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2008-01D

Newstips Electronic Editorial Bulletin       Issue # 2008-01d

       Back to Las Vegas for PMA & other news

JVC DEBUTS NEW HD5 & 6 HIGH DEF HARD DRIVE CAMCORDERS
 You have to be at PMA to actually see & hold the newest high-def
 JVC Everio hard disk camcorders. If you're familiar with their
 1080i 3-chip GZ-HD7 (a little bigger than a butter box), these
 new models are 45% smaller. The new 60GB silver-body GZ-HD5
 ($1200, March) & 120GB black-body GZ-HD6 ($1400, March) both
 feature a 3-CCD image chain, full 1080p (60fps) output,
 HD-optimized Fujinon 10X zoom lenses on a pro-grade mount
 (assures proper prism alignment), optical (not electronic, which
 can degrade quality) image stabilization & more. It's all as
 automatic as you want or as manual as you like, with a manual
 focus ring, manual white balance, exposure control, a shutter or
 aperture priority choice & more. Each offers a choice of 4
 quality/capacity modes (plus JPEG still shooting); at best
 quality, the HD5 hard drive can record 5 hours of HD video & the
 HD6 can record 10 (or a user can add a microSDHC card with up to
 4GB capacity & use it to store stills or up to 20 minutes of
 best-quality HD video). They can stream HDV-compatible 1440CBR
 video over Firewire, or full-quality audio & video for viewing
 over HDMI (1.3 with x.v.Color) or transfer their files to a PC or
 Mac over USB. Their standard format is MPEG-2 (with MPEG-1 audio
 layer) so they're directly compatible with Blu-Ray recording. The
 newest generation of built-in image processing & noise reduction
 improves their vertical scan resolution by about 30% since the
 last generation, which was already pretty darned impressive. The
 video chain is sensitive down to 7 Lux. Overall, this may not
 kill camcorder competition, but it could leave many other brands
 with some explaining to do. Drop Chelsea a note now to get into
 the review queue (it may be a long one). Contact: Chelsea Vander
 Groef, JVC COMPANY OF AMERICA (Wayne, NJ) 973-317-5000x5312
 mailto:cvandergroef@jvc.com http://jvc.com

DON'T BURY YOUR OLD TREASURES, GET PAID FOR THEM
 You'll be excited by MyBoneYard.com because now those pieces of
 gear you retired can get you some money back, end up in good
 places & maybe more. Many old cell phones, computers & other
 pieces of gear are worth more than you may think (the Web site
 can show you how much for many items) when you send it off to
 these guys. Shipping is free; they send you a voucher in an
 e-mail. They recondition some items for resale (at very low
 prices) to people in impoverished third-world countries & recycle
 or scrap what they can't recondition. You get your money as an
 amount loaded on a prepaid Visa card. Talk about win-win! Talk
 with Thomas. Contact: Thomas Muhs, MYBONEYARD (Chanhassen, MN)
 952-294-6154 mailto:thomas.muhs@young-america.com
 http://MyBoneYard.com

INNOVATIVE SINGAPORE POWER STRIP HEADING FOR US
 How close or far apart should outlets be on a power strip? You
 choose with a unique new design soon to be in the US from its
 Singapore inventors, Eubiq (for "electricity ubiquitously"). With
 their design, you press a socket through any position in a long,
 rubber-lipped slit along its aluminum housing then twist the
 socket 90 degrees to make the electrical connection. We're still
 awaiting word on UL approval; in the meantime, explore the Web
 site. Contact: NG Kee Haur, EUBIQ PTE LTD (Singapore)
 +65-6372-9393x380 mailto:keeng@eubiq.com http://eubiq.com

NOW AT PMA: TIFFEN HT FILTERS GO TITANIUM
 They're a perfect product for the pros at PMA, not to mention
 consumers who care: New Tiffen Digital HT (high transmissivity)
 optical filters boast a double-sided titanium multi-coating for
 hardness & scratch-resistant durability. Their distinctive
 titanium-finish ring plus anti-reflective black lock ring add
 minimal weight but tons of style to the camera. They're becoming
 available as new alternatives in several Tiffen filter-effect
 series of products. Ask Hilary. Contact: Hilary Araujo, TIFFEN
 COMPANY (Hauppauge, NY) 631-273-2500x1216
 mailto:haraujo@tiffen.com http:/.tiffen.com

