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November 28 This week in T&GPosted by: Jane Douglas This week I've been mostly fiddling with an HTC Touch HD, polishing off Fallout 3, Mirror's Edge, episode two of the Penny Arcade game and studiously contemplating which of the recent netbooks to spend my cold, hard cash on. More on that last one next week. Next up, the best of the channel over the last seven days:
November 21 TGI FridayPosted by: Jane Douglas
No offense, Monday through Thursday, but TGI Friday indeed! It's been a hectic week, with a particular highlight being a trip to the frankly awesome Microsoft Research labs in Cambridge. The folks there are hard at work on some borderline magical gadgets (as well as pure research and computer science) that might be changing our lives in years to come. Among the gizmos on display was a Harry-Potter-like Whereabouts Clock that displays the real-time locations of family members; a Timewheel Mirror that reflects what was happening in the room hours earlier at the spin of a dial; and a handy Picture Bowl that draws images off cameras and mobile phones dumped in it and displays them on its translucent walls. We'll be looking at more innovations from the Cambridge labs in the future, but you can get a taste with the bits of video we took while there this week. While we're on the topic of very cool things, you might like to try out this Papervision - Augmented Reality gizmo. All you'll need is a printer and a webcam. As for the best of Tech & Gadgets of late...
On test: Nikon S60 cameraPosted by: Nik Taylor I recently spent a couple of weeks merrily snapping away with Nikon’s new S60 point-and-shoot. If you’re after a gadget that gets you noticed, this is a no-brainer. Every time I got the camera out of my pocket, someone wanted to take a closer look. It’s a striking piece of kit.
The main reason is the massive, 3.5-inch touchscreen that fills the entire rear of the camera. The front is similarly minimalist as well, so the whole thing looks very sleek. There are only two actual buttons on the camera, and both are housed on the top. One turns the thing on and off, the other takes pictures. Every other function is accessed through the touchscreen. So it needs to be a good one and, thankfully, the S60’s is. My fingers struggle to work with tiny buttons, but I had few problems tapping my way through the S60’s menus. You get the usual bonuses of having a touchscreen – for instance you can scroll through the pictures by merely sliding your fingers across the screen. I particularly like the focus feature. As you line up a shot with the screen, a quick tap on the relevant area tells the camera where to focus. It's handy if you don't want the camera to auto-focus on the most obvious item in the shot. But that's probably about as involved as you'll need to get in the picture-taking process. This is a camera firmly aimed at the casual snapper. Even the standard point-and-shoot features are tucked away in the menu system. Megapixel junkies will be delighted to note that the S60 is packing 10 of those, while it also has a 5x optical zoom. All the pictures below were taken on the S60, using its automatic settings.
The results I got were mixed. What I loved was the colour reproduction, when taking pictures in good light. Photos taken in daylight are vivid and full of life and vibrant colours.
Even in dark situations, the camera does well to pick out colours. There are some gripes, however. Blow up your pics to 100% on your computer and you’ll notice graininess that could be an issue if you plan to print your images at large sizes.
