Jibbigo is a recently released iPhone app which promises to help you out the next time you’re desperately trying to make yourself understood by your Spanish-speaking compadres. The app is capable of recording a sentence and translating it — essentially in real time — back to you. As you can see in the screencap above, you can speak either Spanish or English, and the translator will do its work, displaying both your original and a translation into the other language. The dictionary contains about 40,000 words, and the app is aimed at travelers. Jibbigo also requires the iPhone 3GS to make use of the bi-directional translation tools, and the app also reportedly functions a heck of a lot slower on anything other than the 3GS. The app is available now for $24.99.
Now this is how you build up anticipation for a new product. Start off with just the name accidentallypopping up on one of your corporate websites in order to get our imaginations flowing, then leak a teeny tiny image of the optional viewfinder. There’s actually a good bit of info here — you can tell the new attachment (titled VF-2) seems to be vertically adjustable, something missing from the previous generation, but there’s also the bogus news that it’ll fit only the forthcoming E-P2. The silver lining to that knowledge, though, is that the body we can only partially see must be the as yet unannounced E-P1 successor, which means the new Micro Four Thirds shooter will at least have the option of a black body… which some people care about. Deeply.
Yes, it’s a car ad, but you’re going to watch it anyway because a) it’s Friday and b) it features the awesome Danny Macaskill (or the Mac Danny as we like to call him) on his bike. We’ve posted a couple of Danny’s videos here before, but to be honest we just can’t get enough of watching him throw his bike around the city streets.
Check the huge gap he leaps around thirty seconds in and imagine just sitting up on that concrete monster, let alone standing up there on a bike. It’s a fantastic ad, spoiled only by the car at the end.
My first real camera was a Canon S50. I loved it. Canon let the pro compact S line die a few years later. It’s back with the S90, though the only thing that’s the same is that it’s still awesome.
Sex and Brains
It’s got the same spacious image sensor as the G11—1/1.7″ as opposed to 1/2.5″ like most point-and-shoots. But instead of being built into a Panzer tank, it’s in the body of a hot German model. It’s an actual point-and-shoot: It fits in the pocket of your skinny jeans, but delivers, for the most part, the same wow image quality.
I wish it was slightly more square with sharper angles for an even more classic aesthetic, but it’s still pretty classy looking. The texture, which makes for half of the appeal, makes it a little slippery. The control ring around the lens is like the perfect scarf that ties it altogether. And despite being a bantam-weight shooter, it feels more solid than most cameras its size.
Lord of the Ring
What makes the camera really work is that control ring wrapped around the lens. By default, when you turn it, it adjusts the main setting for each mode—aperture in aperture priority, shutter speed in shutter priority, you get the idea. Using the ring function button on top of the camera, you can set the ring to adjust almost whatever parameter you want though, like white balance, ISO, exposure, even specific zoom intervals.
Truthfully, using the dial never feels completely seamless, because of way you’re forced to hold the camera. As a result of its pint size, there’s no completely natural hand or finger posture for spinning the ring. But, the control it manages to put at your fingertips is remarkable: In manual mode, I had aperture mapped to the main ring, exposure set to the control ring on the back (which, like the G11, is a little too small to have a settings dpad stuffed in the center of it) and ISO speed mapped to the shortcut button. The only real issue with that setup is that the ISO setting interface lags behind your input occasionally, so you sometimes overshoot the ISO speed you wanted.
Just a Little More Hardware Talk
There’s no viewfinder, so you’re stuck using the screen exclusively. The LCD is a little bigger than the G11’s, at 3 inches, though it uses the same number of pixels and obviously doesn’t swivel out. It too is easily viewable in sunlight, though I found a more of a difference, exposure-wise, between what I thought I shot according to the display and what I later saw on my computer, than I noticed with the G11. Also, there’s no flash hot shoe, like you get with the G11.
The battery’s small, obviously, so your picture taking is capped at a little over 200 shots, according to Canon. My days of shooting didn’t contradict that, for better or for worse—I’d get to half battery after around 100 shots and a couple video clips.
Finally, the Photos (and Video)
Since it’s the same 10-megapixel image sensor as the G11, yes, you do get just about the same fantastic image quality, solid low-light performance (noise doesn’t start really kicking in til ISO 800, and even that’s totally usable for most stuff) and ability to shoot in RAW. The main difference is in the lens. The S90 has a faster lens that’ll shoot at F/2 wide open, meaning you rely less on that high ISO—up to 3200—to compensate for the lack of light. The oh-so-small price for this incredibly fast lens is that you lose a bit of zoom, since it goes out to 105mm, vs. the G11’s 140mm, but who cares? I can’t reiterate how big of a deal a lens like this is on this kind of point-and-shoot. That said, I seemed to get photos that were a touch less sharp than what I got on the G11.