COLD SNAP MAKES $30 REMOTE-READ THERMOMETER A SNAP
 Get Dan your address now & get him to rush you the 30-30 Heat
 Vision Non-Contact Thermometer ($30) & try it just once, then we
 dare you not to find half a dozen stories you want to do with it
 right away. Use its laser pointer to aim it (it has a 30-degree
 target cone) at something up to 100' away; half a second later,
 its back-lit LCD will show you the temperature of anything that's
 between 0-400F (-20-200C). Spend a minute outside to check the
 windows of your home for heat leaks, then go ahead & try the same
 thing from inside. Feeling impish? Look for heat leaks at public
 buildings that tax moneys pay to keep warm. Scan your home tech
 gear for some surprises, especially among the items you thought
 were off; for another surprise, check your incandescent lights,
 lamps & fixtures 5-10 minutes after you turn them off. It's cool
 to be able to see where the hot & cold spots happen to be & right
 now, that's a hot story. Contact: Dan Llewellyn, LDP LLC
 (Carlstadt NJ) 201-882-0344 mailto:dan@maxmax.com
 Http://MaxMax.com

MOGO DAPTER SHIPS NEXT MONTH
 It will ship in time for you to love it for Valentine's Day: the
 new MoGo Dapter plugs into USB to add Bluetooth 2 compatibility
 to desktop or notebook PCs with either no Bluetooth at all or a
 lesser version. It does indeed enhance the snappy performance of
 X54 MoGo mouse products, but BT2 also enhances data rate
 communications with compatible device plus & supports new
 features like stereo over BT. Jack won't insist on you also
 reviewing an X54 MoGo Mouse when you ask to review the new
 Dapter, but heck, he's a nice guy & it's a cool product, so why
 not? Contact: Jack Corrao, NEWTON PERIPHERALS (Natick, MA)
 858-792-0944 mailto:jack.corrao@newtonperipherals.com
 http://NewtonPeripherals.com

OFFER TO PRESS: UPGRADE OLD SPOTWAVE TO NEW WI-EX
 Many of you have Spotwave devices, older single-band alternatives
 to today's Wi-Ex dual-band cell bar boosters. Spotwave has been
 stymied by financial & manufacturing problems that add up to you
 can't buy their products for now & their planned dual-band
 offering is delayed to some vaporous future. Wi-Ex is stepping up
 to the plate so you won't be orphaned; of course, it doesn't
 escape them that when you replace something that's OK with
 something even better, you're likely to be moved to write about
 it. So if you're ready to replace your old Spotwave with a new
 Wi-Ex, drop one of the ladies a note with your ship-to info. If
 you've never had a cell-bar booster, call first to chat about
 your workspace & figure out which Wi-Ex products fit best.
 Contact: Sharon Cuppett, WI-EX INC. (Norcross, GA)
 770-239-5475x6380 mailto:scuppett@wi-ex.com http://wi-ex.com
 AGENCY CONTACT: Deanna Anderson 404-759-1890
 mailto:danderson705@comcast.net

ZOOM H2 ADAPTS FOR FIELD WORK, LEOPARD
 Good news for Mac OS X 10.5.0 ("Leopard") users: there's a
 version 1.2 firmware update that lets you mount a Zoom H2 Handy
 Recorder as a USB drive on your systems. For everybody, there's a
 lot left to tell about the many ways the Zoom H2 ($199) adapts to
 make it the most flexible little recorder ever. Start with
 mounting it: the thread at the bottom that lets you screw on its
 small desktop spider feet (included) or a handgrip or mount it on
 a stand (a mike clip adapter is also included); of course, it's
 as small as a pack of cigarettes, so hand-holding is always an
 option, too. It also comes with a little foam windsock; slip that
 on & hear how much of a difference it makes in reducing ambient
 noise (especially air-flow noise). While it's certainly a capable
 monaural recorder & brilliant in stereo, its quartet of mike
 capsules (configured in W-XY) let you record everything you need
 in order to be able to reproduce in 5.1 sound (with front-center
 derived from left & right). It can also record from external
 mikes (Stereo with plug-in power) or line-level inputs. If
 anything you do ends up as audio, you'll want it for your work;
 given how often that's true for so many of those people you write
 for, you'll also want one for review. Ask Mark. Contact: Mark
 Wilder, SAMSON TECHNOLOGIES (Hauppauge, NY) 631-784-2200x142
 mailto:mwilder@samsontech.com http://SamsonTech.com

HANDS-FREE IPHOTOMEASURE DEMO ON YOUTUBE
 Check out the YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SQ_lXcMRf4
 video that shows you how iPhotoMeasure software makes it easy to
 get the measurements you need just by taking a snapshot. Note
 that it works as easily for angled lines (like roofs) as anything
 else. While the video shows Paul (yup, that's him) using targets,
 it all works just as well when you know the dimensions of
 anything in the photo. So now that you know how easy it is to do,
 call Paul to get one to you for review. Contact: Paul Minor,
 DIGICONTRACTOR INC. (Tarzana, CA) 818-888-3687
 mailto:paul@iphotomeasure.com http://iPhotoMeasure.com

