Hasta La Gadget!

Sony announced the successor to its NEX-3 digital camera earlier this week, so we decided to take a post-E3 road trip down to the electronics maker’s US headquarters in San Diego to check out the $599 NEX-C3 for ourselves. We’ll analyze the new sensor’s image quality in a full review before the camera hits stores later this summer, but from our initial impressions, the new cam appears to offer fairly minor tweaks compared to its predecessor. It’s incredibly small for a camera with an APS-C sensor — perhaps even awkwardly so, when paired with the comparatively massive 18-55mm kit lens or Sony’s enormous 18-200mm optic — but not small enough to be any less functional than the previous iteration. Like the NEX-3, the camera was designed to be held by resting the lens on your left palm, rather than by the grip, so size isn’t likely to be an issue. Cosmetic changes include a magnesium alloy top panel, front microphone positioning, and a more efficient display hinge, which helped reduce the camera’s thickness. We’ll be posting a full review in several weeks, but jump past the break for more observations, and a hands-on video from Sony HQ, shot with the NEX-C3.

Continue reading Sony NEX-C3 hands-on (video)

Sony NEX-C3 hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 11 Jun 2011 13:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The folks at 4/3 Rumors believe they’ve spotted Panasonic’s successor to the compact Micro Four Thirds GF2 — the aptly named GF3. The site’s eagle-eyed camera fiends noticed an unfamiliar digicam in a promo video (since removed from YouTube) that sports an interchangeable lens and is smaller than a DSLR. The design of the camera is somewhat similar to the GF2, though it sports a more pronounced hump and a more modern look. Rumors have suggested that the GF3 would lose the hot shoe, which this glossy-white mystery device clearly lacks, and borrow the 16-megapixel image sensor from the G3. While you wait for Panasonic to announce its tiny new hobbyist shooter, which is expected to happen on June 13th, enjoy another pair of pics after the break.

Continue reading Panasonic GF3 spied by Micro Four Thirds enthusiasts in YouTube vid?

Panasonic GF3 spied by Micro Four Thirds enthusiasts in YouTube vid? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Jun 2011 11:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While flying cars are still a pipe dream, other technologies are quickly transitioning from the stuff of sci-fi movies into the very tangible realm of reality. This was definitely the case at the Qualcomm booth here at Computex where we got to experience two interesting new technologies — zero shutter lag and the ultrasonic pen. What if when you pressed the shutter button on your phone the camera captured 2 frames before, one frame during, and 2 frames after that instant? That’s the idea behind Scalado’s zero shutter lag, which speeds up the process of taking pictures on a phone by letting the camera continuously sample images and allowing the user to create a composite shot from the content available in up to 5 frames.

Also on display was Qualcomm’s ultrasonic pen that we already played with at MWC. By using an ultrasonic transducer attached to a pen and a phone with 3 microphones (like the MSM8660 Mobile Development Platform), the ultrasonic signal can be triangulated to determine the location of the pen. Once calibrated, the phone is able to accurately capture handwriting either on the screen itself or on a standard sheet of paper up to 30cm away. We noticed that accuracy and distance appear to have improved since February — at this pace, perhaps we’ll all have flying cars soon after all? Check out the gallery and hit the break for our hands-on video.

Continue reading Qualcomm takes sci-fi one step closer to reality at Computex 2011 (video)

Qualcomm takes sci-fi one step closer to reality at Computex 2011 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Jun 2011 02:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look closely at that photo above. Those, friends, are digital cameras from Samsung. That’s right, even that boxy one that looks quite a bit like an old-school medium format film shooter. This photo was quietly inserted into a blog post from Sammy about lens design, without so much as a caption to clarify what our curious eyes were seeing. Might this be a future model meant to compete in the highest-ends of the digital camera market? Or is it something cooked up in the lab and abandoned for a more practical and mainstream design? There was a rumor kicking around last summer that Samsung was working on a medium format CMOS sensor and this could be a test rig for just such a slice of silicon. Whatever it is, we’re intrigued and we’ll be keeping an ear out for more info on what the Korean company has brewing.

Is this Samsung’s first medium format digital camera? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 May 2011 15:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We have some sad news to share with you today: Willard Boyle, the man who created the imaging technology behind everything from digital cameras to barcode scanners, has died at the age of 86. In 2009, Boyle shared a Nobel Prize in physics for inventing the CCD, which allowed people to capture images in digital format for the first time. It all began way back in 1969, when Boyle and his future co-Laureate, George E. Smith, started laying the groundwork for the CCD while working at Bell Laboratories. Building off of Einstein’s photoelectric effect, the two eventually came up with a way to locate and quantify the electrons that are knocked out of orbit every time light strikes silicon. Boyle and Smith used this technology to create their own digital camera in 1970, as well as a TV camera in 1975. Prior to his groundbreaking invention, Boyle spent two years working for NASA’s Apollo program and helped develop both the ruby laser and the semiconductor injection laser. The last three decades of Boyle’s life were spent in Wallace, Canada, where he grew up and, on May 7th, passed away after battling kidney disease. He’s survived by his wife, three children and an indelible legacy.

Willard Boyle, man who revolutionized digital imaging, dies at 86 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 May 2011 15:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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