Now that the froth from the iPad launch has blown past, it’s worth stepping back a bit. For me, the most telling comments were not the ones which talked about functionality, but those which looked at what the iPad proposition told us …
Continue reading from the original source:
The iPad and the Chevrolet « thenextwave
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Continue reading from the original source:
AMERICAblog News: Brennan: All transferred detainees who returned …
A car that gives supercar performance while being green certainly should wake up the auto buying public today. The promise began with the Tesla, but not many have the $110K it takes to buy one, nor do they trust a company that has such …
Continue reading from the original source:
BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Gets The Go ~ Revelations From An …
A car that gives supercar performance while being green certainly should wake up the auto buying public today. The promise began with the Tesla, but not many have the $110K it takes to buy one, nor do they trust a company that has such …
Continue reading from the original source:
BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Gets The Go ~ Revelations From An …
A car that gives supercar performance while being green certainly should wake up the auto buying public today. The promise began with the Tesla, but not many have the $110K it takes to buy one, nor do they trust a company that has such …
Continue reading from the original source:
BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Gets The Go ~ Revelations From An …
Uh oh. Steve Woz is having some “very scary” trouble with his 2010 Toyota Prius. At a recent event in San Francisco he went off topic and talked about how faulty software is to blame for his car’s accelerator troubles:
Toyota has this accelerator problem we’ve all heard about. Well, I have many models of Prius that got recalled, but I have a new model that didn’t get recalled. This new model has an accelerator that goes wild but only under certain conditions of cruise control. And I can repeat it over and over and over again—safely. This is software. It’s not a bad accelerator pedal. It’s very scary, but luckily for me I can hit the brakes.
Toyota’s reponse? They’re looking into it:
We’re in the business of investigating complaints, assessing problems and finding remedies. After many years of exhaustive testing we have not found any evidence of an electronic [software] problem that would have led to unwanted acceleration.
I hope things get figured out soon, otherwise Woz might have to switch to a Segway as his main mode of transportation. [CNET via Jalopnik]
Continue reading from the original source:
Steve Wozniak Explains That Faulty Software Caused His Car Troubles [Cars]
Mountain climbing. Cliff jumping. Cross-country skiing. Those are the kinds of activities the XP10 would be great at capturing. But I stay in my pajamas until 4:00 PM and do not appreciate the XP10’s implicit condescension.
Who do you think you are, XP10? Just because you’re a 12MP point-and-shoot capable of withstanding 3-foot drops, 10 feet of water and 14-degree temperatures, you think you’re better than me? Well, how about that 165-shot battery life, huh? Not much endurance there. Maybe you should work out a bit, get those numbers up. One-touch tagging for Facebook and YouTube? Oh, you mean for when you’re plugged into a computer, indoors, while sitting still, just like eeeeeverybody else? That’s not very active, now is it? And that fancy-sounding 5x periscopic internal zoom—we’ll just wee how good that is when you’re released this month. Your price is okay, at $200, but just don’t start thinking you’re such hot stuff. Because I can work out, and then we’ll see. Then we’ll see, XP10 Toughcam from Fujifilm. [Fuji]
Continue reading from the original source:
In Which the Fujifilm XP10 Toughcam Mocks My Sedentary Lifestyle and I Tell It What’s What [Cameras]
Time to go pro?
Nikon’s new flagship DSLR, the D3s, builds on the groundbreaking D3, which revolutionised the high-speed professional DSLR market on its introduction in August 2007. The D3s has an all-new FX format full-frame sensor and enhanced specification, rugged build and shooting controls. It’s expensive, much more expensive, but as with the D3, it’s certainly a whole lot of camera.
The D3s is pretty much identical to its D3 predecessor and reveals how Nikon has evolved the former camera rather than gone for a revolutionary new model. A D4 this is not which means there could certainly be one of those on the cards in the upcoming year. But speculation aside, the D3s has some significant and not so significant improvements and new features.