MORE ON KOMFORT PETS SECOND GENERATION
 The new medium-size Komfort Pets carrier due to debut in February
 has even more improvements than we were able to detail last time;
 for example, a fan override switch lets its beefier 40cfm fan
 keep air circulating even when the carrier's temperature is
 already within the pet's comfort zone. A removable drawer
 facilitates those inevitable pet clean-ups. A simple adapter
 makes them easy to stack when several animals have to stay
 individually comfy in a limited space. We're saving a few
 additional surprises for launch time. Ask Bob to get you on the
 list to review the medium when it debuts, or to view the
 first-generation small carrier now. Contact: Bob Inello, KOMFORT
 PETS (Revere, MA) 781-485-0077 mailto:rinello@komfortpets.com
 http://KomfortPets.com

APRICORN STRADDLES 1.8/2.5" DECISION
 Throughout the history of electronics, a little smaller has
 almost always cost a little more; that is certainly the case
 today with small raw hard drives, with raw 1.8" drives costing
 more per GB than notebook-size 2.5" drives. For Apricorn, it
 drives some hard decision-making; for example, their 2.5"
 paperback-size Aegis Portable USB drives supports some attractive
 price points but faces a lot of competition while their 1.8"
 Aegis Mini USB drives cost a little more but are small enough to
 fit a shirt pocket or store in a very cramped bag. That bigger
 little Aegis Portable can support larger capacities, from
 80-250GB ($99-$219) while the tinier Aegis Mini stores 30-120GB
 ($119-280). Aegis Mini fans understand that while more may
 generally be better, sometimes more is unnecessary; fir its size,
 of course, there are few if any choices that offer comparable
 capacity. (We should mention that Aegis Portable & Aegis Mini
 models are also available with Firewire. if you'd rather use that
 than USB). How useful do you think either size may be? If a
 review is the best way to tell, you have but to ask Michelle.
 Contact: Michelle Fischer, APRICORN INC. (Poway, CA) 858-513-4480
 mailto:mfischer@apricorn.com http://apricorn.com AGENCY CONTACT:
 Jennifer Olson 415-402-0230 mailto:jennifer@atomicpr.com

NEW SPINS BREWING IN EYE OF TORNADO
 Consider what happens when you put something smart between 2
 computers, PC or Mac. Today, the Tornado & iTornado give you the
 easiest way ever to copy files back & forth, but that's just a
 beginning. In coming months, you'll learn about some clever new
 twists on these first "twisters". Don't call Clint yet for
 details (mum's the word for now), but absolutely do call for
 either or both of today's offerings. Contact: Clint Hughes, DATA
 DRIVE THRU (Dallas, TX) 972-897-7057
 mailto:chughes@datadrivethru.com http://TheTornado.com

IF BEST VIRGIN IS A WILD CARD, WHAT'S SECOND BEST?
 As a carrier with no long-term contracts or commitments, Virgin
 Mobile doesn't play tricks with phone pricing, so having choices
 that range from under $100 to free is meaningful. We spoke about
 their top handset (the Wild Card, with camera, mobile IM, e-mail,
 flip-open full keyboard, Bluetooth & more), but the next one down
 is also feature-packed. The Switch Back ($90) also flips open to
 a full keyboard & features dual color screens, a VGA camera, Web
 browser, Mobile IM, speakerphone & more. Add one of their
 no-extended-commitment service by the month or by the minute
 packages & a lot of cell service becomes available to a lot of
 people who might not otherwise endure the expense. If any of this
 is worth writing about, call Corinne. Contact: Corinne Nosal,
 VIRGIN MOBILE USA (Warren, NJ) 908-607-4235
 mailto:corinne.nosal@virginmobileusa.com
 http://virginmobileusa.com

