Gadgets Base

I guess these have been around for quite a while now since the Spiderman 3 movie has long ended its run at the cinemas, but they’re still cool enough to warrant a mention here.

Two realistic Spiderman masks with an intercom duplex system that allows you to talk and listen to your partner at the same time. Features: flexible microphone arm and adjustable intercom mask strap. Requires 2-9V batteries (not included).

They won’t come cheap though, and since you’ll need at least a couple of these, the £34.99 price tag could be rather prohibitive.

Product Page via GeekAlerts

A new web 2.0 service dubbed Tagcow has sprung out of nowhere a couple of days ago. Tagcow, so far has managed to create quite a stir and although Tagcow maybe a cool and useful application, some are questioning the new service, emphasizing on the accuracy of tagging, its usefulness and the never ending question on privacy statements.

In brief, Tagcow is a photo tagging service that automatically assigns descriptive tags to photos that users upload into Tagcow. The service identifies the objects in a given photo, and then assigns generic descriptive tags based on photos subject.

At first glance, it would seem a great tool, a work of magic even. For how can an automated system identify the objects in a given photo to come up with identifier tags for those objects? Some questions that came out were who does the tagging, human or some automatic algorithms? And based on the current flow of tag request that come into Tagcow, it would seem that humans maybe tagging the photos after all. The influx of request caused the site to disable the tagging feature for the moment. The human taggers probably could not cope up with the influx of request. 

But whether Tagcow used automatic taggers or human taggers is not the point of all this, but on the accuracy of tagging photos. From the owner’s point of view, would they rely on others to tag your photos their photos? Isn’t it more useful and efficient if photo owners are the one who’s going to assign descriptive tags into their photos?

Despite of these questions, Tagcow in itself is a pretty cool and useful service. Some minor tweaking on its TOS and privacy statements must be done first.  Plus a more detailed explanation of how Tagcow “really” works would be a welcome addition in understanding the service clearly.

Read [Tagcow] Via [Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection] Via [TechCrunch]

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Just yesterday, we mentioned that the Nokia N96 will have a Xenon flash. Unfortunately at the time is was based mostly on rumor, so what better way for us to be able to follow that up, with nothing less than a leaked picture of a Nokia N96 with a Xenon flash. While this is far from official confirmation, it certainly seems this rumor has been proven true.

Looks like the Nokia N96 excites as it features a generous 2.8-inch QVGA display, impressive stereo speakers, Wi-Fi, HSDPA, and the much awaited Xenon flash, similar to what Nokia N82 currently has.  Now, I’m pretty much convinced that N96 will be worth the wait. So Nokia, when can we finally get our hands on your new baby?

Via [Just Another mobile phone Blog]

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Posted Mar 31st 2008 5:10AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Digital Cameras, Peripherals
While it may look like an overhead projector without any hints to the scale, you’re actually looking at HP’s (relatively) tiny Elite Auto Focus Webcam. Compatible with all the major PC-based, video chat solutions out there (Yahoo, Skype, MS Messenger, AIM), the USB 2.0 cam clips onto your monitor and features a 3 megapixel CMOS camera capable of shooting video ranging from 640 x 480 pixels at 30fps quality on down to 1,600 x 1,200 at a stuttering 5fps. It also brings a built-in stereo microphone, face tracking and Magic-i video effects software, 3 programmable buttons, and a sliding “privacy cover” which lets your date know that the camera really is, off.

As part of the its commitment to data portability, Microsoft Live has teamed up with 5 top social networks to facilitate and make it easier for members of those social networks who are also using the Windows Live Messenger to import their address book from their social networking profiles into the Windows Live contacts list.

Using Windows Live Contacts API, members of Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn, Tagged and Hi5 can logged in to these social networks and see which of their friends are using the Windows Live Contacts API. LinkedIn, Tagged and Hi5 users will have to wait a little while though as it is currently available for Facebook and Bebo users only.

Related to this, Microsoft has also launched Invite2Messenger.  A new facility residing in Windows Live portal which users can use to invite their social network friends to join them in Windows Live Messenger. These two new Microsoft initiatives are aimed at facilitating cross platform communication through one common gateway which is Windows Live Messenger. And for Microsoft, it is a good promotional tool for the Windows Live Messenger.

However good the intention of Microsoft in teaming up with these 5 top social networks, we can’t help but think of a similar initiative taken by Microsoft rival’s Google which was spearheading the OpenSocial Movement. The OpenSocial Movement brought together various social networks which have opened up their platforms to third party developers and to one another making it easier to work on better and useful applications that can be used in all the social networks. Ironically both Microsoft and Facebook were not part of Google’s OpenSocial Movement. And we couldn’t help but think this could all be part of a grand scheme, on the part of Microsoft to create its own OpenSocial group that would rival that of Google’s.

