Hasta La Gadget!

It’s July, there is no new iPhone, and the analysts are restless. This time last year, Apple had already announced and begun shipping the iPhone 4 — in fact, every single previous model has been announced in June, save for the first, which was unveiled in January 2007. So, now that the month has come and gone and WWDC with it, what are all of the tech publications out there to do? Make with the rumor stories, naturally — and over the past few weeks, they’ve been coming fast and furious.

DigiTimes has offered a fairly constant stream of sometimes dubious rumors surrounding the device from its stable of supplier contacts, and a recent article from The Wall Street Journal has reopened the floodgates. GigaOm has gone so far as to suggest that the latter may well be a controlled leak from Apple, and certainly it has reignited interest in the belated device.

There’s not a lot in the way consensus here, save for one key detail: Apple appears set to release a new iPhone. That much seems certain. After all, the iPhone remains the company’s biggest money maker, even in this post-iPad world. Last year, of course, we had a slightly better guide ahead of the launch, but this time out, for better or worse, no one at Cupertino has been considerate enough to leave the upcoming handset at a Redwood City bar after a night of partying, so let’s cut through the noise and and piece together a cohesive picture based on the wide assortment of rumors.

Continue reading iPhone 5 / 4S: the rumor roundup

iPhone 5 / 4S: the rumor roundup originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So you flew around the world for a photo assignment, camera bag packed full of high-end lenses, but forgot the DSLR on the kitchen counter. Not to worry! You never leave home without your iPhone 4 and its new must-have accessory: the iPhone SLR Mount. $190 $249 scores you one of these aluminum bad boys, eager to pair with your multi-thousand dollar Canon or Nikon optics, bringing “powerful depth of field” and manual focus to your smartphone’s itsy bitsy image sensor. You can reportedly use the new pricey mobile rig to capture photos with shallow depth of field, without the need to add one of those “unethical” $5 digital filter apps. The accessory is ready to ship, so you’re just 24 hours (and a couple hundred dollars) away from having this life-changing masterpiece sent straight to your door. As for us? We’re holding out a bit longer for the iPad version.

Update: The folks at Photojojo wrote in to let us know that the $190 price provided earlier today was incorrect — the iPhone 4 mount will actually set you back a cool $249.

iPhone 4 SLR Mount lets you shoot 5-megapixel photos with your $3,000 lens originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whoa, Nelly — this one’s not going to sit well with a certain sect. While the Chinese city of Chongqing has been planning this initiative for some time, we’re just now starting to understand the sheer magnitude of what’ll be built over the next two to three years. Cisco and HP — two names that are no doubt familiar to those reading this page — are apparently in cahoots with the nation in a way that overshoots prior expectations by some amount. According to figures gathered by The Wall Street Journal, a whopping half-million surveillance cameras are being shipped over to keep watch across the city, with the awkwardly-named Peaceful Chongqing project giving the government unprecedented views of its citizens.

Critics are wondering why Cisco and HP aren’t being held responsible for whatever China ends up doing with this equipment, but the loophole here is a fairly obvious one; while it’s definitely not kosher for US firms to ship fingerprinting equipment to China, shipping everyday technology like cameras isn’t taboo. Yet, anyway. As you’d expect, both Cisco and HP seem confident that it’s not their responsibility to pay attention to what happens to the devices they ship, and if it’s something you’d like to immerse yourself in, those links below are there to help.

500,000 surveillance cameras to oversee Chongqing, China originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jul 2011 11:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s no question that Canon and Nikon still dominate the interchangeable lens camera (ILC) market, but with Olympus, Panasonic, Sony, and now Pentax all launching compact, inexpensive, mirrorless models in recent years, the legacy manufacturers have some catching up to do. In an interview confirming the restoration of pre-quake production levels in Japan, Canon camera division head Masaya Maeda told Reuters that the company is “considering the technical aspects” of creating a mirrorless camera, following up by saying “we will launch an interesting product next year.” The comment doesn’t exactly make a mirrorless Canon a sure thing, but it’s as solid a commitment as we can expect for now.

One possible concern for Canon is that entry into the new ILC category would cannibalize the company’s higher-end point-and-shoot offerings, which likely offer higher margins. But if mirrorless models gain market share over traditional DSLRs and Canon doesn’t have its own cam to match, the company could find itself racing to catch up, rather than dominating the ILC category as it has done in the past. Competition from Canon isn’t likely to start a price war, since there isn’t much elasticity at this point, but it could put pressure on other manufacturers to push the limits with image quality, accessory selection, and perhaps even lead to a future lens standard — though we’re probably more likely to see a Pentax Q that can actually capture DSLR-quality images far before manufacturers decide to adopt a universal lens mount.

Canon restores camera production in Japan, hints at mirrorless model in 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jul 2011 11:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew instant coffee was good for something. The folks at Make just demoed a rather novel method for developing negatives from a roll of black and white film — you remember film, don’t you? Known as Caffenol, the process involves a smattering of household substances, including Vitamin C powder, instant coffee (caffeinated only), good ole H₂O, and Cascade. Of course, it’s not as simple as throwing this stuff in a slosh bucket with a roll of film and mixing it up, but it’s not that complicated, either. If you’re looking for something to do with those instant crystals, and still have a non-digital camera laying around, hop on past the break for a homebrew tutorial.

Continue reading Caffenol turns Folgers into DIY film developer — decaf won’t do (video)

Caffenol turns Folgers into DIY film developer — decaf won’t do (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jul 2011 04:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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