One of my little tech pet peeves involves digital cameras. Have you ever been out with a group of friends celebrating, say, a birthday, and everyone gets together for a group picture to be taken? I hate when some nice stranger volunteers to snap the picture, but then is bombarded by 8 digital cameras to take the exact same picture with. “Oh, can you take one with mine too?” “yea, and mine” “oh and here’s one more”. We’re talking about the exact same picture, captured digitally- I always thought the idea of using one camera and then e-mailing the picture to everyone was a pretty simple concept. Recently, though, I’ve found the person who’s camera is assigned “master camera” duty forgets to e-mail the picture, and 3 weeks later is still making excuses like “I keep meaning to send out that picture, but I’ve just been so busy.” So now no one has the important picture.
Sony has introduced TransferJet – a technology included in their new digital cameras which allow you to transfer pictures from one camera to another without wires. I immediately saw great possibilities for this. Use one Sony camera to take that master picture, and then instantly share it with everyone at the birthday party. Problem solved.
TransferJet, I later learned, is actually a consortium of electronics manufacturers who will all develop and use this technology. Even better! Canon, Kodak, Nikon, Panasonic, Samsung, Epson, Sharp, Toshiba, JVC, Kenwood, Pioneer and many more are on the list. This technology will also allow you to transfer files from your digital camera to your computer using a wireless TransferJet dock, to your printer, TV or digital picture frame- all without wires! I love simple improvements that make a great product even better.
Another great unveil at Sony’s booth was their new Bloggie – their new HD camera that captures HD video, 5MP pictures and costs only $169! A friend of mine had an earlier version of these cameras, and shot a great skiing video on a trip last year, so I can vouch for the quality of these. We’re not talking professional quality, but certainly good enough to carry around on a trip, snap some quick highlights and easily share memories with family & friends. The camera is tiny (about the size of a compact digital camera) and the battery will last about 90 minutes when shooting video.
For a cool add on, spring the extra $20 and get a 270 degree fish eye lens on their $189 version- pictured to the right. (They also throw in a 4GB memory stick for your extra $20, which makes it even more worth it.) I tried a demo model with the fish eye, and this thing is just plain cool! You hold it above your head and walk normally- the camera will capture everything around you as you go. The cool trick comes on playback- it doesn’t play a giant circle video file (as it does on the screen to the right), it actually converts your video to look normal, with a scroll bar underneath that lets you move your vantage point. For example, you start off watching what was happening in front of you, then you slide the bar under your video and look at what happened to your right, then slide to see what happened on your left. Great way to capture parts of your life when there is a lot going on!
This October is the 25th Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and everyone is coming out in support of the cause. The NFL donned bright pink accessories for last weekend's games as a BCA 'Kick-Off' -- and we at Byte-Sized want to help as best we can!
For the duration of the month, we'll be highlighting pink products whose profits (or a portion of profits) go to support breast cancer research, prevention and promotion!
Now, all of us gadget-aholics know that every one worth their salt comes in a shade of the girliest pink. Don't be fooled! It might be great to should your support with the color alone, but if you're gunna spend the money, why not go for something that actually helps make a real difference?
Today, we're tackling e-readers -- a topic near and dear to my little pink heart :)
Sony is offering a special Sony Reader Breast Cancer Research Foundation bundle that includes the pink Reader Pocket Edition, a gold clutch cover accessory and a Sony eBook Store coupon code for the free download of a four-book collection about the disease and the women that have overcome it, all for the price of the Reader Pocket Edition. The company is also offering a pink Vaio laptop with pink mouse and carrying case.
Sony will donate $110,000 to support the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in connection with the sale of these products. To purchase either of them, visit SonyStyle.com.
On the Kindle front, in direct contradiction with my above statement on color variations, my favoritest of all gadgets still comes in minimalist white, but what about a fashionable case with a conscience?
M-Edge Accessories, a developer of protective covers and accessories for eReaders like Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader, has just launched a new light pink Kindle Prodigy jacket created specially for this month. The company will donate 10% of each sale of the light pink jacket to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. It retails for $44.99.
If you're interested (can you say *early Christmas pressents?!*), click on the below link to Amazon.com!
Since friends kept asking “what was your favorite thing from CES?”, I figured I’d share my favorites. This is by no means a comprehensive “best of show” list. These are simply one man’s favorite items, the ones that stood out most to me as unique in crowded fields:
(Prices are MSRP, I’ve seen each much cheaper online.)
