Amid Intel’s recent catalog of problems is a pretty significant firmware update for the X25-M SSDs, which went rogue and started bricking drives for the sheer bloody-minded enjoyment of it. After promptly pulling the software, the chip giant set straight to work — or so we presume — and has today finally managed to replicate the fatal circumstances that may lead to your SSD’s untimely demise. That’s not to say the problem’s been fixed, and there’s no word yet on when the cleaned up patch will be back out for consumption, but at least we’re a step closer to realizing those TRIM-related speed boosts. So, are you growing tired of Intel’s suicidal firmware updates, or should we consider these mere bumps on the road to superfast SSD awesomeness?
Good old Samsung and its obsession with thinness. After finally letting its 30nm 32Gb NAND chips out of the bag in May, the Korean memory maker has now successfully halved the thickness of its octa-die memory package to a shockingly thin 0.6mm (or 0.02 inches). The new stacks will start out at a 32GB size, though the real benefits are likelier to be felt down the line when the ability to pack bits more densely pays off in even higher storage capacities. Cellphones, media players and digital cameras will inevitably take the lion’s share, but we’re hopeful — eternal optimists that we are — that this could accelerate the decline of SSD prices to a borderline affordable level. Intel and Micron promised us as much, how about Samsung delivering it?
Adobe’s seemingly triedeverything in its fight to get Apple to tear down enough development barriers to get Flash ported to the iPhone, culminating in a native compilation option in CS5 that… well, really doesn’t solve much of anything. So far, nothing’s worked. What’s next? Get the masses fired up with some old-fashioned propaganda and let ’em riot down at One Infinite Loop, of course! Visiting Adobe’s Flash download page from an iPhone now shows a pretty tersely-worded message informing the user that they’re getting short-changed simply by Apple’s refusal to budge, so yeah, if you hear an occasional cry of “this is outrageous, I’m writing Apple immediately!” while sitting at an airport gate or a coffee shop, you can safely guess what just happened.
Underwater photography is tough, and, when you’re dealing with something less than Caribbean-clear blue seas, finding the right lighting can be near-impossible. Fujifilm‘s Remora looks to make things a little easier, offering a 60 degree beam of light with a guide number of 20, so it’s bright enough even for nighttime cuttlefish documentaries but can be dimmed to save the retinas of sensitive cephalopods. Four AA batteries give you 240 flashes at a depth of up to 180 feet, but at £229 (about $370) only the most serious rebreathers need apply.
Specializing in PCI Express-mounted flash storage, Fusion-io has managed to not only survive in these tough economic times, but garner additional investments from some clearly impressed onlookers. Loathe to be left out of the loop, Samsung — the world’s biggest NAND flash manufacturer and also Fusion-io’s chief supplier — has thrown some cash at the young startup company, and declared that the pair are now officially dating. Or, in their parlance, they’ve agreed to “jointly evaluate technology for new SSD applications.” Samsung won’t have any board level influence, but providing a reliable supply chain and the clout of its name should ensure that Fusion-io is around long enough for us to eventually be able to afford an ioDrive.
Want a “high-quality” machine that represents the “best of the best in laptops?” Microsoft’s got your back with its all-new PC Scout, a Flash-based laptop recommendation engine whose delivery is unfortunately more than a little reminiscent of those misguided Windows 7 launch party promos. Ah well, should you successfully navigate your way past bad jokes about space-cats and online dating, and on to the Selection section, you’ll find a thoroughly decent laptop comparison tool — with sliders for price and features narrowing or expanding your available choice in real time. With future plans to expand it to cover desktop hardware as well, Microsoft is making a commendable and seemingly rather useful effort to aid its users in picking out a new machine. Kudos for that, now how about hiring some real actors for a change?
SanDisk was busy trumpeting the benefits of X4 technology way back in February, and now the company’s tooting its own horn once more by shipping the planet’s first memory cards based on the new tech. For those who’ve forgotten, X4 can hold four bits of data in each memory cell, which is twice as many as the cells in traditional MLC NAND memory chips. In theory, this stuff will allow for bigger capacities in the flash memory that we so dearly love, but for whatever reason (read: cost concerns), the first X4-based SDHC and Memory Stick PRO cards top out at just 16GB. Wake us up when we can slam a sub-$50 256GB SDHC card into our D90, okay?
Thanks to new tools provided by Adobe, the iPhone has the potential to transform the Flash programmer community from an experimental playground into a lucrative industry.
Adobe last week announced that its new version of the Flash Professional CS5 developer kit will include tools to convert software written in Flash into standalone iPhone apps. That creates the opportunity for Flash developers to submit Flash-ported iPhone apps to Apple; if Apple approves those apps, they can then be sold through the iTunes App Store.
The community of Flash programmers is 1 million strong, according to Adobe, but very few of them make any decent money since the platform lacks a clear and consistent business model. Thus, the prospect of selling software through the App Store, which has served over 2 billion downloads and earned some developers hundreds of thousands of dollars, could be enticing to many Flash developers.
The result could be a large flood of new Flash-ported iPhone apps, as well as heightened interest in developing for the Flash platform.
