Hasta La Gadget!

Palm Pre Plus to get webOS 2 after all? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Do you like Batman? Robin? What about USB sticks? Well, thanks to Mimoco, you can have both in one awesome package. We spotted these newly released jump-drives at the International Toy Fair and we gotta say — they’re actually quite detailed in design. The flash drives will cost you a pretty penny if you want more storage — a 2GB dongle is $20 while the 16GB version is $60. If you’re a DC Comics junkie and think that the company has sold out, ask yourself this: why so serious?

Batman, Robin, Joker and Catwoman shrunken down to USB collectables originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Feb 2011 01:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Portable fuel cell chargers have been around for years, but each seems to have lasered in on a single important quality thus far, such as a reasonable price, an easy refilling scheme, and a decent amount of power — but never all of the above. Well, it doesn’t look like MyFC’s Powertrekk is the full package either, but it does have a pretty sweet looking case, which holds not only a disposable sodium silicide container to generate the hydrogen gas (which then gets recombined with oxygen in a proton exchange membrane to produce 1000mAh of usable electricity) but also a 1600mAh lithium-ion battery which can provide up to one amp of juice. This way, you’ve got a backup battery if you misplace your cans of fairy dust, and a buffer for the fuel cell too, allowing you to keep those volts in powder or electrochemical form instead of carting around combustable hydrogen — which is always a nice bonus when you think about it. Shame there’s no word on price quite yet, but you can see how it all works in a video after the break.

Continue reading Powertrekk charges gadgets over USB, using one fuel cell and one Li-ion battery (video)

Powertrekk charges gadgets over USB, using one fuel cell and one Li-ion battery (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Feb 2011 18:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Touching your camera to re-focus its lens while filming your next budget masterpiece isn’t necessarily a good idea, and lugging a laptop around to handle the task remotely isn’t exactly practical for today’s modern gorilla filmmaker. The $400 USB Follow Focus looks to be a much more simple solution. It’s quite simply a knob in an aluminum enclosure that connects over mini-USB. Plug it in and welcome to your next Oscar — or Emmy, anyway. There are a suite of buttons that can be used to define focal presets and it has compatibility with most Canon HD DSLR shooters. The results? Check the two videos after the break and see for yourself.

Continue reading Okii USB Follow Focus knob makes remote-focusing your Canon DSLR easy (video)

Okii USB Follow Focus knob makes remote-focusing your Canon DSLR easy (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Feb 2011 11:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This $400 knob proves that the SLR really is the movie camera for today’s indie filmmakers. It’s called the Okii Systems USB Follow Focus, and it does what it says, allowing you to control the focus of a Canon SLR via USB. Think of it as focus-by-wire for your SLR.

Canon’s cameras can be controlled by hooking them up to computers,
too, but the Okii knob is arguably more practical on-set, especially as one big point of using an SLR to shoot video is its small size.

What’s that? You at the back there. Speak up. You’re wondering why you shouldn’t just use the auto or manual focus built-in to the camera? Well, pay attention, boy. Autofocus is never used in movies, as it tends to swim around, and if the subject walks away from his focus-point, the camera will refocus on the background. And manual focus, especially the fast accurate kind you need to pull focus between, say, two actors at different distances, is almost impossible with a modern AF lens.

Not only can the Okii knob save and flip between four pre-set focus points, you can also turn its hefty aluminum collar to focus using the lens’s built-in motor. Buttons around the edgers can also control digital zoom (to aid focussing), start/stop shooting, adjust ISO, aperture, shutter speed and exposure compensation, as well as focussing=zone positioning. In short, if you put this on a long (tested up to ten meters) USB cable you have a full remote setup. Plug an HDMI-cable into the camera and hook-up a monitor and you’re done.

The knob costs $400, and is available for pre-order now.

Okii Systems USB Follow Focus knob [Okii via Oh Gizmo]
See Also:

• Nano' Mounts Turn SLRs into Movie-Cameras on the Cheap
• New Chips Poised to Revolutionize Photography, Film
• One-Million-Pixel External Viewfinder for Video-Shooting SLRs …
• Should DSLRs Shoot Video?