A camera that sheds light on photographyWhile Sony is a newcomer to the market for digital single-lens reflex cameras, there is much that is familiar about its first offering. The lens mount and many mechanical parts of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 come from a discontinued camera made by Konica Minolta, which recently abandoned the camera business.
Sony, however, says that it has used its extensive expertise in electronics to completely revamp and improve the camera's sensors and microprocessors.
The A100 will be available next month with an 18-millimeter to 70-millimeter zoom lens for about US$1,000. Buyers who don't want the lens can save about US$100. Other lenses and flashes are also on the way, including three high-end lenses developed by Carl Zeiss of Germany.
In addition to being fully compatible with most Konica Minolta Maxxum mount lenses, the A100 has an improved version of a technology pioneered by Konica Minolta that minimizes blurring at low shutter speeds or when using telephoto lenses. Electronics rapidly shift the camera's 10.2-megapixel sensor to counteract movements of the camera in the user's hands.
From Sony's engineers, the camera gained an image processor that analyzes dark and bright areas of photos and automatically adjusts exposures to prevent details from disappearing.
New trick for old phones: Making free aclls online
Internet calling services like Vonage bridge the analog-to-digital divide by letting you use old-fashioned telephone handsets to make online calls, cutting long-distance fees. But even Vonage and its ilk look expensive next to Skype (www.skype.com), which offers free calling from one computer to another, anywhere in the world.
The Skype USB Phone Adapter, available from D-Link for about US$70 from many online and offline retailers, connects a conventional phone to the USB data port of a Windows PC (it does not work with Macs). You can then make Skype calls without using an awkward computer headset. To reach other people who have Skype, you can use the service's instant-messaging-style software to initiate a call or you can assign speed dial codes to your Skype contacts and dial them directly from the handset.
The adapter, model DPH-50U, includes a jack and cable for plugging into a standard telephone wall socket, so you can use one handset for both free Internet calls and standard calls. If you want to cut the landline completely, Skype sells credits that let you make calls to traditional phones, and can set you up with a standard number for incoming calls.
For music lovers, a gadget's gadget
Yes, it's yet another gizmo to carry around. But the Boostaroo Revolution aims to make other gizmos better: It amplifies and improves the sound of iPods and other digital players.
The Revolution is a small device, about the size of a cigar, that runs on two AAAA batteries and has a 1/8-inch audio-in port and two 1/8-inch audio-out ports. Plug any audio player into one end and the Revolution amplifies and improves the signal coming out the other end. The extra audio-out port lets you share your music with a friend.
Essentially the Revolution makes your music sound sharper. It may take an audiophile to appreciate the finer points of this US$60 device, which is available now, but the overall difference with and without the amplifier is noticeable to the ordinary ear. An MP3 file recorded at fairly low quality was transformed from a muddy mess into a listenable audio track. Using a pair of standard headphones, even music downloaded from the iTunes Music Store sounded slightly better.
The Revolution also simulates surround-sound in standard stereo headphones. There are no buttons to press or dials to twirl -- you simply plug in your headphones, connect to the MP3 player and go.
All your favorites, all the time
With the LG Electronics LX550 Fusic phone, every song you request is certain to play on the radio, and you don't even have to call a station. The phone can transmit songs from its memory card to any FM radio.
The Fusic, available from Sprint, also plays video and can receive on-demand music, TV or subscription radio services over Sprint's high-speed data network.
The phone has other features that are by now expected on a jazzy handset. It has speakerphone capability, Bluetooth wireless to sync contacts and calendars with your computer and a 1.3-megapixel camera with built-in flash.
Music, video and subscription radio can be purchased a la carte, or bundled with some phone plans. Songs from the Sprint Music Store are US$2.50 each. You can also transfer your MP3s onto the phone's 64-megabyte Micro SD card.
Be prepared for at least one tech disappointment: The phone can't transmit your Sirius radio stream to an FM receiver, only songs stored on the memory card.
Today's digital cameras have enough megapixels to render sharp pictures, but they can still produce blurry photos when used without a tripod at slow shutter speeds or in zoom close-ups.
Less jitter and also less cost
The Pentax K100D, a single-lens reflex camera, has a 6.1-megapixel image sensor that moves to counteract the jitter that results in the blur.
The sensor sits on a plate equipped with electromagnets and surrounded by permanent magnets. Gyroscopic sensors detect movement and send signals to the electro-magnets, keeping the sensor level while the rest of the camera moves.
Pentax is not the first to offer shake-reduction technology, but putting the mechanism in the camera body means that shake reduction works with any Pentax interchangeable lenses made in the last 30 years.
That also saves money. Nikon's entry-level SLR, the 6.1-megapixel D50, retails for about US$550, for example, and its least expensive lens with image stabilization retails for an additional US$500. Pentax will begin selling the K100D in mid-July with a beginner-grade 18-55mm lens for a suggested price of US$700.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would