When Olympus announced the E-330 back in January, the company shook up the DSLR market in a big way: the camera was the first DSLR to offer a full-time live LCD preview, something that point-and-shoot users have taken for granted for years. Now that the camera is starting to make its way to retail channels, we can get a better idea of how successful Olympus has been at making this a seamless experience — and whether it’s a good camera as well. DPReview has one of the first full reviews of a production unit and, not surprisingly, goes to great lengths to explain how that live preview feature works. Their conclusion? It’s “poorly implemented,” and “suffers from a noisy /grainy view in medium/low light, doesn’t provide full frame coverage and doesn’t represent white balance or depth of field correct.” Additionally, DPreview found that the camera’s image quality was a “mixed bag,” and that the price — over $1,000 with lens — makes it more expensive than most other consumer SLRs, not to mention the 10-megapixel fixed-lens Sony DSC-R1. Despite the drubbing, the camera is still likely to find an audience among upgrading point-and-shooters, at least until competitors add live preview to their models (and we can’t help but think that combining this with Panasonic’s Olympus-compatible, image-stabilized Leica lens could just make this a very tempting package).

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from Engadget

 

GPS Gazette has the dirt on two upcoming Roadmate in-car GPS units from Magellan, which contain many similar features, including 3.5-inch hi-res touchscreens, 2D as well as 3D birds eye views, and hard drives preloaded with all 50 states, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Although the Roadmate 860T is basically an minor upgrade to the 800 that we saw last year, and maintains its predecessor’s features and design, the new Roadmate 300T departs from the standard all-buttons-on-the-right configuration common to previous in-car offerings from Magellan. Along with the usual lineup of voice nav, POI, and auto re-rerouting features, the $600 300T also sports a 4GB hard drive, automatic night dimming, MP3 playback, and SmartVolume adjustment for louder directions when you’re in the midst of a high-speed chase. The 860T would actually be the better choice for your getaway, though, as it incorporates built in traffic alerts for avoiding roadblocks and a 20GB drive in case you need to add other countries and foreign tunes while you’re on the lam. The 300T will make its debut in April, while the $800 860T — which you can glimpse after the break — hits stores in May.

Read- Roadmate 300T
Read- Roadmate 860T

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From Engadget

Two different ways to slide, why the hell not? It kind of reminds us of the latest shaving razor shenanigans. In a couple of years we will see the SK Telecom Ultra Slider Deluxe Fusion featuring five different sliding mechanisms.

The screen slides out horizontally to unveil multimedia function keys and the entire face unit will slide vertically in the traditional manner to unveil the number pad. This phone also includes a 1.3-megapixel camera and an MP3 player. This is an exclusive phone through SK Telecom Korea, so no ultra-sliding for the U.S.

LG SD910 Duo Slide Phone [Techeblog]

From Gizmodo

This is optical smoke alarm by Danish designer Jacob Jensen, the man responsible for the look of Bang & Olufsen’s classic products (19 of his designs are in the MoMa collection). Don’t let our snarking about its looks fool you, this is a serious piece of equipment: the microprocessor inside does a daily sensitivity check to avoid false alarms. The ominous red button actually serves the greater good, by allowing you to reduce sensitivity for ten minutes to avoid setting off the alarm for times like when you have smoke coming from a cold fire place.

Optical smoke alarm [dansk design]

From Gizmodo

KTF Technologies one-ups everybody else with the EV-K100, a telephone it calls the world’s slimmest. It’s so thin, if you turn it sideways it’s almost invisible. To put its size into context, the EV-K100’s 7.9mm thickness is only slightly larger than the iPod nano’s 6.85mm dimension. The company reached this level of thinitude by reducing the thickness of the phone’s antenna, but then made up for that by extending the antenna’s length.

Other specs for the phone were not forthcoming yet. No word about whether it will be released anywhere but Korea, but when it’s available there it will sell for around $412.

KTF EV-K100 – The World’s Slimmest Phone [Mobile Whack]

From Gizmodo

If getting up in the morning is a bitter pill to swallow, you might need some help from this pill alarm clock radio, a design concept from the Pascal Bardel Product Design Lounge. To adjust the volume or turn off the alarm, you rotate the clock. It’s 5.5 inches long and was designed in a variety of colors. As far as we can tell it’s just a prototype so far, but if it’s ever actually manufactured it certainly won’t be a favorite of the “just say no”/DARE crowd.

Portfolio page [via Techie Diva]

From Gizmodo

The magnetic wristband is especially made for those home improvement chores where you feel like you don’t have enough hands. It has a powerful magnetic surface that’s 2.25” x 1.25”, and can hold a handful of those nails and screws in place while you’re busy getting the job done. Might not be a good idea to wear it when you’re working on hard drives or any other magnetic media. It’s available now for $19.50.

Product page [via Uber Review]

From Gizmodo