Just as the portable gaming world is getting ready for the release of the Nintendo DSi, word on the street is that Sony’s followup to the PSP may not be far off–at least according to a bigwig at Acclaim.
David Perry, the company’s chief creative officer told Kotaku yesterday, “I spoke to a developer who is working on it right now. I know this developer is already working on it, so that means they have a prototype. That would sound like a fall release to me.”
According to Perry, Sony will be dropping the UMD movie player from the next generation of the PSP. The hope, he said, is that the device will go entirely digital–if not in the second generation, then in some version in the near future–gaining Sony a piece of the direct sales market and doing away with used game sales.
Googlephone developers can no longer use their unlocked phones to load for-pay applications.
Google has put the kibosh on paid application downloads for HTC G1 phone users that are using the $400, unlocked version available to people in Google’s Android developer program (which costs $25 to join). Google had offered these unlocked devices to developers in a bid to help them create apps for the phone.
A Google employee revealed the change in policy suddenly earlier this week in response to a user question on the Android discussion forums. "If you’re using an unlocked, developer phone, you’ll be unable to view any copy-protected application, including Shazam and Calorie Counter. This is a change that was made recently," wrote the Google employee.
The T-Mobile G1 which runs the Google developed Android OS was launched in October. But it was just two weeks ago that Google started allowing developers to offer paid applications through the Android Market or the device’s online app store.
Unlocking a phone allows the device to run on any carrier’s network and is not illegal. But the practice is frowned upon by handset makers and carriers.
Google says it is blocking paid apps access on unlocked developer phones to prevent piracy of apps. "The developer version of the G1 is designed to give developers complete flexibility. These phones give developers full permissions to all aspects of the device, including the ability to install a modified version of the Android Open Source Project," said Google in a statement. "We aren’t distributing copy protected applications to these phones in order to minimize unauthorized copy of the applications."
Now maybe developers holding unlocked G1s won’t feel all that bad about not having access to the $200 ‘I am Rich’ app.
Despite NVIDIA‘s claims that we’d have an Ion desktop sometime this Spring, we still haven’t really seen it in consumer-bound hardware — until now, that is. Although unconfirmed, slides have purportedly leaked out of what is said to be the Acer Hornet Ion-based nettop. Aside from the platform and a HDMI output, we don’t have any specs for the machine. What we do know is that it’s sporting a wireless game controller / air mouse — in case you didn’t pick up on the Wii influence, one of those background photos is a direct rip from NIntendo’s ad campaign — and can apparently hang from the back of LCD TVs. The images also tout its eco-friendly design, small form factor, “silent operation,” and a price tag of only a couple hundred dollars. Elaborate Photoshop or impending PC? Something feels fishy here, so while we sit and impatiently wait for some official word, hit up the read link for more pics.
I cannot come up with a practical reason why I’d need these reproduction medieval gauntlets. I just want them. Think of all the people I could be! These are the last pieces I need to complete the following outfits: Destro, Sir Galahad, Drs. Klaw and Doom, …
Lexus regained the top position in J.D. Power & Associate’s Customer Service Index, a measure that “examines satisfaction among vehicle owners who visit a service department for maintenance or repair work” over the first three years of ownership. CSI used to stand for customer satisfaction, now it’s customer service. While lots of people gripe about the difficulty of getting car technology to work, either it doesn’t break or dealers do a great job fixing it. The brands most likely to be considered high-tech are in the top 15 (of 36 surveyed this year). The only two in the top 10 that don’t shout “technology” are No. 8 Buick and No. 9 Saturn. Note that this isn’t a survey about reliability, only about whether customers think dealers did a good job on maintenance and warranty work. BMW, No. 3 this year, might be one of the most complex brands to work on, but since all maintenance, even little things like wiper blades, is on BMW’s dime for the first four years of ownership, it’s hard not to like your BMW dealer. Below the jump, the CSI scores for the past five years.
What it means: Car technology doesn’t break down much, or dealers fix it fast, judging by the concentration of high-tech brands at the top of J.D. Power’s CSI.
One of the big problems facing VR is the issue of mobility — how do you allow users unrestricted movement in virtual reality, while keeping them relatively static in real reality? Omni-directional treadmills have been tried in the past, and now researchers at the University of Tsukuba in Japan have developed something called CirculaFloor. The system uses four robotic tiles that constantly shift position, ensuring that there’s always a tile in the direction you’re headed. Additionally, the entire assembly moves slowly backwards, giving one the impression of movement while they’re actually standing relatively still. The tiles also incorporate lifts, for simulating staircases and the like. While this research is promising, there’s still plenty of work to be done — for instance, the tiles still move awful slowly, and while they seem sturdy enough for a leisurely stroll, a Left 4 Dead implementation is not likely to happen any time soon. Video after the break.
