Super 8 Camera Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
These days more and more films are shot on digital cameras. And while there is a passionate argument to be made for using either format, digital cameras are here to stay. But, Kodak has a clever solution that might please both film aficionados and digital enthusiasts. It’s called the Super 8 camera.
The Super 8 shoots 8mm film. You mail that film to Kodak and it’s developed, processed and scanned into digital files that are downloadable from the Kodak Darkroom website — you even get your developed film sent back.
Though the camera uses 8mm film cartridges, it also has a few modern conveniences to make shooting more enjoyable. There’s an LCD display that flips out camcorder style to help frame your shots. On the back are inputs and outputs for audio as well as an mini-HDMI port for adding an external monitor. There’s an SD card slot, which the Super 8 uses to record audio, and a built-in battery that is said to last through 12-15 film cartridges (each cartridge can capture about 2-3 minutes of footage).
The Super 8 comes with a wide angle lens and can use any C-mount lenses.
Patrick Holland/CNET
The Super 8 comes with a wide angle lens for its C-mount, but you can use any old C-mount lenses in your parent’s attic or on eBay. You can even use manual focus and aperture lenses from other mounts (like Nikon F-mount) via a third party adapter. The Super 8 can shoot 18, 24, 25 or 36 frames-per-second.
The camera has a top handle and a detachable pistol grip. Overall, the camera has a beautiful retro design and looks especially sharp in person.
The Super 8 will be available in two editions: a Limited edition in gray or a Standard edition in black or white. The Limited Edition Super 8 will cost $2,000 (which converts to £1,630 and AU$2,735) and will ship in spring 2017. There is no word on when the Standard Edition will be available or pricing.
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From Mars to Earth and the Moon, 127 million miles away
The pale blue dot we call home is back in the limelight again. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter grabbed a shot of Earth and our moon with its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) from a pretty staggering distance late last year. Now, it might look a little pixelated at first, but you need to understand the circumstances before casting judgment.
This photo was taken at a distance of 127 million miles last November 20th, according to NASA. That’s roughly 1.4 times the distance between Earth and our star. What’s more the photo is a composite of two pictures that were taken in an effort to calibrate the instrument.
“For presentation, the exposures were processed separately to optimize detail visible on both Earth and the moon,” NASA writes. Otherwise, the moon would be too dark to see in a single exposure. It’s important to note that this is a common technique for photographers of any type — basically, it’s an HDR photo.
The aeronautics agency says that the positioning between Earth and the moon is correct, as are the sizes, despite the compositing. What’s more, the distance between Gaia and our moon is about 30 times that of Earth’s diameter.
No, this image isn’t pin-sharp, but the shots HiRISE is grabbing of the Martian surface are. Especially when it can “resolve features as small as 3.3 feet” from its spot on the Orbiter, according to Space. Try doing that with Nikon’s P900 superzoom camera.
Via: Space
Source: NASA
Watch Hulu’s first trailer for its take on ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
Ever since Hulu announced that it was adapting The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s been hard not to wonder: would it adequately capture the bleakness of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic, or do justice to the movie? You now have an inkling of how well it’ll work. Hulu has posted its first trailer for its Handmaid’s Tale series, and… it’s definitely not the feel-good hit of the year. The teaser shows Offred (Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss) grappling with the end of the United States and the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a harsh theocracy where women lose their rights and “handmaids” like Offred only serve as childbearers.
From what Hulu is showing, the series will be promising when it arrives on April 26th. It’s evocative, has a strong cast (other actors include Joseph Fiennes and Yvonne Strahovski) and doesn’t shy away from Atwood’s approach to speculative fiction as social commentary. Let’s just hope that the full program lives up to what’s shown here.
Via: Entertainment Weekly
Source: Hulu (YouTube)
VW’s I.D. Buzz concept is a self-driving, electric microbus
As Volkswagen works towards rebuilding itself as an EV automaker, one great way to avoid losing diehard fans is to clean up and refresh a few of those old classics that won them over in the first place. While the company has teased electric reincarnations of the iconic VW bus before, the company’s latest microbus concept, the I.D. Buzz, is the first to go all out with a fully autonomous driving mode.
