A CAMERA WITH A GPS SENSOR AND AN ETHERNET PORT
Nikon’s unique Coolpix P6000 point-and-shoot camera has a few odd tricks up its sleeve. Globetrotters will enjoy the P6000’s built-in Global Positioning System sensor for geo-tagging — or adding geographical information to photos — and Luddites will love the camera’s built-in Ethernet port.
While most camera makers use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi for uploading images to Web sites, Nikon has added a full-size Ethernet port that allows you to plug the camera right into the Internet. The P6000 uploads images whenever it is connected. While that may seem odd, the feature could come in handy in cybercafes or hotels where Wi-Fi is not available.
The GPS feature adds geographical data to every photo, but it can be turned off to conserve battery life.
The camera has a 4x optical zoom lens and a 13.5-megapixel sensor. It takes photos in JPEG or RAW format. At 241g, it is a bit heavier than the average point-and-shoot camera, and it is made of magnesium alloy for ruggedness. It supports light sensitivity up to ISO 6400 and accepts SD and SDHC storage cards. The camera also includes 48 megabytes of built-in storage.
A GREEN PC THAT’S EASIER ON THE ELECTRIC BILL. THE BAMBOO CASE IS OPTIONAL
Those of us who pay lip service to green living can now be more genuinely PC — with the Dell Studio Hybrid PC, a fashionably curvy computer with special power-saving features.
The PC, which starts at US$500, weighs about 1.8kg and is about 20cm wide. Dell says it uses 70 percent less electricity than a standard PC, yet it is still powerful enough to run Windows Vista. Inside are a low-power Intel Pentium Dual Core processor, 4 gigabytes of memory and a 320-gigabyte hard drive.
The Hybrid, available now at dell.com, includes a CD/DVD writer and can read Blu-ray discs with an optional upgrade. Another option is a TV tuner that lets you watch television on the PC.
The computer includes a removable case that comes in six translucent colors. While the internal parts of this PC are still made of plastic, metal and silicon, Dell also offers a case in a bamboo finish for the ultimate in eco-friendly style.
STYLISH (AND WIRELESS) WAY TO DISPLAY DIGITAL PHOTOS
Most people tend to notice the pictures and ignore the frame. But a digital photo frame by the French interior designer Andree Putman may upstage your vacation shots. She designed it for Parrot, a Paris-based company specializing in wireless and mobile-technology products.
Putman’s trademark minimalist style surrounds a 7-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 720 pixels by 480 pixels. The frame has a Bluetooth chip to wirelessly copy photos from Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones and computers; it does not support Wi-Fi connections. There is a slot for camera memory cards and a mini-USB port for copying photos from computer to frame. The 10 megabytes of internal storage can hold up to 400 photos.
The Andree Putman designer frame comes with a designer price tag of US$450 and is available to order at www.parrotshopping.com. No matter if it is positioned horizontally or vertically within your own interior design, the frame automatically rotates and resizes the photos to the proper orientation.
CAR STEREO EJECTS THE CD, IN FAVOR OF NEWER FORMATS AND BLENDS IN WITH THE DASH
Selecting CDs for a car trip and juggling them in and out of a dashboard slot seems passe, now that you can carry hours of music on a digital music player, a USB thumb drive, a pocket-size hard drive or a memory card the size of a postage stamp.
So Blaupunkt left the CD player out of its Brisbane SD48 car stereo, supplementing its radio tuner with inputs and card slots for all of those compact music carriers instead. The front panel has an analog auxiliary input, for connection to the headphone jack of a portable player or satellite-radio adapter, and an SD/MMC memory-card slot. A USB adapter cable plugs into the back.
There are options to configure the Brisbane for use with iPods, Bluetooth or wired-in cell phones, navigation systems and CD changers.
The Brisbane also has a built-in amplifier with four 50-watt channels, and four-channel preamp outputs for use with external amplifiers.
The Brisbane fits standard radio slots, and its dial illumination color can be adjusted to match virtually any car’s dashboard lights. The front panel is removable to deter theft.
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
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
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
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your