This is the cutest and funniest thing. Only David Pogue would and could do it.
(Dang, it seems that now you have to be a NYT subscriber to read the blogs. I was able to save the article within the last couple of days. NYT really goes back and forth on digital pay walls! Their prerogative, but confusing at least.) (Odd, sometimes the article stays, sometimes it's replaced by a Buy function. Wonder what's up with that.)
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OK, even though it has seemed so far that I am not a newspaper reader, NYT often has good tech coverage, so I decided now to actually pay them. And I started reading on their iPad app. Now, I actually hasn't found Pogue's informal blog yet, because it seems that oddly, the app lacks a Search feature (huh?). But still, as I was easily browsing through the newspaper on the iPad 3's super-high-res screen, reading articles formated well for iPad, and adjusting the font size to my liking (yahoo, read this, The Daily), I thought for the 100th time: "man, this is cool technology". This is what publications always dreamed of becoming. Frig paper, this can be read world-wide literally one second after it is published! I am still in love with e-reading.
Saturday, September 01, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Samsung Galaxy Camera
With all the camera-phones of recent years, it had to come: a phone-camera. Or at least a camera with a big screen, and which runs Android apps and goes on the Net with wifi or 3G/4G. If you ask me, they might as well put in a phone too.
An F:1.4 compact camera
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX7, review.
Panasonic has also thrown in (up? forth? down?) the gauntlet to the now dead-serious competition of high-quality compact cameras. One stand-out feature is a fastest aperture of F:1.4 in the 3.8 zoom lens, a speed I don't think we have ever seen before. (Sony RX100's F:1.8 is half a stop slower, though it has a bigger sensor (and twice the pixels).)
(View from the top when the camera is off and the zoom thus closed. Note the aperture ring, I think that's also a first on a pocketcamera.)
Panasonic has also thrown in (up? forth? down?) the gauntlet to the now dead-serious competition of high-quality compact cameras. One stand-out feature is a fastest aperture of F:1.4 in the 3.8 zoom lens, a speed I don't think we have ever seen before. (Sony RX100's F:1.8 is half a stop slower, though it has a bigger sensor (and twice the pixels).)
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
New York Times tangles with patent trolls
New York Times tangles with patent trolls, article.
The New York Times Co. is engaged in a pitched legal battle with two such “trolls.” One is Helferich Patent Licensing LCC, a Chicago shell firm that claims to own the process for sending links to mobile phones — basically where a company sends a customer a text message. According to the Associated Press, the firm typically demands $750,000 to go away, a fee that it has already collected from dozens of firms like Apple and Disney.
Such demands place companies like the New York Times in a difficult position. The patents in these type of cases are often spurious but it can cost millions to prove that they are, meaning it’s cheaper to simply pay up. If a company pays, the troll can then use the money to target other companies.
And here I thought the real estate loans business had ethics issues!
The New York Times Co. is engaged in a pitched legal battle with two such “trolls.” One is Helferich Patent Licensing LCC, a Chicago shell firm that claims to own the process for sending links to mobile phones — basically where a company sends a customer a text message. According to the Associated Press, the firm typically demands $750,000 to go away, a fee that it has already collected from dozens of firms like Apple and Disney.
Such demands place companies like the New York Times in a difficult position. The patents in these type of cases are often spurious but it can cost millions to prove that they are, meaning it’s cheaper to simply pay up. If a company pays, the troll can then use the money to target other companies.
And here I thought the real estate loans business had ethics issues!
Underwater motorized wheelchair
I'm not sure why it wouldn't work as well with one of the simple little propeller engines which pulls the diver, but in any case it's a pretty video. (As usual, click on the youtube logo for bigger version.)
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
app.net, paid social network
I never really understood the value of "web 2.0", or at least of its main face, FaceBook. In fact I don't like it. It seems confusing and pointless to me.
But somebody is making a paid social network, app.net, and least one point makes sense: if the users are paying, they will work trying to please the users, and if advertisers are paying, they work trying to please the advertisers.
But somebody is making a paid social network, app.net, and least one point makes sense: if the users are paying, they will work trying to please the users, and if advertisers are paying, they work trying to please the advertisers.
LEGO surrealism
OK, I did not see this coming: a LEGO rendering of the famous Burning Monk photo. The smiling Lego face makes pitch-dark humor of the whole thing.
(Author unknown)
Monday, August 27, 2012
Apollo 11 and Hasselblad
[Thanks to tOP]
Here's an article about the Apollo 11 mission and the cameras used in space and on the moon, mostly the famous Swedish brand Hasselblad. This of course forever cemented the already high prestige Hasselblad had in the professional photographer's community, making it the premium camera for the discerning pro, along with Leica (for more mobile work).
