The ELPH 520 HS has a 10.1-megapixel CMOS sensor, and a 12x optical zoom lens packed into a skinny package. Those specs aren't anything mind-blowing for a $300 point-and-shoot camera, though. What's really exciting about this camera is that it's powered by Canon's new Digic 5 processor, which improves the camera's low-light performance and auto-white balance—all in addition to making the camera a generally faster, more responsive package. A scaled back Canon PowerShot ELPH 110 HS Digital Camera features 5X optical zoom, and 16-megapixel sensor. Both cameras shoot 1080p video.
Both units feature new additions to Canon's Smart AUTO, which detects 58 different types of scenes. The tech has a new parent-friendly face ID feature, which prioritizes between different people in the scene based on whether they are babies, children, or adults. When the feature is on, the camera will adjust to focus on and properly expose the youngest person in the scene.
The 500 HS will be available in March for $300, the 110 HS will be available in February for $250.
The geekiest of the operating systems is branching out into entertainment. Ubuntu TV is the open-source answer to your living room set-up, and you could have a TV running the software by the end of the year.
Ubuntu TV is a TV-optimized version of the desktop OS, based around the Unity UI. It feature full-on media center and DVR features, including movie, TV and music stores, and a YouTube app. The idea is to make the OS free for manufacturers to package with their TVs, and Ubuntu says there will be TVs on shelves by the end of the year. There's a working Ubuntu TV at CES. More here.
Oh my god! Is that a zit on my forehead? Where did that third chin come from? Why am I sweating so much? Was I that drunk? What is my boss going to think? What is my mom going to think? What do I think? I need to get rid of this photo on Facebook. NOW. Let's flag as offensive! Click. Unflattering picture, gone.
That's the internal monologue of most Facebook users when they click the Flag photo button on Facebook. Seriously, Facebook found out that the majority of photos that are reported as offensive weren't really offensive at all. In most cases, it was just people flagging pictures of themselves because the photo was taken at unflattering angles or compromising situations or just didn't make 'em look cool. We've all been there, right? How many times have you told your friend to pull down the picture of you half-naked, praising the toilet gods for mercy?
Facebook tweaked their flagging options last summer to accomodate these 'issues' people have with their photos. Which is to say, they included options to choose 'I don't like this photo of me', 'It's harassing me' or 'It's harassing a friend'. The complaints are meant to generate some sort of compassion in the poster to take down the ugly photo. I just say, make better friends.
You might think they only make knives, but Victorinox also makes some of the best flash drives on the market (they're certainly my favorite.) They're well-built, extremely fast, and in a few days might be available in one terabyte capacities.
Yeah, you read that right. One terabyte! In addition to more storage than you'll ever really need hanging on your keychain, the USB 2.0/eSATA II drives will include 256 bit AES hardware/software encryption, and what appears to be a built-in monochrome LCD display. Presumably providing details on the drive contents, and available capacity.
Of course what would a product from Victorinox be without some added functionality? So it looks like the drive will come in a version packing a knife and scissors, and one free of bladed tools so you don't have a terabyte of data confiscated by airport security. Availability should be unveiled once CES officially opens in a few days, including what will probably be a very hefty price tag.
Be it gas, electric, or induction, ranges have held onto a vestigial limb—a finite, unmovable set of areas to do the actual cooking. This new induction cooktop from Thermador, however, is smart enough to heat anywhere there's a pot.
The new Freedom cooktop bills itself as the first induction appliance whose entire surface acts as a heating element. Its "natural-mapping" interface allows users to add, remove, and shift pans around while they cook and should allow chefs a greater degree of flexibility in their meal preparation.
Induction cooking employs a copper wire running under the clear ceramic surface and a strong AC current to create a magnetic field which then transfers an electric current to the cookware. This heats the pot itself while keeping the range cool to the touch. It's more efficient than both gas and traditional electric methods.
The Freedom also includes a 6.3-inch display that recognizes the pot's shape and size, as well as controls the unit's power settings and cook time (begone, egg timer!). Its surface accommodates pans up to 21 x 13-inches and will retail for $5000 when it hits the market in July. More here.
What is this, the 1990s? No, not really. The computer in question is one of the first from Raspberry Pi. It's a tiny PC on a single circuit board – and the proceeds from its sale will help encourage kids to code.
The Raspberry Pi, not yet in full production, is supposed to sell for $25. It features a 700MHz ARM11 processor, 128MB of SDRAM, HDMI video output, a USB 2.0 port, and can run an OS like Ubuntu. It can even handle Quake III.
