Filed under: Digital Cameras

Over a year after Leica rolled out its action plan to address those buggy M8s fresh off the factory floor, the digicam company is announcing yet another upgrade path, but this time it's not on the house. Apparently, M8 owners that fall deeply in love with their shooter can get their name on a "waiting list," and once their number is called, they get the privilege of shipping their device to Germany where a number of tweaks can be made. Reportedly, each M8 is suitable for upgrading, and aside from getting sent back with a fresh two-year warranty, it can also be fitted with a scratch-resistant LCD monitor cover (um, riveting?) and a new "electronically-controlled metal-blade slotted shutter that offers less noise and vibration." Unfortunately, these changes will supposedly set one back €1,200 ($1,775), but alas, Leica suggests that said payment will make the M8 a "lifetime investment." Right, just like that $9,000 desktop you procured in 1996.

 

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

What better way to celebrate the 1-year anniversary of the Mooninites' invasion of Boston than to drop $80 on Evil Mad Scientist Labs' new Peggy? It's easy to fall in love with this 12 x 15-inch hackable pin grid for pluggable LEDs, which also features a programmable microcontroller capable of animating its 625 positions. Just be cautious when using it to spread your propaganda outdoors, some big city populaces apparently don't like being toyed with by way of LED signage.

 

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

See, this is how you bust out a hologram -- unlike the mind-numbingly boring virtual Prince Charles we heard about the other day, Sony's invaded Tokyo Bay with a water-and-laser sea monster. The apparition is part of the promotion for a movie called "Water Horse: Legend of the Deep," but even with a title like that, we'll definitely check it out on import DVD when it arrives Stateside just to provide more incentive for stunts like this. Check out a video after the break.

Continue reading Sony unleashes a holographic monster on Tokyo Bay

 

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Filed under: Cult of Mac, Apple, MacBook Air

The MacBook Air has landed, and people are posting unboxing videos and pictures. The embedded video was sent to us by Betty, a new MacBook Air owner. Our friends at UneasySilence have taken a slew of pictures of their newly arrived MacBook Air.

Are you reading TUAW on a MacBook Air? How is it treating you so far?

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Weathernews has found an interesting way to monitor and alert Tokyo to the pollen count. The 200 Pollen Bots measure about one foot across, weigh 2.2 lbs. each, and glow in their styrofoam shells. The color of their eyes change as the count goes up or down. Given to those locals who suffer from hay fever, the recipients monitor the air in their space and send updated results over the Net to Weathernews’ headquarters. We would think that having to purchase a couple extra boxes of Kleenex would be a fairly decent and less expensive indication.

Tags: bot (T), hay fever (T), pollen bot (T), pollen count (T), robot (T), tokyo (T), weather (T), weathernews (T)

Read More | Weathernews Pollen Map (Japanese) via Toyko Mango

irascible: easily provoked to anger.

Filed under: Cool tools, Freeware, Widget Watch, Deals

This Lifehacker comment thread made me go researching on what I might use for Webclips, but save for the front page of my favorite blog (TUAW, duh), I couldn't think of anything I'd really want to keep on my Dashboard 24/7. I did like the idea of putting Woot.com (and Shirt.woot, which I've been looking at a lot lately) on there, but as a few of the commenters say, webclipping (can I verb that?) the entire page makes things a little too big.

Fortunately, David Elliot piped up about the Woot.com widget, which easily and quickly lets you monitor the Woot sites from your dashboard, with a minimum of space taken up. And now I've got two instances of it running on my Dashboard, one for regular Woot and one for the Shirt version. I especially like that it includes Growl notification, too -- if I happen to be working around midnight and a really good deal pops up, I won't miss it.

Of course, you may not want to have something popping up on your Dashboard all the time tempting you to spend money. But if you're already following the Woot empire (and to tell the truth, I almost never buy anything-- I just like looking), the widget is an easy and simple way to stay up to date.

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Even the military is Apple friendly. It has supplied iPod software to soldiers that speaks Arabic and Kurdish so that they can chat with the local population The report, issued in February’s National Defense Magazine, says that they are guided by a Vcommunicator application, which can also be used to read maps, study missions, and can be connected to a speaker or megaphone. What do you suppose the locals will do when one of our troops slips up and plays a bit of U2 by accident? The technology will soon be available for us civilians.

Tags: apple (T), arabic (T), ipod (T), kurdish (T), language barrier (T), military (T), software (T), vcommunicator (T)

Read More | Computerworld

Filed under: MacBook Air

This news comes just as some of you are un-boxing that shiny new MacBook Air. Macworld reports that Apple has updated the MacBook Air wireless release note. In this release note, Apple explains that you may experience problems with older 802.11n routers when using Remote Disc, Migration Assistant, or Remote Install.

As a possible solution Apple mentions that you can try upgrading the firmware on your router; however, this is only possible if your router supports upgrades (although most popular routers do). Otherwise, you may be looking to get a new router; which adds to the total cost of owning a MacBook Air.

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Filed under: Digital Cameras

Another colorful point-and-shoot, you say? Yes, but with a difference: General Imaging's E-1050 uses Geotate's clever approach to geotagging your photos. Add that to a 10-megapixel sensor, 5x zoom, electronic image stabilization and face detection and red eye removal that's in vogue this year, and you've got an interesting little package. Unfortunately, the unit was tethered by its HDMI port to a TV, so we couldn't play around with the unit and give away our location, so we'll have to wait and see if geotagging is enough of a checkmark to differentiate this little digicam.

 

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