It’s not often that you find a webcam that’s multifaceted, but Earth Trek’s webcam is just that. Dubbed the “hottest webcam” this world has ever seen (um, no), this unit packs a 1.3-megapixel camera, VGA capture abilities, auto focus / auto brightness and the real kicker, a 2-port USB hub. Probably still a ripoff at $45, but if you need those extra peripheral ports bad enough, who knows what you’d be willing to do.
Who doesn’t long for a smart home system that gives you full control of your thermostat, lighting, AV, and security system from the convenience of your cellphone? While many proprietary and “standards-based” off-the-shelf solutions exist, things quickly break down due to the lack of interoperability, cost, or sheer complexity of medium-to-large home automation designs. Enter Nokia who just announced its Home Control Center, a platform open for third parties to develop “plug and play” solutions, all of which can be controlled via your phone or PC from both inside and outside the home. HCC will let home owners switch devices on and off as they monitor and control their electricity usage while providing access to objects such as temperature sensors, cameras, and motion detectors. Ultimately it will integrate more complex systems like security, heating, and ventilation. Although few technical details were provided, a research paper from last year that outlined Nokia’s Smart Home strategy called for a 802.11n WiFi home gateway device (presumably from Nokia) with optional GSM/GPRS module integrating into a home network of Z-Wave and ZigBee-compliant devices. The system is expected to include pre-packaged Smart Home kits ranging from starter, security, energy, and baby monitoring when it goes retail (Europe first) by the end of 2009.
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While this rumor hasn’t been running quite as long as the original iPhone rumor, we’ve been brushing off whispers of the D3x for a really, really long time. For what it’s worth, the latest tidbit actually seems to have some teeth, with one eagle-eyed tipster noting that the website in the read link was alive momentarily, then canned inexplicably. He managed to grab the image you see above (but not the whole site?), and he swears up and down it wasn’t the Eggnog distorting his judgment. We’ll see, won’t we?
SanDisk was first out of the gate with a 16GB microSDHC card, but Toshiba’s just two months behind with the announcement of its iteration. Slated for mass production in January of 2009, the capacious SD-C16G should provide plenty of room for your EMF albums and that Rage Against the Machine discography. In related news, Tosh also introduced the soon-to-come SD-F16G and SD-F08G, 16GB / 8GB Class 6 SDHC cards that should handle even the quickest of cameras when they launch over the next few months. No prices to chew on just yet, but we’d wager they’ll be competitive.
We’ve seen these Amazon “leaks” time and again. So while the December 7th date for the Vado HD might be an educated guess, the details including that $200 price tag certainly look real enough. The display still measures 2-inches, but the beefier 3.3 x 7.9 x 6.3-inch solid state camcorder now brings 8G of storage for up to 2 hours of 720p MPEG-4 recordings — 8 hours at VGA quality. It also ships with an HDMI cable for instant playback to your like-equipped television. Otherwise, slot the cam into your PC’s (XP and Vista, only) USB port to instantly share your works to YouTube and others with the help of the cam’s built-in Vado Central Software. With this, the Kodak Zi6, and Flip Mino HD, there certainly won’t be any shortage of pocket HD cameras of suspect-tweener quality to choose from this holiday season.
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You’re thinking about it. Your spouse is thinking about it. Your kids are thinking about it. And yes, your NXE Avatar is thinking about it, too. Black Friday is but hours away, and you still haven’t conjured up the courage to get up at 3:00AM and venture out to save a grand total of $14.97 (pre-tax). Never fear, as the world’s most spectacular e-tailer is here with a slew of deals to keep you firmly planted. Amazon’s going all out on the day after Thanksgiving, but it’s also giving early birds the opportunity to snag a few specials on the run-up to the big day. We won’t spoil anything here, but be sure and give the read link a look if you’re all about saving some dough and staying home.
Peeped in spy pics on these Interwebs since June, Nokia just went official with the 6260 slide. Unfortunately, “slide” in this case reveals a numeric keypad not a QWERTY. Otherwise, it’s pretty much an iterative step beyond the 6220 classic. As such, we’re looking at a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, WiFi, and HSDPA/HSUPA data to quickly share photos and video on Nokia’s Ovi service with the promise of support for other photo and video sharing sites you might actually use. The 6260 slide also features Nokia Maps riding AGPS — a first for a mass market, Series 40 device. Ships in early 2009 for about €299 before taxes and carrier subsidies, naturally. Bigger pics whenever Nokia gets around to publishing them.
It looks like that hint at a release date we got earlier this summer turned out to be right — well, within a few weeks anyway. It’s November and Canon’s new 21 megapixel shooter, the EOS 5D Mark II, is now available. But, for the moment at least, it looks like you need to be a resident of China to pick up one for the local equivalent of $2,900 for the kit minus the lens (no word on what the full kit’s going for). The picture above was taken at a Shanghai retailer, and while this particular hand model might prefer that you consider the A900 instead, those of you with duffels full of Canon glass would be well advised to get those credit card balances raised; this hot DSLR is sure to be dropping elsewhere in the world within the next few weeks.
