Hasta La Gadget!

Nikon’s new telephoto zoom lens is huge, and has a price-tag to match. The AF-S Nikkor 200-400mm ƒ4G ED VR II will cost you $7,000, and if you need all its features, it could be worth every penny.

First, the traditional decoding of the name. AF-S refers to the internal, Silent-Wave auto-focus motor. The long zoom range of 200-400mm is what you get with a full frame camera. Put this monster on a DX body and it becomes a 300-600mm zoom, and keeps that constant, and pretty wide, ƒ4 maximum aperture. The “G” means that there is no aperture ring on lens. ED means “Extra-low Dispersion” glass, which cuts down internal reflection, and finally VRII is the “vibration reduction” which will give up to four extra stops of handheld shooting.

There’s more than that, though. Nikon has put in a 9-blade aperture diaphragm for better out-of-focus highlights, and managed to make the camera focus down to just over six feet throughout the zoom range, which with such a long lens is like focussing just in front of your nose.

There is also a new AF mode, called A/M. This ignores any manual tweaking of the focus-ring when set (you still get full manual and M/A, which lets you override AF with a touch).

Clearly aimed at the pro sports and wildlife shooter, $7,000 is a vast sum for a lens. I imagine there are a still a lot of excited people pulling out their credit cards today, though.

AF-S NIKKOR 200-400mm f/4G ED VR II [Nikon. Thanks, Geoff!]

TomTom has just outed its new flagship PND, the Go Live 1000, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the first of the company’s stable to offer a capacitive touchscreen. This comes mere days after Garmin updated its lineup with capacitive options. The 1000 is a little slimmer than its predecessors, but its major feature is “instant” route planning and re-planning once it has a satellite lock — the industry’s fastest. Achieved using a custom-built Broadcom GPS module, that capability is backed up by a 500MHz ARM11 CPU (yawn), 4GB of storage, 128MB of RAM, a new WebKit-based UI, and 12 months of free TomTom Live services. Beginning in June, this suite of services will be rolled out to 33 countries across Europe, featuring local information about petrol prices, services and weather, while its headline HD Traffic — which tracks congestion on secondary roads as well as motorways — and safety camera alert features will come to only 16 nations. It’s a decent year-long freebie to have and TomTom promises it’ll cost less than €50 ($67) per annum thereafter. That’s more reasonable than the previous $9.95 monthly cost, but still not price-competitive with Google and Nokia’s offerings. There’s also a SIM card slot, but don’t expect to be developing new modes of sidetalking, it’s most likely there purely to facilitate all those data transactions. Check out the new UI in the gallery below and expect the TomTom Go 1000 Live to show up in Europe some time this summer.

Continue reading TomTom Go Live 1000 to offer capacitive touchscreen, WebKit-based UI

TomTom Go Live 1000 to offer capacitive touchscreen, WebKit-based UI originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yves Béhar, the designer of the OLPC, has switched his sights to spectacles. Specifically, he has turned his talent for making cheap, easy to use gadgets to provide glasses for Mexican schoolchildren.

Working with Mexican company Augen, Béhar has set out to provide 400,000 pairs of specs a year to the 70% of kids that need glasses just to read the blackboard. These will be free, provided under the name See Well to Learn Better.

Like the OLPC, the glasses need to be tough and durable to survive the schoolyard, and still be cheap enough to give away. They also need to be cool: kids hate wearing glasses, and they hate dorky glasses even more. “Similar to the OLPC philosophy, I want to design products that are suited to the children’s specific needs, life and environment,” Béhar told Henrietta Thompson, writing for the Guardian.

Béhar solved this by splitting the specs on half horizontally. Not only does this mean that the lenses can be more easily inserted (the bridge is ultrasonically welded at the factory, and the ends are then screwed together), but it also means the kids get to pick colors for both halves. And yes, the trademark OLPC white-and-green is available.

The folks at Augen should also take a look at the OLPC Give 1 Get 1 campaign, which let people buy two OLPCs, one for themselves and one for a kid in a far-off land. I’d love a pair of these specs, and I’m sure they’d be a lot cheaper than the ones I have on right now. And if they’re cool enough for the kids…

US designer Yves Béhar’s DIY spectacles for Mexico schools [Guardian. Thanks, Henrietta!]

Photos: Fuse Project/Augen