Here’s a gallery of some stuff I shot, which you can compare to G11 sample photos and ISO tests (spoiler, they look great):
The video’s still 640×480, and still quite good too:
Buy If You Need a Tiny-But-Great Camera
I know, it’s $430, way more than most point-and-shoots cost in this day and age. But the amount of picture power this literally slips into your pocket is almost unbelievable: Outstanding low-light performance for a camera this size; a speedy lens; full control rings, plural; and yep, RAW. It’s the soul of what makes the $500 behemoth G11 great, packaged in a true point-and-shoot. You lose some power and some pro tools, like the swivel screen, a (shitty) viewfinder, faster burst shooting, hot shoe, some zoom and a custom mode or two, but you’re also shedding a ton of bulk, meaning you’ll actually take it everywhere. And the best camera’s always the one you have with you—for me, that’s this camera, which just happens to be an excellent one all by itself.
G11’s awesome image sensor plus a fastfastfast lens means awesome photos
Man, talk about awful timing. At least TomTom and Navigon were able to sell a few rounds of their pricey iPhone GPS application before Google went and ruined everyone’s day (at least in the GPS biz), and now that Google Maps Navigation is but an approval away from hitting iPhone users for free, we’ve got serious doubts about Telmap’s ability to market its newest product. Utilizing NAVTEQ maps and familiar shells like MapQuest Navigation (in the US) and Orange Maps (in France), the company seems quite proud of its newest routing solutions. Oh sure — there’s live traffic, turn-by-turn guidance, in-car and pedestrian modes, etc., but is anyone really doling out cash for a phone-based routing system right now with Google at the wheel? Exactly.
Remember that legal dealio with Apple that erupted after the Norwegian Consumer Council, Forbrukerrådet, read the iTunes EULA? Right, that toothless complaint that waffled on for years until it was finally rendered moot by Apple going DRM-free — long after Apple benefited from the iTunes-to-iPod lock-in. Well, it’s brewing again only this time the council has focused its meticulously crafted aluminum spectacles, often highlighted with vibrant reds or blues, upon Amazon’s practice of tying its content exclusively to the Kindle’s new international reader. According to a critique published by the Council’s boss, Hans Marius Graasvold, the fine print in the Kindle’s terms of service, “violated several provisions of Norwegian consumer protection law.” He takes exception with Amazon’s ability terminate the terms of service entirely should customers violate said terms. In other words, Amazon could deny you access to all your purchased books if you make an illegal copy of just one — unimaginable by brick-and-mortar standards where a Wal-mart could take your entire CD collection should you decide to rip a single disc. Graasvold’s also miffed at Amazon’s ability to change the agreement at any time without advanced notification. The Council does not currently have official support from the country’s Consumer Ombudsman as it did when it went after Apple. For the moment, the council says that it’s awaiting feedback from Amazon and Norwegian publishers before proceeding with what Graasvold calls, “an iTunes 2 case if we are not satisfied.” Good luck with that.
Unless you’re one of those nutjobs who pretends that it is Christmas every single day, you will need to disentangle your fairy-lights precisely once a year. For me, it’s a Christmas tradition, as much a part of the festivities as drinking heavily, arguing with my parents and returning my gifts to the store.
But now you will never have to deal with knots of green cable and plastic flowers again. For the paltry sum of $20 you can buy the Store’em, a motorized spool which will wind and dispense your holiday lights in a tangle-free and effortless manner. Think it’s pointless? Think again. Here’s a testimonial on the product page from happy owner Adam:
I’m amazed at how much time I have saved from having the Stor’em driver and spool set.
Amazed! To be fair, Adam was using the spindle to wind other cables in a care-free, devil-may-care fashion, so he may have saved more time than would a once-a-year user. Still not convinced? Here’s what another customer, Colin, has to say: “it was the best $20 I ever spent!” So impressed was Colin that he then went on and “bought more spools.”
It would seem that the Stor’em is the most amazing gadget since the iPhone, which you will remember was also called the “Jesus Phone”, a Christmas-related coincidence. And there is more! For those of you who still have the use of your hands, there is a motor-free version, for the low, low price of $11.50.
So, if you value your time at all (and you should, as you only get one run on this earth) then you should go out and buy one of these right now. Used annually, you should make back the time spent driving to the store in as little as ten or twenty years. Four AA batteries required.
Product page [No Light Mess. Thanks, Eric and Joe!]
LG's 15-inch OLED TV, which is set to go on sale in Korea by December.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET)
On the heels of announcing a 15-inch OLED display going on sale in Korea this December, LG predicts that prices for panels using the coveted technology will fall below …
We’re hearing that the PC version of this here software still beats out the Mac counterpart, but equality is slowly but surely becoming a reality. The main new feature over on the OS X side, however, is a good one: the ability to stream iPhone and iTunes media directly to your TV via your FiOS TV DVR. Fire up an iTunes playlist and watch the fun roll by on your home TV, and there’s even support for photo slideshows and the like. It’s available to download right now from the read link, and those still skeptical can catch a demonstration vid just past the break.
With Halloween just a few days away, it doesn’t hurt to get in the mood for the fall holiday with some pumpkin-colored gadgets. Here are five orange treats to go with your costume this weekend:
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
G11’s awesome image sensor plus a fastfastfast lens means awesome photos
Control ring can feel awkward
More battery life and 720p video would be nice
