Pentax’s K-5 DSLR has been around for a little while now, but it’s only just recently received enough reviews to establish something of a critical consensus. The short of it is that the camera largely addresses most of the criticisms leveled at the K-7 it’s replacing — namely, lackluster image quality and poor high ISO performance in particular — but those improvements come at a fairly hefty cost. The K-7 costs about $300 more than the Nikon D7000 , which Digital Photography Review notes has has a similar sensor but a “significantly more versatile AF system.” Photography Blog also came to some similar conclusions, but notes that the “headline-grabbing top-speed of 512000 is frankly unusable,” and suggests that Pentax should have simply followed Nikon’s lead and capped things at 25600. Despite that high price and some minor issues, however, DP Review says the camera is a “no-brainer” upgrade for current Pentax users, but obviously still something of a tough sell for Canon or Nikon users. Hit up the links below for some additional takes on the camera. Read – Digital Photography Review Read – Photography Blog Read – Imaging Resource Read – Pocket-lint Pentax K-5 review roundup: solid but pricey upgrade from the K-7 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Photos: KhayaL / NASA Sonic Boom Chicka Wah Wah If you thought nothing put a crocodile in the mood for love quite like the beady, vacuous eyes and razor-sharp grin of a potential mate, think again. It turns out that, after millions of years of existence, sometimes all a cold-blooded croc needs to get hot is the sound of a supersonic jet passing overhead. But it’s not a love for aviation upping their libido — sonic booms, apparently, sound quite a bit like a crocodile love … Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …Heart Spark pendant blinks with your heart, automatically gets you into B.E.D. (video)
December 21, 2010 No Comment
Not that we haven’t been inundated with circuit-related fashion accessories in the past, but if you’ve already started thinking about what to get that lovely lad (or lady) in your life come February, look no further. SenseBridge, a research group with loads of passion, has just revealed the Heart Spark ($69, on sale now) — a wearable pendant with an integrated wireless receiver, a smattering of LEDs and a wow factor that’s downright heartwarming. The fortunate wearer must also strap a belt around their chest in order to monitor their heart rate, which is then transmitted wirelessly to the Heart Spark; upon receiving the information, the onboard lights will flash at the same rate as your heart, making it easy for the love of your life to see when your heart is aflutter. Video demonstration is just past the break, and yes, it’s about as precious as you’d imagine. Continue reading Heart Spark pendant blinks with your heart, automatically gets you into B.E.D. (video) Heart Spark pendant blinks with your heart, automatically gets you into B.E.D. (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …MSN Trashes Palin Show: ‘Killing Dozens of Living Things and Millions of Brain Cells’
December 21, 2010 No Comment
People clicking through MSN.com for a list of Best and Worst TV of 2010 found mostly rave reviews, but near the end of the list came the “Worst,” and critic Chris Larkin really blasted Sarah Palin's Alaska with the usual disdain that anyone would kill animals (but wishes a bear would harm Palin): See Sarah fish. She Sarah hunt. See Sarah log. All eight parts of this shameless ad for the Alaska Division of Tourism involve the killing of dozens of living things and millions of brain cells. Where's an attacking bear when you really need it? The saving grace is watching the former vice presidential candidate well up while discussing Trig, her 2-year-old son who suffers from Down syndrome. But these rare heartfelt moments can't sustain the otherwise painful tedium. Five million viewers watched the premiere, a record for TLC. Three million viewers watched the second episode. Two million viewers were not wrong. read more
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A former Mexican presidential candidate was freed Monday more than seven months after his kidnapping, telling reporters outside his Mexico City home that he is well and forgives his captors. (Dec. 20)
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Fla. church that donates toys to needy kids suffered a setback recently when a thief broke into the church and stole many of the toys from its annual toy drive. But volunteers stepped in to give the church a boost.
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LONDON (AFP) – Thousands of angry travellers struggled Monday to get home for Christmas as snow and ice caused fresh chaos at European airports and paralysed roads and railways across the frozen continent. International hubs London, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Brussels tried to clear a backlog of passengers forced to sleep on terminal floors for up to three days as they sought to reach their destinations by the end of the week. Authorities in Frankfurt sent in clowns in a bid to cheer up travellers, but fury mounted in Britain, especially at Heathrow where severe disruption reigned despite the last major snowfall having been on Saturday. “I am ashamed to be British,”…
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While Pres. Barack Obama this week is expected to clear the way for gays to serve openly in the military, unanswered questions remain: How soon will the new policy be implemented, will it be accepted and could it hamper military operations? (Dec. 20)
Continue reading …Viewsonic: There’s no G Tablet ‘manufacturing defect,’ it’s a user experience issue
December 21, 2010 No Comment
In case you missed it , this weekend Staples announced that it was no longer offering the 10.1-inch Viewsonic G Tablet because of a “manufacturing defect.” Well, as it turns out, Viewsonic is claiming there’s really no hardware defect at all — instead, the manufacturer of the Android 2.2 , Tegra 2 -powered tablet is reporting that there’s really a “user experience issue.” Nope, that doesn’t sound much better, but according to Viewsonic’s VP of Marketing Adam Hanin, the G Tablet saw a fair number of returns because of its sluggish software experience, which was caused by the preloaded Tap and Tap Android layer. A number of issues were also caused by the lack of Flash, which Adobe hasn’t yet certified for Tegra 2 . “We believe it is the user experience that caused all the returns, and we are taking important steps forward with the G Tablet,” Hanin told us. So, what are those steps exactly? Viewsonic will be releasing an over-the-air software update before the end of the week and will also provide links for users to manually download and install a beta version of Flash on its support page. Naturally, we asked Hanin why the G Tablet was shipped in this half-finished state at all — he told us that while Android and Tegra are great platforms, Google’s lack of support for larger devices means that companies like Viewsonic have to “go out and put together their own software and app stores.” We’re not sure that’s a great answer — in fact, it sort of sounds like Viewsonic is trying to blame Google, Adobe, and NVIDIA for its own half-finished and laggy software, when it released the tablet on its own to retailers. Either way, we’ve now seen more than enough terrible “user experience” issues on the early crop of Android tablets — Honeycomb , where are you? Continue reading Viewsonic: There’s no G Tablet ‘manufacturing defect,’ it’s a user experience issue Viewsonic: There’s no G Tablet ‘manufacturing defect,’ it’s a user experience issue originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 21:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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An earthquake in southeast Iran has killed at least five people and destroyed homes, a regional governor has said. The quake struck late on Monday in a mountainous region and was given a 6.3 magnitude by the US Geological Survey. Kerman province is said to be the worst affected area. “Seven people have been killed and hundreds have been injured. Hundreds of people are still trapped under the rubbles,” Esmail Najjar, governor of Iran’s Kerman province, the centre of the quake, told the semi-official Mehr news agency. At least three villages were destroyed, leaving hundreds of people trapped under rubble, according to Mehr, a semi-official news agency. There were nine aftershocks following the…
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