Wi-Fi locations for photo and video uploads when you're on the go.
These new cards are available later this month and cost $79 (4GB Eye-Fi Share Video) and $99 (4GB Eye-Fi Explore Video).
The company also said that it's going to release an iPhone application that allows Eye-Fi users to share photos from their iPhone's photo library to one of 25 online photo-sharing Web sites. iPhone users who own an Eye-Fi card will be able to download the application for free from Apple's App Store.
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Sony)
So it looks like the PlayStation 3 is about a couple years away from becoming self-aware, taking over the world, and making us all its human slaves--if a few of us aren't already.
Sony announced that the v2.60 firmware update for the PS3, released Wednesday, will include many enhancements to the system's media capabilities.
The key feature, according to Sony, is the new photo gallery app, which allows your digital pictures to be organized by criteria including the camera used; event date and time; colors in the photos; and the number, ages, or facial expressions of the people pictured.
Yep, that's right. According to the video, the PS3 will be able to determine the relative age of the people in the photo and whether or not they are smiling.
Also included in the release is guest access to the PlayStation store for non-PlayStation Network members. With this access, they'll be able to check out demos, video, and so on. Sony will also be adding DivX 3.11 support to the system.
I guess in a few more releases we'll be seeing an update that reads our minds, fulfills our deepest desires, and then, when it's gained our trust completely, drops the other shoe, takes over the world, and we're done. Until that inevitable day, we might as well enjoy what we have now.
Check out the video for a walkthrough of the new features.
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Trendnet)
Recording and viewing images from a security camera is nothing new, but being able to do that conveniently from any location within a wireless network is. And this is exactly what Trendnet offers at CES 2009 with its first-to-market 7" Wireless Internet Camera Monitor Kit, the TV-M7110WK.
The security surveillance kit includes one 7" Wireless Internet Camera and Photo Monitor, the TV-M7, and a Wireless Internet Camera, the ...
Read the full post at CNET's CES 2009 blog.
Yes, "Thank You Julia" for convincing my husband to wear his shades during our entire ceremony. Yeah. Thanks a lot. Made my day, Julia.
(Credit: Deutsch Technologies GmbH)Go to Photowriter.org and click on the pencil. Now edit the text and press Enter. OK, was I the only one who typed something completely juvenile, just to see it show up on a picture in cloud font? Hmmm, maybe I was.
Photowriter is a free application developed by Deutsch Technologies GmbH that lets you insert text into your photos in weird, wacky, and supposedly photo-realistic fonts.
For example, if you had a wedding photo to send to someone, you could edit in clouds or stones in the background that spell out, "Hey Jacob! Sorry you weren't here!" The "Jacob," of course, can be replaced with any other name. The important thing to remember here is not which name you use, but that you can personalize your pictures with names.
I tried out the software and was impressed by its ease of use--once I figured out what the icons around the UI were for--and its ability to automatically warp the letters depending on the surface you place them on. Put a word on the undulation of a shirt, for example, and the letters warp (mostly) appropriately over the undulation.
It's a fun little novelty app whose usefulness is, I'm sure, directly proportionate to the amount of photo galleries and albums you create.
There is also a Pro version of the software available for about $13. The Pro version offers over the motif and font creation.
While computers continue to get smaller, they're constantly being pushed to do more. Whether they're doubling as a phone, a camera, or an MP3 player, there seems to be no end to the tasks we expect them to carry out. And as always, we say we want them to "do all that stuff and be smaller."
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IBM)
A limitation of the miniaturization process is that the more computers are asked to do, the more memory they require. One of the computer's basic elements, the transistor, could soon reach its miniaturization limit. The smaller we make transistors, the more susceptible they are to quantum phenomena like electrons tunneling through the barriers between wires. Which, while ticklish for the barrier, can just be really annoying.
This has apparently annoyed researchers at the U.K.'s University of Nottingham, as well, albeit for different reasons. This transistor dilemma has led them to look into the viability of carbon nanotubes to help create fast, cheap, and compact memory that uses little power.
... Read moreEye-Fi, the maker of camera storage cards that can also beam photos directly to a computer or Web site via Wi-Fi, on Wednesday celebrated its first anniversary with a new special-edition product.
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Eye-Fi)
It's called the Eye-Fi Anniversary Edition, and it offers 4GB of storage space for $129.
Like other cards, the new card wirelessly sends photos from a digital camera to a computer and to one of more than 25 online photo-sharing sites. However, it doesn't come with one year of hot-spot service, as found in the existing 2GB Eye-Fi Explore card.
Eye-Fi's product line includes the Eye-Fi Home, Share, Anniversary Edition, and Explore cards, with prices ranging from $79 to $129.
The Eye-Fi Anniversary Edition is supposedly limited, so if you're a big fan, you probably need to move quickly.
Pretec announced on Tuesday its latest CompactFlash cards, which are substantially faster and higher capacity than other available CF cards.
The new cards come in two speeds: 233x (35MB per second) and 333x (50MBps), which is for now, as far as we know, the fastest for CF cards. The 233x model comes in 64GB and 100GB capacities while the 333x model comes in 32GB and 50GB capacities.
These cards can be used with digital cameras or mobile devices or reconfigured to work as solid-state hard drives. As I blogged recently, this is also good news for those who want to make their own SSDs.
There's a catch, though, and it's huge: the price. Pretec 233x 64GB and 333x 32GB CF cards are available this month with the hefty price tags of $399 and $630, respectively. The 233x 100GB and 333x 50GB, on the other hand, will be available by the end of the year. It's unclear for now how much they will cost but you probably don't want to know.
Lexar Media, a maker of digital storage cards, announced on Monday its 16GB version of the Kodak-branded Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC) high-speed card.
The new card offers speeds up to 60x, which translate into about 9MB per second, allowing for capturing full-motion video without interruption. However, this speed is still not fast enough for dSLR cameras, whose photos can easily be as large as 9MB each, especially when you want to snap multiple photos at a time.
The new SD card works not only with Kodak cameras, but also any SDHC-compatible digital cameras, camcorders, and PDAs. It comes with a lifetime warranty and will be available in October, at which point you will also find 8GB and 4GB versions. At the moment it's unclear how much the new cards will cost.
Eric Franklin's colleagues once had the following to say to him: "Eric, you've been doing this performance testing thing for over 10 years now. How about you try something different?" To which Eric responded, "How about you shut the #%$@! up?" This candid attitude
allows him to go toe-to-toe with the most extreme of personalities, including that of Dong Ngo. This bio was written by Eric Franklin.
Dong Ngo is a knowledgeable, opinionated individual who wants to convince the world that he's just a normal person; but he hasn't had much success. According to him, this is because the world itself is abnormal. Dong loves traveling and is well-versed in several languages. He, unfortunately, is not so well-versed in English. Still, it's best to ask him questions. From networking and how to optimize your system, to turning a strange place into home or what the meaning of life is…most of the time, he has the answers. The question is: Will he make himself understood? Subscribe and find out!
