Adobe Lightroom 4 released for half the old price

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  • March 6, 2012 at 7:30 am

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Lightroom 4 photo book creation

Adobe has just released the fourth version of Lightroom today, which brings a number of improvements but also a big price cut. Lightroom 4 can be bought for $149 new or $79 as an upgrade. That’s a far cry from the $299 (and $99 upgrade) demanded for previous versions. We’re sure that recent price cuts to Apple’s competing Aperture software played a large part in Adobe’s decision to lower the entry price to its own photo management and editing software.

We’ve been trying out Lightroom 4 since it was released as a beta in January and not much has changed in terms of features since then. The biggest change in Lightroom 4 is the new highlight and shadow recovery technology (replacing the previous fill light and recovery controls) that allows users to bring out even more detail from dark shadows and bright highlights.
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Sony puts its WhiteMagic display technology to work in the Xperia P smartphone

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  • March 5, 2012 at 4:51 pm

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Sony Xperia P Android smartphone

The premise behind Sony’s WhiteMagic LCD display technology is simple, add a white subpixel to the standard red, green and blue subpixel arrangement and improve both brightness and power efficiency, win-win. We first covered WhiteMagic RGBW displays while we were looking at the LCD inside the new Fujifilm X-Pro1 digital camera, and Sony has now integrated the technology in its own 4-inch Xperia P Android smartphone.
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No Nokia 808 PureView for the US, but the 41-megapixel camera technology is coming soon to Windows Phone devices

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  • March 5, 2012 at 1:35 pm

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Nokia 808 PureView smartphone in white, red and black

One of the most exciting devices presented at this year’s MWC in Barcelona was the Nokia 808 PureView. The Symbian Belle smartphone turned heads with it’s 41-megapixel camera. As we’ve explained in our initial coverage the PureView technology entails both a larger sensor (1/1.2-inch against the typical 1/3.2-inch found in most phones), Carl Zeiss optics and, most importantly, the ability to oversample pixels by combining seven pixels into one, resulting in a sharper and cleaner image.
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Canon EOS 5D Mark III full-frame DSLR unleashed: 22-megapixels, 61-point AF and 6fps burst for $3,500

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  • March 2, 2012 at 1:15 pm

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Canon EOS 5D Mark III medley

While we’ve already brought you the full specs of the EOS 5D Mark III before it was announced, Canon officially revealed the new full-frame DSLR early this morning. The EOS 5D Mark II allowed photographers to get their hands on a relatively affordable and lightweight full-frame camera, but after three years since its release it’s been showing its age.

The hotly anticipated successor is now a reality and Canon has brought a pretty solid feature list to the new camera. It’s got a new 22.3-megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor with DIGIC 5+ processing technology. The new camera has actually adopted some of the features of the flagship EOS-1D X, like its 61-point autofocus system with up to 41 cross-type points and the rear 3.2-inch 1,040,000 dot display.
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Apple’s next iPad could be called iPad HD instead of iPad 3

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  • March 2, 2012 at 3:21 am

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Apple iPad 3 (iPad HD) event invitation - finger touching calendar

We’ve been trying to restrain from posting too many news on Apple’s upcoming next generation iPad, which should be announced on March 7th, but this is an interesting piece of news.

It’s long been speculated that new iPad will follow the same naming convention as previous generations of iOS products, i.e. will be called the iPad 3. However a new rumor suggests that it will actually be called iPad HD. Although we generally dislike the trend of simply slapping “HD” on everything, it could make sense as the key new feature of the next iPad is expected to be its high definition 2,048 x 1,536-pixel display.
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Full Canon EOS 5D Mark III specs leaked ahead of official anouncement

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  • March 1, 2012 at 5:57 pm

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Canon EOS 5D Mark III front

The Canon EOS 5D Mark III is the proud successor to the popular full-frame 5D Mark II DSLR, and is going to be announced officially in a few hours. But as with most good things, it’s hard to keep it a secret, with photos and details of the new DSLR having leaked repeatedly (just check out timeline below).

Well the latest leak from CanonRumors now has a full list of specs for the Mark III along with some additional pictures of the camera.
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Why we love tech: Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room is the closest you’ll get to floating in space

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  • March 1, 2012 at 2:12 pm

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Yayoi Kusama retrospective at the Tate Modern in London

Obsessiveness, repetition and of course dots sum up the incredibly original work of Yayoi Kusama. Aged 82, Kusama came into adolescence while Japan was entering its postwar period and later moved to New York in the 1960s, exhibiting alongside Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns, before returning back to her home country in 1973. Kusama didn’t just follow the trends of her time, she created them.