At Gadget Lab we were eager to get our hands on the latest netbook from Asus — the Eee PC 1000HE. Here’s a snippet of what I had to say about it:
Asus basically invented the netbook, so it didn’t surprise us when the company’s latest Eee PC opened a can of whoop-ass on its competitors.
From the outside, the 1000HE doesn’t look much different from other models in the diminutive Eee line. But it’s the machine’s heart — the brand new 1.66-GHz Atom N280 processor — that makes it faster, stronger, smarter than its opponents.
Price: $400 (as tested)
8 out of 10
Read the rest of the review at Wired.com/reviews — our complete database of product reviews.
When most of us talk digital cameras, we talk megapixels, ISO, image noise, shot-per-second speed and image processing. We’re tech geeks. But really, none of that stuff matters as much as your camera’s lens.
The lens is, after all, your camera’s eyeball—the image sensor or film can only record what comes in through the lens. It’s what defines the picture’s perspective, clarity and way more.
Lenses are actually a really complicated thing to talk about—if your job was to steer photons through tunnels of stretched glass, people would call you complicated too—so we’re gonna try to keep it to field basics, you should know to get around, rather than dive into the crazy physics and mathematical ratios and stuff.
Lens Terminology Before we get into the basic lens types, you should know the two major numbers you’re looking at you when you talk about lenses: Focal length and aperture.
Focal length is the distance between the optical center of the lens and the point where it focuses the light coming into the lens (when a shot is in focus, that’s the image sensor or film). The diagram above, from Cambridge In Colour shows, very simply, what focal length refers to, and how it affects your pitchas. Here’s another pretty excellent, easy to understand explanation, with pictures showing the results of using different focal lengths on the same shot.
Practically, what you need to know is that focal length measured in millimeters, and that’s where you get, say, an 18-55mm lens, a 400mm telephoto or a 28-560mm lens found in a super-zoom camera. (You probably know this, but when you see “20x zoom lens,” the spec refers to the ratio of the longest focal length to the shortest—so 560 divided by 28.) Basically, the longer the focal length, the more magnified or “zoomed in” your photo can be.
Aperture is the other major spec on a lens, and something you deal with most on DSLRS. The aperture is the hole that actually lets the light into the camera, and you make can make it bigger or smaller. The size of the hole is expressed in terms of F-stops, or as you might see a lot F/2.8 or F2.8 or F8 or F11 or whatever.
The bigger the F number, the smaller the aperture, or hole. The smaller the number, the bigger the hole, which means the more light it lets in. The reason that’s good is that means you can shoot with a faster shutter speed, so you don’t get blurry photos, or when you’re shooting in low light, since more light can get through, which means you’re not forced to choose between shooting dark, blurry things or excessively grainy photos as you crank up the ISO (light sensitivity) to compensate for the lack of light. So, when someone’s talking about a “fast” lens, they’re talking about one with a big aperture, like F/1.8—easy to remember, you can shoot with faster shutter speeds with less light.
With a big aperture, you also have a shallower depth of field—subjects in focus are sharp, but everything around it is soft and blurry. A tighter aperture (higher F-stop number) lets you focus more at once, as you can see in the diagram above combined from Wikipedia. There’s more on depth of field here. Overall, we’re staying on the easy-to-swallow side, but if you’ve really got a hankering for F-stop knowledge, here’s a crazy detailed explanation.
Lens Types Having fun yet? There are a few basic types of lenses, and of course, a whole bunch of specialized ones beyond that, like macro or tilt lenses. But here are the basics.
A normal lens is one with a perspective that looks a lot the perspective of the human eye. With a 35mm or full-frame camera, that’s about a 50mm lens, though it varies depending on the size of the film or image sensor. For instance, this 35mm Nikon lens is for their DX cameras, DX meaning it has a sensor that’s not “full” (equal to 35mm film). When that lens is attached to a DX camera, it’s the equivalent to a 50mm lens on a full-frame camera—making it normal.
A wide-angle lens is, most basically, one with a focal length that’s way shorter than a normal lens (which, again, varies depending on the size of the film or sensor). Wide angles are useful for take wide shots—-panoramas, or just trying to squeeze a huge group of people in a single picture without being 10 light years away. You can also do neato distortion tricks—a fisheye is just a crazy kind of wide-angle lens. Example Image: Ekilby/Flickr
A telephoto lens is one with a really long focal length (like 400mm). Since they’re designed like telescopes, they are physically more compact than their focal lengths, but they can still get pretty damn massive. They’re good for shooting stuff far, far away. Example Image Shiny Things/Flickr
A prime lens is just one with a fixed focal length—you can’t zoom in or out—and typically they produce sharper pictures than all-but-the-priciest zoom lenses. Any of the above lens types can be prime lenses, or zoom, below. This fisheye is a prime lens.
A zoom lens is one you can adjust the focal length on—zoom in and out—so you can shoot a variety of stuff with a single lens. The aperture tends to vary based on the focal length, unless you get a really pricey zoom lens that’s also “fast.”
