Hasta La Gadget!

Sony’s panoramic sweep feature already works surprisingly well, giving you great panoramas just by hitting the shutter and swooshing the camera across the scene before you. Now, with a firmware update, the brand-new mirrorless NEX cameras will do the same, only in 3D.

The firmware update is available for the NEX3 and NEX5 cameras, and also brings faster startup times in low light, a better 2D pano-sweep and “decreased power drain when the camera is switched off” (which I assume means that a Sony engineer looked up the word “off” in a dictionary).

But the exciting bit is the 3D panorama function, which will let you view the photos in 3D on a 3D Bravia TV, or any other 3D-capable set. How does it work? Sony fails to enlighten us, but it’s pretty easy to work out. Normal stereoscopic photos are taken by combining two images, usually snapped by two lenses and viewed by separate eyes. Sony’s cameras have just one lens, so some digital trickery is required.

When shooting 2D panoramas, the camera fires off a series of frames as you sweep the camera over the scene. To add another dimension, the camera most likely uses the camera’s accelerometer combined with image data taken from different angles (in the frames you have just shot) to work out what the eyes would see from different points. These can then generate a 3D image.

We’ll be interested to see just how good the effect is, but if it is anything like as seamless as the 2D panoramas, then this could prove to be more than just a gimmick. It is also free, if you have the camera (and a 3DTV). Available now.

Sony NEX 3D firmware update [Sony]

3D update for Sony’s NEX-5/NEX-3 cameras Free firmware adds 3D Sweep Panorama shooting [Sony]

See Also:

• Sony's NEX Mirrorless Cameras Are the Smallest in the World …
• Lens Adapters Put Leica, Nikon, Canon Lenses on Sony NEX
• Sony Puts NEX SLR Sensor in Camcorder

Photo: piszkosfreddy/Flickr

A rambling Computerworld report from Cisco’s Live! event is bringing us news of even more goodies, beyond the business and home tablets already revealed. In an interview with Marthin De Beer, Senior VP of Cisco’s Emerging Technologies Group, De Beer strongly hints at a WiFi enabled Flip Video camera by the end of 2010. While he didn’t say it in so many words, he did say, “We didn’t buy Flip to have it be only a video recorder,” adding, “I look forward to Christmas,” when asked about a possible timeline. That seems clear enough.

The conversation then gets muddied when De Beer begins discussing video as a “pervasive play” for Cisco, something that will “ultimately span across everything we do.” And in a bid to interoperate with all devices, including Apple’s new handset and certainly future iOS devices, De Beer said, “We would absolutely love to integrate with FaceTime.” When, is the question left unanswered. Until then Cisco plans to introduce a mobile Movi iPhone app to the App Store that ties back into Cisco’s Tandberg SIP-based video conferencing solution. Now, maybe it’s a stretch, but with Cisco slowly creeping into the consumer space, it’s hard not to take away a sense that it will be introducing software and devices interoperable with its Silicon Valley neighbor’s FaceTime solution in the not too distant future. Hit the source to read the interview in full.

Cisco suggests WiFi Flip Video camera by Christmas, wants to integrate products with Apple’s FaceTime originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Jul 2010 05:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Was walking through Harajuku and found this great branded vending machine in front of the Toni&Guy salon.

The hair products inside are sold in sets for 2000 JPY ($22) if you feel like upgrading from your canned coffee.

Amazon has added a new, 50% higher-contrast screen to its Kindle DX and at the same time dropped the price to $380. It has also changed color to what Amazon is calling “graphite”, but which the rest of us will call black.

The Kindle DX was clearly growing to be a white elephant. It was versized for most purposes, and overpriced for all at $490: for just $10 more you can buy an iPad.

And the iPad clearly echoes throughout the product pages for the new DX. Take these rather defensive examples:

Free 3G Wireless. No monthly payments, no annual contracts

Read in Sunlight with No Glare

System requirements: None, because it doesn’t require a computer

The new DX also gets the recent software update applied to other Kindles, bringing PDF pan and zoom, new fonts, collections and the possibly lame social features, which let you share passages and Tweet from the Kindle. Web browsing, though, remains in the “experimental” category.

This new Kindle and the price drop for the smaller Kindle are making these e-readers where they should be: cheap, one-trick devices that make their money from book sales. I loved my old Kindle until the screen died, and e-readers, with their light-friendly screens, are a lot better for reading books than an iPad or cellphone. That also do a hell of a lot less, so they need to be cheap. Good work, Amazon.

Say Hello to the Newest Kindle DX [Amazon]

See Also:

• Amazon Cuts Price of the Kindle
• Amazon.com Kindle DX
• Could a $50 'Paperback' Kindle Beat the iPad?
• Hands-On: Kindle DX Is a Pricey Pleasure — Despite Many Flaws …
• Amazon Kindle DX International: Too Late?

The Roadster electric sports car from the now publicly traded Tesla Motors receives a few aesthetic revisions and cabin technology upgrades. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20009359-48.html” class=”origPostedBlog”The Car Tech blog/a/p