1. Sony Vaio TT200 laptop - $1999 2. Canon PowerShot SD880IS - $249.99 (available for low-mid $200s) 3. Plantronics Discovery 925 Bluetooth earpiece - $149.95 (available for half that online) 4. Koss PortaPro headphones - $49.99 5. Altec Lansing Expressionist BASS computer speakers - $129.95 6. BlackBerry 8900 (and magically make it work on VZW)
And 4 runner’s up, just for fun: 1. iLane Bluetooth e-mail & txt reader / dictation composer - $599 2. SanDisk 16 GB microSD – price not yet set (probably around $50) 3. SanDisk 240 GB SSD for laptop - $499 4. Toshiba Tecra R10 laptop - $1549
I’ve been a sucker for laptops for a while. The smaller, lighter, faster and, let’s face it, sexier looking, they get- the more I want one. Every month there’s a new superlite/ ultraportable that I’m coveting. So I was excited to check out the latest & greatest here at CES.
Sony Sony has 3 new additions to their Vaio line of laptops. 2 are extensions of current models, 1 is new. First, my favorite.
TT 200 – to my eye, this notebook fell right into the sweetspot of tiny & light, yet without a cramped keyboard and microscopic screen. At 2.8 lbs, my shoulder immediately wanted to swap it with the larger notebook weighing it down now. 11.1” screen, comes in a slew of colors, including this handsome gold number pictured here. (Again, like the Canon camera, not shiny gold, nice muted, gold.) It’s made of carbon fiber, which is 400x stronger than plastic used in other notebooks, and looks great. Amazingly, despite the incredibly thin styling, Sony fit in an optical DVD and/or Blu-ray drive / recorder. Battery life was offered up at 6 hours, but a fellow attendee mentioned he routinely got 8 hours from the last version of this laptop. That’s impressive. He laughed when I asked him what he was doing for those 8 hours, and he promised it wasn’t just in standby mode. Price starts at $1999, so it’s definitely on the higher end, but wow, quite the stunner. And with the drive built in, if you can afford it, this is the machine I would choose. Z600 – Also made of carbon fiber, this laptop is also quite lovely. At 3.5 lbs it’s slightly heavier than the TT200. Also has a built in DVD/Blu-ray drive.
Lifestyle PC – the Vaio P500 – this one got the oohs and aahs – it’s tiny. Absolutely tiny. You can see in the pictures, with the hand next to it, just how small it is. I was wondering if folded up this laptop might fit into the back pocket of some jeans. I think it might. It has built in WWAN (mobile broadband), GPS (so you can get directions even without an internet connection) and only weights 1.4 lbs. The keyboard is a bit cramped, but then you’re probably not using this machine to type out your long awaited novel. No touchpad on this one, only a pointing device. It can boot in 20 seconds to some non-Windows apps, and gets 4 hours of battery life. Great to carry around, but this to me seems like an additional device, rather than a replacement like the TT200.
Next I moved over to Toshiba to investigate their offerings. At first I wandered over into their business section, and quickly realized I was in their no frills, black plastic box, nondescript laptop section. Is it mandatory that every manufacturer have a line like this? The no fun line? Just so the IT department can order them in bulk and rest safely knowing that no one will be tempted to have any fun with this thing. I quickly regained my bearings and found the Protégé & Tecra lines.
Tecra R10 – Looks generic enough, nice silver finish, and I thought it was like every other notebook in the place. Then I picked it up- nope, not like every other notebook. It felt noticeably lighter. 14.1” screen (which is my favorite size) but still only 4.4 lbs. Also has an accelerometer which parks the heads on the hard drive if it senses a fall. That’s a great idea. 4 hours of battery life. Price starts at $1549. Solid package. I like this one almost as much as the Sony TT200. Hmmm, decisions.
Tecra under water – Most people live in mortal fear of spilling an ounce of liquid on their laptops. I know I’d expect smoke, fizzling and massive problems if my coffee ever tipped over onto mine. Well wasn’t I surprised when I turned the corner and saw water being continuously spilled onto a similar looking Tecra. I had to take a picture & video just to prove it. There the computer sat, running fine the entire time, with water just pouring down the keyboard. Impressive. The Toshiba reps were quick to point out that you can’t actually immerse the laptop in the water, it’s just if something spills onto the keyboard. So you’re out of luck if you drop kick the thing into the pool, and sadly the world will have to wait for underwater computing. I think the spill protection is plenty. It’s part of Toshiba’s Easy Guard 4, in case you were wondering.
Toshiba also had the beautiful Protégé R600- 2.4 lbs, 6 hours of battery, 12.1”, 128 GB SSD (solid state, the kind that doesn’t move and gets better battery life) and a transreflective screen that adjusts to direct sunlight. Very nice.
