The Nikon has built in

• 12.1 megapixel digital imaging sensor with a 5X wide angle zoom lens.

• VR Image Stabilization. Both optical and digital.

• Motion Detection. Camera automatically adjusts shutter speed and ISO to minimize camara shake and subject movement.

• 6400 ISO settings maximum for those really low light conditions.

• Rechargeable lithium battery good for approximately 220 shots per charge.

• Macro mode which allows for close up shots as close as 3 cm.

• Movie mode with sound (640 X 480) resolution.

The camera is rectangular and flat with a thickness of approximately 23 mm. Perfect for the pocket, purse or carry case.

This camera would be good for anyone that requires pictures to be taken and shown quickly like a real estate agent, any type of investigator or inspector. researcher, for insurance claims, or for those special gatherings or sporting events to show the participants the pictures right after the event. Great for school projects and presentations too I would think. The suggested retail price is $350.00 USD seems very reasonable for this type of unique product.

Final Verdict: Recommend

www.nikonusa.com

Nikon Coolpix S1000pi

So what happens when the listener wants to improve the overall sound quality?

Most people would automatically think about replacing the whole package with a higher quality digital music player and headphones.  Fortunately this is not the only option. You can invest in higher quality headphones to start. This means a better pair of headphones of any type.

The types available are:

• in ear as in earbuds
• around the ear as in headsets
• on top of the ear as in earpads

There does not seem to be an industry standard as to the naming scheme from what I have seen. There are terms like open back and closed back but these terms do not specifically indicate the size of the headphone cups.

One type I wanted to do a Quick Look on are earbuds that are custom molded to your ears made by JH Audio. So what’s so speciak about the JH Audio custom earbuds since there are a few other custom molded earbuds on the market like:

• Westone
• Earsound
• Ultimate Ears

First, I want to make a quick comparison between general headphones and home stereo speakers. Headphones in general have one driver or speaker for each ear. high end speakers or quality home speakers have 2 or 3 speakers built into one cabinet. It is not as simple as attaching 2 or 3 speakers to one connection cable and placing them into a cabinet. There are precise physics involved based on the cabinet size, size of the speakers and what is called a crossover circuitry which is added to the package to produce the quality sound in 2-way and 3-way speaker systems.

 The interesting design incorporated into the JH Audio custom earbuds  utilizes the similar physics used in home stereo speaker design by adding a 3-way speaker system within the earbuds. This means 3 separate speakers inside the earbud.

low end frequency speaker (Woofer)

mid range frequency speaker (Mid range)

high end frequency speaker (Tweeter)

What’s even more exciting is that the JH 13 Pro includes two speakers per frequency range with the integrated 3-way crossover in this tiny in-ear custom molded earbud. If that was not enough, the frequwncy range of these earbuds range from 10 Hz to 20 kHz which is much lower than what most people can even hear.

 I have not actually tried these earbuds myself since I would require an audiologist to create a custom mold first and then have these molds sent to JH Audio for custom manufacturing of these earbuds. From all the specifications and testimonials I have read about these earbuds, I am certainly intrigued with these earbuds. I would certainly put these earbuds on my wish list for Christmas. The cost is $1099.00 USD for the earbuds plus the cost of the custom molds to be made by an audiologist at anywhere from $100 – $200 in most cases. This does not seem like pocket change but where else can you get home stereo like specs for a pair of earbuds? It’s like getting a 3-way loud speaker with 6 speakers inside each ear.  Just reading the specifications alone makes my mouth water.

Certainly JH Audio has gone above and beyond your typical earbud design and not only provided a custom molded earbud but also some very sophisticated ealectronics inside each earbud. Anyone can insert a pair of earbuds inside a molded case but not anyone has the 6 drivers and a 3-way crossover inside such a small package. Those that can afford the pricetag of a JH Audio earbuds should consider looking into these earbuds. JH Audio seems to have many satisfied customers from all the testimontials showcased online. You can find out more about the JH 13 Pro and other JH Audio professional products at JH Audio.

Sometimes if you are lucky, you might get a close up shot of a snow clump in focus in front of the lens with the rest of the image out of focus. This is a very hard shot to take but can be exciting when you do capture one and edit the image for maximum impact.