SPECIAL REPORT: PORN SLUMP
 The porn segment is not as bulletproof as most people believe;
 DVD sales are down tenfold versus a couple of years ago, for
 example, with typical "money-maker" titles selling only hundreds
 to a few thousand copies. Online sales are tough to grow, since
 most males watch porn for approximately 2.5 minutes before moving
 on to other things. Most companies in the industry have scant
 tracking on their user base; only one of the larger houses was
 able to tell us their male versus female viewer demographic
 split, for example. Many studios believe that women favor viewing
 outrageous ("extreme") scenes depicting acts in which they would
 never involve themselves to satisfy their curiosity about such
 things. There is a current belief that the demand overall is
 trending to "quirky" themes like obese performers or racial
 counterpoints or gender challenges, so there's a current emphasis
 in creating more of this content. For many of the smaller
 studios, an owner's personal quirks often drive the "vision"; one
 studio owner with a penchant for bondage & ball gags developed
 multiple sub-brands at various levels of actual sexual activity
 (of these, their best-sellers are the most hardcore), though his
 line workers tend to interpret it all as an extension of
 mainstream classic damsel-in-distress themes. The one studio that
 seems to be most popular among women is enhancing that stature by
 incorporating specific content elements that women viewers ask
 for, like the little laugh that follows sexual intimacy.
 Individual studios are weathering the segment's recession well
 enough, but between the category's declining DVD sales &
 continuing challenges in converting online viewing into revenue,
 it seems inevitable that many of the weaker entities will be
 culled. Given the dearth of new mainstream movies as a result of
 the current strike of writers & foreseeable strike of actors,
 some of the category's more successful operations may enjoy a
 small boon as some of their milder titles appeal to a public
 hungry for something new to watch.

SPECIAL REPORT BONUS REVIEW: TWP800 WATCH PHONE
 Calling Dick Tracy! The 2-way wrist radio of Chester Gould's
 imagination (in the strip, the inventor is industrialist Diet
 Smith) is here. The Turtle Wireless TWP800 looks like a chunky
 wristwatch (about 6 times the size of Marty's Timex but a lot
 closer to watch size than any of the wrist-worn phones we've seen
 before) with a digitally portrayed analog face & a bevy of
 buttons plus a tiny telescoping slide-out stylus. Stick in a SIM
 card & the wristwatch is also a Bluetooth (headset included) cell
 phone; even without the SIM card it's an MP3 music & MP4 video
 player, a calculator, a world-time-now look-up, a calendar, an
 organizer, an alarm, a currency converter, a unit converter, a
 to-do list, an e-book reader, a voice recorder & a couple of
 games. As a phone, it can do SMS, ring or vibrate, maintain phone
 books, etc. USB charges the thing & it comes with AC & DC USB
 charging adapters & a second LiIon battery. Talk time is rated 3
 hours, standby 120 hours, but we didn't test either. The
 documentation can use a lot of work; there are no diagrams of the
 buttons & the almost Pidgin English is tough for even a geek to
 follow. We can think of a lot of times this would be a great
 solution, like jogging, camping, boating or any of those other
 times that a standard cell phone is likely to fall off or fall
 out or get lost. Bottom line: quirky indeed but not at all jerky;
 it really does work pretty well.

SPECIAL REPORT BONUS REVIEW 2: SHEDRAIN UMBRELLAS
 We got in a pair of ShedRain dual-canopy umbrellas to review. The
 venting on double canopy umbrellas makes them much less likely to
 invert even in very heavy winds. We wanted to look at their best
 pick for packing in the tight confines of a working journalist's
 carry-on or take-home bags. The two models we got in are the
 WindPro Mini (1760) & the WindPro Mini Wood (2547); both boast
 automatic open & automatic close mechanisms, steel shafts, wrist
 loops, a 43" arc when open & a collapsed length within a fraction
 of an inch of one foot. The Mini has fiberglass ribs, a black
 anodized shaft, a rubber-look grip & a carry sleeve with a
 swiveling snap-on hook; the Mini Wood has black electrostatic
 steel shaft & ribs, a wood handle & no hook on its sleeve. It's
 not often easy to find double-canopy vented umbrellas in sizes
 that collapse this small & it's extraordinary to find them with
 mechanisms that automate both opening & closing the canopy.
 Bottom line: once the snow melts, don't leave home without it.

SPECIAL REPORT BONUS REVIEW 3: ELPH FOR VIDEO
 This one is a war story: Marty had just finished (ten minutes
 before it shut down) hitting the last CES booth he had to see &
 was heading back to the hotel for a 2-hour nap. About half an
 hour into that, he got a call from a network TV producer pal who
 had just boarded the airplane home when he got word about a story
 they wanted him to shoot at a trade show that had not yet closed;
 he asked Marty to shoot it as a favor. Marty didn't have his
 camcorder along this trip, but in an earlier interview (reported
 in our issue 2007-11c), Joone said that his Canon Elph SD1000
 (the same model Marty bought) was capable of taking good-quality
 SD video, so Marty gave that a shot. It worked out pretty well &
 the 15 minutes of AVI files he shot got piped to his producer pal
 in New York over ftp. When the edited piece ran, it was the day's
 most viewed online item, Bottom line: in a pinch, decent quality
 proved a cinch. Addendum: Marty has some street smarts to share
 when it comes to this kind of shooting; for example, zooming out
 wide & getting close to the subject improves the audio quality
 that a built-in mike can grab & adds depth of field to prevent
 focus problems. Holding the camera up & a little forward &
 looking at it when asking questions all help your subjects point
 their eyes at its lens, which makes for a more natural shot. And
 short questions get the most, best answers.