The new full-frame sensor is a completely redesigned affair with improved micro lens array to help enable the new high-ISO (low noise) capture settings. This includes a boosted ISO 102,400 mode for shooting in extremely low light without additional light/flash. The low noise image performance “war” between Canon and Nikon, which Canon had the march on for quite some time, were pegged back by the D3. Canon improved things further with the introduction of the EOS 5D MkII and then the EOS 7D but Nikon has pulled ahead once more with the D3s.
The Nikon D3s almost identical to the D3 in terms of size and design, the most obvious changes are the more intense green colour on the white balance (WB) and ISO buttons on the back; the fact there is now a dedicated Live View control (in which you can also get to the movie capture mode) is also another obvious change.
Other controls remain unchanged and mean if you’ve shot on a D3 (or any other Nikon DSLR for that matter) then the layout is wholly familiar. However, the camera is a hefty beast, particularly with the excellent 70-24mm F/2.8 zoom we had to play with for this test, a test carried out during the worst of the snow and freezing conditions in Kent, with which the camera and battery pack coped well.
At 1.24kg (body only and identical to the D3) and another 902g gives a camera weighing in at almost 2.3kg (with this lens) so wilting violets need not apply. What you get though is a ruggedised and weather sealed camera capable of shooting at up to 11fps (in DX format) or 9fps (in the full frame FX format) in RAW for up to 48 shots in one burst, a vast improvement on the 18 RAWs at a time from the D3.
The new sensor provides the same 12.1-megapixel resolution from the D3 and as with the D3, the upside of this (comparatively modest) resolution means the greater pixel pitch (so bigger core sensitive pixels) means an excellent signal to noise ratio, a ratio even more enhanced by the improvements to the redesigned sensor and improved micro lens array.
Image processing is controlled by Nikon’s EXPEED image engine and it is superb, and with the new sensor, allows the camera’s standard ISO range of 200 to 12800 (ISO 100 to 102,400 in boosted modes) to become a realistic and usable proposition.
Image noise is so well controlled and as with the D3, we found routine shooting above ISO 1000 no problem. Noise is only really apparent (but very subtly) at ISO 6400 and above, noise in shadows reveals blotches of blockiness at ISO 8000 and it becomes very noticeable at ISO 12,800 and above. Interestingly, areas of smooth featureless colour, such as skies, start to pick up artifacts less quickly.
While the bulk and weight of the D3s mean your average Joe might baulk at carting the camera about with it round their neck, the camera’s handling compensates; it is simply excellent with great ergonomics and easy to use/reach controls.
The integrated vertical grip helps balance the use of the camera too and houses a large lithium-ion battery pack that survived hours of snapping in temperatures as low as -5, shooting 228 images (with plenty of reviewing) and it still reads 74% at time of writing. The camera comes with a dual charger as standard too, and so it darn well should given the price of the camera.
The excellent 3-inch screen has a 920,000-pixel resolution and wide viewing angle making it a great to use, add in the large info display that’s aided by nice (backlit) top and back plate data LCDs and you have information galore. Live View is included and has AF in two modes; hand held and tripod modes and so where you need Live View to aid composition; it works a treat.
Although much of the D3s is gleaned from the D3, another feature here is the ability to shoot 720p HD movies (with built in and external sound – if you link up a microphone) at 24fps and up to the Hi3 (ISO 102,400) sensitivity setting, making movie capture in low light as flexible as it is in still capture.
The aforementioned external audio connects into a dedicated audio port under the cover on the camera’s side and the HDMI socket also located here is now of the mini-HDMI type, allowing room for the audio socket.
In terms of shooting modes, the D3s has a full complement of the manual shooting options, as you’d expect (aperture and shutter priority, program, and full manual control) and this is now enhanced with Nikon’s Scene Recognition System that uses the AE and AF sensors to assess the subject and pick the “correct” setting for the subject.
