My Best Toys

No price or availability but that doesn’t mean its not ready for its close-up

Following the launch of the Sigma DP1x at PMA in Las Vegas, the company has thrown it on a plane to Blighty for us to come along with a camera and snap the goods.

Still in “prototype” development we managed to get a quick fondle of the new model, but alas not allowed to take any photos of the menu system in action.

The DP1x is an upgrade from the DP1, launched in March 2008. It has a 14-megapixel Foveon X3 image sensor, and Sigma’s TRUEII image processing engine.

Inside, there’s a 16.6mm F4 lens which has been designed solely for the DP1 series and the autofocus algorithm and UI have been tweaked a little over the DP1.

The bad news is, currently Sigma isn’t giving out pricing or availability at the moment.

Tags:
Cameras Sigma Compact cameras 14 megapixels Sigma DP1x Digital cameras

PHOTOS: Sigma DP1x hands-on originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:02:09 +0000

Portal 2 first game to launch in April

Valve?has announced it will be bringing its Steam gaming service to the Mac bringing with it a shiny beacon of gaming fun to Mac users who’ve in the past been left out.

“Steam and Valve’s library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the?Half-Life?series will be available in April.” The company has confirmed in a statement following a teaser campaign last?week.

“Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge,” says the company.

Even better news for Mac gamers is that Valve says they will be treating the Mac as a “Tier 1″ platform meaning it will be releasing games at the same time as PC and Xbox 360.?

Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth the company has confirmed.

The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows.

Tags:
Gaming Mac games Valve Steam Apple

Valve’s Steam comes to Mac originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:43:50 +0000

Photo gallery of the new flagship compact

Launched at the beginning of February, Nikon’s latest “flagship” come “hero” camera for 2010 is the ultra compact, but ultra-zoom capable,?Nikon Coolpix S8000.

The new model measures just 27.3mm thick, packs in 14.2 megapixels and that pretty dominating 3-inch LCD display around the back.

If that wasn’t enough to get you giddy with the thought of snapping everything in sight it will give you 720p movies with stereo sound at 30 frames per second.

The Coolpix S8000 will be available in black, brown and champagne silver with an aluminium finish with a rubber coating for ?249.99.

Expect a full review of the S8000 shortly.

Tags:
Cameras Digital cameras Nikon Nikon Coolpix S8000 14 megapixels Compact cameras Photos

PHOTOS: Nikon Coolpix S8000 digital camera hands-on originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:01:40 +0000

New entry-level DSLR shows is face, back, sides and menu system

Sony has been shy about showing off its entry-level DSLR, the Alpha 450, that’s only hitting the UK rather than the rest of the world. But that didn’t stop us getting a peek at the new model at the Focus on Imaging show in Birmingham when it did make an appearance.

The new model should cost around ?550 when it hits the shops in the next month and comes with a 14.2-megapixel CMOS sensor.

The Alpha 450 has a healthy ISO range sensitive to low light up to ISO 12,800 and the power comes in the 5fps standard shooting, which goes up to 7fps so long as you’re happy to have the exposure fixed by the first shot of the volley.?

Tags:
Cameras DSLR cameras Sony 14 megapixels Sony Alpha 450 Digital cameras Photos

PHOTOS: Sony Alpha 450 hands-on originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:55:08 +0000

71% of users are male, 15% are female and 14% are perverts

You might be familiar with Chatroulette, a website which has been making waves by allowing you to webcam chat with random strangers across the world. If you’re not, and you’re feeling brave, go and try it now at chatroulette.com.

Inspired by his experiences with the service, a New York filmmaker named Casey Neistat has surveyed and documented the average Chatroulette session, as well as collecting a few statistics about its users. 71% are male, 15% are female and 14% are perverts, he claims. 83% were young, and 17% were older.

You can see the full results, as well as Neistat’s excellent narration of his time on the service, in the video above. If he looks a little familiar, it might be because you’re remembering his other movie - the iPod’s Dirty Secret, from 2003.

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Tags:
Software Websites Chatroulette Instant messaging Video conferencing Video

Filmmaker documents Chatroulette experiences originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:52:07 +0000

Give your laptop a transflective display

Display company Pixel Qi has announced that it’ll shortly begin selling DIY kits to convert your laptop’s display into one of its transflective screens. On its blog, the company said that performing the conversion is “only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbulb”.

On the company’s blog, Mary Lou Jepsen said, after telling a story about pre-teen Nigerian girls opening a laptop school, “it’s basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting the old screen and plugging this one in. That’s it. It’s a 5 minute operation”. However, as one commenter pointed out, you’re also voiding your warranty and paying for the privilege.?

