Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve yet to see concrete proof that Apple’s portable media players will ship with a camera, but the new iPhone OS 4.0 beta shows Cupertino’s at least considering the notion for the iPod touch and even the iPad. It seems AT&T tethering wasn’t the only thing hidden in iPhone OS 4.0 beta 4 — 9to5Mac found a variety of telltale references to an a flash when pouring through the update’s source code. Does that mean that the iDevices will actually get cameras, let alone supporting light fixtures? It’s too early to tell… but we did spot an LED flash on that early iPhone HD, and a recent Vietnamese leak proves that Apple at least prototyped an iPod touch with a camera — though no flash, sadly — as well. Is Apple simply updating their error messages, or is there something to this? You make the call.

iPhone OS 4.0 beta 4 hints at LED flash, camera for iPad, iPod, iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 May 2010 15:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Canon’s Rebel T2i is an incredible camera—everything a first DSLR should be. It takes fantastic photos (and, crucially, video) for the price, it’s easy to use, and perhaps most importantly, it’s a camera you can grow with. More »

Those crazy reporters at the Vietnamese site Tinhte have gotten yet another Apple hardware scoop. After showing us the upcoming 4G iPhone and then the new MacBook, they now have an iPod Touch with a camera.

The device is the real deal, as far as we can see from the wealth of pictures and a rather comprehensive video. When connected to iTunes, it reports itself as running iPhone OS 3.1, but as you can see, it clearly boots into the factory testing software. You can see, though, that the camera works.

Could this be the next-generation iPod Touch, or is it just a prototype left over from last year, when we fully expected to see a model with a camera? It seems odd that Apple would make no exterior changes apart from a hole for the camera lens to peek through. This would leave the case design almost identical for the third year in a row.

The unit is marked “DVT-1″. DVT, according to Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, stands for “design verification test” and is applied to hardware that is almost ready to manufacture.

My guess is that this is a leftover unit from last year. I’m expecting a new iPod Touch with a squarer form-factor similar to that of the new iPhone. Then again, Apple could just add a camera and keep rolling these things out for another year. That $200 entry-level price is pretty aggressive, and running the same production line for a year longer is probably a lot cheaper for Apple. The video is embedded below.

Trên tay iPod Touch có camera [Tinhte]

See Also:

• Video: 4th-Gen iPhone 'Found' in Vietnam, Contains A4 iPad Chip …
• New, Faster, Unreleased MacBook Shows up in Vietnam

Polaroid has one of the world’s most iconic brands: The self-developing snapshots, with their classic white borders, are nearly as recognizable as the red Coca-Cola logo, the Campbell’s soup can or the Burberry plaid.

The company’s cameras delivered instant visual gratification long before digital cameras arrived on the scene, making them an early photographic sensation.

But Polaroid’s fortunes have waned. The company, which was founded in 1937, has declared bankruptcy twice and was sold to two different buyers. Its assets have long been dispersed, and its factories were shut down. Polaroid even announced in 2008 that it would stop making its instant film, prompting some enthusiasts to create their own Polaroid-compatible film packs.

Now a company called PLR IP Holdings has rights to the Polaroid brand and has said it will revive some iconic Polaroid cameras. The company recently introduced a new camera, the Polaroid PIC-300.

Last month, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based MIT Museum announced that PLR Holdings has donated a massive collection from Polaroid’s archives.

The archive has some fascinating objects. There are boxes of rare Polarized glasses dating from the 1939 World’s Fair, original newsprint sketches by Polaroid founder Edwin Land, a historic bellows camera the size of a filing cabinet and the SX-70 cameras that defined the instant-photography era.

Overall, the collection has more than 1,800 boxes containing 10,000 items.

“For anyone interested in science, technology, art or consumer culture, this is an unprecedented opportunity to look at a series of products and watch their design unfold from every aspect,” says Deborah Douglas, curator of the collection at the MIT Museum.

Polaroid is unusual among American companies in that it has extensively documented its products and maintained archives of its work, says Douglas.

“This is one of the top five company collections out there, along with IBM, Bell Labs, DuPont and Boeing,” she says.

It’s out, Samsung’s 10 megapixel EX1 (aka, TL500) with 3-inch articulating AMOLED display was just pushed out for retail in its Korean homeland. For 599,000KRW or about $400, you get a F1.8 24mm ultra-wide lens, 1/1.7-inch CCD, refined DRIMeIII imaging processor, dual image stabilization, and ISO 3200 max sensitivity (at full resolution) that should combine to deliver decent shots (for a compact) in low-light conditions without using a flash. As Samsung’s flagship compact it also supports RAW with shutter‑priority, aperture‑priority and full-manual shooting modes. Unfortunately, H.264 video is limited to 640×480 pixels at 30fps. Fortunately, an optional optical viewfinder can be fitted to the hot shoe in case the AMOLED display fails to hold up under direct sunlight — a very real possibility since there’s no mention of Samsung’s “Super AMOLED” anywhere in the press release. Can’t wait to see the reviews on this pup.

Samsung’s EX1 / TL500 flagship compact articulates ‘release’ in Korean originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 05:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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