Via [On10]

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Filed in archive Photoshop by jim on March 31, 2008

<!– <rdf:Description rdf:about=”http://www.digital-shot.com/50226711/free_adobe_photoshop_express_graphics_program.php” trackback:ping=”http://www.creative-weblogging.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.pl/118300″ dc:title=”" dc:identifier=”http://www.digital-shot.com/50226711/free_adobe_photoshop_express_graphics_program.php” dc:subject=”Photoshop” dc:description=”" dc:creator=”jim” dc:date=”2008-03-31T00:00:05-08:00″ /> –>

If you ever wanted to try one of Adobe's famed "Photoshop" graphics programs here's your chance to test drive their latest "light" version.

I have several versions of Adobe Photoshop that I got for free with various printers, scanners and other gizmos that have come and gone over the years and I have a full blown Photoshop program as well.

The learning curve is steep, that's for sure, even with some of the simpler versions, but the results are worth the effort.

In any event all digital camera owners will want to manipulate their images to some degree so why not give as many graphics programs as possible a whirl, especially when the cost is zero.

Check out this free Adobe Photoshop Express graphics program and take note of the 2 gigs of free online image storage they're also offering.

Take a camera with you whenever possible, and look around, you'll find a picture somewhere.

Source:www.images.macworld.com

The long rumored Windows XP-based Eee PC will soon be hitting the market here in the US. With all the recent commotion about the Eee PC 900, the XP rumors had seemed to die down just a bit. The updated Eee PC will keep the same specs as the current Linux-based model, except for the OS, which will be Windows XP Home.

Perhaps the best news; the Eee PC will keep the same $399 price tag and we will not have too long to grab one for yourself, they will be available at Best Buy locations beginning April 9, 2008.

According to the folks over at Laptop, Asus is planning on also bundling a 4GB SD card in with the notebook to offer some additional storage space. With the small internal 4GB SSD, after Windows XP is installed and with just a few other programs they were left with just 153MB of free space.

Via [Laptop]

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Following approval of the Department of Justice, legal counsel of both Sirius and XM met with the FCC on Wednesday to discuss the merger proposal of the two companies. The merger proposal was given the nod by DOJ, and so XM and Sirius seem to wasting little time in getting the FCC’s approval.

Based on record of filing at the FCC, the meeting was held last Wednesday before FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. Together with the legal counsel of Sirius and XM, others who were present during the meeting were Daniel Gonzales, Chairman of Martin’s Chief of Staff and Michelle Carey, Chairman Martin’s Senior Legal advisor.

The record of filing also indicated that the meeting discussed programming packages and proposed pricing which were previously announced by both Sirius and XM.

To backtrack, the merger proposal was announced February last year. After several months of getting various tirades and criticisms from other companies claiming that such merger could lead to the two companies monopolizing the radio satellite industry which will lead to increase in prices of delivering radio satellite services to the consumers. Both Sirius and XM denied this allegation and even announced various programming packages and their corresponding prices. Both versions of the programming prices show no sign of dramatic increase in the prices of services offered by Sirius and XM.

And this was probably what made the DOJ to approve the merger proposal. Thinking that the issue has been going for so long now, Sirius and XM took matters into their own hands and met up with the FCC. Pending outcome of the meeting, we have yet to see if the FCC would also approve the proposal, which to some analysts will most likely happen since the FCC most often than not just follow what the DOJ says.

Via [Orbit Cast]

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A member over at Howard Forums has revealed what the upcoming LG VX8560 will look like, all in its music-centric, flip-tastic glory. Here you can see it rearing to the left with a red-colored profile, dedicated music controls, and a tiny camera lens on top of the external display. No other details about this phone’s features have been announced so far, so the best you could do is to just criticize its looks.

To the right of the LG VX8560, meanwhile, you find the flat-faced LG VX9700, another Verizon upcoming scheduled for a mid-to-late Q2 release. This will feature a 3.2-megapixel camera with Schneider Kreuznach lens, full QWERTY keyboard, a microUSB port and a microSDHC slot. Obviously it will have a touch-sensitive display, but still you have to wonder how well its touch-UI would work overall.

Via [Gizmodo] Via [Howard Forums] Via [Howard Forums]

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Posted Mar 30th 2008 8:43PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Gaming, Home EntertainmentWe were kind of wondering when it was finally going to happen: Microsoft’s inked a deal with a production company to do original content for the Xbox 360. The licensed back catalog of stuff is good and all, but this would fill that niche in between Xbox 360’s digital downloads and long-promised IPTV. No word yet on when it’s coming, just that we can expect the usual compliment of Hollywood pap.