Lens Brands and Compatibility But, even looking at one company at a time, lenses are complicated and sticky. Take Canon, for instance. They’ve got a million different kinds of lens mounts (where the camera and lens fit together) for their single-lens reflex cameras, depending on how far back in time you go. Currently they’ve got two major kinds of lens mounts: EF (electro-focus because the focusing motor action is built into the lens) and and EF-S. The latter is for their entry-level to mid-range DSLRs only, because it’s made for their smaller (not full-frame, i.e., not 35mm equivalent) image sensors. Standard EF lenses will work on cameras with an EF-S mount, but EF-S lenses won’t work on cameras with a regular EF mount. And before that, there was the FD mount, which totally doesn’t work on DSLRs without an adapter.
Nikon isn’t quite as bad as here—they’ve had the same F-mount for over 40 years, so all their lenses with physically fit on the camera, but with their DSLRs, you’ve gotta watch out for their FX lenses (full-frame lenses like for the D700) vs. their DX lenses (like Canon, meant for their cameras with smaller APS-C sensors). When used on full-frame cameras, DX lenses will block out the corners of the picture since they’re supposed to cover a smaller image area. But overall, with Nikon you have the advantage of being able to use older lenses in a way you can’t with Canon gear. Ken Rockwell has a comprehensive tome about Nikon lenses and types for more.
The High Cost of Optics Okay, great. Here’s a real question: Why are lenses so goddamned expensive? Well, as Steve Heiner, Nikon SLR-division technical marketing manager, told us, “You’re paying for materials and the process of creating the lens,” which, as you might guess, improves image quality. Faster apertures—which require larger glass elements in pro zoom lenses—heavier materials like metal, for durability, and touches like a nano-crystal coating that minimizes reflections for low-light shooting are things that make lenses cost hundreds or thousands or dollars. As a rep from Canon told us, there’s no real getting cheaper over time, like most other mechanical components. Precision optical glass just doesn’t work that way.
Materials are also what separate crummy lenses from good ones, which is why cheap lenses in cellphones suck—they’ve gotta be cheap, really tiny and really light and well, you can’t change physics—and why even cheap DSLR lenses aren’t as good as expensive-as-hell ones. Update: Daniel pointed out this pretty excellent video showing how lenses are made, which shines more light on why they’re so damn pricey:
At the same time, there is a lot of progress in lens tech happening—look at all the ultra wide-angle lenses popping up in point-and-shoots now. Canon says that’s cause you’ve got smaller image sensors (which as we noted above, changes the relation of the focal length), more aspherical lens elements (which are cheaper to make), a new kind of ultra high refractive index aspherical optical glass (uhhhh, don’t ask me) and the miniaturization of mechanical parts like AF motors.
There’s a lot we had to leave out, like chromatic aberration and lens flare, but we hope we gave you a pretty good starting point to learn about lenses. Real camera pros, feel free to leave more in the comments.
Still something you still wanna know? Send any questions about lenses, upskirts, or crazy weird Japanese photographers who swarm cosplayers to tips@gizmodo.com, with “Giz Explains” in the subject line. Also, thanks to Nikon for the lens diagrams!
Well, we dug up some hands-on pics of that new waterproof Canon PowerShot D10 we’ve been hearing about recently. Obviously, since it’s aimed at the “sport” set it has to be available in “camouflage,” and since it’s waterproof it has to be sort of bulky. As for the stats, this guy rocks a 12.1-megapixel sensor, DIGIC 4 processor, 3x zoom, image stabilization, and a 2.5-inch PureColor LCD II display that’s said to be twice as bright as the company’s standard LCD II. In addition, the camera is waterproof up to 10 meters, shock resistant, and the display sits behind a 2mm shield — if you should happen to drop this off the roof of an evil genuis’s high-tech lair (or into a pitcher of beer), no worries. Going for about $329, available at the end of April. Hit the read link for the pics.
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8 out of 10
When most of us 
Lenses are actually a really complicated thing to talk about—if your job was to steer photons through tunnels of stretched glass, people would call you complicated too—so we’re gonna try to keep it to field basics, you should know to get around, rather than dive into the crazy physics and mathematical ratios and stuff.
With a big aperture, you also have a shallower depth of field—subjects in focus are sharp, but everything around it is soft and blurry. A tighter aperture (higher F-stop number) lets you focus more at once, as you can see in the diagram above 
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Okay, great. Here’s a real question: Why are lenses so goddamned expensive? Well, as Steve Heiner, Nikon SLR-division technical marketing manager, told us, “You’re paying for materials and the process of creating the lens,” which, as you might guess, improves image quality. Faster apertures—which require larger glass elements in pro zoom lenses—heavier materials like metal, for durability, and touches like a nano-crystal coating that minimizes reflections for low-light shooting are things that make lenses cost hundreds or thousands or dollars. As a rep from Canon told us, there’s no real getting cheaper over time, like most other mechanical components. Precision optical glass just doesn’t work that way.
