Thursday, June 10, 2010

Ricoh GXR P10 sensor and lens combo gets reviewed

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/10/ricoh-gxr-p10-sensor-and-lens-combo-gets-reviewed/

Ricoh GXR P10 sensor and lens combo gets reviewed
We're still not sure that the world knows it needs a compact camera with both interchangeable lenses and sensors, but Ricoh's giving us all another reason to believe with the P10. This is a 10 megapixel, 1/2.3-inch sensor combined with a 10.7x, 28 - 300mm lens that, according to Photography Blog performs much better than its compact-sounding specs would lead you to believe -- as it should for a price of $299 on its own, or $499 with the GXR body. It'll do 720p video recording and capture RAW images at 5fps with full manual controls. These features earn it a solid recommendation and it's said to be the best expansion pack for the GXR yet. That's despite not offering any new factions, levels nor, indeed, a single new playable character.

Ricoh GXR P10 sensor and lens combo gets reviewed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Jun 2010 07:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia C7 caught with 8 megapixel camera?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/10/nokia-c7-caught-with-8-megapixel-camera/

After seeing the C7 listed in what looked to be legitimate Nokia documents, we now have our first look at the handset -- or at least a device that claims to be the C7-00. Purported specs scrapped from a Chinese site suggest an 8 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, stereo speakers, 3.5-mm headphone jack, and a display measuring about 3.5-inches. It's unclear if said display is resistive or capacitive or if we're looking at an S60 5th or Symbian^3 OS until somebody switches the damn thing on. Until then you can oogle the profile and backside shots after the break.

Continue reading Nokia C7 caught with 8 megapixel camera?

Nokia C7 caught with 8 megapixel camera? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Jun 2010 07:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Daily Mobile  |  sourceTencent  | Email this | Comments

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LiminAR robot finally shows us what pico projectors were meant for (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/10/liminar-robot-finally-shows-us-what-pico-projectors-were-meant-f/

LiminAR robot finally shows us what pico projectors were meant for (video)
Still looking for an excuse to buy a pico projector? We might just have the perfect thing. LuminAR, a project of MIT student Natan Linder, is something like a sentient desk lamp of the sort that will make any dedicated Pixar fan's heart skip a beat. It can follow a user's actions, using a camera to detect gestures and beam information down to augment whichever reality they're currently experiencing. Interestingly, the whole thing is built into a bulb socket, meaning it could be thrown into any lamp you like -- if you can do without the whole automatic motion aspect. It's based on what looks to be a Microsoft Lifecam Show webcam and what is certainly a Microvision Show WX projector, which is both focus and care free. There's a demo video after the break but, sadly, little hope that this thing will be replacing your current desktop lamp any time soon.

Continue reading LiminAR robot finally shows us what pico projectors were meant for (video)

LiminAR robot finally shows us what pico projectors were meant for (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Jun 2010 08:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PicoProjector-info.com  |  sourceMIT Media Lab  | Email this | Comments

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BPâs Social Media Campaign Going About As Well As Capping That Well [Bp]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5559550/bps-social-media-campaign-going-about-as-well-as-capping-that-well

BP's Social Media Campaign Going About As Well As Capping That WellBP can't control its oil leak, but it's also having a rough time with image control.

The company responsible for the spewing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is attracting more of the wrong kind of attention by purchasing several red-hot search terms - including "oil spill" - on Google, Bing and Yahoo's search engines in an attempt to ensure prominent placement of a link to a company web page touting the company's cleanup efforts.

On the advertised site, workers in bright yellow boots clean a relatively untainted beach in the sun in front of rolling blue waves as a not-oily sea bird struts past. Other photos depict a different reality.

"We have bought search terms on search engines like Google to make it easier for people to find out more about our efforts in the Gulf and make it easier for people to find key links to information on filing claims, reporting oil on the beach and signing up to volunteer," BP spokesman Toby Odone told ABC News, which broke the story of the keyword buys.

With everyone from President Obama to the humblest Gulf shrimper cursing the company, BP has a desperate need to put the best face on its ongoing efforts as well as to lay the groundwork for some serious long-term image management. So it's not surprising that the embattled oil company is buying search keywords, setting up a Facebook page and Tweeting while it also makes the traditional old media moves, which include shirt-sleeved TV appearances and hiring former RIAA chief Hilary Rosen.

But rather than help, being seen to make the effort to "make it easier for people to find out more about our efforts in the Gulf" may make matters worse by instead feeding a meme that BP is tone deaf - more concerned with its reputation than in actually cleaning up those parts of its mess that can still be cleaned up.

BP didn't begin its social networking campaigns in earnest until one month after news of the spill broke, recalls David Binkowski of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. And when it did, the company seems to have been hamstrung by its legal council's insistence on not apologizing for or admitting to having done anything wrong. Those admissions can haunt a company in court, but BP's inability to apologize has hurt its ability to have an honest conversation, however difficult, with the public - assuming that's what it wants to have.

Then, when BP launched its massive TV campaign starring CEO Tony Hayward, it was lambasted for spending $50 million on that rather than, for example, Gulf families put out of work by the spill - even though, pardon the expression, that amount is a drop in the ocean of its assets.

Hayward - whose British accent doesn't seem to pacifying Americans as such an accent often does here - didn't help his cause by remarking in a TV interview, "I want my life back." He meant it as evidence of how hard he was working on the problem, but critics reminded us that the 11 people died on the Deepwater Horizon rig would never be getting their lives back. Hayward then had to apologize.

BP COO Doug Suttles told The Associated Press the leak would decrease to a trickle by Monday or Tuesday. The company then had to pull back on his promise.

Meanwhile, the BP's official Twitter feed is overwhelmed by a more popular parody version that BP is now being made fun of for trying to get shut down, its low-ranking Facebook page fights several prominent "boycott BP" groups for attention there, and #oilspill remains a trending topic on Twitter. This war of opinion has real economic consequences for BP and its member gas stations, the latter subject to public demonstrations and an inability to charge a premium for their product, according to what Oil Price Information Service chief oil analyst Tom Kloza told the Washington Post.

BP's late use of social networking was a problem, but its reliance on advertising to communicate this sort of message may have constituted the wrong approach.

"[Advertising] is the right move from an awareness perspective, but from a conversation perspective, it's not the best move," said Binkowski. "I would want there to be a dialogue of some kind to give people more insight into what's happening and what they're doing. Clearly, they waited too long, and now they're playing catch-up and trying to get their message out there."

Social media is a powerful tool, but like the old saying goes, a tool is only as good as the person who wields it. As we await a miracle in the Gulf, BP would be wise not to expect - or hope for - any others.

Image: Flickr/epkes


BP's Social Media Campaign Going About As Well As Capping That WellWired.com has been expanding the hive mind with technology, science and geek culture news since 1995.

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AT&T breach reveals 114,000 iPad owners' email addresses, including some elite customers

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/09/atandt-breach-reveals-114-000-ipad-owners-email-addresses-includ/

Uh oh. According to Valleywag, an AT&T security breach led to the exposure of 114,000 email addresses (and associated SIM / ICC identifiers) belonging to Apple iPad owners. A group of hackers calling themselves Goatse Security (be careful looking that one up) figured out a number of ICC-IDs and ran a script on AT&T's site through a faked iPad UserAgent, which would then return the associated addresses. Some of those affected were actually quite big names, including the CEOs of The New York Times and Time Inc., some higher-ups at Google and Microsoft, and even a number of employees from NASA, FAA, FCC, and the US military.

For its part, AT&T tells AllThingsD that it was informed of the issue on Monday, that only the addresses and associated ICC-IDs were revealed, and that by Tuesday the "feature" that allowed addresses to be seen had been turned off. And as Security Watch's Larry Seltzer cautions in a statement to PC Mag, the impact of this breach -- just email addresses -- is probably somewhat exaggerated. Still, regardless of the magnitude, this can't be making AT&T's day at all bright, and you best believe a number of folks in Cupertino have fire in their eyes over this bad press.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

AT&T breach reveals 114,000 iPad owners' email addresses, including some elite customers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Jun 2010 19:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceAllThingsD, Valleywag  | Email this | Comments

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