GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

This ugly monster is either the most ridiculously niche iPad accessory yet, or it’s a photographer’s best friend. Actually, it could be both. The HyperDrive iPad Hard Drive is an external USB storage box for your tablet, holding up to 750GB of movies and photos and serving them up to the iPad via the Camera Connection Kit.

The iPad is a wonderful device for viewing photos and movies. I have the Camera Connection Kit and its a great way to check, edit and send photos when on a trip away. The problem is that even a 64GB iPad will fill up pretty quick, especially if you’re shooting a lot of RAW files.

The iPad can in fact read files from any USB drive that is formatted the right way. It needs to use the FAT 32 file system (the same as all camera memory cards use) and files need to be in a folder called DCIM. The problem is that there is a limit on the size of the drives that can be used: anything over 32GB won’t work.

The HyperDrive gets around this by only offering photos in 32GB virtual drives that the iPad can see. You load the images onto the dive itself via two card-reader slots (any card will fit) and can browse the file-structure on the built-in screen via an interface even uglier than the unit itself.

If you need something like this, then you’ll already have skipped to the link below and be ordering one. Otherwise you’ll likely be slightly bemused as to what possible point this could have. If you are in the latter group, let me give you another chuckle: the bare-box comes in at $250. Add in a 750GB hard-drive and you’re looking at $600. Ouch.

HyperMac iPad Hard Drive [HyperShop via Digital Story]

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Think Tank’s new Sling-O-Matic camera bag has a rather clever design which lets you switch it between your shoulders instantly. This sets it apart from a regular, one-sided sling-bag which will crunch your left shoulder to a knot of pain while leaving the other side happily load-free. A sling-bag has one big advantage over a backpack: you can swing it around in front of you and, provided the maker put the opening in the right place, you have instant access to your camera.

The Sling-O-Matic has its strap mounted on rails. Take the bag off, slide the strap to the other side and the load is now on the opposite shoulder. The bag comes in three sizes, depending on how much gear you need to pack in, and the largest will hold an SLR with a big 70-200mmm 2.8 lens in its ready-section along with 3-5 more lenses. You can also slip a tripod into straps on the sides, and there is even an external section for a water bottle.

Finally, there is an optional chest-strap. This is billed as a stabilizer, but what it really does is make this a great bag for cyclists: the chest strap will stop the Sling-O-Matic from swinging around as you ride, just like the strap on a messenger bag.

The Sling-O-Matic runs from $130 up to $180, depending on size, and will be available “soon”.

Sling-O-Matic product page [Think Tank. Thanks, Brian!]

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Gary Fong, the company behind those plastic-cup-like attachments you see atop many a photojournalist’s flashguns, has come up with an iPhone 4 tripod mount. The plastic adapter looks like it was given roughly a minute’s thought before a back-of-the-napkin sketch was put into production.

Thanks to the squared-off shape of the iPhone 4, almost no custom-shaping is needed to make a snug-fitting holder. Thus, Fong’s adapter is little more than a C-shaped plastic strip with a metal tripod-bush in the base. That is it, and it’s just the kind of thing that you’d make were you scratching around the junk-drawer for a home-made solution.

But despite its basic design and almost complete lack of fancifying, it could be the most practical iPhone tripod mount we’ve seen. There is no need for suction cups, permanently-attached stick-on adapters or even damage-inviting dock-connectors. You simply slip the iPhone in when you need to take a steady picture. Easy. The adapter should be live on the Fong site on Friday September 3rd for $20.

One final thing: The product pictures raise one really big question. Just where on Earth did Gary Fong get ahold of a white iPhone 4?

Fong website [Gary Fong. Thanks, Zach!]

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Source:wired.com

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We’ve covered a few add-on lenses for cellphones, but none as cute, convenient or clever as these two. The wide-angle macro and fisheye lenses from Photojojo come with a little self-adhesive magnetic ring that you stick permanently to your phone, surrounding the crappy lens it already has. The lenses then simply snap onto that.

The wide-angle gives a 0.67x angle of view, and will let you focus as close as 10mm. The fisheye will give a 180 view, and a 0.28x magnification. It also gives the trademark fisheye circular image, vignetting the corners of the photo.

The tiny lenses both come with a tiny strap for hanging in a safe place, and they are also supplied with front and rear caps to protect them. And because of the way they attach, they’ll fit any cellphone you have. Cost? $40 for the pair, or $20 for the wide-angle and $25 for the fisheye.

