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Newstips Electronic Editorial Bulletin Issue # 2009-08d
News for dragging past the doldrums
Moms aren't going to like their sons getting WET
Mark down 9/15 as the day Bethesda gets itself into a lot of
trouble with a lot of parents of teenage boys. That's the release
date for WET ($50 for Xbox 360 or Playstation 3) with an
impossibly agile, very sexy female assassin condoning &
exercising violence on an immersive scale. Pete or Kate can get
you a link to the trailer video so you can see ahead of time
what's there to fuel the anticipated outrage; if you have one of
the target consoles, they can also set you up to review it.
Contact: Pete Hines, Bethesda Softworks (Rockville, MD)
301-354-4274 phines@bethsoft.com http://BethSoft.com Agency: Kate
Isenberg 323-551-6971 kate@gr8danepr.com
Photo fx version 2 arrives
Hundreds of the effects you might expect from a pro photographer
can now happen inside an iPhone or iPod Touch for less than the
cost of a fast food lunch thanks to version 2 of the very
impressive Tiffen Photo fx application (in the App Store). The
major treatment groups involve effects to apply to portraits or
face-centric shots & effects that affect color renditions in any
shot. It's shipping, reviewable, fun & something that Hilary's
eager to work through with you to find some way to cover or
review. Contact: Hilary Araujo, Tiffen Company (Hauppauge, NY)
631-273-2500x1216 haraujo@tiffen.com http:/.tiffen.com
Intel at retail - an SSD foothold
Solid state drives offer capacities comparable to 2.5" rotating
magnetic media with much faster access, much higher throughput,
much better reliability, much lower power consumption & a few
other such little benefits. The first thing most SSD users notice
is a much shorter boot time; notebook users quickly notice a
somewhat longer runtime between charges. 34nm technology in Intel
SSD products brings a boost to that more/better list of
attributes. It's also very cool that you can just go shopping &
get one from a local store with Intel inside. Ask Ginger for
whatever you need in order to write about Intel 34nm SSDs; yes,
some review units are available. Contact: Ginger Monte, Intel
Americas Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) 781-254-1049
virginia.j.monte@intel.com http://Intel.com
Special Report: point & shoot selection & camcorders
We find B&H Photo Video to provide a reference-quality overview
of the camera marketplace, so we scanned their site to see where
this season's sweet spots are falling for point & shoot cameras,
a popular & populist consumer category. Almost all models are
(most popular listed first) at either 10 or 12 Mp with 3X, 4X or
5X optical zoom & sport black, silver/gray or blue bodies with
LCDs in the 2.7"-2.9" or 3" & up ranges. Most take SD/MMC cards.
The top extra attributes are image stabilization & slimness. Just
about as many models are under $200 (the least expensive is $30)
as are $200-300. In consumer camcorders, they show 145 SD & 127
HD models; most record to flash, but Mini-DV tape & hard disk
models are also present. The handheld "candy bar" cameras make a
significant showing with about 15% of all models less than $150
($400-$1000 & $250-$400 are the most populous categories). The
most populous optical zoom throws are zero (thanks to those
inexpensive pocket camcorders, this is about a quarter of all
models), 10X then 40X & up. Those long-throw zooms aren't just
for the expensive models; Panasonic has a 42X model at $200, a
70X model at $245 & Sony has a 60X at $249. If you cover cameras
or camcorders, this may help give you some (no pun intended)
focal points; if you cover people, there are some additional
topics that all this suggests. First, sharing pristine 10-12Mp
photos or HD videos is going to be neither quick nor simple,
especially with e-mail attachment limits at 10MB, suggesting that
people think in terms of compressing these works (in which case,
did they really need the new gear?) or delivering the files on
physical media (discs or USB drives) or learning to make friends
with FTP. Second, long optical zoom throws are instability
magnifiers, making handheld shooting a major challenge for
whatever stabilization is in the camera; if that long zoom in is
really a necessity (we find zooming all the way out is a better
standard, but we're not typical), then users will need to know
about all kinds of stabilizing alternatives, from monopods &
tripods to mounts in the Steadicam class. Third, a 10Mp photo has
40X more detail than you can see on a camera's quarter-Megapixel
LCD, so people should think of that as a limited framing &
preview tool & learn to depend more on trusting what their eyes
can see.
