Sony springs a couple new Cyber-shot W models for Spring

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W290

The W290 comes in a rather subdued palette of colors.

(Credit: Sony Electronics)

Joining the lower-middle middle-class W220 that Sony announced at CES are the $199 middle middle-class W230 and $249 upper-middle middle-class W290. (Sorry folks, but I’m running out of ways to describe midpriced cameras.) While the W230 …

Samsung slides out spring SL cameras

Samsung’s latest mainstream compact cameras–the company’s SL series–may not be the most colorful or innovative we’ll see this year, but at least the models in the lineup are clearly differentiable from each other and don’t compete with each other at every $10 increment.

A the top …

Sony adds another budget Cyber-shot

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S980

The Sony Cyber-shot S950 gets a more megapixeled brother

(Credit: Sony Electronics)

Because the way sales channels operate forces manufacturers to create too many product SKUs, Sony has announced the Cyber-shot S980–it’s identical to the S950, but costs $20 more for 12 megapixels rather than 10. Chances are the …

Fully loaded ultracompact: Sony Cyber-shot T900

(Credit: Sony Electronics)

Last year when Sony released the Cyber-shot DSC-T500, I was initially impressed with what the camera had to offer. But since testing it, the only thing to really prove its promise was the quality of the 720p video produced by the little pocket camera.

The T900 shares …

Sony’s budget megazoom gets 720p movies

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20(Credit: Sony Electronics)

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20(Credit: Sony Electronics)

A modest upgrade over last year’s Cyber-shot DSC-H10, this Spring’s DSC-H20 nevertheless offers a few new nice improvements over its budget megazoom predecessor. Though it keeps the same 10X f3.5-4.4 38-380mm (35mm equivalent) lens and 3-inch LCD, the $279 camera …

The difference a zero makes: Sony Cyber-shot T90

(Credit: Sony Electronics)

There’s very little that’s different between the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T90 and the DSC-T900. The T90 has a 0.5-inch smaller screen that has a significantly lower resolution (910K to 230K dots). It also doesn’t have a stereo mic or have HD output via HDMI, …

Samsung expands SL camera lineup: SL820, SL620, SL202 and SL30

It was but merely a month ago that Samsung introduced two new ones in its blossoming SL series, and now the company’s shooting out four more in the run-up to PMA. Kicking things off are the SL820 (pictured) and SL620, two 12.2 megapixel shooters which sport three-inch LCD monitors and a 5x optical zoom. With the former, users are presented with a 28mm wide angle lens, while the SL620 offers a standard 35mm lens. The pair also touts Optical and Digital Image Stabilization, while the SL820 steps it up with 720p video recording (compared to the SL620’s VGA mode) and HDMI connectivity. Moving on, we’ve got the SL202 and SL30, which both arrive with 10 megapixel sensors and a 3x optical zoom. Beyond that, everything’s about as plain as it gets, so we’ll just skip right to the prices while hosting up the full release after the break. The May-bound SL820 will go for $279.99, while the March-bound SL620, SL202 and SL30 will sticker for $199.99, $149.99 and $99.99, respectively.

Continue reading Samsung expands SL camera lineup: SL820, SL620, SL202 and SL30

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Samsung expands SL camera lineup: SL820, SL620, SL202 and SL30 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer Announces Eight (8) Smartphones, All Dull

Acer1_3
Barcelona — Acer might have entered the smartphone fray a little late, but it is making up for that by announcing a staggering eight new models, all of which will ship this year. The phones were unveiled last night at a special event in the wilds of Barcelona as part of the Mobile World Congress event.

The phones are aimed at every conceivable demographic, a point hammered home by a succession of Acer executives. (Hint to Acer speechwriters — don’t have your CEO joke about "being the only thing keeping 200 people for dinner" and then have him bang on about "segmenting the long tail" for another half hour before even mentioning the phones). The only things they have in common are Windows Mobile — the old version, not the shiny new 6.5 version just unveiled by Steve Ballmer, and the screens — and that they are all touch screens.

Instead of listing all the specs (you’d just fall asleep), we’ll take a look at two standouts in the range (pictured below). The M900 is Acer’s Blackberry-a-like, an email machine with a slide out QWERTY keyboard. The phone is loaded with Microsoft Office Mobile and also Outlook. The screen is a decent 3.8" and the phone also has a 5MP autofocus camera, GPS and an FM radio. Price is unknown, but we should see the M900 in the next couple of months.

At the other end of the range is the F900, an almost willfully dull phone. The handset is all touch, with a 3MP camera and, well, that’s it really. There are the usuals – MP3 player, calendar – but nothing that makes this any more compelling than any other WinMo cellphone. Nothing, that is, except the price. Acer plans to have these coming in for pennies after carrier subsidies.

This pricing shows that Acer is planing to flood the smartphone market and turn it into the same commodity game that we see in the PC industry. Take a look at the netbook market, for instance. All netbooks are essentially the same. Same processor, same OS (Windows XP, usually) and same size. The only differences are the keyboards and the occasional outbreak of Linux. Acer will bring this same homogeneity to the smartphone market. And once the company gets Android in there (the Acer engineer says there is nothing lined up yet, but his smile said that Android is coming), it might be over for everybody else.

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Tattoo-like nanosensor could monitor glucose levels, enhance your cool factor

Make no mistake, there are quite a few sophisticated ways to monitor one’s glucose levels, but we’re pretty certain we’ve never seen an approach as simple and as bodacious as this. Massachusetts-based Draper Laboratories has stumbled upon a new embeddable nanosensor that could, at least in theory, eliminate those painful pricks endured today by so many diabetics. The so-called “injectable nanotech ink” could be inserted under the skin much like a tattoo, though Draper’s Heather Clark notes that it “doesn’t have to be a large, over-the-shoulder kind of tattoo.” In fact, it can be as small as a few millimeters in size, though if it were us, we’d use it as the perfect excuse in order to plaster our backs with Ice Climbers. Testing of the new approach is expected to begin very soon, though that usually means it won’t be ready for humans until at least a few years later. Ah well, plenty of time to dream up the perfect design, right?

[Via medGadget]

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Tattoo-like nanosensor could monitor glucose levels, enhance your cool factor originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How Not To Make a Touchscreen Phone

Samsung’s slogan here in Barcelona is “The Power of Touch.” It should have been “The Power to Drive You Freakin’ Bonkers” because their touch technology continues to be bad bad bad. BAD.

What’s wrong with these guys? Last year I tried the Omnia at IFA 2008, and said it had “a poorly designed interface, lousy response time, buggy software, and it felt cheap and fat on my hand.” The Samsung cellphones at the Mobile World Congress this year don’t feel cheap and fat, but the touch interface is equally as bad. It wasn’t just me. It was me trying, people around me trying, and booth people trying them for me.

In theory, the cellphones available to the public in a tech fair booth must be flawless, right? After all, everyone—visitors, partners, and press—will be trying them to get an impression on how they work. So, how these “touch” screens’ response could be so bad, often requiring multiple clicks to get the most basic click operation done? Is it the hardware? Is it the software? Is it bad luck? I don’t know, but it left me the same impression as last year hands on, which is just too bad because the cellphones have some other great qualities, specially the Omnia HD amazing AMOLED high resolution screen.