Announced at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Sunday, the I.D. Buzz would be an impressive electric van on its own. According to VW, the Buzz gets an estimated 270 miles of range using two motors to power its 369-horsepower, all-wheel drive system. Using a lengthened version of its Modular Electric Drive Kit (MEB), VW also made room inside for up to eight passengers and two luggage compartments — although seating layouts are modular as well.
For drivers, the Buzz borrows features like the augmented reality HUD and touch-sensitive steering wheel found in the I.D concept. The center console is also something VW is calling the “I.D. Box,” which serves as the control panel for the driver as well as a detachable Bluetooth sound system that can be used outside the vehicle. But the real fun comes with Volkswagen’s I.D. Pilot autonomous driving mode — when engaged, the steering wheel retracts, the front seats can be turned around 180 degrees and the I.D. Box actually slides towards the rear so the folks up front can join the party in the back.
“The overall concept of the I.D. BUZZ points the way to the future,” VW board member Dr. Frank Welsch said. “This concept vehicle is the world’s first electric multi-purpose vehicle to be equipped with a fully autonomous driving mode. It carries the feeling of freedom of the Microbus over to a completely new era of mobility.”
World premiere: #VW Group of America presents the new concept car I.D. BUZZ at the #NAIAS 2017. pic.twitter.com/aFaProS1G7
— Volkswagen News (@vwpress_en) January 8, 2017
While the idea of an autonomous VW bus might bring to mind a picture of a vehicle piloting itself to some idyllic surf spot along the California coast as the passengers kick back in a smoke-filled cabin, a compact-but-spacious vehicle could also play a key role in the on-demand ridesharing network Volkswagen aims to build.
Source: VW Newsroom
Everything is smart: AI is officially the new cool thing
This weapon will be powerful, versatile and indestructible. It will feel no pain. No pity. No remorse. No fear. It will have only one purpose: to return to the present and prevent the future. This weapon will be called the Terminator.
I love Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and everything that makes computers smarter. Let me qualify that and say I love the idea of it all. It’s something Sci-Fi writers have been talking about for over a half-century and has created some pretty compelling fantasies about a future where machines are alive and do everything. I geek out on that. I also think the industrial applications of machine learning and AI that already exist are pretty great and love to pore through diagrams and read about their capabilities. Actually using it in everyday life isn’t nearly as polished — it can get downright awkward at times. But what I think or what you think doesn’t matter. AI is the new cool tech that we’re all supposed to want.
On our phones, what started out as a simple set of voice commands has blossomed into a thing with personality who can do a little bit of thinking (magic?) and get it right most of the time. Developers can create skills and actions for their service or product and companies will create more physical things that can work with these assistants. Little by little it looks like Alexa and Siri and Google Assistant (and others yet to come) will allow to live the dream and be served by robots. And hope they don’t get too smart and kill us all.
The folks making the things we love to buy see an opening here. And they’re taking full advantage of it. Alexa is everywhere from your headset to your refrigerator to the Huawei Mate 9. Google Assistant is now on your phone, in your living room, and on your TV — and soon to be plugged in like an air freshener in your bathroom. The ASUS Zenfone AR has been able to package AR, VR, and Facebook into a normal-sized phone. Eventually, anyway. It’s becoming lucrative to build smarter devices.
Amazon and Google may be how we interface with all these smart things right now, but the two big names in mobile will stake their claim with their own take on a phone that’s more than just a phone. Rumors and news stories have spelled out that the next Galaxy S line of phones is going to have a Samsung assistant that’s not tied to Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. Probably a really good one, too. They’re using technology they purchased that was polished enough to be presented to Apple. That, along with the things they have been working on in-house will try to make sure what we see as their first generation product won’t feel like a first generation product.
Samsung can make anything. That means they can make it all work with each other through their AI platform.
Look for the Samsung Galaxy ecosystem to branch into appliances and home control because Samsung knows a lot about both. Samsung has the ability to integrate the smart voice you interact with on your next phone into your life in ways Google and Amazon can only dream about.