“Whether the iPhone can bolster a good enough performance to do intensive mobile Flash games we are unsure of,” said John Cooney, head of game development at Flash game company Armor Games. “But if it can it’s going to open up doors for several Flash game developers, including myself personally, to become iPhone developers.”
Why aren’t many Flash programmers making a living off their code? It’s just not very easy to do. If you’re in the Flash industry and you’re not a big studio-affiliated website like Hulu — or if you’re not employed to develop Flash for larger companies — you’re most likely an independent developer coding games. For creators of Flash games, there are three primary sources of revenue: 1.) Up-front sponsorship deals with larger websites (such as Kongregate.com or AddictingGames.com), in which developers agree to brand their games with the website’s company name; 2.) Selling licenses of their games to other web portals, allowing visitors to play the game for free; 3.) Embedding advertising into their games.
The major hurdle for independent Flash programmers is the difficulty of getting people to pay for website-based games, said Greg McClanahan, game sponsorship director of Kongregate. And that’s where the App Store might help.
“Flash developers can already get a few million views of their game and it wouldn’t be a huge deal, nor would they necessarily make significant money from it,” McClanahan said. “They’re coming from an industry where it’s very difficult to charge people for their games, though I imagine it would be a lot easier on the iPhone than on the web, due to the different mentalities of the potential customers.”
Because Flash programming isn’t a highly lucrative business, many of the game developers in the Flash community are teenagers or college students making games for the sake of learning and experimentation; money is a side goal, McClanahan said. Also, Flash development is popular in third-world countries. Thanks to currency exchange rates, that means a little bit of revenue can still add up to a lot of money for an overseas programmer. If, for example, a programmer receives sponsorship from U.S.-based Kongregate, he’ll receive U.S. dollars no matter where he’s coding — even a third-world country where the dollar is strong.
“A guy in Indonesia made enough off his Flash game and bought a house,” McClanahan said. However, he added, “[those] results [are] not typical.”
Whether bigger entrepreneurs are going to step into Flash programming because of the iPhone will depend on the results for Flash-ported iPhone apps in the App Store.
There have, in fact, already been a few big App Store hits from Flash developers who manually recoded their games using the iPhone SDK. In June, Armor Games’ $1 puzzle game Shift reached no. 6 in Apple’s list of top paid apps for over 40 days, according to iPhone app review site 148Apps. That translated into $30,000 in revenue, and the game is continuing to sell 1,000 copies per month, according to Shift developer Daniel McNeely.
Another popular Flash-ported iPhone game was Bloons, which reached as high as no. 2 in the App Store in May and spent over 100 days in the top 100 paid apps list, according to 148Apps.
“I think I’d call that a success,” said Jeff Scott, editor of 148Apps.
Whether the iPhone will dramatically stimulate the Flash economy is up for debate. Adobe’s new conversion tools won’t be available until the end of the year, so concrete data won’t be available until early 2010. Also, Flash developers might be turned off by horror stories uttered by iPhone programmers who have failed to make money, largely due to Apple’s inconsistent and unclear App Store approval policies.
However, what is clear is what Adobe has in mind with this new Flash-to-iPhone conversion tool: Evangelizing more developers and getting them to join the Flash community, said James McQuivey, a Forrester analyst.
“From Adobe’s side what they’re hoping for is that people who are currently developing using Apple’s tools might be able to do future versions of their product with Flash,” McQuivey said. “From a developer’s perspective you’d rather write once and port to one common application on several devices. It’s not going to be Apple’s development language that ports to the connected TVs and netbook computers and so on. It’s more likely it’s going to be Flash.”
Regardless of whether or not Adobe’s Flash-convertion tool will produce an impact, the Flash programmers will definitely benefit from having the option to port their software into iPhone apps, Cooney said.
“If I can make a game, stick it on a web page, stick it on my iPhone, and then stick it wherever else Flash decides to go, then I am most certainly going to find it much more lucrative,” Cooney said.
Updated 12 p.m. PDT to draw a clearer comparison between independent iPhone app developers and independent Flash developers.
There’s diminutive, and then there’s Kingston‘s MobileLiteG2 card reader. The second-generation of this here reader supports a wide variety of formats (SD, SDHC, microSD, microSDHC, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo and Memory Stick Micro), and it also boasts retractable covers on each side to protect the USB connector and the memory card. At just 2.45- x 1.16- x 0.646-inches in size, there’s an 87.425 percent chance that you’ll lose this before the MobileLiteG3 comes out, but honestly, that’s probably a-okay with Kingston. Those looking to downsize in a big way can order this bugger up for $11 (for the reader itself), $28.50 (bundled with a 4GB SDHC card) or $46 (bundled with an 8GB SDHC card).
What is photography’s greatest scourge? Cellphone cameras? MySpace self-portraiture? Neither even comes close to the insidious, creeping threat that is your camera’s built-in flash. Here’s when and how you should—and more importantly, shouldn’t—use a flash.
Avid photographers, you already know the score, and this isn’t a guide for you. Nor is it for the dude with the brand-new 5D Mk II with an external flash gun, or the weekend strobist. This is a reference to be passed around as a public service; a quick guide for the aquarium-flashing, face-flushing, baby-blinding friends and family you all know and tolerate love.
