slightlyodd » gadgets

Let the furious justification begin!

cam — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:31:26 +0000

So I went out and got that new phone… it really is quite fast.

The best camera is that good one you have that you remember to bring

cam — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:52:48 +0000

Sure, the best camera is the one you have with you. But phone cameras, wonderfully ever-present as they are, really can’t hold a candle to a decent point and shoot.

Here’s a picture of my window just now with an iPhone 4 (click for bigger):

Here’s that same picture again, with my point and shoot – exactly the same lighting (click for bigger):

Here’s a 100% crop of the iPhone:

And here’s a 100% crop of the point and shoot (click for bigger):

So why do I keep forgetting to take my freaking point and shoot with me? IT FITS IN MY POCKET!!

argh.

The Colours, Children!

cam — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 03:53:02 +0000

So despite these things being available for nearly three years in Europe and the US, Philips are going to make me order one all the way from the UK. “No plans to sell in Australia at this time,” they say. Booo! The people demand their trinkets:

This advertisement has taught me the importance of the colour of light in the room matching what you eat. For now, I’m doomed to mentos and jasmine rice. What a world!

HDR on iOS 4.1

cam — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 01:33:03 +0000

I updated my phone this morning. Definitely snappier, snappier for sure.

Snappier.

Anyway, I took an HDR photo with the new-fangled HDR option. Here, have a look (click the photo for a bigger image, full 5MP resolution image is here)!

It can save a non-HDR copy as well, so you can say “ooh! aah! that’s so much sna^H^H^Hprettier!” (full 5MP resolution here)

Seems like it’ll be quite useful for those odd occasions where it’s really hard to get an evenly exposed photo.

Electric Butterfly!

cam — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:54:13 +0000

This is too cool to be a mere shared Google Reader link. This mechanical butterfly in a jar is like one of those magnetically actuated aquaria, but amazingly realistic. Gaze upon its fluttering glory!

(via Engadget)

Aint it pretty?

cam — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:36:04 +0000

I have no further comment at this time.

stupid tvs in pubs

cam — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:33:42 +0000

I got on a really good rant on Friday night about how distracting televisions are in pubs. I’m not talking about TVs showing a football game that everyone’s into and getting rowdy about. I mean those terrible little ones, tucked away in a corner with the sound turned down having no effect other than to distract you with moving images.

I’m not sure if this is a problem you’re faced with, but I’m really distracted by moving pictures. Maybe it’s a short attention span, or maybe it’s a natural magnetism to anything technological but having a TV in eyeshot really ruins my conversational abilities.

In a fit of pique, I tracked down this cool little toy called a TV-B-Gone and ordered it. In about a week or two, I’ll be sure to carry this keychain size toy with me to the pub to turn the goddamn televisions off. I’ll let you know how it goes. I don’t reckon anyone will even notice me turning them off, though I do plan to be discreet enough to avoid getting beaten up. You just never know how turning off music video clips that have no sound might enrage people.

“thud!” go the nails in the coffin of the landline

cam — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:26:00 +0000

Last week, AT&T in the US began making these brilliant little devices to my right available to selected areas. Wondering what it is? It’s an AT&T 3G Microcell – your own personal 3G base station with backhaul provided by your broadband internet connection. It provides coverage of up to 500 square meters!

For a flat rental fee each month, you can register up to 10 phones of which 4 can be used on the cell simultaneously. When voice calls are placed using the Microcell, they aren’t counted toward your monthly allowance of calls. The device provides high speed data to your mobile phone too.

I really think that devices like these highlight the dying gasps of that old communication relic of the 20th century, the landline. When every house member can use their mobile to call for a flat rate when within range of their home 3G cell, the idea of calling a location will finally give way entirely to the notion of calling a person.

I reckon this thing is sheer genius. As long as issues of interference and bandwidth could be worked out, I don’t see why we couldn’t deploy something like this here in Australia. I’d love one – much of my house sees just one bar of GSM coverage despite living 10 minutes drive from the city center. Same with my friends’ place, 5 minutes down the road. Thoughts? Would you get one – if it cost the same or slightly less than fixed line rental per month?

the beefing up of my macbook pro

cam — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:29:38 +0000

Last night I had the pleasure of performing a little surgery on my laptop. Thanks to the instructions at ExtremeTech, I managed to get the whole thing done inside of about half an hour. There weren’t even any leftover screws! Here’s what the inside looks like (thanks ExtremeTech):

Most interestingly, I’ve been using an external 2.5″ hard drive with Time Machine for the past few months for peace of mind. I really couldn’t be bothered doing a fresh install of MacOS and reinstalling all my software so I just restored my Time Machine backup straight onto the new drive. Bloody impressive – about 5 clicks and a couple of hours later my laptop looked exactly like it did before I gutted it – all software working, all files restored.

So the specs now? Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz, 4GB DDR2 RAM, 500GB HDD and geForce 8600M CPU. Not far away from the brand new ones!