Apple is being Apple. Watching. Saying nothing, And furiously working behind closed doors to bring Siri a major overhaul. They’re into the project far enough that they didn’t need to buy a great start-up and a working technical model that was offered to them. When you have billions laying around you buy the things you need when you can. When they do release it, New Siri will be smarter, funnier, better looking and more fun to use than anything else out there. Siri and HomeKit can make for a nice ecosystem, too.
By then we’ll have seen something from everyone else. LG, HTC, Motorola and the rest will follow suit because the market demands it (A.K.A. Samsung has it and they are the market when you say Android). Whether you wanted it or not, your next expensive phone will probably be a smart assistant that learns from you and helps you do everything from making a dinner reservation to controlling your lights and temperature and garage door and window blinds. But will we actually use it?
That’s the big question. There’s money it in — both real clinky shiny gold coin money as well as paying with your data money — so it had to come to our phones eventually, but how do we benefit is a better question. Being able to tell a little robot voice to do things is fun. It’s also expensive when compared to doing things the old “dumb” way. But that’s just the novelty side of all this right now. how these smart servers in the sky can integrate into our lives when we need them to is the big picture.
Smart computers will need a lot of time to get everything wrong while they’re learning.
Your life’s agenda in the hands of a hunk of wires will be filled with problems and hiccups for the foreseeable future while the various factions duke it out and developers figure out how it can work so they can make it work. Missed appointments or getting the wrong pizza are things early adopters will be faced with if it ever goes that far. The tech isn’t ready to fill these sort of expectations just yet, even if some of us want it to be. And even if it gets there, some of us just won’t want to use it for one reason or another.
I don’t know if the tech is ready to actually be useful, or if we’re ready for actually useful “smart” machines. But I do know that watching it all unfold is going to be interesting.
The CES comedown and the coming onslaught
That’s a wrap on CES 2017!
I didn’t attend Las Vegas this year, but having to oversee CES coverage from the same seat that I regularly do my job gave me a top-down perspective on how alternately tenuous and vacuous the whole thing seems.
Some years, a particular trend stood out — 3D, or curved, or the reclaimed vestiges of old operating systems — but in 2017, what emerged was a pervasive vagueness.
From the outside, Alexa seems to have stolen the show: without an official presence from Amazon, the nascent AI platform was everywhere, buoyed by the fact that the Seattle giant has made it incredibly easy — Netflix easy — to add near-cognition to a refrigerator or slow-moving buddy robot.
Alexa’s ubiquity also speaks to the fact that, as with the early days of iOS and Android, gadgets and their creators have a very difficult time living in a vacuum, and the advantages to a box that advertises Alexa is just as important as having it in the product itself.
I’m intrigued — fascinated, even — with the prospect of using Android apps on Chrome OS.
From an Android Central perspective, we saw the announcement of two fantastic-looking and potentially disruptive Chromebooks, at least one of which will be making it into my office in the next few weeks. I’m intrigued — fascinated, even — with the prospect of using Android apps on Chrome OS, especially on hardware like the Samsung Chromebook Pro that was specifically designed for such purposes.
And then there was the surprise expansion of Google Assistant into none other than the updated NVIDIA Shield, which marks the first time Google’s own AI has extended beyond the company’s own hardware. Google has a vested interest in catching up to Alexa as quickly as possible, as all it has to do is mirror Amazon’s strategy: because there is no UI to speak of outside the generalized voice interface people are increasingly growing accustomed to, Google can and should give Assistant away to as many people as possible through myriad hardware and software partners since it alone controls the cloud backend.
Google has a vested interest in catching up to Alexa as quickly as possible.
Finally, the Huawei Mate 9 made its U.S. debut, and having used it for nearly two months I have to say I’m excited to see what the Chinese giant can achieve. Without carrier support the Mate 9 won’t sell in quantity, but this is the company’s first true salvo into the world’s most important handset market.