Fisheye, Macro, and Wide Angle Camera Phone Lenses [Photojojo]

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Source:wired.com

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Gadget lovers have long held to the secret belief that the right camera, smartphone or large-aperture lens will make them sexier.

Now dating site OK Cupid has proof.

According to OK Cupid’s survey of 552,000 user pictures, digital SLRs make you look more attractive, Panasonic cameras make you sexier than Nikons, while using a flash will make you look 7 years older, and large-aperture lens’ make you look a lot more attractive.

And iPhone users have more sexual partners than BlackBerry or Android owners. By age 30, the average male iPhone user has had about 10 partners while female iPhone users have had 12. By contrast, BlackBerry users hover around 8 partners and Android users have a mere 6.

As the blog’s author’s wryly observe: “Finally, statistical proof that iPhone users aren’t just getting fucked by Apple.”

That should give iPhone and iPad users some comfort for being considered ‘selfish elites,’ as another recent survey found.

OK Cupid has been analyzing the behavior of the site’s millions of users for some time, and has discovered many interesting tidbits: People tend to lie on their profiles, people’s political preferences change as they age, and men can increase their chances of getting a date by being open to older women. The site’s massive dataset, huge volume of activity, and interesting slicing and dicing combine to produce some keen observations on human nature.

But for gadget heads, there’s no more pertinent observation than (hard) data. The Panasonic Micro 4/3 camera will make you look far more attractive than a Canon DSLR, which in turn is better than a Nikon or Sony DSLR. And forget about cameraphones: Android, Nokia, BlackBerry and Windows phones all make you look less attractive, with Motorola phones at the absolute bottom of the list.

Similarly, the type of camera you wield makes a big difference. There’s a dramatic illustration showing how the same woman looks photographed with a cameraphone, a point-and-shoot camera, and an SLR. That makes sense: As we’ve explained before, larger image sensors give you better-quality images.

Along the same lines, a larger-aperture photo lets you put the background out of focus, increasing the apparent attractiveness of the person you’re taking a picture of.

So if you wanted an excuse to buy a fancier camera with a bigger lens, OK Cupid’s got all the rationale you need.

As for switching from Android or BlackBerry to an iPhone? Well, that’s up to you. Unlike with the photos, it’s hard to tell whether iPhone use is the cause, or the effect, of having more notches in one’s bedpost.

OkTrends, via EthanZ

Image: via OKCupid

Follow us for real-time tech news: Dylan Tweney and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

If you thought that things would be quiet in the world of Apple news until the yearly September iPod event, you’d be wrong. The rumors have already begun. Hardmac claims to have pictures of a next-gen iPod Touch with a rear-facing camera and flash. Rather than the usual blurry-cam picture we expect for leaks, it is a nice Apple Store-ready hero-shot. It is also, weirdly, in a case.

It’s almost certain that the new Touch will have a camera. We also know that the iPhone’s camera is pretty big, and would only just fit into the Touch, so seeing it all the way up at the corner of the Touch – its thinnest part – seems odd. So too, does the lack of a FaceTime-capable front-facing camera, but maybe that’s being saved for next-year’s model.

There’s not really much to get excited about here. The most interesting question, and the one that no spy-shot will answer, is whether or not the iPod Touch will use Apple’s A4 processor. I’d say it’s pretty likely: there are advantages of cost by using the same processor in all iDevices, as well as making things a lot easier for developers, who only have to write for one powerful processor, and two screen sizes (if the iPod Touch gets the Retina Display, that is).

One thing we do know, though, is that there will be new iPod models sometime in September, just like every year. Expect analysts to start “predicting” this fact very soon.

Pictures of the iPod Touch 4… well, almost [Hardmac]

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Source:wired.com

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Photographer Claus Thiim has come up with a virtually free way to scan hundreds of old negatives and slides. Best of all, it is easy and fast to make and use.

Even if you never touched a film camera, you probably have a few paper pouches of old negatives lying around, inherited from somebody like me, who has boxes and boxes full of the things. Apart from the odd drunken nostalgic night where I may go through a few boxes, they’re destined to remain unseen.