This type of mode or feature is common today within many consumer oriented cameras but feels a little incongruous here, but I suppose if it helps get better results, then why knock it? The Picture Control System is still in there and this enables tweaks to each shooting mode and allows pre-settings such as standard, vivid and monochrome and allows you to tailor the way each mode reproduces the image.
Then throw in the power of in-camera RAW processing where image size, quality, white balance, picture control settings, noise reduction, colour space and vignetting control are all available to help quickly process the RAW files, and that can help save a lot of time later, in your post-shoot workflow.
The D3s now has a “quiet” shooting mode found on the drive mode dial just below the flash, bracketing and Command Lock “turret” on the top plate. When active this helps reduce the noise the camera’s shutter and mirror mechanism make when you take a shot, but it’s a subtle difference, the most obvious change being the slower mirror return. Another very subtle but nice change is the pressure sensitivity of some controls has been enhanced and this makes it a far more positive experience using controls such as the AF-On button on the back plate.
Dual CF Type I/II storage provides ample room for your photos; you can assign which of the two cards has priority, simply use the second card as an overflow when or if the first becomes full or save RAWs to one and JPEGs to the other. However, the D3s brings UDMA media support to the party and this helps get all the data off the camera’s buffer and into the cards more quickly, vital also for shooting the massive 720p HD videos.
Image formats include JPEG (basic, normal or fine) and RAW with simultaneous JPEG capture in each quality setting and you can shoot TIFFs too. You also get four menu banks (denoted A, B, C and D, although you can name them something more meaningful) so that you effectively get four ways to set the camera up and recall them quickly by selecting the corresponding bank of menus.
This means -?on top of the four menu banks -?there are four custom mode banks too, on which you can layer various custom modes, again for particular camera set-ups you might use repeatedly. Added to the 43 custom options you have 344 possible set-up options in menus and custom modes.
In terms of image quality the metering is handled by a combination of Nikon’s 3D Matrix system and a 1005-pixel RGB sensor, and like the D3, it works amazingly well. However, the (predominantly) snowy subject matter we were forced to shoot (we had weeks of snow) meant the camera would still underexpose, the snow made the metering err as it “thought” everything was brighter than it actually was.
Exposure compensation and bracketing made it s simple job of dialing in a half stop of exposure compensation to bring exposures back into line.
AF’s controlled by Nikon’s Multi-CAM 3500FX processor which, while very reliable, predominantly dark or very light scenes can fool the AF. And although the focusing has 51-AF points -?to which metering can be locked -?and you can select and move the AF point of choice around the zones available, or select 11 specific zones and all of which can be tailored to use all or within user specified groups, we found the AF struggled in some low light scenes that the new camera is capable of shooting in, the AF hunting on various occasions.
Colour and white balance control are excellent. Colour is natural in the camera’s default “standard” mode but there are so many ways to tweak the colour performance (along with everything else), that you can pretty much dial in whatever colour parameters you need, depending on what you want from a subject.
In terms of white balance the D3s is as peerless as the D3 and even the auto WB control provides a nice neutral effect in mixed lighting but it’s not so much fun in very low, mixed lighting. In terms detail you loose a slight amount at higher ISO settings as the EXPEED engine works through what noise there is and at the very high sensitivity settings, blocks of noise in shadows can overwhelm detail that is there. Nevertheless, when you look at the sensitivity in use, it’s remarkable, there’s an image as good as there is to even quibble over.
The non-boosted sensitivity settings provide plenty of pristine detail and while on the original D3 it was only above ISO 1000 that the image processing could be seen to affect fine details to any extent, the D3s’ new sensor and its enhanced circuitry mean that limit is not reached until you hit ISO 2000, but only visible (as with the D3) in fine portrait detail such as skin pores.
