Do you have an old film SLR lying around that you promise yourself you will one day load up with film and take out shooting? Well, forget about that — it’s just taking up space and picking up dust. You should instead do what Etsy-er Roberto Altieri does, and turn it into a dock for the camera you actually use every day: Your iPhone.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tN6jFuuQFVY
You might look pretty dorky these days if you make a frame from your fingers and start sizing up the world around you. But it’s actually a surprisingly good way to separate out parts of the landscape, especially for artists using pencils or paint who may not be carrying a camera.
But what about combining the two? That’s just what the nerds have done down at the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences in Japan. The Ubi-Camera is a tiny digicam which uses your fingers as the viewfinder, and even allows you to zoom.
This is the Galileo, a tilting, spinning 360˚ camera mount for your iPhone. It can pan, enable cool moving time-lapses, or even just work as a powered iPhone dock (it comes with a USB cable and a lithium-polymer battery).
But when you see the video below, with its wonderful a-ha moment, you’ll want one right away.
Nikon’s D800 is the best camera in the world, according to camera and lens rating supremo DxOMark. Or rather, it has the best sensor DxOMark has ever analyzed. With a score of 95, it even beats out its big brother, the Nikon D4. It even has an “unmatched quality-to-price ratio,” being the cheapest of the top eight cameras on DxOMark’s charts.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXCwfb1jXHo&feature=player_detailpage
These iPhone-powered doggies are ridiculously cute. The little fellas use iPhones for their faces and brains, and can shuffle around the table (or neighborhood, we guess), barking, blinking and even sneezing. It’s a little like a virtual pet, only real.
The new iPad’s pixel-dense screen might be enough to stop a bullet already, but if you want to make sure of the job, you might consider the Radical iPad bag from Finnish company Normincies. The Radical consists of three parts: the Cordura nylon bag, an aluminum shield and a detachable carrying handle. And it might be the perfect bag for carrying your iPad through a dodgy part of town.
The new iPad makes a great photo studio. It has a 5MP autofocus camera, lets you adjust exposure separately (with a third party app like Camera+), has image stabilization and — like no other camera — has a huge range of editing apps to choose from and use right there in the field.
It is, however, very awkward to hold in one hand while you tap the screen with the other. You end up either almost dropping the thing, or taking a picture of your thumb, or just giving up.
I expect to see camera-friendly cases in the near future. Until then, though, I decided to hack together my own from a discarded iPad case from Speck. And amazingly, it turned out pretty well.
Ever since I got my new iPad last Friday, I have been playing with the great new camera. I’m not one of those luddites that think nobody will ever use a tablet as a camera (note: many of these people probably called the iPad a consumption-only device, or said that you can’t use it to do real work). But I do find the iPad awkward to hold when trying to tap the screen for exposure, focus and the shutter release.
The Padcaster, a forthcoming camera rig for the iPad, might just take care of that.
The iZen Bamboo Keyboard really, really looks like an Apple Bluetooth keyboard with a bunch of bamboo caps stuck on top to the existing keys. And oddly enough, there’s nothing in the Kickstarter description to say otherwise.
There are a few telltale clues, though. This keyboard has iPad-specific keys that mimic the home button, search and slideshow functions, and comes with a li-ion battery.
Those little action cameras look like a great way to capture your extreme sporting exploits, but one thing has always put me off (well, two things — I already have enough cameras): the lack of interchangeable lenses. The wideangle that most GoPro-style cameras use is great for close up sports action, but the CamOne Infinity is about to get add-on glass, making it adaptable to almost any action-shooting task.
This hilarious iPhone 4 case will guarantee that you win any dorkathon you choose to enter. The plastic case — which covers the back and sides of the phone — is shaped like a raw hard drive, complete with vendor sticker, fake screws and even SATA connectors.
You have an office full of cubicle jockeys, and you have a network full of printers. And a lot of your workers come to the office with iPads and iPhones. Now, I hate printers, but even I realize that people need to put things on paper from time to time. And even a printer lover doesn’t want to re-equip the whole office with AirPrint-ready machines.
