drag2share: The iPhone 4S' Siri Voice Command Is Just as Amazing as We Hoped [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5846542/the-iphone-4s-siri-voice-command-is-just-as-amazing-as-we-hoped

We were pretty sure the next iPhone was going to pack some awesome new voice command tech, but it's being demoed live, and living up to expectations: talk to it like a human, get results from a smart person.

The things the Siri can tell you are diverse and will be incredibly helpful. And because it uses natural language instead of awkward preset commands, you can speak to it like a person, not a program. It'll do the interpreting for you. Just hold the home button down and speak away. Ask what the weather's like, and it'll bring up a report. Ask it for a word definition, and it'll bring it up via Wolfram Alfra. Siri can bring up local restaurants, ranked by rating, search the web, read you your notifications (great while driving!), and set wakeup alarms at your command. Oh! And it'll write your texts and emails for you, like a diligent little secretary.

Siri's even GPS-powered, giving you location-based reminders of your own creation. For instance, ask Siri for a reminder not to leave your keys at work, and it'll ping you when you leave your office radius. All this voice-crunching comes at a cost, however—it'll require the extra horsepower of the 4S' A5 chip. It will, however, learn your voice as you jabber on—so Siri can only get more accurate as you use it, with support for English, French, and German.

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drag2share: How the iPhone 4S Stacks Up to the Competition [IPhone]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5846559/how-the-iphone-4s-stacks-up-to-the-competition

The iPhone 4S is here with a dual-core A5 processor, more storage space and a better camera. It's a minor update, sure, but how does it compare to other top phones (not to mention its predecessor, the iPhone 4)? Quite well, actually.

Apple didn't discuss the amount of RAM the 4S has, so we know it has at least the 512 MB that the iPhone 4 had. But we wouldn't be shocked if Apple beefed in this area to help Siri out. When the iPad 2 came out, they quietly doubled the RAM in that as well.

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drag2share: What's So Great About the iPhone's New Camera? [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5846548/whats-so-great-about-the-iphones-new-camera

The camera in the iPhone 4S is going to be better. We suspected as much, but now we know exactly how it's going to be better.

It's faster. Much faster. We're talking half a second in between photos, so if you missed the moment you won't have to wait for an eternity for another try. Most of the other leading camera-phones take two to three times that long.

It's bigger and brighter. The images it takes will be 8 megapixels at 3264x2448 pixels. That's some nice resolution right there. But, as we've said before, ISO is as important as megapixels. Sometimes adding more pixels into the same, small area actually decreases the image quality if the sensor can't handle it. Thankfully, the image sensor is going to be backside illuminated (like the iPhone 4, the myTouch 4G Slide, and Sony's newer Xperia phones), which will get it 73 percent more light (more than the iPhone 4, too). In other words, photos you take when the lighting isn't great will suck less. It's got a larger, f/2.4 aperture, too, which isn't much bigger than the iPhone 4's, but it will give it another little boost.

It's sharper and more vibrant. The five element lens should give you a cleaner image, theoretically. It should make it 30 percent sharper than the iPhone 4 (which had a four element lens). They also included a hybrid infrared filter. This is the kind of thing you usually just see on DSLR cameras. It should give you more accurate and more vibrant colors, and reduce red ghosting and chromatic aberrations which sometimes happen around light sources.

It's cinema-ier. Video hasn't been left out. It will shoot 1080p video at up to 30 frames per second, which means it should look good on your HDTV and not be stretched unnaturally. However, when a small camera shoots at 1080p sometimes the edges get warped, and there can be a pesky flicker due to the rolling shutter effect. We'll have to see if this is continues to be a problem on this camera. Either way, it will definitely take advantage of the backside illuminated sensor, but it remains to see what the bitrate will be, which has a large effect on the resulting quality. Anyway, welcome to 2011, Apple!

UPDATE: Now with video (see above).

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You can keep up with Brent Rose, the author of this post, on Google+ or Twitter.

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drag2share: Adobe reveals Creative Cloud, links Touch Apps to Creative Suite with 20GB storage

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/04/adobe-reveals-creative-cloud-links-touch-apps-to-creative-suite/

Dropbox just not doing the trick for your design work load? Perhaps Adobe can help. The company has announced Creative Cloud, a "hub for viewing, sharing and syncing of files created by Adobe Touch Apps and Adobe Creative Suite." Included with the service is 20GB of cloud storage, which will probably get you through that web design project you've been putting off. After the first of the year, Adobe expects its cloud to include access to applications software (apps too), digital publishing / business services and a global creative community for inspiration and feedback. Also unveiled were Touch Apps, a set of six applications designed to make your tablet a design machine -- if you're down to work on that small of a screen, of course. You'll have to wait until November to find out just how much the Creative Cloud will set you back, but in the meantime check out the source link for more details.

Adobe reveals Creative Cloud, links Touch Apps to Creative Suite with 20GB storage originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 19:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Toshiba Camileo x416, x400 and x200 get pricing, availability, lots of zoom

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/04/toshiba-camileo-x416-x400-and-x200-get-pricing-availability-l/

Looks like some of those Toshiba camcorders that we first caught wind of back in Berlin at IFA are hitting our neck of the woods. The Camileo x400 and x200 are now available in the States, for $299 and $279, respectively. The company will also be offering up a higher-end x416 on October 10th for $319. All three camcorders shoot 1080p video and feature a similar barrel-shaped design with a three-inch swiveling touchscreen LCD. The x416 and x400 feature similar specs, with 23x optical zoom, 120x digital zoom, on-screen video trimming and expandable memory. The x416, however, will also have 16GB of storage built-in. The x200, naturally, will have more modest specs, like a relatively paltry 12x optical zoom. Press info after the break.

Continue reading Toshiba Camileo x416, x400 and x200 get pricing, availability, lots of zoom

Toshiba Camileo x416, x400 and x200 get pricing, availability, lots of zoom originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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