Hasta La Gadget!

[CES 2014] It is official: the American flavor of the Sony XPERIA Z1 comes to T-Mobile under the XPERIA Z1s name. As you may have seen, the original Z1 was announced at IFA, and up until now, it wasn’t available through any U.S carriers. To change this, T-Mobile snapped an exclusive this XPERIA phone and the launch date (Jan 13 online sales, Jan 22 in-store sales) makes it convenient for XPERIA Z customers to switch to a Z1s through T-Mobile’s Jump program. (more…)

T-Mobile Sony XPERIA Z1s: Hands-On Review original content from Ubergizmo.

As I was about to publish my review about a month ago, the HP 11 Chromebook sale was put to an halt upon report of overheating charger. It was decided to wait until how this will affect the future of the device before putting the article online. At the core of the issue, there were “nine reports of chargers overheating and melting during use”. The recall affected 145,000 units. The charger was from a 3rd party, and not from HP, subcontracted by Google.

On the 12/17/2013, Google and HP officially started the charger recall/exchange program. In case the user did not follow the news, the ChromeOS was patched to notify the owner about the recall. A picture of the “new” and the “old” charger was displayed to the user to identify. There is an option to opt out. The charger would be sent first with a packing slip to return the recalled device.

That being said, I did not notice any overheating with the charger. I actually used it to replace my Samsung Note 3 charger. I would charge my note 3 at night and the HP chromebook during the day while I am out of the house. Using an infrared thermometer gun, the reading are; 68.4°F for the Pixel and 68.3°F for MBA and 109.6°F for the HP 11 charger, room temperature was 68.2°F. I am awaiting the replacement charger from Google and would update this review if needed.

The timing of this was very unfortunate for HP/Google. Although the charger issue was addressed, the Chromebook HP 11 is still showing as “out of stock” on the main vendors websites. Hopefully they will get back on the shelves, because, although the Chromebook HP 11 is not perfect, it is still a cutie. Let’s take a closer look. (more…)

HP 11 Chromebook Review original content from Ubergizmo.

Replay is a new application that allows iPhone owners to create automatically compelling videos using the photos and the video clips stored in the gallery.

When Jeff Boudier, co-founder, Stupeflix, the company behind Replay, showed me a demo a month ago, I was amazed by the results and the speed of the application: within seconds, I could watch a short video of his vacations with a vintage filter and a soundtrack, made from a few clips and photos selected  from his iPhone gallery. You can watch the demo in the video above.

Leveraging its technology that provides video capabilities for developers, Stupeflix and its team of imaging engineers, led by Nicolas Steegmann – Stupeflix CEO and cofounder, took advantage of the Apple A7 processor and its GPU computing capabilities to deliver Replay.

According to the company, on the iPhone 5s, it takes only one tenth of a second for Replay to process 50 photos and videos, perfectly edited and featuring a soundtrack. Although I did not measure the exact timing in our demo, I can tell that everything was done amazingly fast.

Basically, all your photos and videos are instantly edited into a movie leveraging the iPhone GPU, including music sync, video stabilized and trimmed to the best parts. Additionally, filters can be applied on the photos and videos, focus is made on detected faces, you have a choice of animated scenes and transitions and text effects.
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Replay for iOS Makes Cool Videos Automatically in Seconds original content from Ubergizmo.

David Rogan, CEO, Anybots with the new Anybots Q(X)

Last week I was invited to Polycom’s annual Holiday event where the Anybots Q(X) Virtual Presence was shown for the first time. We all remember Anybots cute QB robot that featured a very small display and 2 big “eyes” where the camera was hidden.

The new Q(X) is going away from the human-like shape and features a relatively austere form factor; however we can appreciate the large display that delivers a better telecommunication experience. Anybots partnered with Polycom to integrate its RealPresence Group 500 video conferencing solution in a metallic gray flat panel on wheels (see photo in the complete article, wheels are not visible).

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Polycom RealPresence in the new Anybots Q(X) Virtual Presence original content from Ubergizmo.

Back in October, Sony announced the Cyber-Shot RX10, a 24-200mm camera that had the particularity of featuring a lens with a fixed f2.8 aperture, regardless of how far you zoom. Inside, it shares most of its hardware with its famed RX100 older sibling which was built for ultra-compact low-light performance. When I previously covered the RX10, I imagined that it would be a great “do it all” camera since most people I know love having the flexibility of a long zoom.

Most high-powered zoom lenses aperture will get smaller as you zoom far away. This means that less light hit the sensor and of course, that has a big impact on noise and image quality. That’s why the RX10’s fixed f2.8 aperture is so great – you get all the long-zoom benefits, without the obvious drawbacks. I had an opportunity to put the theory to the test yesterday: here are some photos and video that I have captured with an RX10 loaner that I had on hand for a few hours yesterday. (more…)

Sony RX10 Photo and Video Samples original content from Ubergizmo.