Yearly Archives: 2009

Thoughts

How about a real Apple TV (an Apple tablet)?

Ligia and I were watching cartoons in bed this morning, on my laptop, and I realized Apple still hasn’t capitalized on the opportunity to create a real Apple TV. Here I was, after having ejected my external drives, disconnected the laptop from its peripherals, taken it off its stand and put it on our bed, when all of this could be handled very simply with a larger iPod — a combination iPod/Apple TV/Apple Cinema Display.

Try as I might, I just can’t watch movies or video content on my iPod. The screen is too small, even though I have an iPod touch. It has no speakers, so I have to use headphones. Clearly, Apple has the technological know-how to put together a really nice Apple TV that’s not yet another box tethered to a TV in the living room, but a display with integrated speakers and the circuitry that allows it to get on my network and access media from various drives, or to play the media I sync to it through iTunes, or to download media from the Internet. And yet, it’s content to charge people for small fry (iPods, hamstrung Apple TVs, etc.) when it comes to personal entertainment devices.

Just think, with a nice LED screen of about 13-17 inches, a touch screen, plenty of onboard storage, a good battery, WiFi, Bluetooth, and speakers, they could have an amazing device that I could take with me wherever I decide to sit in the house or in the yard. I could take it in bed and watch movies without draining my already tired laptop battery, I could take it outside on the patio at night to watch stuff there, etc.

Apple already has all of this technology. Why don’t they put it together?

They have the LED displays already, in their laptops and in their Cinema line.

led-cinema-display

They have the touch screen capabilities, from the iPod and iPhone.

ipod-touch

They have the media playback capabilities and other circuitry from the Apple TV.

Apple TV

They have the amazing batteries from the MacBook Pro line.

new-apple-batteries

The speakers are also from the MacBook Pro line, and they’re some of the best small speakers on the market, if not the best.

macbook-pro-speakers

People talk about an iTablet, but I’m not really sold on the idea. Yes, if you put all of these components together, you could have an iTablet, but what I want is a larger iPod, or rather a usable, untethered Apple TV with a nice, built-in display and decent battery life. It could look something like this (and no, this isn’t a rendering, it’s a screenshot from Apple’s own website).

itv

Take away the stand, and imagine a nice iPod-like bezel around it, so you can grab it in your hands and hold it. Perhaps it could have some sort of leg that folds out to let it stand on its own, too. This is what I’m looking for. An iPod I can actually watch, anywhere.

Images used courtesy of Apple.

Standard
Reviews

Camera preview: Canon PowerShot G11

On August 19, Canon announced the launch of the new flagship PowerShot digital camera, the G11. Having shot extensively with a G10 this summer, I’m ambivalent about upgrading to the G11.

For one thing, I welcome the better low light capabilities. While the G10 showed some noise when shooting in low light, it was acceptable when I compared it with other non-DSLRs on the market. If the G11 improves on that, great.

But the G11 is no different from the G10 when it comes to video recording. It still only shoots SD video (480p, 30fps), when other comparable cameras on the market have long since moved to HD video (720p, 30fps). Even other PowerShot cameras from Canon, like the SX20 and the SD980 and SD940, which cost less than the G11, are able to shoot HD video (720p, 30fps). Why has Canon decided to hamstring the G11, unless perhaps they feel that, with its superior collection of features, it cuts into their HD video camera sales? (If that’s the case, then it’s a sorry excuse, because they’d be putting profits before customers.)

The G11 also has lower resolution than the G10 (10 megapixels instead of 14.7 megapixels). I’m no fan of gratuitous resolution, so I’m reserving my judgment on this until I get my hands on a G11. Canon says they did it to improve low light capabilities, and I believe them — if the low light claims prove to be accurate. There’s only so much resolution you can squeeze out of the same sensor size before noise becomes an issue, even at lower ISOs.

What I’d also like to see from the G11 is a better dpi setting. One of the main differences between DSLRs and consumer-grade digital cameras is the dpi setting of the images they output. A regular digital camera will output its images at 72 dpi, which is the equivalent of screen resolution, while most DSLRs output their images at 240 dpi. That’s why — unless you tinker with the dpi setting in an image editing program — you can get a larger print from a 10 megapixel DSLR image than you can from a 10 megapixel regular digital camera image. The Canon G10 and G11 output their images at 180 dpi. That’s pretty good compared to 72 dpi, but it’s still not 240 or 300 dpi. I would love to see the G11 give me 240 dpi, right out of the camera, without needing to change that setting in post-processing.

The G11 is also slightly more sluggish than the G10 when it comes to shooting speed (1.1 fps vs. 1.3 fps). It’s probably due to the extra computations it performs on each image, but one would think shooting speed would at least stay the same, if not increase, with each camera generation.

The G11 also has a smaller screen than the G10 (2.8 in vs. 3.0 in). I understand this is due to its nature (swivel vs. fixed), but having that larger screen on the G10 was really nice. Still, the swivel screen should allow for more creative angles, so that could count as a plus.