Other wins:
- The TCL-built BlackBerry ‘Mercury’ looks intriguing, and I have to admit to a fair amount of nostalgia-driven interest, but the prospect of reverting back to typing on a physical keyboard for an extended period of time interests me as much as returning to ink-and-paper for note-taking. That is, there is an inherent fascination in finding that analog person I left behind half a decade ago, but it’s not so strong as to upend my workflow which is, even on a touchscreen keyboard, far more efficient.
- Google Assistant aside, I’m really excited to give the new NVIDIA Shield a try, even if I don’t have a 4K TV. More and more, though, I’m finding reasons to upgrade.
- The ASUS ZenFone 3 Zoom is a phone I could get behind if I didn’t know exactly what kind of software disappointment I was in for. But I do, so I’m preemptively walking away.
- The Snapdragon 835 is, geek speak aside, one of the most important announcements of the year. Moving to a 10nm process alone is cause for celebration, especially as Intel continues to falter in the x86 department.
- On the Windows side, Razer’s Project Ariana is one of the most tenacious and unique enterprises I’ve seen in years, and I really hope the company makes it happen.
Thanks for following along on our CES 2017 adventure. The year is new, but I think it was a great start, and I can’t wait to share what we have in store in the coming months!
-Daniel
The Apple iPhone is 10 years old: Look how much the iPhone has changed
Today, the 9 January 2017, marks the 10th anniversary of the Apple iPhone’s announcement in San Francisco when Steve Jobs presented the new smart phone to a packed audience of Apple guests, staff, and journalists, including Pocket-lint.
Although rumoured for a number of years, the keynote, which was the catalyst to Apple’s huge success ever since, saw CEO Steve Jobs reveal how he believed the company would change the phone industry forever with their take on the mobile phone.
“This is the day I’ve been waiting for the last 2 years”, he said as he announced the new phone at the keynote speech in San Francisco at MacWorld 2007 before making the first call on the phone to Jony Ive.
Over the next 90 minutes Jobs detailed how Apple wanted to re-invent the phone showcasing a number of new features. He even got a standing ovation from the audience at the end of the keynote.
At the time, companies like Motorola, Nokia, Microsoft, and BlackBerry laughed off Apple’s event and plans to change the phone industry.
In an unusual move from Apple, customers would have to wait almost 6 months for the Apple iPhone to go on sale in the US and a further 11 months before it went on sale in the UK.
It’s hard to imagine now, but the first iteration of the iPhone didn’t have a number of features we take for granted today including “copy and paste”, 3G, or even apps as we know and enjoy today. You could also only sync it via iTunes on the desktop.
Since 2007 Apple has adapted and changed the design of the iPhone a number of times, ditching the metal design for a plastic one for the iPhone 3G and 3GS before moving to glass for the iPhone 4 and 4s models. It was back to metal with the iPhone 5, and with the exception of the iPhone 5c, the company has stuck with metal ever since.
The iPhone hasn’t escaped criticism over the years though. There’s was “bendgate”, “antennagate”, and even a claim by some that their beard got trapped in the casing.
Click through the gallery and take a look, and be sure to let us know what your favourite Apple iPhone handset was and where you want Apple to go next with the iPhone 8 in the comments below.
The Engadget Podcast Ep 23: Leaving Las Vegas
Editor in chief Michael Gorman, executive editor Christopher Trout and managing editor Dana Wollman join host Terrence O’Brien to give you one last update from the ground in Las Vegas. They talk about the history of sex at CES, it’s quiet reemergence and all the most absurd gadgets from the show floor. Plus they settle once and for all who is the Flame Wars champion, and who will have something to prove in 2017.
Relevant links:
- Penthouse’s CEO thinks VR porn should be a carnival of sex
- Porn is back at CES, but good luck finding it
- Ron Jeremy predicts porn’s … present?
- Wanna develop an app for your sex toy?
- Sex at CES: An uncomfortable coupling
- Simplehuman made a trashcan you can open with your voice
- Oh hey, they have smart hairbrushes now
- Willow’s smart breast pumps slide into moms’ bras
You can check out every episode on The Engadget Podcast page in audio, video and text form for the hearing impaired.
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