The Japanese artist has been on a creative roll ever since she was a young child incorporating her trademark dots for the first time in a drawing at the age of 10, which as she admitted were part of her first hallucinations.

Even after she self-admitted herself to a mental institution in 1977, Yayoi Kusama continued to work fanatically from a studio near the hospital in Shinjuku, Tokyo even to this day. It’s no wonder she is one of Japan’s most celebrated artists
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Wacom announces Intuos5 digitizing tablets with multitouch, wireless connectivity and capacitive keys (video)

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  • March 1, 2012 at 7:53 am

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Wacom Intuos5 touch Medium digitizer

This one is for all you illustrators, graphic designers, digital artists and pro photographers out there. Wacom, makers of fine digitizing tablets, has just announced the next generation in its Intuos lineup. Intuos5 takes the reigns as the company’s most advanced graphics tablet line.

Wacom has added some useful features to the new line. The Intuos5 gains multi-touch gesture support, taking advantage of the touch capabilities already built into OS X Lion and Windows 7. For example, you can navigate, rotate and pan images using your fingers. In addition the new software gives you the ability to create and customize gestures for individual applications. Another new feature is that now all the tablets in the line-up can connect to your computer wirelessly, provided you have the separate Wacom Wireless Accessory Kit.
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Windows 8 Consumer Preview is out, here’s how to get it

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  • February 29, 2012 at 3:45 pm

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Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Over the past several months we’ve been closely following the development of Microsoft’s next version of Windows. Windows 8 offers a ton of improvements and changes over Windows 7 and since September, developers were able to try out the new operating system in the Windows 8 Developer Preview.

Now anyone can download and install their own preview copy of Windows 8 with the Consumer Preview. Microsoft is not officially calling it a beta, though it will, hopefully, help shape the finished product. Microsoft claims to have made over 100,000 code changes following feedback it has received so far since the Developer Preview.
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Nokia 808 PureView 41-megapixel sensor sized-up and explained (sample pictures)

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  • February 29, 2012 at 1:18 pm

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Nokia 808 PureView phone back and front

One of the most interesting devices to come out of this year’s Mobile World Congress is the Nokia 808 PureView. The 808 runs Symbian Belle over the company’s current crop of smartphones running Windows Phone. What makes it special is the new 41-megapixel camera sensor — no that’s not a typo — paired with Carl Zeiss optics, which Nokia has aptly named PureView.

Nokia hasn’t gone completely crazy, jamming more pixels into a tiny sensor and letting you handle crappy 41-megapixel files. First of all the sensor size is 1/1.2 inch, about five times larger than the typical 1/3.2-inch sensor found in most mobile phones. Because the sensor is bigger, the pixel size is still 1.4µm, the same as most current phones. You can actually see the 808 PureView sensor below at the bottom right, compared to an 8-megapixel and a 5-megapixel sensor this thing looks enormous. When you combine the Carl Zeiss f/2.4 lens and a Xenon flash the entire camera array takes a substantial amount of real estate.
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Raspberry Pi $35 pocket-sized ARM Linux computer goes on sale in the UK, sells-out in just two hours

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  • February 29, 2012 at 8:58 am

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Raspberry Pi Model B board photo

The Raspberry Pi foundation began selling its ARM-based $35 Linux computer at 6am GMT today through two UK mail order electronic distributors, but initial demand was so high that brought the websites to their knees while the system quickly sold out.

The Raspberry Pi computer is the size of a deck of cards and is made up of a 700MHz ARM11 CPU with 256MB of RAM, SD card storage, a USB port and HDMI, audio and RCA video outputs. The system boots Fedora Linux from the SD card and connects to a TV and a keyboard for a pretty standard computing experience.
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Canon EOS 5D Mark III full-frame DSLR leaked again, to be announced March 2nd

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  • February 28, 2012 at 6:07 pm

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Canon EOS 5D Mark III front leaked

It’s been more than three years since the Canon EOS 5D Mark II hit the streets and the, relatively, affordable and lightweight full-frame camera has met a lot of success. But three years is a long time in the ever-changing world of tech and Canon has long been rumored to be preparing a successor.

The Canon EOS 5D Mark III was first spotted on an African safari, though at the time it was yet unconfirmed whether it was indeed Canon’s upcoming full-frame DSLR. A new leak over at the forums of Canonrumors has brought us a number of new pictures, confirming the Canon EOS 5D Mark III.
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