Filed under: Cameras, Advice, Columns, Reviews

A reader writes: I’m getting ready to go on vacation, and I want to bring along a small point-and-shoot digital camera. Thing is, I want the thing to be able to do a little bit of everything, so I’m willing to spend around $300. I’m mostly concerned about picture quality, fast movement, and lots of flexibility in terms of lighting situations as I’ll be taking pictures both during the day and at night, inside and outside.

Hey reader: There are plenty of $300 point-and-shoot digital cameras out there, so we understand your confusion. Sounds like you need a feature-packed camera that won’t break the wallet — or the fanny pack — for your vacation.

We recently got to play around with Panasonic’s new Lumix DMC-FX33 camera, and despite the crazy confusing name, it’s a great little unit. It’s super small, has a big 2.5-inch screen and has plenty of scene modes for all your vacation-taking needs.

One thing that really sets this one apart is how easy it is to use. If you want to turn off the flash, just push a button. If you want to take a picture inside and don’t want to think about the flash and ISO settings, just put the camera in auto mode and it will adjust everything for you. All that said, if you’re a bit of a camera geek like we are, you can manually set just about everything.

What makes this camera stand out is Panasonic’s use of 28mm Leica optics, which are some of the best lenses in the biz. Typically, Leica lenses are only available in much more expensive cameras.

Outside of that, this camera has all the standard features you would want in this price range. It does 8.1 megapixels, has a wide 28mm lens, uses inexpensive SD cards, does 4x optical zoom, has a macro setting (for close-up pictures of flowers and what-not), a widescreen video mode and this it’s pretty quick when you need to take multiple pictures. Finally, for fashionistas, the Lumix comes in an assortment of colors: black, silver, blue, and the brown seen above.

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Filed under: Action & Adventure, Warner Brothers, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels

It’s been more than five months since The Dark Knight began shooting in Chicago, but the Batman Begins sequel is very far from being completed. Currently the movie is filming in England, and according to Variety, the production is on its way to Hong Kong, where it will film a number of scenes this fall. Locations will include Central District, which is the city’s business district, and Western District, which is ironically the least Westernized part of Hong Kong. The movie may also feature the Symphony of Lights, a touristy light and laser show that occurs nightly around Victoria Harbor. The shoot is scheduled to last nine days, and will happen in November.

Variety claims the HK sequences will be the first time Batman is depicted on-screen fighting crime outside Gotham. But it isn’t likely the trade really knows the plot or what scenes will actually be filmed in the Chinese city. Anyway, Batman Begins did already show us Bruce Wayne in China, of course it was prior to becoming the Caped Crusader and he wasn’t exactly fighting crime. The trade does point out that it is also unknown whether Hong Kong will be called Hong Kong in the movie, or if it will have a fictional name, a la Gotham. However, considering there’s an actual graphic novel titled Batman: Hong Kong, I assume the DC Universe’s acknowledgment of the city will extend to the movie franchise. In any case, The Dark Knight will reportedly be the highest profile film to shoot in the former British colony in many years.

In other, more tragic Dark Knight news, a crew member was killed on the set yesterday afternoon when he drove a 4×4 camera truck into a tree. According to BBC News, the sequel was doing a test run for a sequence involving the Batmobile near Chertsey, Surrey, England. The unnamed crew member, a special effects technician, was pronounced on the scene, an effects facility in Longcross. Surrey Police and the Health and Safety Executive are investigating the incident.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Remember that press event HTC’s got coming up early next week? There are plenty of rumored HTC devices that could be announced — and a few in particular we know readers are pulling for — but it looks like we’ve got at least one here that’s a lock to see the spotlight. Known to many by the codename “Nike,” the HTC Touch Slide takes the original Touch’s small, finger-friendly package and makes good on two of its indiscretions by adding a slide-out keyboard (similar in layout to RIM’s SureType) and a 3G radio. Other features should include WiFi, 128MB of RAM, 256MB of Flash, and from what we can tell, a diminutive case that holds true to its forebear despite the fresh slide mechanism. Oh, and you NTT DoCoMo users over there, stop gloating that you’ve had this thing for a few weeks, would ya?

[Via MoDaCo, thanks ZSX]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Food Porn

Each September my husband and I can be found in Austin Texas, at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. People come from far and wide to attend this 3 day steam-fest featuring 8 stages of continuous live music. While the bands are definitely worth the trip, I have to admit I come for the food. Unlike a lot of festivals which feature your typical hot dogs, beer and nachos fare, the ACL festival does things a bit differently. I don’t know if it’s just that proud

Texas heritage, but their festival food is not imported by a mainstream food caterer like Host Services. All edible items are delivered and sold by local

Austin restaurants. Yes, very cool.

Continue reading Austin City Limits Festival Food Rocks!

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2057 EP1 The Body featured on Discovery Channel offers mixed information between current research explorations and fictional scenarios of our lifestyle in 2057.

It is a nice effort in considering what is being done in HCI and medical research which converges into everyday scenarios. Under its over dramatic tone, the examples are sometimes tacky and stereotypical. The show could have incorporated other important issues such as affordable cutting edge technological solutions for the rest of world.

This video is fun and accessible. I loved the transplantation of a human heart, heart that can be 3d printed! Presenting a vision for a future lifestyle, this video reminds me of the American Look (1958): America lifestyle in the 50’s with its *idealistic* sense for design.

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Kicking off day two of the Web Directions conference was an inspiring talk by the charismatic Scott Berkun.

Scott described several myths that exists about innovation — including the misconception that ideas are external to us, and that epiphanies come to us when we least expect it. He gave examples of famous characters in history: Archimedes, discovering how to identify gold by measuring its density, and Newton’s famous revelation of the existence of gravity. People latch on to the story that they want to hear (e.g. Archimedes leaping naked from the bath tub and running through the street, and Newton lazing about until an apple landed on his head). The reality is that inventors and innovators spend their entire life trying to solve a problem, and the hard work that these famous characters invested is quickly forgotten.

He suggested that, in a company, the less you use the word “innovation”, the more likely you are to do it. If you’re using the word regularly, you’re in big trouble.

Innovators are essentially explorers: they pick a blank spot on a map and say “I want to go there and bring back cool stuff”. Star Trek, however, is an inaccurate representation of exploring — all the hard stuff and the boring stuff is glossed over with warp drives and teleport machines.

More interesting explorers can be found in history — Magellan, who is famous for circumnavigating the world, actually died half way. British explorer James Cook is remembered for “discovering” much of Oceania, not for dying in a disastrous expedition to Hawaii.

However the way people talk about an invention before and after are very different. Beforehand, the consensus is “these people are crazy, they’re wasting their time”. Afterwards, people look for the breakthrough moment, the magical moment, because that’s what they want to hear. DaVinci, Magellan, Cook etc all worked on things that nobody else believed in, but they persisted anyway.

Any time you innovate, someone will have an emotional response to change that your invention will bring about

This article provided by sitepoint.com.

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Filed under: News

Wal-Mart Canada is having an “Anniversary Sale” and one of the more notable sale items is the 80GB PS3 bundle. DailyTech is reporting that the 80GB system is dropping to $550 CAD, which is the same as the current price of the 60GB. According to the report, many Wal-Mart stores are already out of their 60GB inventory, and only have 80GB systems left to sell.

Another price drop would fall in line with analyst expectations. With 60GB PS3s available only while supplies last, it’ll be interesting to see what Sony will offer in its stead.

[Thanks, Ruibing!]

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Filed under: Audio/Video, Computers

Look at that face. That’s the face of some poor sap who is either the unluckiest thief ever, or a guy who keeps some really bad company. His misadventure began when one of five Mac laptops stolen from the offices of a Vancouver, BC-based Web startup landed in his hands.

WorkSpaces — the victim company — had used this particular laptop as a photo booth for its online guest book hosted at photo-sharing behemoth, Flickr. The Mac had been rigged up with Flickrbooth, an application that can be set up to automatically upload photos to Flickr when they’re taken by the laptop’s built-in iSight Web cam. After the robbery of the WorkSpaces offices, this photo suddenly appeared on the company’s Flickr site. When WorkSpaces realized that this mystery man was in all likelihood the same person who’d knocked off their property, the self-produced Wanted poster began making its rounds on Flickr, and then the blogosphere. In no time, this guy was an Internet celebrity.

With nowhere to run, the unnamed man appeared at a Vancouver police station with laptop in tow. He claims he bought the laptop from a friend who’d bought it from another friend, and was unaware that is was stolen. At this time, no charges have been filed, but the matter is under investigation according to authorities.

This guy is a shoe-in for the 2007 Darwin Awards if there ever was one.

From Boing Boing

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IceRage has just released a couple of new computer peripherals that don’t bring anything new in terms of functionality, but they sure as heck look good. The devices in question are the IceRage Pocket Mouse and Pocket Presenter that feature sleek styling cues and a wide range of color options to choose from. The Pocket Presenter will definitely pep up those boring PowerPoint presentations, being a Bluetooth mouse that boasts media controller and laser pointer functionalities. For those who need a flashy looking mouse, the Pocket Mouse would slip comfortably into any pocket and comes with a storage compartment that lets you store its retractable USB cable and plug neatly. Both are working concepts at this point in time - hopefully the final product will be released in time for the holidays.

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Filed under: Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL), Target Corp. (TGT), Money and Finance Today, Lowe’s Cos (LOW), Lennar Corp’A’ (LEN), Amer Home Mtge Investment (AHM)

AMT: Tick-Tock
Another year is quickly coming to an end and once again Congress hasn’t done anything yet to give millions of people relief from the alternative minimum tax. If they end up doing nothing, those 23 million folks will get hit with the “wealth” tax - about 19 million of them for the first time. The AMT was originally intended for the wealthy few when it was created nearly 40 years ago. But because Congress never indexed for inflation the amount of income exempt from AMT and because it disallows a lot of popular tax breaks, tens of millions of middle-class taxpayers could get hit.
AMT: Millions left in the dark about their 2007 tax bill -CNNmoney

Double-Digit Rise in Heating Costs Expected
Consumers will likely pay record prices to heat their homes this winter, with a particularly big jump expected in heating oil bills.
Winter heating costs could rise an average 10.5% - USATODAY.com

How to Play the Real Estate Bounceback
The housing market may be melting down, but here are 10 cities that have just about hit rock bottom - and offer opportunities for savvy investors to get in while the getting’s good.
How to play the real estate bounce-back - Business 2.0

Banks vs. Credit Unions - Which Is Better for You?
Credit unions aren’t just for a niche group of steel workers or teachers anymore. In fact, these nonprofit, member-run financial institutions are more accessible than ever before - and they can be a much better place to stash your cash than traditional banks.
Credit Unions Offer a Smart Banking Option - SmartMoney.com

Put More Cash in Your Pocket
Current returns of 7% to 10% are within your reach, and you can get these yields without taking extraordinarily high risks. Here are some places you can get that.
Put Cash in Your Pocket - Kiplinger.com

Look Who’s Watching Your Health Expenses
In a bid to control spiraling health-care costs, a growing number of employers and health insurers are turning to services that essentially audit an employee’s health care and look for ways to both improve outcomes and save money. But critics contend that some of these programs intrude into the private relationship between patients and their doctors.
Look Who’s Watching Your Health Expenses - WSJ.com

Blu-ray or HD DVD: Which Side Are You On?
The two competing high-definition DVD formats are gearing up for the Christmas season. HD DVD has taken the lead on the hardware side, but Blu-ray has taken a big lead in sales of movie titles.
Blu-ray or HD DVD: Which Side Are You On? - WSJ.com

America’s Most Powerful Pundits
In a crowded field, these talking heads carry the most weight. They include Roger Ebert, Bill O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs and Geraldo Rivera, Rosie O’Donnell and Al Franken.
The Top Pundits In America - Forbes.com

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