Thiim’s method eschews slow, bulky scanners and doesn’t even think about mail-in scanning services. He uses the fastest scanner he has: his DSLR. Onto the front are mounted an old manual focus (90mm) lens, an extension tube (which moves the lens forward and allows closer macro focusing). Then things get creative, with a couple of toilet-paper tubes taped to an old filter with the glass removed, along with a plastic 35mm slide-mount on the end. The mount is opened at the sides to let the film slide through.

To scan, you just move the film through and snap a frame. If your camera has live-view, you can even check framing and focus from the comfort of the rear screen.

What I like most is the speed and convenience (and of course the price). It may be a huge pain to go through tens of thousands of frames, but for smaller project this is ideal. And for people who still like to shoot film from time to time, this DIY project is made for you: shooting and developing your own B&W film is easy and requires no darkroom. Combined with this and you can shoot pricey film at almost no cost.

Thiim’s Flicker set shows the details of the setup, but it’s so flexible you can probably bend any kit you have to work. Check it out:

DIY 35mm negative duplicator [Claus Thiim / Flickr via DIY Photography]

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Source:wired.com

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Gary Fong, famous for selling a $60 plastic dome for your camera-flash, has come up with another “handy” set of accessories: the Gary Fong GearGuard. The security devices do for your camera gear what a Kensington lock does for your laptop.

First is the Camera Body Lock, yet another accessory which screws into the tripod-mount. This one is a flat plastic plate with a loop on the back. Another covering plate slides over this to stop the first from being unscrewed, and a cable run through the loops both secures the camera and stops the cover from sliding off.

This is really only good if you are leaving the camera unattended or are shooting handheld (in which case it is rather pointless). To use it on a tripod, the most common use-case, you’ll need to remove the cable and outer plate to access the integrated screw-mount. Thus, it cannot lock-down a camera when left on a tripod. $10.

The second part of the range is the GearGuard Bag Lock, a combination-locking plastic sleeve which clips over the quick-release clips on a bag and stops them from being opened. Two for $10.

Last is the cable and combination lock, which at $10 should prove to be as secure as your average Kensington lock.

Available soon at the Gary Fong store.

Gary Fong store page [Gary Fong. Thanks, Zach!]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Avoid dead camera batteries by putting a strip of solar panels on your camera strap. Simple, and rather clever, right? That’s exactly what Weng Jie’s Solar Camera Strap does, although in coming up with the design he forgot an important point: you can’t charge batteries while they are in the camera.

While some cameras come with charging docks or have their chargers built in so you just have to plug in a cable, most require a separate charger into which you pop the battery: a far better solution which doesn’t put your camera out of action as it juices up. Weng’s device runs the power generated by the strap into the camera’s DC-in socket via cable. This would let you use the camera as long as the light is bright, but there’d be no buffer if the Sun were to dip behind a cloud (there are a pair of batteries within the strap, but that’s not really ideal).

Still, those are mere details. Give me a way to use my camera all day without having to worry about running out of power and you’d have my cash. If you ever sell this strap, Weng, get in touch. And please, please make it in a darker color so it doesn’t pick up my neck-dirt.

Power Around My Neck [Yanko]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

This video is eight and a half minutes long. It is also a beautifully shot, hypnotic look inside a DSLR lens, which is easily worth your time. Oh, and it’s a follow-along hack, too, if you have the guts.

Y’all probably know how to turn any SLR lens into a super-close-up macro lens: you just pop it off the camera and flip it around, pointing the rather delicate rear element at your subject. There are even reversing rings available which make an interface betwixt camera bayonet and lens filter-ring so you don’t need both hands all the time.

But this amazing how-to from Lozzless goes way beyond, using a drill, a hacksaw, lots of epoxy glue and even some soldering to make a permanent macro-lens from a Canon 18-55mm kit zoom. Out come the autofocus controller, out come the electronics, and in comes a ribbon cable and a whole lot of work to join the computronical parts back together.

The result, apart from the beautifully shot video (we’re guessing it was made on a Canon 5D MkII due to the short depth-of-field, so shallow even a spider couldn’t drown in it), is a lens which snaps snugly to the front of a Canon SLR and still gives it full electronic control over the aperture. It also looks like some amazing Gibsionian hack. Good job, Lozzless. And nice music choice, too (it appears the Yo-Yo Ma and Philip Glass “collabo” is actually allowed by YouTube).

How to create SuperMacro lens [Lozzless / YouTube via Photography Bay]
Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews