CrunchGear |  |
- Daily Crunch: Swarm
- The New Android Watch In The Google Store Isn’t What You Think
- Review: Panasonic Lumix GX1
- Fujifilm X-Pro1 Finally Gets Pricing: $1700, Plus $600 Each For Lenses
- Back To Basics: Sony Appoints Kazuo Hirai, Ousts Stringer
- Bamboo-Clad ADzero Android Phone Goes From Concept To Real Product
- Hey Look! It’s A Square iPod Nano… With A Camera!
- Swarming Robots Will Fly Menacingly Towards Your Loved Ones In Perfect Formation
- Microsoft Updates Kinect Hardware For Official Windows Release
- Nintendo Partners With free-hotspot.com For Free 3DS WiFi Access Across Europe
- The Trade Show Is Dead: Samsung Not Launching Galaxy S II Successor At MWC
- Mint.com Launches Android Tablet App
- Daily Crunch: Fine Tune
| Posted: 02 Feb 2012 01:00 AM PST  Here are some of yesterday’s stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: Mint.com Launches Android Tablet App The New Android Watch In The Google Store Isn't What You Think Back To Basics: Sony Appoints Kazuo Hirai, Ousts Stringer
|
| The New Android Watch In The Google Store Isn’t What You Think Posted: 01 Feb 2012 06:21 PM PST  I really wish this whole post could be about Google taking a big step forward in the field of wearable tech with the introduction of a new Android-powered wrist device, but their new Android watch is simply a watch with Android logos on it. So what if it can’t display text messages, connect to a phone via Bluetooth, or play Angry Birds on your wrist — it’s a completely serviceable timepiece and it’s a fraction of the price of an actual Android-powered watch. The watches themselves are from Modify, and sticking to their usual MO, they allow you to swap the actual clock itself into different wristbands. Still, I don’t think there’s such thing as too much swag, and it already looks like a fair number of people are pledging their mobile OS allegiance with their wallets. The Google Store already out of the large watches, and there are only ten more meant for people with tiny wrists at time of writing. If the disappointment is too much to bear though (and you don’t feel like waiting for new stock to come in), you could always try and ease your pain by buying a Chrome watch instead.
|
| Posted: 01 Feb 2012 04:54 PM PST  Short version:A return to form for Panasonic, and a M4/3 camera that photographers won’t be suspicious of. Its weaknesses are largely the weaknesses of its class of camera, but beyond those it’s solid, comfortable, and fairly powerful. Not recommended for fidgety and manual focusers, but most shooters will be able to have a lot of fun with it. Features:
Pros:
Cons:
Full review:The GX1 represents Panasonic listening to its fans, who have been slightly dismayed at the continual consumerification of the M4/3 line. The original G-series set them out to be the serious, enthusiast’s M4/3 camera maker, but as the sensor and market advanced, we saw them focusing more on simplification and popularization. That trend is bucked with the GX1, the announcement of which many greeted with relief. It’s clear from even a cursory examination that the GX1 is meant to be a “serious” camera. Its boxy but carefully designed shape, the thumb dial, the constellation of buttons. Although it will, in fact, take a picture when you press the shutter release button, it’s not the kind of camera you just hand to mom and say “take a few shots would you?”. The design of the camera is straightforward and not very aggressive. The only real topography is found on the right side, where a fairly subtle bump on the front, highly textured, allows you to grip tightly. On the back, a thumbgrip that feels bigger than it looks (that’s a good thing) makes for easier one-handed operation, though you won’t be changing any settings while doing that. There’s a fun little popup flash that’s elevated enough that you won’t catch the shadow of your lens in the picture. It’s not particularly powerful, but it’s there, and it’s fun to pop in and out. I’d say my only real concern with the camera physically speaking is the thumb dial. It’s recessed just enough that rotating it is an effort. And getting to the secondary settings by pushing it in? Forget about it. I couldn’t do it reliably, and I wouldn’t want to have to rely on the push-and-turn mechanism at all. This dial could definitely stand to be bigger and have better feedback. Touchable-ish Its rear LCD is a touchscreen, though you wouldn’t really guess it from the look of the menus. It seemed to me that the touch capability was more of an afterthought, and while it can be handy (the little drawer of settings you can pull out from the right is nice), it’s not really useful for any kind of serious applications. For instance, you can see the image type being recorded (RAW+JPEG, for example) on the LCD, but touching it doesn’t bring up the menu for that setting. You have to go through the regular sub-menus, only some of which are touch-sensitive. And while you can, say, drag the histogram around or select a focus point, or drag through photos in playback mode, it still doesn’t really feel like it’s living up to its potential. Hopefully the GX2 will have a menu system designed around touch and d-pad from the ground up. As for the menus and settings themselves, I found them easy and occasionally very convenient to use. In shutter priority mode, spinning the jog dial brought up a very helpful little dual ribbon showing aperture estimates for exposure length, and red zones for areas unlikely to produce a good shot. Similarly, the quick menu and d-pad buttons brought up useful settings quickly and I really felt like for the most part, I had access to almost every necessary setting within a second. Shooting The lens that our unit had, and one many will opt for, is a new compact 14-42mm F/3.5-5.6 with both power zoom and power focus. It’s very compact when the camera is off, but a front element protrudes about an inch when it’s powered on. The on/off process is fairly quick, so it’s no trouble to turn it off when you need the camera to be more portable, though I personally would prefer a nice pancake prime to minimize size. As a kit lens this isn’t bad at all, and it’s more compact than many of the zooms offered on other M4/3 platforms. Autofocus is very fast and accurate; I preferred to use the “pinpoint” mode, which both speeds up focusing by reducing the points needed to poll and adds accuracy. I’m a “focus, then frame” kind of guy, and this camera worked very well with my style of shooting. Unfortunately, manual focus was… well, listless. The actual shooting action feels and sounds good. If you’ve got your focus set, the shutter fires instantly when you push down the button, and while you have to dismiss the image preview before shooting another shot, it’s ready to fire again quite quickly — less than a second for me. Serious shooters will want to disable the image preview, or set it to one second. Starting video is just as quick via a dedicated button, great for when you’re taking shots of the kids or pet and something darling happens – no need to change modes. Photo quality, though it is of course highly important, I don’t want to delve too deeply into. I’ll leave that to great sites like DPReview, where they can take the systematic approach warranted by a major camera like this one. But to speak anecdotally, I found that pictures were generally sharp, with very low noise up until ISO 6400. JPEGs are rendered a bit flat in the “standard” render style, and it’s definitely worthwhile to test out the other modes, which are fairly subtle. The art-style modes are a bit much, of course, and you can always do adjustments in post. Find a good JPEG style that agrees with your subject matter and do the effects later. Here are a couple basic sample shots (be sure to open in new tab for full size). You can really see the flatness in the books and the pachinko machine. Most people would be unhappy with that, so it’s important to dig around in the settings on this thing. And here are three pictures in relatively low light, just bright enough for handheld shots. The first is 3200, then 6400, then 12800, at a 20th, 30th, and 60th respectively to keep the aperture at just about wide open. Not the sharpest shots, unfortunately. But they’re enough that you can really see the noise jump at 12800, and it’s certainly very present at 6400. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t feel any compunction shooting at 6400 if it was the only way to get the shot. 12800 is just too noisy, which can usually be said of any camera’s maximum ISO setting. Video quality, from what I could tell, was comparable to other medium-size sensors, better than point and shoots of course but not as good as what you’d get on a Canon or Nikon APS-C. Perfectly all right for home videos, though I wouldn’t want to shoot a feature on it. ConclusionThe GX1 is a powerful camera, but I sense that it still has one foot in the half-point-and-shoot territory of the GF3. This clearly wants to be a photographer’s camera; it’s not easy enough to use to be anything else. So why so many auto and art modes? Why a touchscreen and a galaxy of buttons? There’s just a hint of identity crisis here that its successor will hopefully address. But disregarding those issues, the GX1 is a powerful contender against the likes of Samsung, Sony, Olympus, and the rest, offering a sort of camera-lover’s camera without any gimmicks or weird styling. It’s practical, compact, and performs well. What more do you want?
|
| Fujifilm X-Pro1 Finally Gets Pricing: $1700, Plus $600 Each For Lenses Posted: 01 Feb 2012 03:55 PM PST  Well, that’s the end of that dream for me. I was really looking forward to owning one of these lovely little cameras, but Fujifilm has just gone and priced it right out of my range. Amazon has put up its pre-order pages for the camera and its lenses, and the earlier rumors were true: the camera sells for $1700 body-only, and the lenses aren’t cheap, either: $600 for the 18mm and 35mm, and $650 for the 60mm macro. Damn it! Well, at the very least, I’ll get to get my hands on one as soon as they send a few out to review. And the fact is that really, the X10 is probably good enough for someone like me. Someone as poor as me, I mean. The question will really be whether this price represents a good value for the performance. No one doubts the X-Pro1 is a good camera, and that the lenses will be nice. But Fuji has been moving in a “luxury” direction, and like Apple, they may be able to add a bit of “tax” on there because they know they have a high-end brand. No one questions it when Leica does it, though they do question the quality when they put out something like the X1. The competition at $1700 (with lens, $2300) is serious. That’s pro camera territory, beyond even Sony’s futuristic beast, the NEX-7. But Fuji believes their baby has the chops to compete, so we’ll just have to see.
|
| Back To Basics: Sony Appoints Kazuo Hirai, Ousts Stringer Posted: 01 Feb 2012 02:57 PM PST  If there’s been one complaint my contacts inside large CE companies have had, career-wise, it’s been the inability to rise far in the hierarchy. While there are clear exceptions to this rule, the complaint has always been that succeeding in Asian companies has been contingent on (literally) speaking the language and knowing the rules of the road, as it were, culturally. When Sir Howard Stringer took the reins at Sony, it looked like this tendency had been bucked. However, with the appointment of Kazuo Hirai, it looks like Sony is going back to the old ways – but why? First, Stringer’s note “passing the brandy snifter,” as it were: “Three years ago, I started to work with the Board on succession plans, and in February, 2009 we named a new generation of leaders to be my management team. Among them was Kaz Hirai, who had distinguished himself through his work in the PlayStation and networked entertainment businesses. Kaz is a globally focused executive for whom technology and the cloud are familiar territory, content is highly valued, and digital transformation is second nature. I believe his tough-mindedness and leadership skills will be of great benefit to the company and its customers in the months and years ahead. I look forward to helping Kaz in every way I can so that succession leads inevitably to success. It was my honor to recommend him to the Board for the positions of President and CEO, because he is ready to lead, and the time to make this change is now.” Sony is no longer in the position they were in when Stringer became CEO. In June 2005, when he was appointed after a long career in Sony’s media divisions, Stringer looked like they guy to lead Sony through the rocky shoals of media distribution. You’ll remember that the iTunes store started selling music two years earlier and streaming video was still a few years off. The way ahead was clear – Blu Ray would carry HD content into homes and streaming would always be the second best solution. HD piracy was difficult because of the huge file sizes and the best solution for digital distribution was to include a nice DRM-ed video file in with the DVD, complete with a with a special Sony player. It was a simpler time and it looked like Stringer could make content work while Japanese engineers could make the TVs and Walkmen work. Today Howard’s world is completely changed. Sony is no longer the darling of the computing world (Apple owns that limelight) nor is it good at CE (Samsung and Vizio have shown that cheap TVs don’t have to suck) nor can it make phones. Blu Ray is fast becoming irrelevant and distribution channels have curved around Sony like light around a dying star. Stringer’s Sony is a shambles. So Sony went back to a Japanese CEO who ran the company’s most prosperous product, Playstation. It makes perfect sense: the next decade isn’t solely about hardware or content or mobile – it’s about all of those and more. Gaming consoles take the best of those three worlds and actually sell products to people who want to pay for them. Gaming is a huge business and it’s the one place that Sony can excel in this century. In the end, Stringer was a CEO for a Sony that wanted to appear more plugged into Hollywood, media, and content. Now Sony needs to look like it cares about gaming and the capital of Sony’s gaming empire is Japan. It was fun to try new things, Sony is saying, but when it comes to turnaround they’ve come back to basics.
|
| Bamboo-Clad ADzero Android Phone Goes From Concept To Real Product Posted: 01 Feb 2012 02:49 PM PST  Ever since I saw this mesmerizing commercial for the wood-clad (and unfortunately named) Touch Wood, I’ve been a sucker for phones of a more organic persuasion. While the Touch Wood ultimately never saw the light of day outside of its native Japan, another wooden smartphone is preparing to take the proverbial stage. The ADzero, as it’s known, began its life as a concept design from a Middlesex University student named Kieron-Scott Woodhouse. The design has since attracted the attention of a few parties in China, who have begun to financially back production of the once China-only device. Details abouts specs are light at this point — all that’s been revealed so far is that it’s an Android device that’s roughly half the weight of an iPhone, and features an interesting camera flash that’s built directly into the wood frame. Now I’m no design guru myself, but the concept of a device swathed in actual wood seems terribly charming. Most smartphones are made of extruded plastics with the inclusion of some metal trim as desired, while wood has its flaws it can also bring something needed to the smartphone experience: character. With every phone being sculpted out of a separate bit of bamboo, no two devices would ever be the same. Hopefully the specialized build of Android that the ADzero runs takes the wooden motif and runs with it — I’m not a fan of most custom UIs in general, but it’s still fun to see what different manufacturers and developers feel needs improvements. Don’t start marking up those calendars yet though. While it seems as though the ADzero will launch later this year, there’s no official timeline to lean on. I can almost guarantee that the ADzero will remain a curiosity confined to specialty stores and boutiques, but it hopefully won’t be long before we can take it for a spin.
|
| Hey Look! It’s A Square iPod Nano… With A Camera! Posted: 01 Feb 2012 01:33 PM PST  Man, it feels like it’s been forever since the last time we’ve seen a seemingly legit Apple leak. Maybe they’ve tightened the security around the factory lines; maybe it’s because the last two major hardware releases were mostly indistinguishable from their predecessors at a distance, and were thus rather hard to photograph properly. Whatever the case, Chinese Apple blog Apple.pro has shots of what might be the next generation iPod Nano. It looks just like the current itty-bitty 6th generation nano, with one notable twist: it’s got a camera.
As a bit of a recap, this was the 5th gen Nano. It had a camera: Then the 6th-gen came along, cutting the product’s size in half (at the expense of the camera, plus things like a built-in speaker): According to micgadget (who backs Apple.Pro’s pictures with their “factory sources”), the new Nano’s camera resolution comes in at 1.3 megapixels (or 1280×1024). A bit paltry by modern standards — but if you’ve ever held one of the latest Nanos, you know how little space there is for things like lenses and light sensors. That they (reportedly) even fit such things in there at all is kind of ridiculous. But what about the Nano’s clip? Wouldn’t that block the camera? If you look closely, the camera lens actually extends through the clip. Clever. Still, I can’t imagine taking pictures on such a tiny device would be a comfortable experience. Interestingly, micgadget’s sources mention that the prototype photographed is actually around 2 months old, at which point the unreleased Nano was reportedly having some troubles with overexposed photos (a 2-megapixel alternative was also tested, with photos supposedly looking too “washed out”). Apple would obviously fix such problems prior to release, but it’s curious that a detail like that would leak out of the vacuum chamber that is today’s Apple.
|
| Swarming Robots Will Fly Menacingly Towards Your Loved Ones In Perfect Formation Posted: 01 Feb 2012 01:16 PM PST This video is making the nerd rounds today and it’s pretty amazing. It shows a set of quadrocopters first righting themselves after a catastrophic failure and returning to a certain point (the scientists throw the little guys into the air and they turn over and fly back to their hands light frightened starlings) and then we see how these monsters can fly in formation around obstacles and through windows. Built by the GRASP Lab at U Penn, these wee robots keep getting cooler and smaller. These are part of the Scalable sWarms of Autonomous Robots and Mobile Sensors (SWARM) project that sounds like something Shredder used to find the Ninja Turtles in their watery redoubt. The future: full of scary robots.
|
| Microsoft Updates Kinect Hardware For Official Windows Release Posted: 01 Feb 2012 01:10 PM PST  We’ve known for some time that Microsoft would be bringing official Kinect support to Windows this week, but one thing they kept quiet was the fact that they’d be debuting a new version of the hardware as well. It’s not tiny, as some hoped, or built into the bezel of a laptop, as we know it will be eventually, but it does improve on the original in a few ways. The most visible improvement for most people will be a slight improvement of the minimum distance required for the device to operate. The Xbox 360 Kinect required you to be around 50cm away at least, and the Kinect for Windows will go down to 40cm — about 16 inches. That means it can sit on a monitor on a user’s desk and capture movements without the user having to scoot back at all. Other improvements are of the softer variety. Microsoft has improved the tracking software, providing an improved raw sensor stream, better color/depth synchronization, and more accurate skeletal tracking. On the downside, the new version costs quite a bit more: the new Kinect for Windows is going for $250, while the 360 version is selling for just $100 at the Microsoft Store right now. The justification for the price seems to be that the new version has been updated to support multiple systems and situations, rather than the standard 360 hardware it’s been running on for the last year. And I’m guessing they’re not subsidizing this price quite as heavily. The official SDK won’t work with the 360 version, it seems, though you can still download the beta SDK, which works fine but officially can’t be used for commercial applications. Microsoft says they’ve been working with hundreds of companies and seeing lots of unique applications and ideas, so hopefully we’ll see some of those hit soon. In the mean time our Kinect tag has lots of projects that demonstrate the versatility of the device.
