When a review unit of the Toshiba A660-042 arrived at the studio, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. The A660-042 is Toshiba’s high end Satellite laptop, and comes complete with NVidia’s 3D Vision technology. I had just come off trying Sony’s 3D in the PS3 and remained unimpressed with 3D in the home. So my expectations were set pretty low. I may have been wrong, but I was also surprised at how much more than a ‘3D laptop’ this was…
Read MoreI am staring at the box of the SteelSeries Xai. It has been packed up after my review, so we can give it away to one lucky reader. Then I look back at my Microsoft Sidewinder X8 gaming mouse. A mouse that is wireless and fracking glows RED! Yet I am so tempted to deny someone the chance to enjoy the Xai mouse – I want to crack open that package and go back to it right now. I won’t of course, but that feeling shows how much of an…
Read MoreResearch In Motion’s developer event’ is still underway, but they’ve kicked it off with a bang, or so co-founder Mike Lazaridis is hoping. The PlayBook is RIM’s push into the tablet space, sporting a 7 inch display, a 1GHz dual core Cortex A9 CPU and sport a ‘flash-loving’, ‘app-rocking’ platform designed by QNX, called the BlackBerry Tablet OS. When the PlayBook was still expected to be called the BlackPad, it was rumoured that one of the big differentiators for the device would be it’s pairing capabilities. Sure enough, the preview…
Read MoreIt looks like Sharp is the latest to enter the tablet game, announcing their new Galapagos 5.5 inch and 10.8 inch tablets e-book readers running Android. Galapagos is also the name of the e-book/newspaper service that will come with the devices, which will delivers over 30,000 newspapers, books and magazines when the service launches in December (Japan only for now). Sharp’s decisions to not mention the Android operating system in it’s press release, as well as marketing these as e-book readers, and not tablets, are both curious to say the…
Read MorePhotographic experiments can often yield some pretty interesting results, especially when you mix the old and the new. In a mashup of old and new camera tech, photographer Timur Civan put a 1908 (that’s the year , not the model number) Wollensak 35mm , F 5.0, Cine-Velostigmat lens on a Canon 5DmkII and walked out into the streets of Manhattan. The results are on view at Colt + Rane. Enjoy.
Read MoreWe first got a quick peek at Sony’s NEX-5 at a Sony event a couple of months back, and were suitably impressed with the overall design. It’s not as bulky as a full on DSLR, while having more control, than your average point-n-shoot pocket camera. We finally got a review unit from Sony a couple of weeks back and have passed it around the bullpen. Click on past the break for our impressions, and some sample images from the NEX-5.
Read MoreThe Gateway ID59 has a glowing touchpad. I thought I should mention this, because Gateway apparently thinks it’s very important. So important that the laptop arrived with a huge sticky label hanging from the screen, informing me of this feature. You can imagine my excitement. Still, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First things first, build quality and initial impressions. Honestly? It looks good. I’ll definitely credit Gateway with a great job on the overall design. Simple and sleek with clean lines, and an unobtrusive logo set off to one…
Read MoreClifford Nass has been studying human relations by looking at how humans relate to machines. The answers coming from experiments documented in his book The Man Who Lied to His Laptop are an interesting mix of the unexpected and the familiar. You might think that it would take no time to read a 207 page book. Warning; this book makes one stop every so many pages to think about what it says. Not because it is difficult or obscure; the writing is clear and the presentation precise throughout but the…
Read MoreWhen Acer first announced their line of X3400 small form factor PCs, I don’t think they had me in mind. They were clearly targeting people with limited space, and in need of somewhat limited computing power. The initial press release announcing them was clearly shooting for dorm rooms and light-medium use, and not much more. However, when I took another look at the basic specs, I have to admit I was kind of curious. Given the small form factor, but room for expandability, could this be a good balance for…
Read MoreOver the past week or so, Samsung’s entry into the tablet market, the Galaxy Tab, has been generating a fair amount of buzz. The fact that it’s a tablet is enough to get it some press. When you combine that with the positive response to the Samsung Galaxy smartphone lineup, and it’s no surprise that the tablet is getting people interested. Though the 7 inch tablet, running Google’s Android OS (with Samsung’s TouchWiz overlay) is already slated to hit Europe on October 11th, as well as the US, a tweet…
Read MoreOne of the more oddball computer announcements in the past week or so was Commodore USA would be coming out with the PC64, and all in one computer that will be a 1:1 replica of one of the most successful computers of all time – the Commodore 64. The basic concept is that they’re going to stuff the guts of a modern nettop, complete with an Intel Atom dual core 525 processor and Nvidia ION2 graphics processor into the original chassis, along with a modern variety of ports. The machine…
Read MoreSony has just announced yesterday four brand new Alpha DSLRs – the A33, A55, A560 and the A580. Sporting the brand new Exmor APS HD CMOS sensors, the A33 and A560 clock in at 14.2 MP while the A55 and A580 are 16.2 MP. The main difference between the A33/55 and A560/580 is the mirror technology that they utilize. While the later are traditional DSLR’s the former are what Sony call ‘Single Lens Translucent’ cameras. The “new” SLT technology Sony is unveiling with the A33 & A55 models is a Translucent…
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