MENTAL REVIEW: EYE-FI
 We got one of those pre-show PR spam messages about Eye-Fi at PMA
 that set off enough little yellow flags we wanted to look into
 it. This is not a review; we will invite them to provide a
 product that we can review, but it will surprise us if that
 changes any of our conclusions here. The Eye-Fi card is a 2GB SD
 card with built-in WiFi, which may sound like a good idea but
 don't get caught in the spin. For one thing, at $100, it's more
 than quintuple the cost of a store-bought new 2GB SD card & the
 WiFi functionality is absolutely unnecessary for anybody who
 knows how to put an SD card in a reader or plug a camera into USB
 to let a transfer happen. The company insists that it's serving a
 segment of the camera user base that is unfamiliar or
 uncomfortable with those operations & further, want to be able to
 share photos online; it would be nice if something in the
 marketing outreach said something like "you may not need this".
 We initially suspected (from earlier reviews & reports by others)
 that, because you have no selective control over what gets
 transferred, that it would transfer the whole card every time it
 connects; we were relieved to since learn from the company that
 its code is smart enough to ignore files already transferred.
 Early reviews claimed tested transfer times of 10-20 seconds per
 photo; calculating, 15 seconds for a 7.5Mp photo (about 1.5MB as
 a JPG) is about 100Kbps, so it seems likely the report is from a
 transfer to a Web service; we'll guess, including time for the
 wireless handshake dances to establish the session & confirm the
 transfer, that WiFi to the PC would take 4-5 seconds for the same
 photo. They claim only minimal drain to the camera battery & that
 the card's power usage never exceeds the SD card spec, but we
 have some concerns here. For many cameras, you're instructed to
 turn off a camera's power-saver feature to let this work, it has
 to stay on during transfers & each transfer takes several times
 longer than it takes to snap & store a photo. A typical LiIon
 battery rated at 500-1000mAH is typically rated at 200 shots per
 charge; without testing, we will guess that the act of first
 taking then transferring 10-20 photos will leave the battery
 about halfway to dead. We were also concerned because the
 peer-to-peer wireless connection seemed to create a
 firewall-crossing vulnerability in certain un-routed edgeless
 LANs (especially with specific cable modem configurations); the
 company since disclosed that there's an invisible login handshake
 between the card & the PC, which materially reduces that risk.
 Some of our technological concerns have been eased, but there
 remains an overriding end-user value concern: is it worth the
 extra $80 to not learn how to plug the camera or the SD card
 directly into the PC?

A DIFFERENT KIND OF COVERAGE
 Just about everybody who reads this covers products. You may also
 cover other things, but in the realm of tech & gear & such, in a
 lot of your coverage, you just cover products. We can say without
 too much exaggeration that ultimately, it isn't the products
 themselves that interest your readers; what interests them are
 the good or bad changes that come to their lives as a result of
 their encounters with these products. Don't ignore the herd
 mentality; if a product is the focal point of a lot of hype, then
 that hype needs to be an element in your coverage, too. (Have you
 ever thought about how much money Apple spent pushing the iPhone
 before selling the first quarter million of them?) So what
 happens if you make readers the focal point of a piece about a
 product instead of merely telling them about the product? Imagine
 a story that opens with: Company Name wants you to believe that
 you'll be an outcast if you don't join some theoretical crowd of
 Product Name users, but objectively, the product has quirks &
 challenges they never get around to mentioning. Your importance
 to your readers increases every time you go beyond the usual
 look-here & give them some context, even if only for the water
 cooler. (We remember the Scripps Howard slogan: "Give the people
 light & they will find their own way.") As always, begin your
 consideration objectively & keep your presentation objective, but
 we think there's a lot to be said for drawing some of your own
 conclusions in the process & backing them up with resources
 outside the press kit. It doesn't have to take much time & it
 does make what you have to say much more relevant & much more
 interesting. Please share your thoughts about this with Marty.
 Contact: Martin Winston, NEWSTIPS (Novelty, OH) 440-338-8400;
 mailto:marty@newstips.com http://Newstips.com

                # # #

Newstips Bulletin [Novelty, OH] +1.440.338.8400 http://Newstips.com

(c) Copyright 2007 Martin Winston and TwandaCorp - all rights reserved.

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