A blaring megaphone is an effective way to get people’s attention. But what if the people in the room speak a multitude of languages?
A Tokyo airport is trying to solve the language gap with international travelers with a megaphone that lets the user communicate in three different languages. A worker speaking one of three languages, Chinese, Korean or English, can have their message broadcast in the other two.
Opening a new Apple product for the first time is pretty close to a holy experience. Part of that is because Apple spends so much time perfecting product packaging so it’s simple, elegant and secure without compromising on intuitiveness.
However, it’s a mistake to think Apple is the only company that pours thought and care into something as basic as a box. In light of the recent rumor that Apple will be working with third-party accessory makers to co-design packaging for their products in Apple retail stores, it’s clear many other companies care as well. It’s about being eye-catching without straying from uniformity, it’s about being simple yet still adorned.
With this spirit in mind, take a look at some of the other electronic companies out there getting extremely creative with their product packaging. The goal for these seems to be making the boxes as gorgeous as the products themselves – and they succeed.
In an effort to prevent rivals from stealing its ideas, Apple patents everything it invents — from the iPhone and the iPad, to app icons and even “magic” tactile gloves. But compared to its biggest competitors, Apple’s patent portfolio from 2015 looks surprisingly bare.
Microsoft, Sony, Google, and LG have all outrank Apple in the patent department this year, while arch rival Samsung has absolutely crushed it.
The mammoth Photokina photo fair is going on this week, and that means tons of photo goodies. Small, manual cameras with big sensors are the game this year — unless you’ve got $20,000 to burn, in which case Leica’s new novelty camera might be up your street. We round these out with Gadget Watch's usual collection of bags, cases and gadgets.
Using toys, camera tricks and a keen sense of story, the photographer delights Flickr and Instagram fans with movie stills. But the movies don’t exist.
The Scotsman grew up a discerning cineaste with a taste for the Indiana Jones, Back to the Future and Ghostbusters movie franchises, but his greatest inspiration — in film and toys — was Star Wars.
“I could probably track my interest in toys via Star Wars,” Larner says. “When I was a kid in the early ’80s, I was completely swept up by the original Kenner 3.75-inch range. Then, in the ’90s, the remastered movies came out along with whispers of the prequels so the Star Wars toy range was reintroduced, so that caught my interest again. However, it was when Lego had the bright idea of making Star Wars Lego sets in 1999 that I really got sucked in and I haven’t looked back since!”
I know, I know. This is technically the third post I’ve written about the Panasonic GX7. But it’s also the first post since it has existed as anything except a Schrödinger’s Rumor.
The GX7 is Panasonic’s best-looking Micro Four Thirds camera to date, in terms of both styling (it’s retro-hot) and design choices. It’s also priced to go up against cameras like Fuji’s X-series, at $1,000 for the body alone, and $1,100 for camera and 14–42mm (28–84mm equivalent) kit lens.
Panasonic’s new Lumix DMC-FZ70 flaunts a nonsensical 60x optical zoom range, completely unaided through the use of Viagra.
You gotta love the destruction of the point-and-shoot camera industry at the hands of the cellphone. After years of trying to woo us with more and more hard-drive-filling megapixels, camera makers are finally being forced to give us what we actually want. And it doesn’t hurt that these features are exactly those things that are difficult to put into phones: Big sensors and – now – viewfinders.
The latest convert looks like it’ll be Panasonic, with the newly-leaked GX7.
Panasonic’s new LF1 is a Wi-Fi-sharing, fast-lens shooting RAW-capture camera which looks like a kind of remixed LX-series camera. It’s clearly aimed at smartphone users who want a little extra.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Big ass tablets “Table PCs” have been all the rage at CES this year. Lenovo and Panasonic think that you want to throw a dance party on a big iPad on the floor. It’s amazing, but not in a good way.
Rather than waiting for everyone else to jump in on the big ass tablet craze – we’re looking at your Samsung – did you know that you can actually just pay Steven Hu, of T.S. MicroTech, to make you your own 32-inch Android tablet? Heck, he’ll even make you a 65-incher if you pay him enough.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – You know what’s funny? Watching giant electronics companies step around the giant Apple-shaped hole at CES. While smaller consumer electronics makers are knocking out great (and terrible – USB Fork, anyone?) iOS accessories, TV makers are clearly trying to preempt the mythical Apple television by making one of their own.
Thus, we’re seeing the age-old “Smart TV” re-emerge as an iOS accessory.
Panasonic’s new ruggedized SD cards are neat and all, protecting your precious photos from water, weather, impacts and even super-strong magnets (like the one used by Wil E. Coyote to try to catch the Road Runner) and X-rays. But, like Steve Rogers throwing himself upon a grenade in the Captain America movie, it will also sacrifice itself in order to save your data.
Earlier this week, we reported on the move by Australian airline Qantas to swap out the 1,300 BlackBerries used by its staff (and the related infrastructure) in favor of iPhones. It looks like Qantas is doubling down on Apple and iOS. The airline also announced this week that it will begin offering streaming entertainment on iPads across all the planes in its fleet of Boeing 767 aircraft.
Qantas is launching the new service, which it has dubbed QStreaming, following a successful trial of the service earlier this year.
Seeking to challenge the iPad’s ongoing success in the healthcare field, Panasonic has announced an updated version of Toughbook tablet for doctors offices and hospitals. The update is the latest for Toughbook product line that Panasonic introduced in 2008.
The 10-inch screen size is about the only thing in the new Toughbook CF-H2 Health tablet offers that is similar to the iPad. The Toughbook is a Windows 7 tablet powered by an Intel Core i5 processor that relies on a 320GB hard drive rather than flash memory for storage (though a 128 GB SSD is available as a custom build option). It weighs in at a whopping 1.58 kg (3.48 pounds) – more than double the weight of the new iPad.
The Toughbook, which will ship next month, will have an entry-level price of €1,898 (approximately $2,330). That’s more than four times the cost of an entry-level new iPad and just shy of six times the cost of the entry-level iPad 2.
The earbuds that came with your $600 iPhone are junk, and if you bought an iPad, Apple didn’t even include a pair in the box. It’s time to upgrade.
Trouble is, there are all kinds of cans out there. How do you know what set is right for you? Some people (like me) seem to have a pair for every situation. For everyone else, here’s our guide to the best.
“Oh. Oh. Oh!” was the ejaculative ‘sentence’ I uttered when I saw the press release for this new Micro Four Thirds lens. It comes from Panasonic, and runs from 12-35mm, or 24-70 in old money, and also packs in image stabilization.
That’s fine. But the reason I’m excited is that the maximum aperture is a constant ƒ2.8 along the whole zoom range — a first for mirrorless systems says Panasonic.
Apple has filed for all sorts of patents related to 3D technologies over the years, sparking speculation that the company will one day bring us 3D-capable Macs and iOS devices. But evidence that it’s about to get serious about 3D technology for iOS devices comes from a recent job listing on its website for a “Computer Vision specialist to strengthen its multi-view stereo research group.”
Panasonic’s GF5, leaked a couple of weeks ago on Instagram, is now officially official. The new Micro Four Thirds camera skips right over the superstitiously suspect name GF4 (which apparently sounds like “death” in Japanese), but does little more than add polish and a new sensor. But what a sensor.
Who ever thought that Instagram would be a source for product leaks? But it looks like the iOS-only photo-sharing service has inadvertently outed the successor to the Lumix GF3 — the GF5.
Looking for a new camera with the look and power of a DSLR, but in a smaller digicam footprint? You might want to check out Panasonic’s new Lumix G3 Micro Four Thirds.
