Hasta La Gadget!

The iPhone is set to be turned into a pocket-sized movie studio, according to “people familiar with the matter”. The next generation will be a “one-stop studio for recording, editing, viewing and sharing your own videos”, according to Business Week’s Peter Burrows.

Infuriating inflation of anonymous sources aside, does Business Week’s claim hold up? First, you’d need a camera that could shoot video. Apple has already said that the 3.0 software will not add video capability to the iPhone, but it didn’t say that a new iPhone wouldn’t shoot movies. Also, jailbroken iPhones already shoot video, albeit sucking the battery dry while doing it. So, Burrows’ claim is plausible.

Second, you’d need some horsepower to edit video. The iPhone does surprisingly well with stills, allowing many third-party applications to throw around some pretty sophisticated effects. But those are on single frames. Video requires a lot more power, unless the editing is straight cut-and-paste editing. Burrows says his source, who is “familiar with Apple’s plans for the next iPhone” claims that there will be an iMovie application, which sounds like more of a real app than a simple clip-chopping program. Plausibility? Three out of five.

Lastly, let’s take a look at the history, and the Way of the iPhone. Ever since the original iPod, Apple has realized that a pocket device is good for one thing and a computer good for another. This was one of the reasons for the iPod’s success — do all the work in the easy to use, big-screen iTunes and just do the listening on the go. Fast forward to today. ITunes still does everything. The iPhone can capture images, but they are stored in the Photos app which is for viewing only. We’d make the same call for video, if (or when) it comes. This “iMovie” is probably just “Movie” and acts as a browser and player for your clips.

We’d flag this as a non-story, although Business Week seems to be on a roll with the Apple Rumors lately.

Making Movies: The Next Big Thing in iPhones? [Business Week]

(Credit: CNET)

OK, we’re starting something new here on Crave. We can’t say it’s original or new to gadget blogs, but it is new to us. And we think you’ll like it. It’s called, “Crave giveaway of the week.”

For our inaugural installment, we’ve …

The Steam camera not only shoots images just 440 trillionths of a second in length, it can rack up an astonishing six million of them in a single second.

How does it work this magic? Lasers, of course, the answer to all scientific problems. The Steam (Serial Time-Encoded Amplified iMaging) doesn’t have a physical shutter, instead relying on a pulse of light to freeze time, much like a standard camera flash will freeze a bullet hitting a balloon.

The laser pulse contains a very wide range of light colors, sent in a known 2D pattern — think of the pixels on an LCD screen, only smaller, and made of lasers. When these hit the subject, only some parts are reflected back, just like a normal flash. Only in this case, the reflected pulse cannot be seen. Instead, the pulse which bounces back actually has a new makeup of colors, missing those which were absorbed. This pulse is piped through a special optic-fiber in which the differing speeds of light colors is amplified, some slowing down until they are separated enough to be detected by normal photo-diodes.

These are then assigned positions on the image, depending on where they were when they left. The result? Soon we’ll be able to take pictures of the interactions between neurons and the actual interiors of cells.

Fastest Camera Ever Built Uses Lasers [Wired Science]

Debut for world’s fastest camera [BBC via The Twitter]

Photo: Kevin1027/Flickr

What seemed to be yet another fantasy flying vehicle may have moved closer to reality this week when a test version of the three-wheeler PAL-V One took off publicly in Holland.

Accelerating just some 500 feet along the A1 highway near the city of Amersfoort, the three-wheeler took off easily in front of the Dutch Minister of Traffic Safety and Water Affairs, Camiel Eurlings, and a massive group of curious journalists.

The test version of the PAL-V One three-wheeler that took off in Holland didn’t look quite like this mockup provided by the company.

(Credit: PAL-V Europe)

According to the Digital Journal many had hoped to see a real prototype of the flying-and-driving vehicle, which is aimed at consumers. What actually took off was a proof-of-concept vehicle, to show that the tiny three-wheeler could both drive and fly for real, which it apparently could.

On the other hand, as the autogyro technology it’s based on was invented in 1919 by the Spaniard Juan de la Cierva, and flew for the first time in 1923, this was no hugely sensational news. Minister Eurlings, whose ministry is involved in the project, also said that despite some people’s hopes, the vehicle would not be a solution to traffic congestion, but a possible alternative to helicopters for emergency services.

…

We keep trying to imagine ourselves at the keys of one Gateway’s new NS50, NO50 or NO20 laptops, sucking down a too-small cup of coffee and completely blown away by a game of minesweeper or an Excel spreadsheet, but it’s just not working for us. Gateway played it pretty safe here on design, and while the internals are just fine, full-up with pro-level parts to boost security and wireless performance (there’s even a WiMAX option), we’re not seeing much of anything to really differentiate the line. The NO50 and NS50 both do 15.4-inch screens, while the NO20 goes 12.1-inches. No word on price, but we’re guessing cheap. They all should be available right about now in European retailers.

Filed under: Laptops

Gateway’s new Europe-bound NS50, NO50 and NO20 boringtops for businesses originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 May 2009 05:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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