Verdict:
Like its forbear, there really is so much kit within the D3s we could write for another week, but we’ve covered the key areas here and major changes from the D3. In terms of the performance and poise, the D3s is even better than the D3, which was this reviewer’s top DSLR when it was introduced. However, the market has moved on since August 2007 and there is a far larger choice of cameras now offering similar attributes.
Some may also ask why the resolution is limited (again) to 12.1-megapixels and others may also ask why the HD video feature is not 1080p, as with the latest Canon EOS models? The answer to the former is simply the better dynamic range afforded by fewer and larger pixels allows for enhanced detail (and sensitivity), so that still adds up in our book.
The D3s is designed to offer a poised, higher performance professional solution and that it does very well indeed.?Once again, like the D3 before it, this DSLR is close to a ten out of ten. However, the few minor niggles (low light AF probably the biggest surprise, and the cost) and the way the market has progressed in terms of HD video mean the Nikon D3s achieves a very creditable 9.
Tags:
Cameras DSLR cameras Nikon Nikon D3s Nikon D3 Canon EOS 7D Canon EOS 5D Mk II 12 megapixels
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
Nikon D3s DSLR camera originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:32:52 +0000
Continue reading from the original source:
REVIEWS: Nikon D3s DSLR camera
Stuart’s look back on the week’s tech news
Just back from CES, Stuart Miles takes us through his top five tech topics from the Las Vegas event.
If you weren’t already aware something called 3D is apparently going to be big in 2010, with plenty of companies lauding their expertise in the area.
Stuart also talks of the possibility of a transition from the traditional mobile phone, giving the example of the newly announced Dell Mini 5 tablet as an example of the way laptop and phone tech is beginning to merge, and what this could mean for the other big talk of the show, the Nexus One.
Meanwhile, Android was also a hot topic with news of its adoption into everyday devices such as microwaves, and ebook readers also get a look in with colour versions seemingly being the future. Finally, Stuart discusses how if CES is anything to go by, 2010 should be the year of the connected device – with Blu-ray players taking the lead in trying to sell the concept to the masses.
Get all Stuart’s thoughts on the video above.
Tags:
Audio Car And GPS Dad Gadgets Gaming Hardware Home And Kitchen Home Cinema Phones Cameras Software Sports Fitness Video Comment 3DTV Dell Mini 5 Megawhat
?
VIDEO: Tech Week in View – Top five tech topics from CES originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:25:08 +0000
Continue reading from the original source:
NEWS: VIDEO: Tech Week in View – Top five tech topics from CES
You’d still have the manual in an ideal world and save the cash, but the auto suits the 370Z well.
 |
 |
Continue reading from the original source:
Nissan 370Z
You’d still have the manual in an ideal world and save the cash, but the auto suits the 370Z well.
|
|
Continue reading from the original source:
Nissan 370Z
The Barnes & Noble Nook eReader may have a bit of a cloud hanging over it with the suit pending form Alex Design, but the device is still stoking the fires of geek lust in many tech fans. Barnes & Noble has said that demand for the device has been …
Continue reading from the original source:
Nook Won’t Hit Stores Until December 7
Once again, Microsoft gives the other side a reason to brag. While PC owners might get to play more games and customize their hardware, Mac owners rarely have to deal with Apple breaking their Macs by way of faulty update. PC World reports that Microsoft …
Continue reading from the original source:
Latest Microsoft Updates Are Killing Computers
Okay, so technically only the paint is self-healing. That’s still totally awesome. Docomo (via Akihabara), a Japanese mobile manufacturer, has just signed a deal with Nissan to start creating cell phones that use the auto maker’s ’self-healing paint’.
T…
Continue reading from the original source:
Docomo To Release Self-Healing Mobile Phones
Okay, so technically only the paint is self-healing. That’s still totally awesome. Docomo (via Akihabara), a Japanese mobile manufacturer, has just signed a deal with Nissan to start creating cell phones that use the auto maker’s ’self-healing paint’.
T…
Continue reading from the original source:
Docomo To Release Self-Healing Mobile Phones
