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The Sweet 35 is the first Lensbaby to have an adjustable aperture diaphragm

Lensbabies lenses are just about the most fun you can have with your camera with your clothes on. Right up until you come to change the aperture, that is. The new Sweet 35 optic drops into your existing Lensbaby and adds a proper, adjustable diaphragm to the distortion-mongering lens.

Lensbaby lenses are low-fi optics which creatively blur all but a sharp sweet-spot of your photo. They do this with a pivoting front element which can be twisted around by hand, moving that sweet-spot to anywhere in the frame. The effect is unpredictable, analog and fun. I have a few, and I love them.

But to change the aperture you need to dig out a little case containing rubbery, magnetic rings. You then use a magnetic tool to remove the ring from the lens and replace it with one of a different diameter. It is, in short, a real pain. And because the aperture affects not just exposure and depth-of-field but also the size of the sweet-spot, you would — ideally — want to change the aperture often.

The Sweet 35 comes to the rescue. Like other Lensbaby optics, it drops into the Composer, Scout, Muse, and Control Freak lens bodies. Unlike other optics, it has a manual aperture dial which controls the 12-blade diaphragm, from ƒ2.5-ƒ22. The lens is a four element-design and
has, as you may have guessed, a 35mm focal length.

Sweet 35 product page [Lensbaby]

See Also:

• Lensbaby Tilt Transformer Marries Nikon Lenses to Micro Four …
• Lensbaby System Bag Keeps All Your Lenses in One Basket
• Hands-On With Lensbaby Fisheye and Soft-Focus Optics
• Scout: The Lensbaby That Doesn't Bend
• Review: Lensbaby Composer Lets You Art Up Images Sans Photoshop …

Good news for the Bigfoot faithful — the bandwidth management technology that’s been making your desktop gaming experience smoother for years is just about ready for the laptop sector. When we spoke with the company’s leadership back at Computex, they hinted strongly that infiltrating the mobile gaming space was a top priority, and it seems as if the stars have finally aligned for that to happen. The company’s new Killer Wireless-N 1103 and 1102 half-size mini-PCIe adapters are suited for use in pretty much any laptop on the market, with the primary difference between two being available streams: the former utilizes three-stream MIMO for data rates as high as 450Mbps, while the latter relies on a two-stream MIMO setup capable of pushing 300Mbps. Both units will have Advanced Stream Detect and Visual Bandwidth Control, which should make your wireless gaming and videocall sessions smoother, more reliable and more predictable, regardless of what the network situation is. We’re still waiting in tense anticipation for who Bigfoot plans to partner with here, but we’re guessing that the gaming mainstays will be all over this in no time flat. Keep it locked for more as we get it.

Update: Looks like Bigfoot has come clean with its partner lineup. Killer Wireless-N adapters will be introduced this month inside gaming and media notebook PCs from leading vendors including AVA Direct, CyberPower, iBuyPower, Maingear, Origin PC, Sager, The V-Machine, Velocity Micro and others.

Continue reading Bigfoot brings Killer bandwidth management to laptops via Wireless N module

Bigfoot brings Killer bandwidth management to laptops via Wireless N module originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IDisplay turns you Android tablet into a monitor for you Mac or PC

IDisplay, the not-so-well loved iOS app to turn a tablet or phone into a secondary display, has come to Android. Now, with this app and an Android tablet or phone (v2.1 or better), you can extend your display.

It works like this. By the app from the Android Market, and grab the companion app for your Mac or PC. Install both, and fire them up. Your computer should show up on the tablet. Just tap it and you’re done. The tablet’s screen will turn into a tiny external display for your desktop or laptop.

You can either mirror the entire display, or choose to extend it and place small, oft-used windows like Twitter or your notifiers off to one side.

The reviews of the iOS version on the App Store are mixed — some love it, some can’t even get it to work, or so they say. I use Air Display or DisplayPad on my iPad, and they’re great for blogging with a laptop at something like CES, especially if you are used to working with a bigger screen. IDisplay costs $5, and is available now.

iDisplay product page [Shape Services]

See Also:

• App Turns iPad into Second Monitor for Mac
• 10 Stellar iPad Apps That Will Blow You Away

Arduino and iPhone-based Piggy Bank by Wang Chao, Maggie Kuo and Jordi Parra

This little piggy bank is an electronic monster whose wild mood swings can only be appeased by a credit card. Yes, this might sound just like the behavior of trophy wife of a Hollywood star, but it is in fact a rather sweet project executed by students at the Umeå Institute of Design in Sweden.

The Piggy Bank gets agitated when it detects nearby people, or if it is moved. Its eyes flicker into life, looking much like a sad puppy, and to “feed” it you slot in a credit card. Money is deducted and stored in a savings account. Sated, the little piggy goes back to sleep.

The project, by Wang Chao, Maggie Kuo and Jordi Parra, was built in just two days. The controller is an Arduino, and the case is a beautiful laser-cut wooden box. To keep up with time constraints, the display inside is an old iPhone. When the accelerometers detect movement, the box wakes up, and the iPhone’s screen displays mood-appropriate googly-eyes. When the card is inserted, the Arduino sends the information via Bluetooth to a nearby computer, which in turn sends data back over Wi-Fi.

Is it practical? Hell no. Is it a fun way to save some money in a soulless, cashless world? Maybe. And is it a lot more lucrative than its spiritual predecessor, the Tamagotchi? Yes. Yes it is.

Piggy bank [Zenona via Oh Gizmo]

See Also:

• Why Arduino Is a Hit With Hardware Hackers
• Just What Is An Arduino, And Why Do you Want One?
• DIYers Get a Treat With Top 40 Arduino Projects
• No Change? Buy Candy With PayPal, Your Phone and Twitter
• Can Your Daughter Do This? Super-Awesome Sylvia's Super-Simple …








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Panasonic has decided to discontinue development of its audacious Jungle portable gaming console, citing “changes in the market and in our own strategic direction” as the reasons. If we had to guess, we’d say those market changes mostly relate to Sony announcing the utterly spectacular NGP, whose release probably coincided too closely with what Panasonic had on its Jungle roadmap, and so the latter company decided to cut its losses and run home. Panasonic also engaged in some early testing with US consumers late last year, which now seems likely to have born unsatisfactory results. It’s a shame, we were sincerely looking forward to another competitor in the portable gaming arena, but we suppose it’s better for a bad product to never see the light of day than to depress us all with its woefulness.

Panasonic abandons Jungle portable gaming project, probably scared off by the NGP originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 06:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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