CONDENSED BASEBALL: RUNS WITHOUT THE DRIPS AND ERRORS
For those who believe that baseball is several hours of tedium punctuated by a few minutes of action, a new software package allows you to save time by cutting out the boring stretches.
MagicSports 3 from CyberLink analyzes the action of a baseball game that has been recorded on a Windows-based PC with a TV tuner card, removing the commercials, the lineup changes and the foul balls. The interesting bits are arranged at the bottom of the screen as a series of thumbnails, labeled according to their excitement level. A strikeout gets one star, while a home run earns three. You can burn clips onto a DVD highlights reel.
PHOTOS: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
To find the good stuff, the software scans the video for pitches, home runs, score changes and a rise or fall in audience and commentator volume. The company claims that its technology analyzes games in about 10 minutes on a modern PC.
The program (US$50 from www.cyberlink.com) includes a module that analyzes soccer. Given that soccer is nonstop movement, it takes longer — about 20 minutes — to scan a game, looking for goals, red cards and fights between players to build a selection of greatest hits.
HELLO, MOM? I'M IN THE POOL. WHAT TIME IS DINNER?
The oddly named Verizon G'zOne — Is it Australian? Aimed at Generation Z extreme sports enthusiasts? — is a rugged phone that is completely submersible in water. That's right. Now you can call Mom, Dad or your relatives from the shower.
Actually the G'zOne can handle being underwater for only about 30 minutes, but it makes up for that by looking like an armored sea vessel. The openings for its 2-megapixel camera and built-in flash (which also serves as a flashlight) are shaped like a ship's portholes, and there is a round front screen for reading the time and caller ID The phone also has stopwatch and countdown timer functions.
The G'zOne's battery lasts for about 3 hours of talk time and 170 hours on standby. The phone also includes a chip that is compatible with Verizon's VZ Navigator mapping software.
The entire package weighs 142g and includes a loop for attaching to a lanyard or other outdoor gear.
The G'zOne is available now on the Verizon Web site and costs US$299 with a two-year subscription. Thanks to phones like this, it looks as if we'll soon see multitaskers taking cell phones into the lap lane at the pool.
THE PICTURE FRAME GOES TOTALLY TECH, AND NO WIRES
Bored with the same family photos on the fridge every day? Digital picture frames let you create slide shows of your loved ones that rotate through the frame's LCD screen. Getting those pictures into the frame generally requires a direct connection to a computer, or the insertion of a flash memory card filled with photos.
A new model from a British company called A Living Picture untethers the frame from all physical storage media, letting you download pictures to the frame over a WiFi connection, wherever it sits in the house.
The Windows-compatible product, named Momento, can also display stock quotes, weather and other information that will be available through the SideShow feature in the new Windows Vista operating system.
The Momento will be released on Dec. 1 but is available for pre-order from Amazon in seven- and 10-inch models starting at US$200.
A CHILD WAVES AT THE TV, AND THE GAME BEGINS
Young children step into the TV with the ION Educational Gaming System from Hasbro, a device that further blurs the lines separating toys, video games and television.
The ION is similar to the EyeToy camera for the Sony PlayStation, only there is no game console involved. Instead, the game unit plugs directly into the AV ports of a television. The swiveling camera is integrated into the front control panel, and is easy to adjust to the height of a wriggling child.
To start a game, a child must stand about 1.5m from the screen and wave at one of six floating bubbles. The camera spies the motion and the game is loaded.
Each game has three challenge levels. In the SpongeBob SquarePants disk that is included, there is a version of Simon Says in which a child must not move — easier said than done for a four-year-old. A hang-gliding game lets children use their arms as wings as they fly through a sky full of obstacles. Additional disks are US$20 each.
The ION system is available from major retailers for about US$100. While the camera resolution is comparable to the EyeToy, game play is helped by a well-lighted room.
A DIGITAL SLR THAT GIVES HINTS ON WHAT AN F-STOP MEANS
Like many recent digital single-lens-reflex cameras, the new Nikon D40 is considerably smaller than its corporate siblings. At US$600 with a zoom lens, it is also substantially less expensive. In an attempt to distinguish itself from competitors, however, the 6.1-megapixel D40 takes a novel approach to giving photographers advice on how to use it.
Users of the D40, which will start selling next month, can preview the effects of different settings by viewing sample photos on the camera's screen. For those who are unsure if a higher f-stop number means that more or less light is reaching the camera, an animation shows the size of the lens opening. (A bigger number means a smaller opening.)
In order to shrink the camera, Nikon has eliminated the smaller black-and-white display that its other digital SLR's use to show camera settings. A small motor was also eliminated, so the camera does not autofocus when used with lenses that require the motor to turn their focusing rings.
The D40 does work with Nikon's AF-S lenses that have built-in focusing motors and with the electronic system in some lenses for preventing blurry photos caused by unsteady hands.
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