Amazon Debuts Fire TV Streaming Box to Rival Roku and Xbox

At an event in New York City today, Amazon showed off a new streaming set-top box, Amazon Fire TV for $99.



Text Smarter With This All-Knowing App

A new iOS messaging app called Emu can tell when you’re talking about something actionable, so that it can facilitate that task and minimize the number of text messages you have to send to coordinate plans.



Three Simple Tricks to Make Your Chromebook More Like a Real Laptop

After a few weeks of using a bare-bones 13-inch Toshiba Chromebook as my primary laptop, I found it isn’t hard to achieve pretty much everything a casual user would do on a traditional desktop or a laptop.



Bundled Cable Channels Are Here to Stay — And That’s a Good Thing

Bundling is hardly unique to the entertainment industry, nor is it solely a “made in America” phenomenon. There’s a reason for that: Bundling benefits consumers and vendors in more ways than one.



You Can Nab This Gorgeous 4K Monitor for Under a Grand

If it’s time to upgrade the display in your office, Samsung has a sweet 4K set that you can nab for under a grand.



Dismantle Any Smartphone With This Handy iFixit Kit

If you want to do a simple smartphone fix yourself, it’s nigh on impossible if you can’t properly open the device and remove screwed down parts. Luckily, the folks over at iFixit have made the difficult-to-find tools they use for their famous teardowns available to the masses.



Always Know How Far You Are From Home With Google Now

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10 Years On, Gmail Has Transformed the Web as We Know It

Google famously publicizes gag products on April Fool’s Day. Remember 8-bit maps? YouTube DVDs? But despite a release date of April 1, 2004, its webmail service was no joke. Google’s simple, browser-based inbox introduced to the mainstream several ideas that have become so commonplace over the intervening decade, they practically define modern computing as we know it.



An Everything-Proof Pocket Camera Packed With Premium Features

Olympus Stylus Tough TG-3 Olympus Stylus Tough TG-3 Olympus Stylus Tough TG-3 Olympus Stylus Tough TG-3 Olympus Stylus Tough TG-3

Breaking news: The point-and-shoot camera market has seen better days. Smartphones are eating their lunch and going back for seconds and thirds. But they’re not dead, and a few things have helped compact cameras weather the smartphone revolution–and they involve situations in which you’d think twice about using your mobile device to take pictures.

For example, smartphones generally don’t have optical-zoom lenses (with one exception), big sensors, or extensive manual controls. And they certainly don’t have everything-proof bodies. You’d be a bit nuts to take your average smartphone snorkeling or into the thick of a haboob to snap a few shots. It’d risk the hub of your entire mobile existence.

The problem is, outside of pricey weather-sealed interchangeable-lens models, most rugged point-and-shoots are basic, boring compact cameras wrapped in resilient shells. But Olympus has straddled the line between “premium compact” and “rugged camera” for a few years now with its well-equipped Stylus Tough TG iHS lineup.

Like its predecessors, the new Tough TG-3’s solid hardware starts with an F2.0 wide-angle lens and a 4X-optical-zoom range (25mm to 100mm) with mechanical image stabilization. It doesn’t have full manual exposure controls, but it does have an aperture-priority mode in addition to panorama, time-lapse, and an extensive array of well-implemented art filters. You can pair it with an iPhone or Android phone via Wi-Fi and use your smartphone as a remote viewfinder and shutter release. Unfortunately, those remote-control Wi-Fi features will only work on dry land, so you’ll need to take handheld shots of that shark.

It’s built as much for butterfingers as scuba divers, with a waterproof rating to 50 feet, shockproofing rated to withstand drops of up to 7 feet, and crushproofing rated to withstand 220 pounds of force. It’s also dustproof and freezeproof, and it has on-board instruments including a compass, GPS, a manometer to gauge underwater depth, and an altimeter.

Unlike most rugged cameras, this one seems like it might actually be practical for everyday use. Along with its faster-than-most F2.0 lens, aperture-priority mode, and Wi-Fi capabilities, the TG-3 has an interesting take on a focus-bracketing mode. Called “Focus Stacking,” the camera snaps 8 images in rapid succession at different focal lengths. The camera is able to blend the bracketed images together as a single, completely-in-focus image at a wider aperture than most deep depth-of-field shots, and it also lets the user select one image from the sequence to use — sort of like a more-manual Lytro.

Available in June, the Olympus Stylus Tough TG-3 will cost $350. The camera will also have some unique accessories available for it, including an LED ring light that’s built to enhance the camera’s “Microscope” macro-photography mode, as well as fisheye and telephoto lens converters.