Special Report Bonus Review: Chic Buds & Rock Buds
This is a little bit back-to-school & a little bit stocking
stuffer. Dazzle up the spring-wind reel case for a pair of
retractable earbuds with an inlaid circle of colorful Swarovski
crystals & you have chicBuds, or make the design a colorful
graphic (a little more male-friendly) for RockBuds, or make a
design with the crystals in a tinier reel case (kid-friendly) for
chicBuds Jr. With each model, that spring-reel case has a small
clothing clip attached. The glitz, of course, will make these
special in the eyes of a lot of school kids, the little bits of
glitz & there are a couple of other things about these that
suggest they may be a good choice: One is that they're not
sound-isolating so they don't block those sounds of danger from
the "outside" world; another is that the sound distorts a little
when you drive these too hard, which may help finesse the kids
into using them at more reasonable volumes. These do not offer
the kind of fidelity & transparency that an audiophile would
demand, but there's not even a hint that audiophiles are in the
target market for these; that said, the audio detailing is
excellent while favoring the upper octaves that older listeners
may no longer experience. The non-Jr. models come in a metal
case, something like a longer Sucrets box but without the hinge &
with a top window; we'd love to have a hundred of these to sort
our fasteners, adapters & little pieces of hardware! We've seen
the chicBuds priced at $25-50, the RockBuds at $30 & the chicBuds
Jr. at $10-15; if these seem a little less likely to get tangled
or lost, these prices may represent a good value. Bottom line:
chicBuds, chicBuds Jr & RockBuds offer a very reasonable mix of
style, safety, comfort, convenience & sound for kids who like to
fill their ears with recorded music.
Special Report Bonus Review 2: Snow Joe Plus
Are you ready to gadget up for winter? Here in the blizzard belt
that means snow & the economy has not left us in a place where we
can afford to move to gentler climes & melt the damned shovel. We
once had a big gas-powered snow blower, but getting it to the
back deck (so the dogs could use the deck as a travel convenience
instead of as a destination) was a chore & a half & it hardly
seemed worth hauling to the front stoop & walkway. (The drive is
out of the question without an even heftier 2-stage snow blower
because it's loose stones & gravel). We always thought it would
be nice to have something closer to the size of a broom & that's
not a bad way to think of the Snow Joe Plus Electric Snow
Thrower. It clears a foot-wide path through snow up to 4" deep &
throws it up to 20 feet. There's a key lock to help keep curious
kids from getting into dangerous situations. The 7.5-Amp motor is
rated at up to 300 pounds of snow per minute (so obviously, work
at a slower pace for those heavy, wet snows or when warming thaws
make standing snow compact. At 12.5 pounds, it weighs less than
you may lift in a big snow-shovel-full, so there's a little less
to worry about for those people with health risks related to
shoveling snow (especially the lift & throw part). Also, of
course, since it plugs in there are none of the issues of dealing
with handling gasoline. The trade-offs include the usual safety &
convenience issues of outdoor extension cords in winter
environments, plus making very sure that the blades don't
encounter anything other than snow. Bottom line: for most city
dwellers & for the walks & decks of suburban, exurban or rural
homes, the Snow Joe Plus Electric Snow Thrower clears narrow
paths with enough power to ease or eliminate a lot of the wintery
chores that it's always taken a shovel to do.
Special Report Bonus Review 3: General Tools Heat Seeker
We asked for this as part of our gadgeting-up-for-winter
collection but there's another application that popped
immediately into mind (coming up in a second). The General Tools
& Instruments "Heat Seeker" is more formally the IRT-206
gun-style remote reading infrared digital thermometer. A
9V-square battery in the handle powers it. When you pull the
trigger, a spotting laser places a red dot in the center of your
target area; the actual reading occurs for an approximate circle
with a diameter one-eighth the size of the distance to target.
Once winter approaches, outdoor temperatures cool down & the
furnace kicks on, you can walk this around your house to spot
places where the house is leaking heat. You can also run it
without the laser pointer & it can display the temperature it
sees in either Fahrenheit (-4 to 605 degrees) or Centigrade (-20
to 318 degrees). For those of you who build your own computers,
that also makes it a great way to keep track of how hot the CPU,
CPU cooler, RAM & graphics are running. Bottom line: The General
Tools & Instruments IRT-206 "Heat Seeker" gun-style remote
reading infrared digital thermometer is so easy to use it's
actually fun & when you need to know how hot or cold something
is, you don't have to touch it to find out.
