VIEW THIS PAGE By squeezing two cameras, a music player and a hand-held game system into one device, the third-generation Nintendo DSi is aiming for a spot in your pocket next to your smartphone. It will be in stores in the US and available online at Amazon.com on April 5 for US$170.
The first thing you will notice are the two 0.3-megapixel cameras, one facing away from you and one for self-portraits. These new electronic eyes can be used to enable a new generation of video-conferencing features, or they can be used to capture images and beam them to a friend’s DSi.
Some changes are subtle, but overdue. You can swap games or play music when the lid is closed, and an audio mixer lets you mash up sounds for a new ring tone. The speakers are louder, the screens brighter and the case made thinner by shedding the Game Boy Advance port. Don’t worry, all 850 DS cartridges still work. And don’t overlook the SD card slot, a new digital bridge for storing downloaded games. If you want to call your mother for a ride, though, you’re out of luck.
POINT-AND-SHOOT AND BELLS AND WHISTLES
Canon’s SX1 IS, announced for sale in the US last week and set to ship in April, is a bit of a trendsetter. The 10-megapixel compact uses a complementary metal oxide semiconductor, or CMOS, sensor, which is the kind found in higher-performance digital single-lens reflex cameras.
Other point-and-shoots use older charged coupled device, or CCD, sensors. The SX1 IS also employs its CMOS sensor to shoot HD video.
Though relatively small at 3.5 inches by 3.5 by 5 inches and 620g, there are quite a few tricks inside the SX1 IS. The self-timer starts when a new face is added to a group, and exposure and color balance can be keyed to faces. In addition to standard JPEG images, uncompressed RAW images can be shot simultaneously, so you can have a larger file to tweak for higher-quality final results.
The RAW format availability — along with HD video, a hot shoe for external flash units that uses street-available AA batteries — could make the SX1 IS, at US$599, a good traveling companion for a more-than-casual photographer.
DATA BACKUP? A DISK DRIVE OFFERS MORE THAN ENOUGH
As disk drives get larger and larger, you would expect them to be harder to use. Not so with the Western Digital MyBook World Edition. This huge drive — it can hold up to 2 terabytes of data — simply sits on your home network and backs up all of your computers continuously with no muss or fuss.
The drive has a built-in Ethernet port, and Windows and Mac computers can immediately start backing up to the drives without intervention. The drive also supports Digital Living Network Alliance networking and can connect to game consoles like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to stream music, movies and photos. You can also access your files over the Internet using a password-protected account.
The drive costs US$229 for the 1-terabyte model and US$450 for the 2-terabyte model. You can also expand your storage by connecting another USB hard drive to MyBook. An illuminated capacity gauge on the front of the drive tells you when you’re running low on space. Both are available now online and in retail stores.
Considering that a few years ago drive capacity used to be measured in megabytes, less than US$500 for 2 terabytes of no-brainer backup space seems like a space age miracle.
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