Let’s face it, the camera on the iPad (or any tablet for that matter) is utilitarian at best. It’s not meant to shoot anything that’s supposed to look, you know, good. We’re not saying the shots look bad, but the optics on that thing just don’t have cinema-quality depth of field and focusing range that more expensive lenses bring to the fray. The Padcaster changes the dynamics somewhat by letting you use those very lenses with the iPad. It’s a sturdy case with a soft polyurethane insert, and threaded holes all around so you can put it on a tripod, attach some lights and just generally build yourself a decent recording rig. More importantly, there’s the $79 Lenscaster mount, for those superior optics we said were so important. The advantage here being that you can shoot some pretty decent video, edit it right on the iPad and upload it to wherever you need it to go without having to transfer any files anywhere.
Mimo is a company that puts all its eggs in one basket – USB display. It has made its name known with bus-powered monitors that allow users to add an additional screen to a PC even when there’s no power outlet available. The latest mini monitor to further expand the Mimo’s niche product line is the Magic Touch. As the name suggests, the display supports multi-touch interaction, tracking up to 4 fingers. The display also gets all the power and connectivity it needs from a single USB 2.0 cable.
Setting the Magic Touch is a no-brainer. You only need to download the driver from DisplayLink which handles automatic firmware update after installation. The display itself is as vibrant as it gets with excellent video quality. Interestingly, the latest driver hooks into your existing GPU for the heavy lifting. This dramatically reduces CPU usage and at the same time increases the 2D & 3D performance of the 10″ USB screen. It’s also a pleasant surprise to see the monitor can handle some casual gaming even though that isn’t what the Magic Touch is designed for in the first place. One caveat is that the glossy screen is prone to glare, making it uncomfortable when used in some bright environments. The best use for this display may well be for developers of multi-touch apps and perhaps a touch screen panel for Windows 8 desktops or HTPC. Get all the details of the Mimo Magic Touch 10-inch USB monitor in the full review below.
So, doing the FaceTime thing is not fun. At least, not for us basement and darkness dwellers, seldom exposed to the light that might make us more presentable to a remote audience. But as it turns out many of you do enjoy it and would probably benefit from the purchase of this here Galileo iPhone dock. It secures your phone in place and lets you rotate 360 degrees (and up and down) from a remote iOS device. It’s as simple and intuitive as swiping your finger; the camera is able to rotate through 200 degrees a second so it should be able to keep up with even the most elusive target. Also the company is in talk with third party developers who will be able to access its SDK and code applications for the Galileo. Time-lapse and panoramic photography have been discussed.
It’s available for pre-order from the fully funded Kickstarter project for $85 right now. It’s going to go up to $129 after that. Delivery? Sometime in June of this year.
We’re all sad that the shuttle program is over. Space exploration is just no longer the cool thing it was; government dollars for NASA have been dwindling for years. This shifting of priorities is due to the fact that we’re no longer “at war” with the USSR. The cold war meant that each power had to constantly outdo the other and the race into space was as good a way as any to try and one-up your adversary. But all that’s a distant past. So, to relive some of the memories, maybe you could watch the above video. It’s a fascinating 400 second journey of a couple of cameras strapped to the side of the booster rockets on Atlantis and Endeavour. They reach speeds of 3,000pmh and 41 miles of height before noisily re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the ocean. It’s all caught in multiple angles and is well worth the watch.
Shooting video with most cameras, even many expensive ones, will produce footage that is compressed. This is of course in order to fit more of it onto your storage solution, but it has a bunch of drawbacks. The main one is that post-processing is much, much harder like this because all your settings (white balance, colour balance, contrast, etc.) are set right into each frame and not longer adjustable, at least not without some quality degradation. The Digital Bolex camera pictured above is a fully funded project on Kickstarter that shoots in RAW, which splits the data from its associated settings. This means you can easily change stuff around in post. It also means that each frame is quite large (3MB to 4MB) so the Digital Bolex uses dual CF cards for storage with an SSD buffer. The guys behind the project are even developing a software suite to manage RAW workflow.
It’s fully funded, which means the first 80 cameras at $2,500 are now sold out. There are still 19 at $3,500, though you don’t get a whole lot more camera out of it. You can wait a little longer and get one then, as they expect to have them on the market by the fall.
Jörg Sprave is something of a celebrity online due to his slingshot channel on YouTube. Every now and then he comes out with some new creation and his latest doesn’t disappoint. He calls it the Nerd Revenge 2000, and it’s basically a pump action pencil crossbow. The magazine can hold 10 pencils, and shooting is a simple matter of, well, pumping the device. The sharpened pencils are projected with enough force to go right through a cardboard box, though effective range is limited to about 15 feet.
And as much as Jörg’s suggestion that this be a “nerd revenge tool”, we’re pretty sure that pointing this at anyone with a heartbeat will likely land you in serious detention, if not worse. Watch the video above to see it in action. And no, we don’t believe it’s for sale.
It’s interesting to see what happens when you let algorithms run amok, free to accomplish whatever distant folly their architects never intended. In this particular case, Sebastian Schmieg of the Netherlands made the above video by feeding Google’s Image Search a transparent PNG, asking it to find the closest match, taking the top result and feeding that back into the loop 2,951 times. The result is an unpredictable, ever evolving metamorphosis that features a lot of stars and galaxies in its infancy, but eventually blossoms into a cacophonous sea of images with occasional seas of similarity. The images are then turned into a 12fps video
Aside from being interesting from a purely nerdy standpoint, I believe it does show a fascinating point of biology: that evolution doesn’t occur towards something specific and it is, as Dawkings would say, the conceit of hindsight that places us humans at the pinnacle of life. This video does a good job of illustrating that.
I guess that G-Form, makers of the super tough Extreme Edge iPad case (among other things), are trying to recreate some of the marketing magic that Blendtec had going with its Will It Blend series. They’ve produced a series of videos putting the iPad through seemingly increasingly horrifying torture tests, from dropping a bowling ball onto it to tossing it out of a moving car. The latest such video has them tie the iPad with case to a weather balloon and letting it rise to the edge of space. 100,000 feet or so. Then the balloon pops and everything comes back down. Of course, since they’re releasing the video, the iPad survives.
I’m not sure this particular video is that compelling a case for the Extreme Edge’s toughness; the entire freefalling setup would hit terminal velocity way before the 100,000 had been exhausted. Also, the trailing shreds of balloon made it so that it landed screen facing up; the other way around would have produced very different results. Still, it’s entertaining to watch. The case itself is $45.
This had me laughing good and hard for a bit. It’s a video of construction workers trying their damnedest to stop a gyrating concrete buffer that one of them apparently set loose. Their methods include dousing it with water (brilliant), threatening it with a stick and covering it with a tarp. The running commentary is particularly funny.
Not a darn thing to do with gadgets, but does anyone really care at this point?
Related Tags: Apple, iPad, Video
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Mimo is a company that puts all its eggs in one basket – USB display. It has made its name known with bus-powered monitors that allow users to add an additional screen to a PC even when there’s no power outlet available. The latest mini monitor to further expand the Mimo’s niche product line is the 
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