|
| Nintendo Partners With free-hotspot.com For Free 3DS WiFi Access Across Europe Posted: 01 Feb 2012 12:38 PM PST  The Nintendo 3DS just got a bit more connected. The gaming company has teamed with free-hotspot.com to provide 5,000 access points to 3DS owners throughout 22 European companies. 3DSs can now hop online while abroad at various locations including McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Ibis Hotels and Etap Hotels. US gamers have enjoyed free hotspot access for sometime now. Nintendo partnered with AT&T to allow access at their hotspots and then late last year, Nintendo struck with Boingo in late 2011 that opened access at various airports. “Our extensive network of Wi-Fi hotspots across Europe will provide Nintendo 3DS users with a high-speed, reliable service to help them make the most of their time while away from home. We are delighted to work with Nintendo and to announce this important partnership." stated Joseph Brunoli, Managing Director of Anacapa Holdings, Ltd., operators of the free-hotspot.com network. The 3DS lacks a 3G radio but features many connected functions that are left meaningless without Internet access. The same thing can be said for the 3DS screen and lack of good games, too.
|
| The Trade Show Is Dead: Samsung Not Launching Galaxy S II Successor At MWC Posted: 01 Feb 2012 09:05 AM PST  The Samsung Galaxy S II successor will not be in attendance at Mobile World Congress. The company issued a statement this morning indicating that the phone will get its own event, one that’s closer to its launch date. But don’t worry that much for MWC. Samsung will still debut “exciting new mobile products.” But just not the exciting new mobile product. Samsung is smartly holding its best cards until the time is right. Samsung,
Samsung is the latest big consumer electronic company to diminish the role of trade shows. Previously, companies were seemingly held hostage to the trade show circuit. These large events were the only way to get the attention of the press. But slowly major companies started pulling back from trade shows. Apple dropped Macworld after the 2008 show. Microsoft is pulling back on CES. Now Samsung isn’t launching its iPhone 5 competitor at a trade show but instead its own event. These major players no longer need trade shows to gain an audience with the press. The Samsung Galaxy S II was, and still is, a major hit for Samsung. However, it could have had a more strategic launch. Samsung announced the phone in early February at MWC. The phone then launched in European and Asian markets in early June. It didn’t hit the States until September. Samsung is no doubt looking to eliminate the gap between announcement and launch. Hot products like the Galaxy S II can hold the Internet’s attention only so long. Despite the message of Sammy’s current ad campaign, the company wants to curate a launch that will get consumers excited enough to camp outside of stores for the phone — and launching at a trade show just doesn’t work this time.
|
| Mint.com Launches Android Tablet App Posted: 01 Feb 2012 06:14 AM PST  Mint.com, the financial service we first mentioned at TechCrunch40 in 2007 (wow, that seems like a long time ago), announced that they have launched a new native app specifically for 9 and 10 inch Android tablets running Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich. This new app, available in the Android Market, will join the previously available versions for iPhone, iPad and Android mobile phones. Curiously, there is no mobile web version (that I have been able to find). 7 inch tablets should work, but this new app is not specifically optimized for them. No word as of yet, when this new version will be available for the very popular Kindle Fire since there is already a version of Mint in the Amazon app store. For the unfamiliar, Mint is an app/web system for aggregating and managing all your disparate financial accounts and then graphically expressing that data for easy, "at a glance" understanding of your expenditures. With the exception of some slight usability tweaks (like reordering some modules) and a few subtle font changes, this latest version offers no new functionality. What it does do, however, is make the service available as a native app for the growing number of Android tablets out there.
Making the service available in as many emerging channels as possible is a credible strategy — a wise move for any financial service these days — but beyond those projections, Mint.com has some interesting statistics to back up this approach. Ken Sun, from Mint's parent company Intuit, revealed as much to me by noting in a quick Q&A that 40% of Mint's registrations are completed on mobile devices. Additionally, 30% of Mint's user base are "mobile only" users, so it makes a lot of sense to distribute the functionality where user activity is increasing. In any event, the graphics and charts appear to look as nice as they do on other platforms. This is sure to make any XOOM or Galaxy Tab wielding Mint user a happy camper today.
|
| Posted: 01 Feb 2012 01:00 AM PST  Here are some recent posts on TechCrunch Gadgets: FlatFrog Offers Up A New Multitouch Table Self-Guided Bullet Could Strike Laser-Designated Targets From A Mile Away Years After Being Dropped, ZFS Finds Its Way Back To The Mac Apple Is Totally Serious About That Stuff They Put At The End Of Their Emails
|
| You are subscribed to email updates from TechCrunch » Gadgets To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:08:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:08:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:08:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:08:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:08:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:08:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:08:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:08:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:09:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:10:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:10:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/02/2012 05:10:00 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment