| No more crappy cell phone camera pictures if Kodak has its way
Today the company rolled out new chips that promise to make even the smallest cameras take better, more detailed photos. Kodak says its KAC-05020 Image Sensor is a 1.4 micron, 5-megapixel device that allows capture of high quality images in small cameras, with resolution that equals what is available from current devices using larger, 1.75 micron pixel CMOS designs. Kodak said unlike other small-pixel sensors which can produce poor images, especially under low light conditions, the 1.4 micron pixel used in the KAC-05020 Image Sensor changes this convention, providing image quality that can equal or surpass what is available from current 1.75 micron-based devices.Light sensitivity in the new sensor is enhanced by using the company's Truesense Color Filter Pattern technology, which adds panchromatic, or "clear," pixels to the red, green and blue pixels already on the sensor.
Dork Talk
In recent weeks I have banged on about Open Source, expending two articles on Firefox alone. Open Source applications make their code available to everyone. Disagreements and rabid balkanisation within the Open Source community aside, for our purposes the term might as well refer to free software whose licence allows you to share the source code, alter it, use it, do with it what you will. The two great pillars of Open Source are the GNU project and Linux. I shan't burden you with too much detail, I'll just make the outrageous claim that your computer will be running some descendant of those two within the next five years and that your life will be better and happier as a result. I am writing this article on a kind of mini John the Baptist, a system that prepares the way of the software saviour whose coming will deliver the 90% of world computer users who suffer under Windows from the expensive, clumsy, costly, ugly, pricey toils of Microsoft.
Miami Herald Photo Contest
Whether you're a diehard shutterbug or carry a point-and-shoot, you probably take a camera when you travel to places near and far. You can show off your stuff in Take Your Best Shot! The Miami Herald's Annual Travel Photo Contest. This year's grand prize is the same in both the adult (18 and over) and junior (age 13-17) categories: A three-night trip for four at the all-suite Park Shore Resort in Naples (www.parkshorefl.com) and four passes to the Naples Zoo (www.napleszoo.com), courtesy of Visit Florida (www.VISITFLORIDA.com.) Now, about the photo contest: Professionals who make the majority of their income from photography are not eligible. The Miami Herald's photo editors and local photographer Andy Newman will act as judges. So what will they be looking for? Lighting: Look for pretty hues and interesting shadows.
Broadcom Demonstrates Industry Leading Gaming Performance With ...
BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- 2008 MWC -- Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM) , a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced the first public demonstration showing realistic mobile game benchmarks based on the emerging OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics standard, running on cell phone hardware. In collaboration with Futuremark, a respected developer of PC and handheld performance benchmarks, Broadcom will demonstrate the ability of the OpenGL ES 2.0 standard to deliver a significantly enhanced gaming experience on mobile devices when powered with the innovative VideoCore(R) III multimedia processor. The enhanced mobile gaming demonstrations, utilizing Futuremark performance benchmarks and based on the Broadcom(R) BCM2727 VideoCore III multimedia processor, will be performed at this week's 2008 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, from February 11th to 14th and at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco from February 18th to 22nd.
A Journey Through The Local Pinup Revival Scene
In a suburban basement in Parkville, women are taking off their clothes. They're ducking behind a sheet strung up by the minibar and wriggling out of thongs and elasticized bras, only to clamber quickly into the fortified lingerie of a previous generation--girdles, cinchers, bustiers, corselets, all as stiff and formidable-feeling against the body as the designation "foundation garments" implies. Nearby there's a rack of fur shrugs, cinched-waist dresses, feather boas, and half and full petticoats, their hems hovering over a jumbled pile of strappy platform heels and winklepicker pumps ranging in vintage from the Truman to the Kennedy administrations. Underneath the velvet Elvis painting to the right sits a card table arranged with delicately scented silk hair flowers, ersatz tiger lilies, and hibiscus blooms as bright and Technicolor luscious as the illustrations on vintage produce crates.
Assessing the MacBook Air
Back from the podcast-a-day-pace set during Macworld Expo , we devote a fair amount of attention in this post-Expo Macworld Podcast to one of the bigger announcements to come out of this month's trade show—Apple's MacBook Air. Jason Snell has spent the past week with the ultra-thin notebook—look for his review at Macworld.com later Wednesday—and he joins Macworld.com executive editor Philip Michaels, senior news editor Jonathan Seff, and Macworld Lab director James Galbraith for a roundtable discussion about what's to like and what's not to like about the MacBook Air. But first, I turn my attention to another tech trade show—PMA, the major gathering of the professional photography industry. Frequent Macworld contributor Ben Long joins me for a PMA preview. Download Episode #113 • AAC version (20.6 MB, 42 minutes) • MP3 version (19.4 MB, 42 minutes) To subscribe to the Macworld Podcast via iTunes 4.9 or later, simply click here.
Upcoming films
Be Kind Rewind" (PG-13): Jack Black and Mos Def make their own versions of famous movies in this imaginative comedy from Michel Gondry. "Charlie Bartlett" (R): Anton Yelchin is a high school kid who plays psychiatrist to his classmates; Robert Downey Jr. is the principal who can't control him. "The Signal" (R): An electronic transmission from somewhere begins interrupting everything in this horror flick. .
|