After that was HP’s turn. Interestingly, HP has a number of models that are similar in size to the Sony’s & Toshiba’s, but lack the built in DVD drive. HP has stepped up the design department with sleek looks everywhere. One of their brand new laptops that they just unveiled at the show really caught my eye, though, the HP Touchsmart tx2. They call it a convertible because you can use it as a regular laptop, or flip the screen and use it as a tablet. I loved being able to move programs on the screen with my fingernail. Plus the ability to draw right on the screen is pretty cool. And finally, after HP I slid over to Asus, makers of the Eee PC, the one that kicked off the Netbook movement. They had a few nice entries as well, pictured here. Their Bamboo line really stands out- the name says it all. Their S101 Eee PC looked to be one of the thinnest models around. But I don’t want this to become endless specs. We’ll report back once we have some demo time with them.
All of this is to say I’m a “know it when I see it” type of guy when it comes to laptop and these definitely caught my attention. I’ll be excited to test them out and see if they can prove they’re more than just a pretty face!
Coming into CES, one of the technologies I continued to run into hype about was 3-D, specifically HD 3-D, aka 3-D viewing at home. How it was going to make a “big splash” and “revolutionize” the way we watch television. I wasn’t sold. Color me skeptical, but didn’t we just have a “revolution” with HD? This was something akin to going from DVD to Blu-Ray for me- cool, but not essential. I saw Bolt in 3-D in the theatres- it was cool, but was it worth the extra $5 or so? No. If it was the same price, would I seek it out? Still a no. I just didn’t feel it was so much better than a typical movie.
Then at the show, the hype well served, because many companies are, in fact, featuring HD 3-D. Panasonic incorporated it into their big pre-show media event, even enlisting James Cameron’s help in a video cameo saying how much better his upcoming movie “Avatar” will be because of Panasonic’s 3-D technology. Then Sony was featuring it. As was Samsung. Ok, ok, uncle. I give. I’m nothing if not a sucker for marketing- I at least had to check it out.
First up was Sony’s demo. Pretty cool, until they got to the football game. Double wow! All of a sudden, I needed to have this in my living room! The field was vivid, with the players actually leaping off the grass. There was a depth I had never seen before. I started thinking, maybe there’s something to this HD 3-D thing.
Next was Panasonic’s demo. A varied reel of mixed content types, which again was ho-hum, until they got the Lakers game. Holy smokes! Gadzoinks! I thought the football game was cool, this was simply stunning. A depth, clarity and layered imagery I had never seen before. It looked to be a normal camera angle at Staples Center (the Lakers home court), but the game looked so real. You’ve heard the cliché, “makes you feel like you were there” – this is as close as I’ve ever gotten to thinking it might actually be true. They then cut to the Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremonies. In this 3-D version, it added something you never knew was missing, but all of a sudden are happy you had. The rows of performers cascaded to the background more vividly than ever before. I’m running out of words to describe this, that’s how good it was. The Lakers game looked like a special effect come to life.
I’m now on the HD 3-D bandwagon, and sports got me there. When does this come out? I need it.
But can we please do something about the glasses? Let’s get Oakley on the horn, have them design some fashionable 3-D glasses. These Blues Brothers style rigid square honkers are embarrassing. If this technology is really going to catch on, and people are going to wear these in the living room, in daylight, with other people walking around, we need to upgrade the style. Check out these frames. They sure make the TV picture look better, but they make your face look worse!
Amber Plante is your guide through the geektastic worlds of science, technology and pop culture -- the Q to your James Bond, the Cortana to your Master Chief and the McGonagall to your Harry Potter, so to speak. She makes the technobabble make sense and shows you the fantastic wired world of the Internet in a whole new light. Are you a geek, too? Don't worry, you're in good company.
eil at Sony’s booth was their new Bloggie – their new HD camera that captures HD video, 5MP pictures and costs only $169! A friend of mine had an earlier version of these cameras, and shot a great skiing video on a trip last year, so I can vouch for the quality of these. We’re not talking professional quality, but certainly good enough to carry around on a trip, snap some quick highlights and easily share memories with family & friends. The camera is tiny (about the size of a compact digital camera) and the battery will last about 90 minutes when shooting video. 
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Amber Plante is your guide through the geektastic worlds of science, technology and pop culture -- the Q to your James Bond, the Cortana to your Master Chief and the McGonagall to your Harry Potter, so to speak. She makes the technobabble make sense and shows you the fantastic wired world of the Internet in a whole new light. Are you a geek, too? Don't worry, you're in good company.