Battery life is also a bit of a downer. On the G10, the specs say the battery lasts for about 400 shots. In real life conditions, it last much less (about 200-300 shots, depending on how sparingly you use the optical zoom). On the G11, the specs say the battery life is about 390 shots, and is likely to be much less than that in real life conditions as well. Couldn’t Canon have used a different battery or done something to improve the battery life? After all, the display is slightly smaller as well, so that should take less juice to power up. Sure, the battery life is said to be markedly better when using the viewfinder, but have you tried using the viewfinder on either the G10 or the G11? It’s more like a fuzzy rangefinder. It’s terrible.

So there you have it. Not much to brag about when it comes to the G11. Nothing revolutionary when it comes to the upgrades, and let’s face it, not even something that I, along with many others, expected, like HD video. The better low light capabilities sound interesting, and if the camera delivers enough on that end to compensate for the decrease in resolution, the G11 may be worth your money. I did like the G10. It’s a great camera with many advanced capabilities. Let’s hope the G11 can live up to its predecessor.

If you’d like to buy the G11, you can do so from Amazon or B&H Photo.

Images used courtesy of Canon.

Standard
Thoughts

Is global warming a cyclical event?

While most agree that global warming is occurring, they do not agree on the root cause. Some say global warming is caused by man, mainly by CO2 emissions, while others say it is part of a larger picture of cyclical global warming and cooling events that have occurred throughout history. Unfortunately, the debate is mostly one-sided, with man-made global warming proponents getting most of the media coverage, and the cyclical global warming proponents ostracized and denigrated as false scientists.

A new salvo was launched recently against the man-made global warming side, with the publication of an article by Danish professor Henrik Svensmark, entitled “While the Sun Sleeps”. As the title alludes, Mr. Svensmark believes the sun shows reduced magnetic activity and is about to go into a period of hibernation, which means a period of global cooling will likely begin soon. The full translation of the article from Danish to English is available on Anthony Watts’ blog, and I encourage you to read it. Here’s a quote:

“When the Sun is active, its magnetic field is better at shielding us against the cosmic rays coming from outer space, before they reach our planet. By regulating the Earth’s cloud cover, the Sun can turn the temperature up and down. High solar activity means fewer clouds and and a warmer world. Low solar activity and poorer shielding against cosmic rays result in increased cloud cover and hence a cooling. As the Sun’s magnetism doubled in strength during the 20th century, this natural mechanism may be responsible for a large part of global warming seen then.

That also explains why most climate scientists try to ignore this possibility. It does not favour their idea that the 20th century temperature rise was mainly due to human emissions of CO2. If the Sun provoked a significant part of warming in the 20th Century, then the contribution by CO2 must necessarily be smaller.”

As for me, I’m still on the fence about this, but I’m leaning toward what Svensmark says. It makes more sense to me. While there’s little doubt that the Earth has been warming for the past few decades, that weather patterns are screwed up, and that pollution and emissions are running rampant and must be reduced drastically or eliminated where possible, I’m still not sure we’re behind the global warming phenomenon.

What tilts the balance of my opinion further away from man-made global warming is the face being used for the campaign — that of Al Gore. Try as I might, I can’t stomach the guy. When I think about his claim to inventing the internets, and his electricity-chugging lifestyle (which goes in stark contrast to what he’s saying when he speaks publicly), and his face, which just isn’t the face of a man that should be trusted — I’m sorry, I just have to look for more proof before I believe what he’s got to say. I’m also still in shock that the man got a Nobel Prize for the stuff he talks about — after all, he’s little more than a pusher of carbon credits, which are dangerously close to a green, global Ponzi scheme in my book.

Who knows, I might be wrong about Al Gore — he may be genuine for all I know — and in that case, I hope the agenda he and his supporters are pushing goes through, but right now, I believe global warming is cyclical, and only time will tell for sure who’s right.

More importantly, I believe global pollution must be addressed regardless of who’s right and wrong on global warming. Our environment is on the verge of collapse due to all the crap we’ve been pouring into it since the 1800s. Pollution is a real threat to our survival, as countless studies have shown. Let’s do something about that, right away.

Standard
Lists

Condensed Knowledge – September 13, 2009

This is a summary of articles I read and found interesting during this past week. The list is shared from among my feed subscriptions. I only share a certain number of articles in each of these posts, so if you'd like to see more, visit my full Google Shared Items list.

Standard
Thoughts

Why not, Apple?

Finally got around to watching the Apple Special Event from 9/9/09, and was very glad to see Steve Jobs back at the helm. As I mulled over what I’d seen, two questions came to mind:

  1. If Apple could place a niftly little camera in the new iPod Nano, why couldn’t they do it sooner for the iPhone? Why so much hedging on that issue? After all, it’s not like video cameras in smartphones were such an exotic item, even back when the first generation iPhones came out.

    ipod-nano

  2. If the iPod touch and the iPhone are such great gaming platforms, and they run a pared down version of OS X, why can’t I play those same games on my MacBook Pro or my iMac? Granted, I could understand they’re not made for the higher resolutions of a laptop or desktop machine, but still, they’d be running on much better hardware, so they should be screaming fast. Apple’s always had a bad rep for not being a good gaming platform. Seems to me like an easy flick of the switch to let people run those same iPod touch and iPhone games on their Macs and get more bang for their bucks. Or is this coming down the pike in the near future?

    ipod-touch-games

Images used courtesy of Apple.

Standard