Hasta La Gadget!

Here’s a clue how popular smartphones have become as cameras: Apple’s iPhone 4 is quickly approaching the No. 1 spot to become the most-used camera on Flickr.

Nikon’s D90 DSLR camera is still Flickr king, but the iPhone isn’t far behind. The chart below (which includes only the cameras with the biggest shares) suggests the iPhone should surpass the D90 pretty soon. TechCrunch’s MG Siegler was first to make this observation.

That’s not to say general-purpose devices are killing the camera market. Worldwide still-camera sales increased 10 percent to 141 million units last year, according to research from IDC. Canon remains the world’s largest camera maker, and Sony is in a close second.

One thing contributing to the growth of handheld cameras is the advent of mirror-less cameras with bigger sensors and better, sometimes interchangeable, lenses — aka EVIL cameras. These cameras are still a relatively small part of the camera market, though.

The explanation is probably even simpler: Most dedicated cameras still have quality superior to most smartphone cameras, and people want their photos to look good. Plus, these cameras have things that a smartphone doesn’t, like a zoom lens and more-complex controls to change the appearance of photos.

The Flickr data more directly suggests that people aren’t carrying around cameras as much as they do their iPhones — which shouldn’t be a surprise, because which device would you rather keep in your pocket everywhere you go?

The smartphone’s impact on the video world is a bit more interesting. The iPhone has driven massive growth in mobile uploads on YouTube. When the iPhone 3GS released in 2009, YouTube saw mobile uploads jump exponentially each day.

Incidentally, Cisco just killed the Flip camcorder division last week. A few argue that Cisco made this decision solely because it no longer wanted to focus on consumer products. However, that’s a bit difficult to believe when you consider that smartphones shoot video that’s just as good, if not better, than a Flip. Plus, they have an internet connection to send videos straight to the web.

In the case of the Flip, Cisco didn’t adapt to the changing, increasingly interconnected world where people want to share videos and photos as fast as they create them. That left an opening that smartphone vendors are happy to fill.

However, camera vendors are making the right moves by focusing on quality images and a wider range of features to keep still cameras alive and well.

See Also:

• iPhone 3GS Driving 400-Percent Growth in YouTube Uploads
• Creepy Bug Gives Some iPhones Unwanted FaceTime
• Just How Bad Is the iPad 2 Camera?

Starting today the ESRB will hand out letter ratings to titles available on storefronts like Xbox Live Arcade, Nintendo Wii Shop, DSi Shop, and the PlayStation Network Store.

The world’s love affair with tablets may have been bubbling along under the surface for a while, but it really got started in earnest during CES 2010. Back in those wild days, you could see 15-inch jumbo screens, TV tuners, and even hybrid pseudo-laptops stalking the tablet area of your favorite trade show. ASUS was there too, of course, though it still believed in the upstart smartbook category — a modernized take on the netbook that relied on an ARM CPU and a mobile OS to extract more battery life out of a lighter, thinner device — and was busy showing off a seductively slim prototype of just such a machine. Alas, nothing came of that Neo concept, most likely because it was relying on Android 1.6 and a Tegra 2 system-on-chip that was then still months away from hitting the market.

Today, however, is a different day. The 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 is finally being produced in volume, Google has evolved Android to version 3.0, specifically targeting higher-resolution displays, and ASUS has abandoned the idea that a keyboard is crucial to mobile computing. No, wait, that last bit’s still there. The Eee Pad Transformer is a 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet very much in keeping with the current trend, but it also has an optional keyboard dock that turns it into a, you guessed it, instant smartbook. So, does that mean you’ll get two devices in one or has ASUS been overly ambitious and compromised too much? We got to grips with the £380 16GB WiFi-only model and its keyboard buddy (£430 when bought as a pair) in an effort to find out. Answers await just past the break.

Continue reading ASUS Eee Pad Transformer (UK edition) review

ASUS Eee Pad Transformer (UK edition) review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s plenty of folks that will sell you a so-called “consolized” Neo Geo MVS arcade system, but you won’t find many quite as impressive as this bit of kit from Analogue Interactive. Crafted from 100 percent real walnut, the console boasts a seamless design without any visible screws or nails, all the audio / video outputs you could want (for a Neo Geo, that is), and even some working dust flaps. Of course, it does come at a bit of a premium price — but $649 is actually the exact same price that SNK’s original Neo Geo AES home console sold for back in the day, and it was only made out of plastic. Check out the gallery below for a closer look, and hit up the source link below to get your order in if you like what you see — the first units are expected to ship early next month.

Analogue Interactive crafts a Neo Geo MVS from walnut, yours for $649 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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That fancy new Toshiba E305 we checked out back in January is up for pre-order now, and it’s brought along a friend from Sony (the VPCSC1AFM/S) to join the Best Buy-exclusive Blue Label party. In terms of specs the two machines are practically identical — both boast a 2.3GHz Core i5-2410M, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hybrid hard disk, a Blu-ray drive, WiDi (and an adapter for your TV from Netgear), and a WiMAX radio. The big differences between the two PCs are price and size, with the 14-inch Toshiba weighing in just under 5 pounds and costing $900, while the Sony squeezes in under the 4-pound mark for $950. Considering the wealth of extras, including a year of Kaspersky anti-virus, 90 days of Geek Squad support, and an extended two-year warranty, the Blue Label machines are actually a pretty good bang for your buck and cost about $100 less than comparably equipped systems from their respective makers. If you don’t care about things like Blu-ray or WiMAX, and distrust the Geek Squad though, you could save yourself some cash by skipping on these pre-configured models and going with a customized rig from Sony or Toshiba directly. PR after the break.

Continue reading Best Buy slaps Blue Label on Sony and Toshiba laptops, packed to the exhaust vents with extras

Best Buy slaps Blue Label on Sony and Toshiba laptops, packed to the exhaust vents with extras originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Apr 2011 13:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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