Thankfully, you don’t have to. The Lantronix xPrintServer will convert the whole network for you.
httpvh://youtu.be/o3zHpzYWnGQ
iPad-owning guitarists are going to love the Digitech iPB-10 Programable Pedalboard. It’s a stompbox with ten stud switches and a wah pedal on the side, all of which work with your iPad to give a range of music effects that you’d normally need a whole case of pedals to create.
Your MacBook Air might be the fastest, lightest, portable-est Mac you ever owned, but it is likely also one of the most storage-deficient Macs you have ever owned, in modern times at least. That will all be solved when bus-powered Thunderbolt drives start to show up, but in the meantime, take a look at Western Digital’s new 2TB My Passport USB drives.
This brass knuckles iPhone case isn’t straight out of Compton, it IS Compton. Meet the iKnucks – the iPhone case that doubles as a set of vicious brass knuckles. What better way to protect yourself from muggers than slipping this mean puppy around your fingers and throwing some haymakers?
I start to feel twinges of separation anxiety when I get more than a few meters away from my iPad, so I can’t really imagine why anybody would want to use a remote shutter release for their iPhone that can trigger the camera from up to 30 feet away. But here it is, for you braves souls who can manage to cut the iApron stings: the iPhone Shutter Remote, from Photojojo and Belkin.
These cute little iPhone cases are made from nothing more than paper napkins and a little bit of lacquer. Using a technique called decoupage, these cases are made by hand in Thailand and sold on Etsy under the NapPage brand.
What I love about them is that the whimsical designs are fashioned into such clean, professionally finished cases.
Until now, most of the 3-D printed items I have seen have been slightly scratchy, brittle-feeling plastic prototypes sent to me by Kickstarter pitch-men.
But now Shapeways has teamed up with SoundCloud to bring us this cool-looking iPhone case which really shows the potential of 3-D printing. Using a custom app, you can freeze the sound-wave of your favorite piece of music and have it immortalized in a plastic case.
On first sight, the Yaro digital audio system looks unpromising. It’s an amplifier/speaker set from Kanto AV Systems that’s small, black and looks like something Spinal Tap might use on a farewell tour.
But it turned out to be about the loudest, most responsive, richest, most faithful sound-media player I’ve heard.
I thought it was impossible to do anything dorkier than wearing a Bluetooth headset all day long, because you’re, like, so important that you’ll be getting a call any minute now. Well, it turns out that I was wrong. Check out the Tomko Transceiver for iPhone, a plug-in handset that makes your iPhone work like a CB radio.
If you want to take great photos that you can play around with later, you shoot RAW. And if you want to take great video, ready for the kind of post-processing punishment exacted on it by adding visual effects, you also shoot RAW.
However, while you can get a RAW-shooting stills camera for under $500, a RAW-capable video camera is professional only, running to tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Until now. Joe Rubinstein will sell you a Digital Bolex for just $2,500. In the movie world, that’s like finding a Nikon D4 in your cereal box.
The Gymbl Pro is a combo case and tripod for your iPhone 4/S, released last year to great success on Kickstarter. The polycarbonate case has a slot which marries up to a folding, pocket-sized tripod which also doubles as a handgrip. But what of poor Gymbl owners who have a yen to tote their iPhone around their necks like some kind of modern day Flava Flav? Well Gordon Fowler, the man behind the Gymbl, has you covered.
Behold: The Gymbl Latch and Lanyard.
The new iPad is almost identical to the old iPad, in terms of its physical dimensions at least. This means that many of your old accessories will fit it, and some will not. Styluses, of course, will be just fine, but cases and docks will either just squeeze on, or not fit at all.
So what should you look out for when considering an upgrade for your accessories as well as your iPad?
Ever struggled to juggle apps around your MacBook Air’s small screen as you work? And have you ever taken a look at that screen and though how much better it would be if there was another LED panel hanging off the side like an errant dust-jacket flapping in the breeze? If your answer to these two questions is “yes” and you have around £120 ($190) to waste spend, then the GeChic On-Lap Dual Monitor 1301 could be just the thing for you.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the iFrogz Boost, a magic box which amplifies the sound from an iPhone or other device just by being close. You put the iPhone on top and the battery-powered iBoost speaker goes to work, making everything louder.
The technology used is called near field audio, or NFA, but nobody would tell me how it works. Luckily, the iFrogz folks sent me one, so I took it apart to see what’s inside.