Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on May 09, 2008 by CyberNet.

Can you imagine having 20 billion dollars plus in cash, just lying around? Microsoft for many years has been one company in the tech industry that always had at least that on hand. In fact, four years ago they had a whopping $64 billion dollars sitting around. The San Francisco Chronicle recently posted a really interesting article about Microsoft’s cash balance of $26.3 billion dollars, and how that gives them the title of biggest cash pile in the tech industry. They may have some company soon though, because another tech company is creeping up on them. Any guesses of who this might be?

If you guessed Apple, you guessed correctly. Apple’s cash balance has been mounting and recently they hit the $19.4 billion dollar amount. To help put into perspective the growth Apple has seen, it was just four years ago that they had about $5.5 billion dollars in cash at their disposal. A good chunk of that money that they now have is due to the success of the iPod and of course then the iPhone. That got us thinking about where Apple would be if they hadn’t developed and had so much success with the iPod.

You’ve probably heard the “Halo Effect” mentioned in regards to iPods over the last several years. It is used to describe the notion that people who buy iPods may eventually buy a Mac computer and so the sales of Macs are dependent on the success of the iPod. The sales results we’ve seen from Apple tend to show that there is at least some type of Halo Effect going on, and at least some of the millions of iPod owners choose to buy a Mac because of their satisfaction with the music player.

I guess what we’re getting at is that Apple is awfully lucky that the iPod was successful for them because if it turned out to be a flop, there’s absolutely no way that they would be creeping up on Microsoft in the amount of cash they have available. This puts Apple in a really great position because now they’ve got the money to fund and consider acquisitions to help boost their business even further. While they’ve got the money to spend, some have speculated that Apple won’t be doing much with it soon. Andy Hargreaves who covers Apple at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland says, “I don’t really expect them to do anything with it in the near term. I think that Steve Jobs’ experience with this company and the cycles that it’s been through has taught him to be very, very conservative, and save for the rainy day.”

For now there is no rainy day in site, and the piles of cash continue to mount in the tech industry…

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If you take photos with anything other than a little point and shoot, you will have, once in your life, lost a lens cap. Shortly afterwards, you would have found out that a simple plastic disk can be sold for almost $20 (or even $40).

This stung, you will be particularly pleased with this little hack from Benny Johansson. It’s a lens cap saver, and unlike the annoying commercial products which dangle the cap from a cord stuck to the camera body, this one is elegant, functional and free.

The holder consists of two parts. First, you cut a hook from an old shampoo bottle and slide it onto the camera’s neck-strap. Next, you drill a couple holes in the edge of the cap itself and thread through a short elastic cord. Now, when you take off the cap you can hang it by this little elastic loop. Benny has thoughtfully provided a PDF template so you can cut the hook to make a snug enough fit.

A further improvement can be made if you only ever use one lens, or have a fixed lens on the camera. You still hang the cap from the plastic hook, but the cord can be permanently attached twixt cap and camera as an extra safety measure.

We prefer the version without the “cute” animal faces, and as soon as I get home from the Wired office, where they won’t let me near the scissors, I shall be making a couple.

SkottiRotta Lens cap holder [Benvelo via DIY Photography]

Power plugs. You hate them, I’m obsessed with and fascinated by them, so here’s something for both of us. The Cute Cube not only looks great, it solves pretty much all the annoyances of a multi-socket adapter.

The cube has, naturally, six sockets, with the cable trailing unobtrusively from a corner. This alone is enough to make the Tetris-puzzle of modern gadget-plugging a lot easier, with all six plugs staying out of each other’s way. The (literal) twist, and the detail that probably won the prestigious Red Dot design award all on its own, is that the sockets swivel in their, uh, sockets. This means that those awkwardly shaped transformers can be spun away from each other instead of blocking an essential hole.

Good for home, to be sure, but even better on the road. The easiest way to power a lot of gadgets in a foreign country is a power strip, needing only one international adapter to hook it up. The Cute Cube is small enough to toss in a suitcase.

It appears that the Cube has yet to find a manufacturer, but when it does I shall buy one. It’s certainly a lot safer than my current (ahem) solution, which consists of chopping off the plug and pushing the bare wires into the outlet with matchsticks.

Cute Cube [Red Dot via Oh Gizmo!]

There’s a new camera category in town. It’s EVIL, and it’s going to kick your DSLR’s ass. EVIL stands for Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens, and is our favorite acronym for cameras like the Olympus Pen, the Lumix GF1 and the Samsung NX10. These small, mirrorless, finderless cameras can fit in a pocket and outperform bulky DSLRs. Here’s why your next camera will probably be EVIL.

They’re Small

DSLRs are bulky. Their design comes from the film days when the only way to see the exact image that would hit the film was to divert the light coming through the lens with a mirror and send it to a viewfinder. This mirror meant the body needed to be deep, and the lenses — further away from the film than those in a mirrorless rangefinder — were also bigger.

Now we can see what the sensor sees either on a screen, or through an electronic finder. With the mirror gone, the body can be a lot smaller, just like a compact digicam. This means you can carry it with you everywhere, fit it in a jacket pocket and be ready for *that* picture, wherever you are.

They Take Great Pictures

The trick with the new EVIL cams is that they have large sensors. In the case of the Samsung NX10, this sensor is the same size as you’d find in a DSLR, and the others use the Micro Four Thirds format, a sensor which is half the size of a 35mm frame, but a lot bigger than the pinkie-nail-sized sensor in a typical compact. This gives the high image quality and low-light sensitivity of a DSLR. And because they have large sensors, the depth of field is shallower, and you can throw a distracting background out of focus.

For most people, that is more than good enough.

You Can Change Lenses

Let’s be honest. If you’re not a pro, you probably bought your fancy DSLR, fixed on the kit zoom lens, and that was it. You probably spend 90 percent, if not all of your time, shooting with this on your camera.

With an EVIL camera, you can do this too. It’s more likely though, given the tiny pocket-sized lenses for these cameras, that you will actually carry them with you. Better still, with an adapter you can use all your current DSLR lenses on the newer, smaller body.

They’re Fast

Compacts have lost out to DSLRs by being slow. Slow to power up, slow to zoom and slow to actually respond to your trigger finger. EVIL cameras have fixed this, and are as responsive as any entry-level DSLR. Watch out which model you go for, though. The current generation still has some trouble focusing as fast as a bigger camera, although some models, like the Panasonic GF1, have this nailed.

They Don’t Scream “Look at Me”

With a smaller camera, you can blend in. With an EVIL camera, you can blend in and still get great shots. This combination of size and quality was the reason the Leica M series was the camera of choice for both street shooters and war reporters, from Henri Cartier Bresson to Sebastião Salgado. And because there is no mirror to flip, they’re quiet, too.

The Con

As a new category, the EVIL is still relatively expensive, and you’ll pay as much for a body and lens as you would for a prosumer level DSLR. For many, even pros, the size difference alone is enough to justify this. For everyone else, you could wait until the likes of Canon and Nikon inevitably enter this sector. Then prices will start to fall, and things will get really interesting.

Unless you have a specific use that these cameras can’t meet, or you need the very highest level of performance only a Canon 1D or Nikon D3 can bring, you have no reason to buy a DSLR. Instead, consider being EVIL. You might like it.

Photo: Jon Snyder

See Also:

• Panasonic Micro Four Thirds 'Rangefinder' With Leica Lenses
• Digital Pen
• CES 2010: Samsung Joins Rangefinder Fray With Large-Sensor NX10
• Hands-On With Panasonic's Leica-Lite GF1