Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras
It’s a beautiful autumn day, and you’re out in the wooded path beyond the railroad tracks just taking it all in and killing some time. Hey, what’s that? Why, it’s the cutest bunny rabbit you’ve ever seen! Time to pull out that 8-megapixel C905 and… oh, this sucks, you actually have to press a button to zoom in and out! Screw this noise — you’re a visionary photographer, not a manual laborer. Happily, Sony Ericsson feels your pain, and a new patent application reveals that they’re hard at work on a system to control your cameraphone’s zoom level simply by moving it back and forth. Just get the phone closer to the subject, and boom, welcome to telephoto city, population one. We’re still totally cool with the old-fashioned way of capturing Pulitzer-winning shots, but we’re happy that someone’s thinking of this type of stuff so we don’t have to — that’d be work.
[Via Unwired View]
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Filed under: Laptops
Of course it
had to happen sooner or later, but we’re a little taken aback that someone at Sony had the temerity to slice open a newborn
Vaio TT and put it on display — in a booth at
CEATEC, no less — for the whole world to see. Righteous indignation aside, the thing is pretty impressive, especially considering that without the Blu-ray drive it would only be about half the size. We have one more pic for you after the break, and be sure to check out our look inside the
Z series while you’re at it.
[Via Sony Insider]
Continue reading Sony’s Vaio TT gets dissected, found to contain small components
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Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Wearables
Nokia has produced a number of stereo headsets in the past, and while they were… fine, they didn’t exactly wow us with any sort of innovation, particularly when it came to aesthetics. Perhaps that’s why it’s asking for a little help with the Music Almighty Headset Competition. Anyone is welcome to take one of the company’s vanilla products, like the BH-604 or BH-903, and tart it up using either a simple Flash customizer or downloadable Maya, PDF, and PostScript templates. You’ll want the templates to really go crazy, like submitter Mase90 did for the hideous, supposedly Sex Pistols-inspired skull-and-chains-encrusted model above. Voting is open to anyone through the end of the year, with the top 10 being whittled down to 5 by a panel of experts. Winners will get to see their designs turned into reality — though not actually put up for sale.
[Via Nokia Conversations]
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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Contrary to what LG coerced us into believing at CEDIA, its Netflix / Blu-ray-lovin’ BD300 will actually be sold a full $50 cheaper than the previously quoted $399.95. Circuit City has the deck up for pre-order right this very moment for $349.99 (okay, so maybe that’s not a full $50, but c’mon), and better still, the retailer is listing an October 10th release date. Now that Netflix has inked deals with CBS, ABC and Starz, there’s just one question left: are you in for three fifty?
[Thanks, Joshua]
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Filed under: Ask Engadget, Portable Audio
It’s true — hunting down a waterproof MP3 player is a cinch, but finding a decent pair of waterproof headphones to accompany said player can prove challenging. Have a look at Melinda’s question, and after you’re done providing your best advice, send over an inquiry of your own to ask at engadget dawt com.
“I am an almost-daily lap swimmer, but lately I have been suffering from “lap boredom.” I’ve been looking into the latest ways to take my MP3 player into the pool with me, and I need a set of waterproof headphones in order to do so. I’ve found waterproof earphones like H2O Audio and Aquatunes priced between $30 and $100, but I’ve also read many negative reviews. Before I spend this much money on waterproof ‘phones, I want to know what I am getting. What brand / model do you recommend?”
Climb on out of the kiddie pool and toss in your advice, swimmers. What ‘buds do you use to listen to music while submerged?
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Filed under: Digital Cameras
Man, the DSLR rumor mill never stops, does it? This time we’re being treated to some leaked Japanese Nikon ads, which feature a shadowy DSLR body that’s somewhat different than the D700 and D3 and the word “big” in Japanese. Of course, it could be totally fake, but we’re not going to say we’re not hoping for a compact full-frame camera — but we’re clearly dreamers. Anyone else have any guesses?
Read - First ad
Read - Second ad
Read - Sensor size comparison
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Filed under: Cellphones
Steve Ballmer’s whirlwind UK media tour ahead of the Professional Developers Conference just keeps giving us sound bite gems: first it was Windows Cloud, then Zune on Windows Mobile, and now Stevie’s taking shots at Android and the G1. Calling Microsoft David to Google’s search Goliath, Ballms said that he wasn’t worried about Android because it won’t be “attractive” to other handset manufacturers because it’s “version one… and it looks like version one.” Not only that, but he apparently thinks Google’s going to sit still, saying “they’ve got one handset maker, we’ve got 55. They’re available through one operator, we’ve got 175.” True for now, sure, but we know Android isn’t going to languish on a single handset on a single carrier for long — and we’re pretty certain Steve knows that HTC and T-Mobile aren’t exactly minor players, regardless. Still, it’s some masterful bluster from a master of bluster — now if he’d just back it up with Windows Mobile 7, we’d be way more inclined to believe him.
[Via Cool Smart Phones]
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Filed under: Handhelds
Sony’s plan to launch an updated Reader today wasn’t exactly a secret, but there are still some surprises to the new PRS-700 — particularly the new six-inch touchscreen E-Ink display. Page turning is now accomplished by a swipe motion with faster refreshes, and there’s a stylus and on-screen keyboard for searching and note-taking — plus an LED reading light (not a backlight) for reading in the dark. Apart from that, it’s basically the same deal as the PRS-505 — internal storage for about 350 ebooks with SD and MS-Duo expansion and a 7500 page-turn battery life round out the package, as well as an updated online store. Of course, there’s no Kindle-killing integrated wireless for the $400 price tag, but it’ll be interesting to see how they stack up when the PRS-700 hits shelves next month.
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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Every so often, Nokia will pop out a brick-like beast of a clamshell smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard — a black sheep in Espoo’s lineup in every sense of the word. These so-called Communicators even had their own custom Symbian-based operating system, Series 80, until the E90 came around and brought ‘em in line with the rest of the S60 crowd. Of course, S60 just took a big leap to the world of touch today, and that means the E90’s starting to fall a bit behind — so what’s next? Nokia dropped a little teaser during its webcast today in the form of a stylized touch-based concept bearing strong family ties to the E90 and its ancestors, suggesting S60 5th Edition won’t spell doom for the form factor. If it materializes, history suggests it won’t be a mainstream device — but if the real thing can look as good as this render, who knows?
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Filed under: Displays
It’s been almost a full year since Samsung
first announced its plans for a 3-inch WVGA OLED panel, but it’s now finally delivered, and found a partner in the form of KDDI, which was showing off the panel at CEATEC. As Tech-On notes, the panel is quite the upgrade over Samsung’s current top-end 3-inch QVGA panel and, best of all, KDDI says that it’ll be showing up in actual products “shortly,” though it’s not about to get any more specific than that. As if that wasn’t enough, KDDI also had a new “3D LCD” panel built by an unnamed “Japanese panel manufacturer” on hand at the show. It boasts the same WVGA resolution as the OLED and employs a “parallax barrier method” to magically “convert 2D images into 3D in real time — check that out after the break, and look for the panels to be productized by the end of 2009.
[Via OLED-DISPLAY.net]
Continue reading KDDI shows off Samsung-made 3.1-inch WVGA OLED display, 3D LCD panel
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