When You Shouldn’t
At Large Events Every time I go to a nighttime sporting event or concert, I see hundreds of starry flickers coming from the stands. When I see them, I die a little inside. For your average point-and-shoot, the effective range of your built-in flash is about 15 feet. You might stretch this to 20 feet if you jack up your camera’s ISO settings to 800 (or God forbid 1600), but under no circumstances will your camera’s flash reach down to the field or stage.
Every little flash you see in the photo above represents a failed photo, unless the intention was to get a well-lit out-of-focus shot of the dude sitting two rows forward. Shooting artificially lit events may be hard, but letting your camera’s automatic flash have its way won’t help. Shut it down.
Through Glass Walk into any aquarium for a classic flash infraction: Shooting through glass. People press their cameras up to the fish and everybody goes blind. This almost never works—ever notice that giant white explosion where the fish was supposed to be? We don’t have an aquarium in our office, so I put Kyle, our new intern, in a glass conference room for a similar effect. He now has a glowing orb for an eye. Thanks, flash.
Shooting Gadgets, or Anything With a Screen This one may be a bit of a tech blogger pet peeve, but please, turn off the flash before taking pictures of your gear, especially if it has a screen. Even the brightest, matte-est screens act as flash mirrors, as do all manner of plastic and metal finishes. It’s nearly impossible to take a good photo of a gadget with your flash on, and there’s rarely a reason to: Gadget generally won’t move unless you tell them to, so find a way to stabilize your camera and treat your subject to a nice, loooong exposure. On point-and-shoots, this usually requires nothing more than manually turning off your flash and staying in auto mode—the camera will figure out the rest.
On Anything That Isn’t Moving Know what I said about shooting gadgets? Honestly, it applies to all inanimate objects, and even animate objects, assuming you get get them to sit still enough. Set your camera on the table, prop yourself against a tree, make an improvised monopod out of a lamp—if your subject is still, the only person to blame for not turning off your flash is yourself.
On Humans It’s not a hard rule, but it’s a good guideline: built-in flash units emit whitish xenon light, and generally make your subject look like a malnourished villager from medieval Europe, often with horrifying red pupils. If you can help it, avoid the flash. (If you can’t, we’ve got some tips below for making your shots look less ghostly.) Photo by Flickr user busbeytheelder
In a Baby’s Face Because as adorable as this overdramatic baby is, flashing blindingly bright light into your newborn’s pupils seems like bad parenting. And babies don’t usually move too fast.
When You Should
In Daylight Counterintuitively, one of the only times your camera’s built-in flash is genuinely useful is when it’s bright and sunny out, and you’ve got a shadow problem. Ideally you should try to illuminate a subject with natural light, but in the event that your photo is lit from behind or above, like this here cat, knocking out a few shadows is a reasonable excuse for using flash. Why? Because the mix of ambient and flash-bulb light is much less harsh than straight flash. Photo by Hoggheff aka Hank Ashby aka Mr. Freshtags
When It’s Totally Dark Because you have no other choice.
How to Avoid It
Stabilize Your Camera Keeping your camera still isn’t always easy. If carrying a tripod or Joby-style stabilizer isn’t an option, you can always do it yourself. From our piece on hacking together camera accessories on the cheap:
Shooting long exposures without something to prop your camera on is a pain in the ass, not to mention a blurry mess. So is carrying a tripod. This video shows how to build a pretty effective foot-looping camera stabilizer out of some string, a bolt and a washer. The results are surprisingly good.
And another! Here’s what I call the David Pogue Special, and it’s great: Many lampshade mounts share a diameter and thread size with the tripod mount screw on the bottom of your camcorder, point-and-shoot or DSLR, providing quick and dirty stabilization in a bind.
If You Absolutely Have To
Reduce the Flash’s Intensity Many cameras will have a setting for flash intensity. Find it. This will essentially just turn down the brightness of your flash, which will avoid overexposing your subjects’ faces, albeit at the expense of range.
Improvise a Diffuser External flash units turn out better photos because they have bigger, better bulbs, mostly, but also because they’re often fitted with a diffuser. These accessories soften your flash’s harsh glow, but they’re both expensive and generally impossible to fit onto your mom’s point-and-shoot.
Luckily, you can fashion them yourself, sometimes in a matter of seconds. Again, from the DIY camera accessory roundup:
Tricks like this tend to take a little trial and error, but you’ll love the results. Top image via SharperFocus
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Amid Intel’s recent catalog of problems is a pretty significant firmware update for the X25-M SSDs, which went rogue and started bricking drives for the sheer bloody-minded enjoyment of it. After promptly pulling the software, the chip giant set straight to work — or so we presume — and has today finally managed to replicate the fatal circumstances that may lead to your SSD’s untimely demise. That’s not to say the problem’s been fixed, and there’s no word yet on when the cleaned up patch will be back out for consumption, but at least we’re a step closer to realizing those TRIM-related speed boosts. So, are you growing tired of Intel’s suicidal firmware updates, or should we consider these mere bumps on the road to superfast SSD awesomeness?
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