Touch-sensitive surfaces seem to be everywhere these days, so why not in digital photo frames? Pandigital has just released a line of frames with touch-sensitive functions.
The 10.4-inch PanTouch High-Definition Digital Photo Frame displays images at a healthy resolution of 1,024 by 768 pixels and has no external buttons — you slide your finger along the matte frame to switch pictures and make selections. The US$250 device also includes a remote control and 512 megabytes of built-in storage.
Also in the PanTouch line are a US$120 7-inch model with 128MB of memory and a US$170 8-inch model with 512MB. All of them have versatile memory card readers and alarm clock functions.
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
The frames, which will reach stores next month, also play MP3 music files and video.
With the addition of a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth adapter, you can upload images wirelessly from a computer as well as from Bluetooth-compatible phones and PDAs.
While a touch frame doesn’t sound as cool as a touch screen, it definitely means fewer on-screen fingerprints.
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Plantronics has been a leader in adding style to Bluetooth headsets. The latest in its Discovery line, the 925, aims to add even more style as well as substance, in the form of audio quality.
In fact, company officials would prefer that it not be referred to as a headset. They call it an earpiece, because they want consumers to think of it as a fashion accessory.
It comes in black, cherry or gold, with cases to match. These are the spring colors; the company says it will change the colors every season.
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
The Discovery 925 is available now for US$150, at plantronics.com.
The controls have also been simplified so that one button does most of the work, like turning the unit on and off. The same button answers and hangs up the phone. The volume control is the only other button.
Another form/function enhancement is the carrying case, which doubles as a charger. Without removing the unit from its case, you can connect it to a computer via USB or charge it using the included AC adapter.
Kodak is coming out with the Z1085 IS, a slim, 0.170kg camera with a 5X optical zoom and several built-in features to make snapshots look more professional.
In automatic mode the camera uses face detection and shake reduction to ensure that each shot is in focus. In fact, the face-tracking system on this model displays a green animated box that follows faces in the frame. Once a shot is taken, a bit of software automatically cleans up the image and reduces the effects of backlighting, which can darken images, or overexposure, which can wash them out. There are other scene modes for night shooting or taking pictures of fireworks or sunsets.
The Z1085 IS also takes high-definition video at 1280 by 720 pixels. Video can be recorded to the memory card and edited on a PC or watched on an HD television using an optional HD dock.
The camera has a 2.5-inch liquid-crystal display monitor and 32 MB of internal memory. It supports SD cards for memory expansion. It costs US$250 online and in stores.
While the average Kodak user does not care about ISO or shutter speed, it is nice to know at least someone is thinking about — and tweaking — these functions using built-in software.
Apple may be aiming at metalheads with its thin MacBook Air, but Asus is chasing the leather crowd. Asus’ ultralight laptop, the U2E, has black-pebbled leather on the top and the palm rest. The refined look is meant to evoke the days when travelers wouldn’t leave home without their leather valises and trunks.
The U2E is lighter than the Air, about 1.2kg versus 1.4kg, in part because of its smaller screen, about 11 inches versus 13 inches, and a tighter keyboard. The sides aren’t tapered to an edge like those on the Air, because the U2E comes with all of the standard connectors and a DVD-R drive. The square edges make it seem much thicker than the Air, although it is only a half-centimeter fatter.
The U2E costs US$1,999 now, but in a few weeks a version with a 32-gigabyte flash drive will go on sale. At US$2,699, that will be more expensive, but also 0.3kg lighter because it sheds the heavy metal of the hard disk drive.
May 11 to May 18 The original Taichung Railway Station was long thought to have been completely razed. Opening on May 15, 1905, the one-story wooden structure soon outgrew its purpose and was replaced in 1917 by a grandiose, Western-style station. During construction on the third-generation station in 2017, workers discovered the service pit for the original station’s locomotive depot. A year later, a small wooden building on site was determined by historians to be the first stationmaster’s office, built around 1908. With these findings, the Taichung Railway Station Cultural Park now boasts that it has
The latest Formosa poll released at the end of last month shows confidence in President William Lai (賴清德) plunged 8.1 percent, while satisfaction with the Lai administration fared worse with a drop of 8.5 percent. Those lacking confidence in Lai jumped by 6 percent and dissatisfaction in his administration spiked up 6.7 percent. Confidence in Lai is still strong at 48.6 percent, compared to 43 percent lacking confidence — but this is his worst result overall since he took office. For the first time, dissatisfaction with his administration surpassed satisfaction, 47.3 to 47.1 percent. Though statistically a tie, for most
As Donald Trump’s executive order in March led to the shuttering of Voice of America (VOA) — the global broadcaster whose roots date back to the fight against Nazi propaganda — he quickly attracted support from figures not used to aligning themselves with any US administration. Trump had ordered the US Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that funds VOA and other groups promoting independent journalism overseas, to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.” The decision suddenly halted programming in 49 languages to more than 425 million people. In Moscow, Margarita Simonyan, the hardline editor-in-chief of the
Six weeks before I embarked on a research mission in Kyoto, I was sitting alone at a bar counter in Melbourne. Next to me, a woman was bragging loudly to a friend: She, too, was heading to Kyoto, I quickly discerned. Except her trip was in four months. And she’d just pulled an all-nighter booking restaurant reservations. As I snooped on the conversation, I broke out in a sweat, panicking because I’d yet to secure a single table. Then I remembered: Eating well in Japan is absolutely not something to lose sleep over. It’s true that the best-known institutions book up faster
RSS