24.4 megapixel Nikon D3X DSLR in the works?
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/271122690/
Filed under: Digital Cameras
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a collection of things i like and want to remember. by "scrapbooking" it on my blog i can go back and google it later
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/271122690/
Filed under: Digital Cameras
Posted by Augustine at 8:03 AM
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/271348979/
Filed under: Displays
Damn, sexy huh? That's Sony's 0.2-mm (0.0079-inch) thin OLED display. Granted, this 3.5-inch prototype is only capable of 320 x 220 pixels, just shy of a cellphone standard QVGA resolution. However, that panel's fracking impressive when compared to those relatively chubby 0.67-mm (and that's a world's slimmest), 320 x 240 pixel LCDs capable of just 2.2-inches of display. And just look at those blacks -- you can barely see the bezel.Continue reading Sony's 3.5- and 11-inch OLEDs are just 0.008- and 0.012-inches thin
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsPosted by Augustine at 8:02 AM
We alerted you to NEC's fancy media-streaming home server last year: it's an "on demand" system that'll send your media content to Lui devices around your home and beyond. NEC has just stumped up the release schedule and pricing in Japan, and "Life with Ubiquitous Integrated solutions" systems isn't cheap. The pocket sized player and laptop-like device are around $495 and $890, while the desktop PC will be $2,100. Topping it all off, the main home server costs a whopping $3,700. If you're in Japan and like the idea of accessing your audio and video remotely using dedicated devices, it's available from April 24th. We don't have timings on a US release. [AV Watch]
Posted by Augustine at 8:26 AM
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/270438855/
Filed under: Wearables, Wireless
RFID clothing is far from revolutionary, but American Apparel is about to get everyone's attention by placing tags on a smorgasbord of garments. The firm is setting out to implement RFID at the item-level, meaning that tags will eventually hit each article of clothing it produces. For starters, the advanced inventory system will be rolled out across each of its 17 metro New York locations, while plans are already in place to deploy the solution to another 120 North American outlets. The idea is to track individual pieces as they're "tagged at the company's manufacturing facility in Los Angeles, received in its retail stores, stored in the stock rooms at the stores, and then placed onto the sales floor and ultimately sold at the point-of-sale." Of course, we wouldn't expect the tags to follow you home or anything -- too bad we can't say the same for the company's skeezy CEO, Dov Charney.
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Posted by Augustine at 8:24 AM
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/270590537/
Filed under: Cellphones
This is the day we've been waiting for. While the 3G Nokia 6212 classic doesn't look like much, what it lacks in style is more than made up by the genius of Bluetooth-enabled Near Field Communication. If you remember the video we showed you way back in March of 2007, the combo makes device pairing and transferring content like photos, video, music, calendar data, contacts, etc. as easy a touching the phone to a NFC-enabled picture frame, cellphone, speaker, or headset like Nokia's own NFC-variant of the BH-210. It will also work with NFC payment systems. According to Jeremy Belostock, the Head of Near Field Communications at Nokia, "NFC-capable handsets such as the Nokia 6212 classic are set to change the way mobile phone users interact with devices and services in their surroundings." You said it Jeremy, you said it. Expected to start shipping in Europe and Asia in the Q3 for about €200.
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Posted by Augustine at 8:18 AM
Source: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/04/drip-drip-drip.html
I trust Sarah Fishko.
I don't know her, I'v'e never bought anything from her and I wouldn't recognize her if we met, but I trust her.
Every once in a while, over the last few years, Sarah's voice has come out of my radio, telling me about one interesting cultural event or another. She's consistent. She shows up. She has built a body of work over time, taking her time, that leads to trust.
Twitter can do that for you.
Not for a million New Yorkers, but perhaps for a hundred or a thousand people you want to reach. Blogs do the same thing.
The best time to look for a job next year is right now. The best time to plan for a sale in three years is right now. The mistake so many marketers make is that they conjoin the urgency of making another sale with the timing to earn the right to make that sale. In other words, you must build trust before you need it. Building trust right when you want to make a sale is just too late.
Publishing your ideas... in books, or on a blog, or in little twits on Twitter... and doing it with patience, over time, is the best way I can think of to lay a foundation for whatever it is you hope to do next.
Posted by Augustine at 11:20 PM
Coupons—they're never around when you get that sudden urge to splurge on electronics. Not so with a 10-percent-off printable discount at Best Buy, which is posted as an image at a U.S. Postal Service "Mover's Guide" site with an easily-anticipated URL. Tech blog CyberNet points out that the coupon can be found by slotting the appropriate month and year in, so this month's coupon, for example, is:
https://moversguide.usps.com/img/coupon/bestbuy/200804_clientarea.gif
If you don't feel like scoping the fine print on that image, the CyberNet link below details the categories and prices the coupon is good for, for however long the URL hack lasts. I have to assume our readers know of similar URL-based coupons, whether at Mover's Guide or elsewhere, so spread the wealth in the comments.
Posted by Augustine at 11:19 PM
You can get decent photos out of a standard, consumer-grade digital camera, but a little post-processing can turn them into fantastic wide-angle landscapes. You don't need to be one of those people who can explain the concept of lateral chromatic aberration to get truly eye-catching digital pictures. With a few shutter clicks and some free, cross-platform software, you can easily mesh standard digi-cam shots into true landscapes, fix one photo's deficiencies with another, and create layered photo collages. Let's take a look at how to use the free, open source application Hugin to make two basic kinds of panoramas.
Remember that center image we took? Find it in the list, then hit the "Anchor this image for position" button, and, assuming it's a well-lit shot, "Anchor this image for exposure." Next up is an optional step, for those who know a fair deal about their camera—head to the "Camera & Lens" tab, click on the center image, and fill in what you know about your gear's degrees of view, focal length, color offsets, and other photo-pro stuff. You can save your information here for future panoramas. Once you're done (or lost), let's head to the meaty stuff at the "Control Points" tab.
You'll see two panels here, each set (at first) to display the same picture. Click the "1" tab on the right-hand panel, and you'll see your overlapping pictures. If AutoPano launched when you loaded your pics, you'll also see a good number of colored dots on the photo. Those are our "Control Points," spots that appear in both frames that Hugin uses to align and combine them. AutoPano does a decent job sometimes, but it often picks out clouds, cars, blown branches and other moveable objects, which doesn't help anything. For a seamless meld, I wipe out the automatic points (select the first in the list at bottom and jam on the "delete" button on the right) and start fresh.
Zoom in on the photos (select "100%" or the like from the "View" menu in the lower-right) and move the sliders so you're looking at mostly overlapping areas. Find stable points that have a lot of contrast, such as building and window corners, road markings and signs—anything you're reasonably sure didn't move from one frame to the next. Repeat this process for each set of side-by-side frames. You only need a minimum of two pairs for each photo, but adding a few more ups Hugin's accuracy. Here's how I pinned the Niagara Falls (Ontario) skyline:
Click the "Optimizer" tab and, unless you want to get tweak-y, hitting the "Optimize now!" button, which starts lining up those Control Points and shifting photos around. To see how Hugin did, hit the "Preview Panorama" menubar button, and you'll get a rough look at your creation. (It won't turn out exactly the same, but basically close). If it looks warped and off-base, you can head back and re-pin or add Control Points, move the crosshairs or use the "Center" and "Straighten" buttons in the preview mode to finesse it. Whenever you make any changes, however, head next to the Optimize tab and re-optimize—you can also change optimization settings to see if that nets any benefits.
We're almost there, seriously! If the preview looks decent, head finally to the "Stitcher" tab. The "Projection" setting is the heart of Hugin, telling the program how to bend and shape the output. For a few overlapping photos, "Equirectangular" usually provides the fullest view and best blend, but "Rectilnear" seems best when photos are tightly lined up. Hit "Calculate View of Field" next, keep the Quick Stitcher setting to "with custom settings below," and then hit "Calculate Optimal Size." The numbers will be ludicrously big, so knock one of them down to a standard size. Keep the stitching engine on "Nona," and make sure "Image output file" is "TIFF" and that "soft blending" is checked so the Enblend engine can work its stuff. Tell it where to save, and Hugin gets to work. If you're prompted to point to "Enblend," it's located in its own folder right inside Hugin's directory. Hugin will create temporary TIFF files and work your system pretty hard while it runs, which can take anywhere from seconds to a few minutes, depending on your system.
If the resulting image file is discolored in spots, it's likely due to camera settings or stark lighting differences, which, with only a few photos, can be fixed only in post-processing.
This is the method that worked most consistently for me with different sets of photos. I chose Hugin over previously-posted AutoStitch for its cross-platform nature. But I want to hear how your own tips on how you work Hugin (or similar panorama-making apps) to make big, breathtaking scenes—with image links, naturally. Share your tips, questions and photo pride in the comments.
Kevin Purdy, associate editor at Lifehacker, is going to be even more annoyingly shutter-buggy around his friends now. His weekly feature, Open Sourcery, appears every Friday on Lifehacker.
Posted by Augustine at 11:18 PM
How to make a viral video and create viral profits
Consumers Have Changed, So Should Advertisers -- ClickZ -- June 4, 2009.
Social Media Benchmarks: Realities and Myths -- ClickZ -- May 7, 2009. The ROI for Social Media Is Zero -- ClickZ -- April 9, 2009. How to Use Search to Calculate the ROI of Awareness Advertising -- ClickZ -- March 12, 2009. Enthusiast Digital Cameras - Foveon, Fujifilm EXR, Exilim 1,000 fps A New Immutable Law of Marketing -- The Law of Usefulness -- Marketing Science -- February 17, 2009. Social Intensity: A New Measure for Campaign Success? -- ClickZ -- February 11, 2009. Connecting with Consumers: Next-Generation Advertising on the Web -- AssociatedContent -- January 30, 2009. Beyond Targeting in the Age of the Modern Consumer -- ClickZ -- January 14, 2009. Experiential Marketing: Experience is King -- ClickZ -- December 18, 2008. Search Improves All Marketing Aspects -- ClickZ -- November 20, 2008. Do something smart, not just something mobile -- iMediaConnection -- November 7, 2008. Social Commerce: In Friends We Trust -- ClickZ -- November 6, 2008. The New Role of the Digital Agency -- RelevantlySpeaking -- October 29, 2008. Make Digital Work for Your Customers -- ClickZ -- October 23, 2008. Social Networking: Make Your Product Worth Talking About -- HowToSplitAnAtom -- October 23, 2008. Social Media Ads are DOA -- MediaWeek -- October 13, 2008. Missing Link Marketing -- Marketing Science. -- September 22, 2008. The Need for Speed -- MediaPost -- September 22, 2008. SEO Can't Exist in a Vacuum -- HowToSplitanAtom -- October 8, 2008. A Different Perspective On Social Media Marketing -- Marketing Science. -- July 15, 2008. WOM: Just Don't Do It -- Adweek -- July 14, 2008. Tips for Success in a Web 2.0 World -- iMedia. -- April 23, 2008.