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Filed under: Digital Cameras

Sony’s booth has to be pretty big to hold all the imaging goodies, so here’s a whirlwind tour of it. You know Sony’s making a play for the big boys in the DSLR arena, so the alpha-series had a good amount of serious-looking real estate. The fleet of Sony point-and-shoots were also on display; with all the colors, shapes and sizes the display looked like a candy counter. Tech development also got some floor space, and the live demo of face detection used by Sony’s Handycams was particularly fun.

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While the strike by Hollywood writers is dragging on long enough to threaten the hallowed Oscars, video-viewing on the web is expanding as fast as ever. As a result, writers, directors and actors are considering splitting from the studios for good, creating their own videos that they can distribute across the web.
But what are the [...]

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Filed under: Digital Cameras

Over a year after Leica rolled out its action plan to address those buggy M8s fresh off the factory floor, the digicam company is announcing yet another upgrade path, but this time it’s not on the house. Apparently, M8 owners that fall deeply in love with their shooter can get their name on a “waiting list,” and once their number is called, they get the privilege of shipping their device to Germany where a number of tweaks can be made. Reportedly, each M8 is suitable for upgrading, and aside from getting sent back with a fresh two-year warranty, it can also be fitted with a scratch-resistant LCD monitor cover (um, riveting?) and a new “electronically-controlled metal-blade slotted shutter that offers less noise and vibration.” Unfortunately, these changes will supposedly set one back €1,200 ($1,775), but alas, Leica suggests that said payment will make the M8 a “lifetime investment.” Right, just like that $9,000 desktop you procured in 1996.

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Chatty Zuckerberg Tells All About Facebook Finances  —  Want to know about how privately held Facebook is doing from a financial point of view?  —  Well, just ask Mark Zuckerberg!  —  This afternoon, at an all-hands meeting held in a Palo Alto, Ca. theater near the social networking site’s headquarters …

Source:   BoomTown

Author:   Kara Swisher

Link:   http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080131/chatty-zuckerberg…

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Motorola to Explore Structural and Strategic Realignment of its Businesses to Enhance Shareholder Value  —  Company will evaluate alternatives to accelerate the ability of its Mobile Device Business to recapture growth and profitability in an expanding global market

Source:   Motorola

Link:   http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail.jsp…

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While the Associated Press has talked a lot about adapting to a new internet-centric world, there’s still very little evidence that it’s doing anything different. It’s still trying to act like a gatekeeper rather than an enabler. However, it appears that Reuters is actually experimenting with something interesting. It has a new project, called OpenCalais, designed to help any information provider extract useful metadata from written content. In other words, it’s an automated system that you can run an article or a blog post through, and it will return useful data in a structured manner. For example, if you wrote an article about Google’s earning report, it would note that the article was about Google, that it had to do with an earnings report, and maybe connect some important other points. The idea, then, is that the more useful semantic data that’s there, the more useful things that can be done on top of it. For those who believe that better use of semantic data is the key opportunity for newspapers to jump to the internet age, this could represent a very big deal. Of course, there’s a very big “if” in that statement. The service actually needs to work well and be useful. It also needs to attract users. There’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem here, as the really useful apps built on top of that data won’t come unless the data itself is available. Having Reuters behind the project suggests a strong initial base of content, but it remains to be seen how much adoption can actually be driven through this system. Some of it may depend on how much in the way of resources Reuters has put behind this project to jumpstart it (and whether that commitment continues after Reuter’s acquisition by Thomson Financial closes). Either way, it’s an experiment worth following, and one a lot more interesting than simply demanding that people pay more money.

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

What better way to celebrate the 1-year anniversary of the Mooninites’ invasion of Boston than to drop $80 on Evil Mad Scientist Labs’ new Peggy? It’s easy to fall in love with this 12 x 15-inch hackable pin grid for pluggable LEDs, which also features a programmable microcontroller capable of animating its 625 positions. Just be cautious when using it to spread your propaganda outdoors, some big city populaces apparently don’t like being toyed with by way of LED signage.

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iandoh writes “A team of scientists at Stanford University has tracked the movement of carbon nanotubes through the digestive systems of mice. They’ve determined that the nanotubes do not exhibit any toxicity in the mice, and are safely expelled after delivering their payload. As a result, the study paves the way toward future applications of nanotubes in the treatment of illnesses. Previous research by the same team demonstrated that nanotubes can be used to fight cancer. The nanotubes do this in two ways. One method involves shining laser light on the nanotubes, which generates heat to destroy cancer cells. Another method involves attaching medicine to the nanotubes, which are able to accurately ‘find’ cancerous cells without impacting healthy cells.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Glam, the controversial woman’s content and ad network run by Samir Arora (pictured left), is raising between $50-100 million in cash, and is expected to finalize the amount soon, we’ve confirmed with sources.
Along with that will be up to $100 million in debt, but the debt will be raised over the next year.
The news [...]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

See, this is how you bust out a hologram — unlike the mind-numbingly boring virtual Prince Charles we heard about the other day, Sony’s invaded Tokyo Bay with a water-and-laser sea monster. The apparition is part of the promotion for a movie called “Water Horse: Legend of the Deep,” but even with a title like that, we’ll definitely check it out on import DVD when it arrives Stateside just to provide more incentive for stunts like this. Check out a video after the break.

Continue reading Sony unleashes a holographic monster on Tokyo Bay

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When the e-mail story pitch arrived to say that Barry Williams, who played Greg Brady on “The Brady Bunch” was launching an online community to connect with fans, I first thought, “These people really need to get lives.” Then, I continued reading to learn that Williams would be available for interviews on a limited basis — suddenly, it was as if I were 15 years old again, hoping to catch the attention of the cutest boy in school: “Pick me! Oh, please, please pick me!”

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When the e-mail story pitch arrived to say that Barry Williams, who played Greg Brady on “The Brady Bunch” was launching an online community to connect with fans, I first thought, “These people really need to get lives.” Then, I continued reading to learn that Williams would be available for interviews on a limited basis — suddenly, it was as if I were 15 years old again, hoping to catch the attention of the cutest boy in school: “Pick me! Oh, please, please pick me!”

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Terry Semel is stepping down as Yahoo’s non-executive chairman, six months after handing over his CEO title to Jerry Yang.

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newVideoPlayer(”panasonicfreerunners_gizmodo.flv”, 463, 387,”");

We know most of you guys would prefer hot booth babes filling up our megapixels, but Panasonic’s above all of that sexyist mess….

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