Here are the details of the image:

F-stop: f/3.2

Exposure time: 1/850 second

ISO speed: ISO-400

Both images do not really convey how hard it is actually snowing outside. To make these images a little more interesting I decided to enhance them using Photoshop CS2. Below are the enhanced versions.

Photoshop Menu Option: Filter/Brush Strkes/Sumi-e

Sumi-e Option:

Strke Width – 3

Stroke Pressure - 3

Contrast – 0

Now the scenic image looks as if it was taken through a frozen window.

Photshop Menu Option: Filter/Distort/Glass

Distortion – 4

Smoothness – 6

Texture – Frosted

Scaling – 100%

As you can see with these examples, you can take an ordinary image and add some impact using Photoshop or some other photo editing tool that has some interesting effects included.

For now, enjoy the continuing content and look out for more Canadian specific content coming your way soon.

Bob Katayama Executive Editor

www.technobrains.com / www.technobrains.ca

Bob Katayama Executive Editor

Every Friday,  www.appdope.com also gives away promotional codes to various software titles. According to Morgan, they currently have available over 50 promotional codes to giveaway. Anyone that owns an iPhone or iPod Touch should check out APPDOPE on a regular basis and especially on Fridays. You will need to register an account on APPDOPE and follow the links associated with the giveaway apps to qualify for the promo giveaways. I would suggest you go to www.appdope.com to get the whole story and enjoy what this great website has to offer.

APPDOPE is a great addition to the Apple iPhone community and should be one website that you have to bookmark. What APPDOPE offers via their MEGACOMP Fridays giveaway is one simple way of trying to secure one of the limited promotional codes developers have available to giveaway at the launch of any new title.

Final Verdict: Recommended

APPDOPE

MEGACOMP

The iPad seems to be situated right in the middle of the smartphone and laptop category as far as functionality goes. No other ebook reader on the market currently or coming out this year except for the enTourage eDGe can be placed in the same category. Most are specifically ebook readers with some added online capabilities.

The clear, 9.7 inch high resolution color screen looks very nice to me and the fact that it is a multi-touch screen is great for a screen of its size. Some of the other features that stand out for me are:

• Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth
• iPad version of the Apple iWorks software available
• Compatible with thousands of existing iPhone and iPod Touch software
• 10 hours of battery life on one charge
• Multi-touch screen. No stylus required which can scratch the screen and is easy to misplace

Many ebook readers will be available within the coming months to compete with the popular Amazon Kindle ebook reader. From what I have read thus far, The feature set and the competitive pricepoint will be very hard to beat. The enTourage eDGe at a suggested retails of $490.00 certainly will battle with the Apple iPad but due to its lack of third party software on the Android platform will have a huge disadvantage.

I am looking forward to trying the iPad once my local Apple store has one available.

Source: USA Today

Image Source: Apple

• Total distance travelled
• Total time taken
• Average speed for the trip
• Waypoints to determine actual route taken

Now, with the BT-Q1000eX GPS, you can get even deeper into the complete trip analysis. The BT-Q1000eX GPS records at a blistering speed of up to 5 times per seconds. This means, you can determine intermediate speeds in situations where precise details are required. This is really handy for racing enthusiasts and experts. Precise measuring of speeds throughout the whole trip or lap in not new but the ability to have this at a pricepoint under $200.00 is very impressive. The ability to know the speed before entering the corner or exiting the corner can be readily seen afterwards for automobile racers. This technology is beneficial for any racer that actually runs through a course with numerous twists and turns. Typically standard GPS loggers record anywhere from around 5 seconds to 1 minute. This is fine for short or long distance recording to determine point A to B tracking but not so good in determining intermediate details. A speeding race car can enter and exit a turn in under 5 seconds thus making precise calculations about speed for a given spot on the track very difficult with standard GPS devices. The BT-Q1000eX GPS will record up to 5 times a second therefore about 25 points of data can be recorded within a 5 second stretch of race track.

With this high speed recording capability, you now have the ability to track:

• Average/minimum/maximum speed per lap
• Sector time (the time from one split point to another)
• Split time (the cumulative time from start point to split point)
• Speed for any given position.