Special Report Bonus Review 4: Verizon Network Extender
We've written about the coming of femtocell devices; Verizon sent
us their Samsung-built Network Extender to try out in our first
hands-on experience with a femtocell. There are 4 LED indicators
on the front of this rice-box-size device; when everything is
cool they glow a cool blue but it took a while for us to see
that. Getting power lit up one, the Ethernet connection lit
another; we expected to wait forever for GPS to light up (because
of our basement location) but it happened without resorting to
the external antenna; the system LED also took a while to light
but once the PR forces got us authorized, we were 4 for 4. The
loaner Verizon handset is a BlackBerry Tour (reviewed separately)
that initially had a bar or two outside, one inside & none in the
basement. With the Network Extender engaged, we get 5 bars in the
basement & most of the core of the house with 2-3 bars at the
extremities & 5 bars out on the front stoop. We've seen a lot of
pricing theories on femtocells; Verizon offers this one for $249
with no service fees so it economically justifies its existence
for those who needed stable cellular in order to cancel a wired
connection. Bottom line: the Samsung-built Verizon Network
Extender femtocell device does what it's supposed to do,
connecting to the carrier over the Internet to create a bubble of
strong cellular coverage in a place that may have had no coverage
at all without it, acting in many ways like a tiny tabletop cell
tower.
Special Report Bonus Review 5: Blackberry Tour
We couldn't well test the Verizon Network Extender (Samsung
femtocell) with our BlackBerry Bold on AT&T, so Verizon
cheerfully included the new BlackBerry Tour for our review. This
is a little bigger than the Curve, a smidge smaller than the
Bold. It offers an impressive 3.2Mp autofocus camera (it captures
both stills & video), 4-band world coverage (for people who
travel more than we do), high screen resolution, excellent call
quality, the usual wonderful bushel of Blackberry features & good
run-time. The top-side mute switch is gone; in its place is a new
press action on both the left & right sides of the top for
keyboard lock & standby modes; we find we like these a lot. RIM
also seems to have improved the back of the case with non-slip
features, especially the high-friction (rubber-feel) surround
that highlights a textured center strip. One feature we miss on
the Tour is WiFi support. Bottom line: Verizon customers with
professional needs to communicate with voice, text, photos,
videos & more while traveling will find the BlackBerry Tour
handset to be the best choice they can make.
"Fake COMDEX" feedback
Richard Oppenheim suggests some events for our November 16 "Fake
COMDEX" week: A tribute to Silicon Northwest; taxi line dancers
dressed in yellow & moving very slowly; the best of Bill Gates
keynotes; Tony Bennett headlining a WordPerfect concert; a comedy
roast of mainframe software.
Good old PR smoke
We got pitched by Symantec's PR agency; like many, these guys
seem to get points for the number of press badges they can plant
in front of an exec who likes being interviewed. We declined that
but instead asked one direct question that required only a
numerical answer from any named top executive: "As the free
Microsoft alternative to Norton products gains visibility, how
much does Symantec foresee losing in terms of retail product
sales?" They replied with "a statement from Symantec Corp." that
was unfairly dismissive of the Microsoft product, openly
dismissive of Microsoft marketing, arrogantly attributed
attitudes to consumers that they don't really have & accused the
Microsoft product of being inferior even to other freeware. We
note (as you already have) that nothing directly answers our very
specific question. Old timers may be reminded of how nothing
could displace Wordstar oops MultiMate oops WordPerfect, not even
Microsoft. Nothing could displace VisiCalc oops Lotus 1-2-3, not
even Microsoft. As we earlier reported, the free Microsoft
product uses the same engine that scrubs Hotmail, the same engine
they sell on the corporate side, the same engine they use in
their internal servers, the same engine that's been behind
OneCare, just available through a new client. We did a
months-long project years ago demonstrating that it takes a lot
of additional hardware to restore the performance that Norton
products drained from systems; we've been using Microsoft OneCare
since, with no incident of any attack ever getting past it. No
company stands to lose more from this new Microsoft antivirus
product than Symantec, so isn't it nice to know how unrealistic
their PR operation is in dealing with that. At least some of the
people who are left unemployed will, in our opinion, deserve that
fate. Contact: Martin Winston, Newstips (Novelty, OH)
440-338-8400; marty@Newstips.com http://Newstips.com
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Newstips Bulletin [Novelty, OH] +1.440.338.8400 http://Newstips.com
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