This $3,000 Pi, however, is one of the first ten pre-production units to be made, all of which are being auctioned on eBay in order to raise money for charity. The Raspberry Pi foundation plan to plough the money they raise into delivering the tiny computers to schools. The idea is to encourage kids to get to grips with coding and open-source software, which is an amazing idea. More here.
If you are a heavy user of Instagram and Facebook, good news! When you choose to share your Instagram snapshots on theSocial Network, photos now wedge themselves onto the site in better, more accessible, more meaningful ways than ever before.
Instagram photos will now appear in your Facebook news feed at full size, meaning your days of squinting are over. They'll also automatically pop up in your timeline, making the the new design that much more visually appealing. And finally, there's now a dedicated Facebook album for all your Instagram shares, which so that all your uploads can be viewed in one convenient spot.
If you were impressed by Logitech's C910 back in June, you may want to take a gander at the newly unveiled HD Pro 920. While it's the first webcam to offer 1080p video chatting with the latest version of Skype, the C920 can also capture 1080p video while offering 720p for Windows Live Messenger. You'll be able to upload your full-HD clips and 15MP shots at warp speed at the hands of H.264 advanced compression technology -- making those YouTube uploads that much faster.
Internally, the C920 implements Logitech's Fluid Crystal Technology, Carl Zeiss optics and a 20-step autofocus. For audio capture, two mics are position on either side of the shooter for stereo recording. If you're looking to snag one, it'll set you back $100 starting this month.
Google's monthly Android distribution charts may be the most visual piece of evidence that the mobile OS is riddled with fragmentation, but at least Gingerbread has clearly become the dominant player -- and it continues to build momentum at a healthy pace (for now, at least).
As always, Google reviewed which devices accessed the Android Market during a 14-day period of time in the month of December, and found that over 55 percent of those units were running a version of Android 2.3, a ten percent turbo boost from October and an increase of seventeen percent over three months.
Froyo devices -- many of which are likely older phones or tablets sentenced to a upgrade-less future -- numbered over 30 percent, and Honeycomb still amounts to a meager 3.3 percent. Cupcake and ICS are tied for last place, but it's expected to climb rapidly as soon as it's, y'know, officially available on more devices.
How do the people responsible for IE6—a slow, buggy, security nightmare of a browser—observe IE6's demise? With commemorative tees, of course. If only IE6 were as clever as the piece of clothing recognizing its overdue drift into oblivion.
The shirt, cooked up by the Internet Explorer team, almost makes me a little sad. And then I realize what death we're talking about, and that these people are probably glad the desiccated corpse is blowing away in the wind. Now let us pretend IE6 never happened and only think about IE9. IE9 is all there has ever been. Everything is OK. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. More here.
People love Siri. Well, unless they have anaccent or a slight speech impediment. What's important is that Apple really wants everyone with an iPhone 4S use Siri to schedule appointments and look up coffee shops. The Android Market is already filled with enough Siri clones to keep Apple's lawyers busy for years. It's time for Windows Phone to get in on the talk-to-your-phone-in-public fun with Ask Ziggy.
What's it do?
Ziggy is Siri for Windows Phone. Hell, the app even looks like Siri. In addition to using the app to call contacts, send tweets, solve math problems, and update your Facebook status, the app can switch from female to male. Like Siri, the app needs access to the Internet in order to fetch the information needed for your query.
Why do we like it?
If you can get Siri to work for you, it's actually pretty great. The same can be said for Ziggy. Need to call a friend but don't want to search through your contacts? Ask Ziggy. Need the weather in Wichita, Kansas? Ask Ziggy. Need to find a Mexican restaurant because you must have a taco right now? Well, you get the point.
As the story goes, the product shown above is the result of some three years of toiling, with the second iteration handling cartridges for Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. In fact, there's a pair of ports on here, enabling one cart from each console to be loaded up and carried around. Users need only to find and install an emulator on their machine, plug a cartridge and / or an associated controller into the device and then connect the Retrode 2 to one's computer via USB. Once you've loaded a ROM into your emulator, configured your controller and canceled every appointment on your calendar for the next 48 hours... well, you're in for quite a weekend of retro gaming nirvana. Get it here for $84.99, with shipments expected to begin on January 23rd.
Both Net Applications and StatCounter have released their figures for browser market share for 2011 and it makes for largely unsurprising reading. Internet Explorer's full share has dropped but it still maintains the top spot -- a 52 percent share according to Net Applications and 39 percent according to StatCounter. Meanwhile, second place remains tantalizingly within reach for Chrome, which has made headway catching up with Firefox, whose growth had apparently stalled during 2011.
According to Net Applications, Firefox held a 21.8 percent share of browser users this month, while Chrome reached 19.1 percent, up just under 8 percent and capping off a second year of impressive growth. Meanwhile, StatCounter pegs Google's browser at second place for the end of the year, claiming 27.3 percent versus the 25.3 percent share grabbed by its vulpine rival. Unsurprisingly, the Windows Team Blog takes a different slant on recent browsing trends, trumpeting that its latest version, Internet Explorer 9, continues to grow on Windows 7. This is, however, balanced out by a corresponding drop in the users of its predecessor, IE 8. Better luck next year, eh, Microsoft?
Made from 32 individual polycarbonate parts, the case includes an optical viewfinder, a shutter button that presses on the iPhone's volume button, a mock-lens with a mirror in the center for taking easy self-shots, a tripod mount, and even a non-functioning micro hot shoe. All so it looks the part. You can even swap out the included faux lens for some flat pancake glass, if you've got photographer friends to impress.
The case also provides a mount allowing you to use a miniature fisheye or macro lens with the iPhone's camera, so there's at least some level of added functionality when using it. But enough to justify the $65 price tag, plus $30 for a neck strap and $45 for the extra lenses?
When you're battling the bulge, your bathroom scale can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. So instead of displaying your actual weight, which can be discouraging, this scale only tells you how much you've lost or gained.
The first time you step on the $78 Quantum scale it registers your weight, but still keeps it a secret from you. And after that it simply gives you a plus or minus reading depending on if you've gained weight since your last reading, or lost some.
Admittedly it's not the easiest way to tell if you're making weight loss progress unless you're keeping tabs on your up and down measurements on a daily basis. But if you're dedicated to the cause, it should make the morning routine of weighing yourself a bit less dreadful. Get it here.
If you fancy yourself an amateur Bond, there are plenty of high-tech glasses available that discreetly hide a compact camera. This isn't one of them. In fact, these Fuuvi Megane glasses aren't going to fool anyone.
But I guess they're not supposed to either. It looks like novelty is the name of the game here, with the $60 red, black, blue, or white glasses hanging from your neck with an included obnoxious gold chain.
They're a stylish fashion accessory more than anything. Albeit, a stylish fashion accessory capable of shooting 2048x1536 pixel stills and NTSC quality video. A microSD/SDHC card provides up to 16GB of storage, while a USB charged battery lets you capture up to an hour of video before it conks out. More here.
If you live in NYC, or are headed there for the massive clusternut of cold and pain that is the Times Square ball drop, you can officially leave your data plan behind. Skype's flooding the island with free, fast Wi-Fi from noon tomorrow until noon on January 1.
Skype says 16 neighborhoods are covered in all, including Times Square, Union Square, Greenwich Village, Chelsea, and most of the places where you can buy a $5 street pashmina. Just find a Skype Wifi hotspot on your mobile device, connect, and browse. Or at least, that seems to be the case; you may need to go through Skype on your desktop or iOS device. In either event, the service will be provided by Towerstream, which has hopefully girded its access points for the coming onslaught.
It's the second time in the last few weeks that Skype has played Wi-Fi Claus; its free airport Wi-Fi offer expired just a few days ago. And while there's no guarantee that the network can handle the crush of millions of New Yorkers and/or tourists googling Snooki's weight loss secrets, it's certainly a nice gesture.
Celebrity headphone endorsements are very à la mode right now, and we've seen Ed Hardy's trademark tattoo stylings defacing gadgetry before, so, if you were the one lamenting the glaring omission that was Hardy-branded cans, then he obviously got your letter. The new "Stereo" range evidently refers to the two designs available thus far: Skull and Bones for the over-ears ($66), while your in-ears get some Tiger power ($29). The in-ears also feature a microphone, presumably so you can call for help from the fashion police. Both are available now here.
The Galaxy Note, Samsung's unconventional powerhouse, has managed to ship 1 million units in under two months. While eager US customers still wait for the 5.3-inch tabletphone hybrid to arrive on their shores, the Galaxy Note has apparently struck a chord in Europe and Asia.
The number of units shipped is always more substantial than the number devices out there in end-users' (preferably large) hands, but it bodes well for the device's eventual reception in the US. Now, whether it will include an LTE radio, we'll have to wait and see.