Just like many of the QSTARZ GPS units, it is a simple one button ON unit and requires no additional hardware to reord the data. Once the data has been recorded, you can download the data via USB or Bluetooth. The BT-Q1000eX GPS comes with Lap Time Analysis, QSports software and QTravel software.

The BT-Q1000eX GPS has a suggested retail pricing of $160.00 USD. You can find more details at QSTARZ.

Source: QSTARZ

Skiff Ereader

Remember the movie “Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home”? Scotty needed to create a tank onboard to house two hump backed whales. He gave the technical specs to a manufacturer to create a sheet of transparent aluminum. A lab at Oxford University has now created such a transparent aluminum sheet. Now a company called Skiff will be releasing an ebook reader later this year which uses a thin transparent metallic layer instead of glass to protect the screen underneath. The silicon thin film transistors (TFT) are also on a flexible stainless steel substrate which makes the whole screen shatterproof and crack proof.

This new ereader will be one of many that will be competing for the top prize of best ebook reader for 2010. It is hard to say who will come out on top but I feel my money is currently on the enTourage eDGe.

Another movie in the 80′s that popularized science was the movie “Back to the Future”. Remember the Stainless Steel car called the DeLorean? This car was retrofitted with hardware that allowed the car to travel in time. DOC had returned from the future with an engine that took any material like a can of cola including the can and turned this immediately into fuel. Now a designer has been working with Nokia to produce such a fuel source for mobile devices.

Daizi Zheng has created a bio battery that uses enzymes to breakdown the sugars to produce power that produces 3 to 4 times longer lasting power over the current Lithium-ion technology on one charge. The current prototype accepts cola as the fuel and the final by-product is water and oxygen. SWEET!!! Clean and environmentally friendly.

Cola powered phone - Images Daizi Zheng

This technology probably will not be available for a few years still due to consumer acceptance and various other issues like:

• What do you do if the container leaks?
• How do you clean the liquid container?
• Pressure from battery manufacturers to not have this in the marketplace.
• Just the yuck factor of pouring a syrupy liquid into a small container to recharge your electronic device.

In any regards, the potential of these types of scientific advancements will truly revolutionize the mobile and electronic industry within the next 5 – 10 years. We are currently at the fringe of a new era of truly exotic technologies becoming mainstream. I am really looking forward to the next 5 years and beyond.

I must have a twin working for ION Audio or a designer there must have read my mind. I say this because I have always wanted an external musical keyboard that I could dock into a handheld computer. Not connect via cable like to a laptop but have the keyboard actually merged with the handheld like the Windows Mobile device when they first came out.

ION keyboard

ION Audio has actually fulfilled my long time wish and the product will be available very soon it seems. The iDiscover keyboard is a 25-key, battery operated musical keyboard with a custom iPhone/iPod Touch application. You might be thinking why this is so exciting for me? Well, here is my short list of reasons:

• The external musical keyboard runs on batteries therefore I can take it anywhere.
• No heavy laptop required to be carried with me.
• No laptop bootup time required (2+ minutes loading Windows) when I get inspired to record a musical sequence I have in my head. The iPhone/iPod Touch is instant ON and ready to start.
• Takes advantage of my iPod Touch which already has a great sound processor and decent amount of memory for storing short musical sequences.
• No cables required which can be lost or damaged easily.
• Since the keyboard plugs into the iPhone/iPod Touch, the whole system is readily upgradable when new applications become available for the iPhone through ION Audio or a third party source.

The keyboard has many of the features of a professional keyboard:

• Velocity sensitivity.
• Pitch bend wheel.
• Modulation wheel.
• Physical buttons for sound bank selections.
• USB/MIDI connection thereby allowing me access to my PC or MAC for even more musical flexibility at home.

I would love to take this musical keyboard for a test drive when the unit becomes available in the second quarter of 2010.  It certainly meets my needs as a true portable on demand musical keyboard. At the end of the day, the iPhone or iPod Touch has all the capabilities of my full fledged laptop and then some without the bulk and weight.

The iDiscover is the latest product from ION Audio and will be released along side the iTYPE keyboard which is a full qwerty keyboard. Look for both in the spring/summer of 2010. I know I will be.

More Details: ION Audio