As previously reported, Pixel Qi’s?transflective display works as both an LCD and an E-Ink panel, depending on the amount of sunlight hitting it. You can switch between one and the other at will, depending on what you want to display.?No pricing has been announced for the DIY kits, and nor is there any information on what sizes will be available from the company. When we hear those details, however, we’ll be sure to let you know.

Tags:
Hardware Laptops Pixel Qi DIY Screens

Pixel Qi offers DIY screen replacement kits originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:24:30 +0000

Up close and personal with the new touchscreen model

Panasonic?has announced two new Micro Four Thirds cameras at the start of Focus on Imaging in Birmingham and Pocket-lint was hands on to grab a quick fondle.?

As announced the new models will introduce a new entry-level offering in the guise of the G10?and a direct G1 replacement as in the?G2, seen here.?

New elements to the camera not seen in the G1 (launched in 2009) is the ability to record video, a new focus setting dial on the left hand shoulder and a new iA button on the right.?The jog wheel has also been moved from the front right to rear right.?

Strange then that all these buttons fight against a large touchscreen display that allows you to select the point of focus with the press of your finger.?

No official word on pricing or availability, but a rather loose lipped “man on the stand” suggested that those wishing to get one in a couple of months (read May) should expect to pay around ?650 for the G2 and around ?500 for the G10.?

Tags:
Cameras Digital cameras Micro Four Thirds Hybrid cameras Panasonic Panasonic G2 12 megapixels Panasonic G10

PHOTOS: Panasonic G2 hands-on originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:00:43 +0000

iPhone may get the functionality

US technology manufacturer Apple has revealed that it’s working on functionality that’d allow you to unlock doors using your mobile phone or a similar gadget. The hardware and software giant filed a patent?(PDF link) for a device that uses near-field communication to identify people and grant them access.

The patent says: “The device can communicate with an external device to open a lock. By way of example, the electronic device may be a model of an iPhone.?The external device may be any suitable electronic device such as a portable media player, personal data assistant or electronic lock that may be used to access a door, car, house or other physical area”.

You’d have to register your phone or other device with the door, and then rotate an onscreen dial to enter a pin code. If the pin matches, the door would be unlocked. However, the patent also proposed encrypting the communications so that hackers wouldn’t be able to “listen in” by placing monitoring devices nearby.

Apple recently sued rival smartphone manufacturer HTC for a claimed violation of twenty of its patents.

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Tags:
Hardware Apple Patents Keyrings

Apple patents door-unlocking iKey originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:48:05 +0000

Company exec discusses the similar products

Back in 2007, Google launched Latitude - a GPS-based system which keeps track of your location and allows friends that you’d carefully selected to see where you are. More recently, when Google launched Buzz, it also launched a mobile application which offers almost the same functionality but with the ability to broadcast information alongside your location.

Some wondered if this meant that Google was replacing Latitude with Buzz, and while Google’s Steve Lee, product manager for Google Maps for mobile and Google Latitude?said that for now they’re still separate projects, he refused to rule out integrating them at a future point in time.

Lee said: “Down the road, there might be points of integration between Buzz and Latitude, but they are separate products and have different use cases. We’re thinking of what apps we can build that have certain compelling use cases and how can location enhance those apps. We see location is like one of the sensors on a phone, so we are going to weave it throughout many services”.

Interestingly, Latitude managed to avoid a privacy whirlwind by making pretty much every one of its features opt-in. Buzz, on the other hand, suffered a storm after automatically adding friends based on how often you email people. Google was forced to withdraw that functionality, and instead reverted to a more conservative approach.

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Tags:
Software Websites Google Google Buzz Latitude Car And GPS

Google to integrate Buzz and Latitude? originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:07:45 +0000

With DLNA, DVD upscaling, and BD-Live functionality.

Sony has announced a pair of 3D Blu-ray players which combine with the various 3DTVs making it to market in 2010 to deliver movie content in three dimensions to your living room.?There’s the?BDP-S470 and the BDP-S570.

The two models both offer DLNA functionality, upscaling of any standard-definition DVDs that you put in, and all the BD-Live functionality you can shake a stick at. Then, when you put in a 3D Blu-ray, which should be available later this year, and put on some active shutter glasses, you’ll get the full experience.

There’s also access to Sony’s Bravia Internet Video platform, which offers on-demand content from a range of web services. The BDP-S570 has Wi-Fi built in, along with noise reduction tech, but in most other ways the two players are pretty much identical. There’s no pricing or availability info just yet, but as soon as we hear anything we’ll let you know.

Tags:
Home Cinema Sony Blu-ray 3D Sony BDP-S470 Sony BDP-S570

Sony Reveals BDP-S470 and BDP-S570 3D Blu-ray players originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:38:17 +0000