Also, the built-in image stabilisation does little to deal with photos taken without flash in low light. Unless you use a tripod in these situations, you’re still going to get a blurry shots. I was a little disappointed with the video camera function. Though playback is decent when viewed on the camera, when you move the file onto your computer you’ll find it looks grainy. The microphone is a bit of a problem too. It's easily obstructed while filming, muffling the sound you get. This video was taken while standing next to an eight-foot tall speaker stack, yet the music is barely audible. If you’re in the market for a simple point-and-shoot camera that looks the business, bear the S60 in mind. It takes bright, colourful pictures that are plenty good enough for printing at normal photo size. However, if you’re on the lookout for something more versatile, don’t be swayed just because this has a touchscreen. The Nikon S60 is available online for around £250. November 16 Get Safe Online WeekPosted by: Jane Douglas Bearing in mind that your date of birth and where you live is enough information to set up a credit card in your name, it's worrying that a quarter of all social networkers have posted confidental or personal information (phone number, home address, etc) in their online profiles. And just as risky: almost one in four people use the same password for all websites! But if you're already savvy when it comes to internet security, then good for you - and this is the perfect time to be brushing up on the finer points of staying safe online. If you're not quite so confident, then let the folks at Get Safe Online give you a helping hand. Tech & Gadgets is proud to be doing its bit for Get Safe Online Week (November 17-21). We'll be running down our top tips for online safety later on in the week. November 14 Enough with the megapixel racePosted by: Nik Taylor Earlier this week, we posted an article on the best mobile phones you can get for free. Among our picks are a couple of handsets packing 8-megapixel cameras. Pretty impressive, eh? Well, maybe not, as it turns out they're soon going to get blown away. Sony has just announced a 12-megapixel sensor it's developed just for camera-phones. Which is where Tech & Gadgets puts on its best backstreet Brooklyn accent and shouts, "Enough, already!" I've argued before on the site that megapixels don't matter once you get beyond five or six. But it seems no other feature gets a look in when flogging either phones or standalone cameras. We could focus on the quality of the lens, or whether the sensor is actually any good, but no, hang on, this one's got an extra megapixel. It must be great! Progress is all well and good, of course, but wouldn't it be a good idea if camera-phone makers concentrated on making handsets that could take really great pictures, rather than so-so snaps in super high-res? Elsewhere on the site this week: Forget lawsuits - this is the way for games developers to deal with hackers. Got your copy of the new Call of Duty yet? Well, time to unlock zombie mode then. These iPod speakers are made from cups. USB 3.0 is going to be pretty fast. Share It
November 13 Widening the World of WarcraftPosted by: Jane Douglas
This open-ended, immersive fantasy game launched four years ago and has since racked up more than 11 million subscribers worldwide. Stores around the world opened at midnight for throngs of players - some of whom had queued since Wednesday morning to be the first in line - to get their hands on a copy as early as possible. We grabbed some video from the midnight launch in the London Oxford Street HMV: among our highlights caught on film is a female fan dressed in a spectacular fuzzy white tauren (a bovine Warcraft race) costume, complete with wardrum. She was only upstaged by an appearance from Arthas, the Lich King himself - about seven-foot-tall in full armour and with glowing blue eyes. Key folks from Blizzard, the game's developer, also attended the London launch. We spoke to Paul Sams, Blizzard's chief operating officer, about the runaway success of his game and what players have to look forward to in the new expansions. November 11 Social networkers: beware GabblebasePosted by: Jane Douglas From one Facebook friends scam to another, and this time an equal opportunity social networking scam that goes after users of the likes of myspace and bebo as well. Researchers at internet security firm Trend Micro traced an e-mail harvesting scam from these popular social networking sites through to gabblebase.com and then on to shady types in Las Vegas and China. The scam begins with a message sent to a user's Facebook wall, asking: "Did you know that your profile pic is all over gabblebase.com?" When you visit gabblebase, the site asks for your name, friend's name and an e-mail address - for collecting and selling on, of course. Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro describes this scam as "the well-known marketing campaign approach [of e-mail harvesting] where a product or service is offered free of charge on the provision of a valid email address (and perhaps you'd like to recommend five or ten friends too!).
So for anyone who doesn't already know not to hand their e-mail address out all over the internet (or use the same passwords on all their accounts): consider yourself warned. November 07 Busy, busy, busy...Posted by: Nik Taylor Well, the blog's been a bit quiet this week, hasn't it? Sorry about that, but we've been a tad busy, what with every game in the entire world apparently released in the last few days. It's amazing just how many quality titles have been lobbed out by publishers at the same time. Go into any game shop and the £40 in your sweaty grip is already torn between Gears of War 2, Fable 2, LittleBigPlanet, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, PES 2009...the list goes on. And that's not to mention the heavy-hitters yet to be released. Resistance 2, Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero World Tour and Call of Duty: World at War are all waiting in the wings. All look awesome - I'm just wondering when I'm going to get time to catch up. If you're wondering which of the current titles to splash out on, take a look at our gaming section where we have reviews on the latest big guns to hit the shelves. There's been plenty more on T&G this week too - mosey on through the links below for the best of the content. Best of Stuff Live! gadget show Other stuff out there... I thought we'd be getting Halo Wars a lot sooner than this. Had enough of the US election yet? No?? Well, find out what Obama's win means for gaming... Lame video game endings. Achtung! Video contains spoilers for Bioshock, among others. Got a boring meeting coming up? Set yourself a fake phone call using this app. |
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