Sure, we all heard about how “small and light” this newfangled E-400 was supposed to be, but seeing it in its (relatively speaking) wee-sized glory sure put things in perspective. Olympus downsized its E-500, upped the resolution to match the bevy of competitors, and managed to include “the first anti-dust system” (Supersonic Wave Filter) reviewers at CameraLabs had ever tested “that proved genuinely effective.” While we’re always skeptical when there’s high praise across the board, the E-400 truly seems like a solid offering through and through; its ease of use (in auto and manual modes), pocket-friendlier size, “excellent” image quality, and exceptional versatility seemed to deliver in all the areas that make or break a DSLR. Reviewers did mention that consumers may be immediately turned off by the somewhat higher pricetag, but noted that the “high quality” lens kit that accompanies this model actually offers “excellent value for the money.” Moreover, it was nearly unanimous that the E-400 should’ve landed in place of the E-300 in order to seem “more revolutionary,” and now faces an uphill climb in an attempt to dethrone the current kings of DSLR. Overall, however, reviewers couldn’t find much to complain about in the results department, and noted that it made for an outstanding option if you’re just now thinking about delving into this (admittedly wallet-draining) addiction hobby — so if Olympus‘ latest has caught your eye, be sure to hit the read links below for the variety of opinions.

Read – CameraLabs (85 out of 100; Highly Recommended)
Read – TrustedReviews (9 out of 10)
Read – DigicamReview (Highly Recommended)
Read – DigitalCameraInfo (“Great, but too late.”)

From engadget.com

Here’s a simplified way to snap yourself together a quick neon sign. Connect the first module to the $30 power supply, and string together whatever catchy phrase you wish in your choice of pink, green or blue letters or numbers.

The result appears to be a bit crude, but then we know you can make up for that with your scintillating witticisms, spelled out in bright lights for all to see. – Charlie White

Neonclick — Lego-Like Neon Sign [The Future of Things, via New Launches]

From gizmodo

More new laptops out of Toshiba today for our friends in Japan, this time bringing a few updates to the company’s more lightweight Dynabook offerings. The S30 appears to be the more interesting of the two, if for no other reason than the promised 13.5 hours of juice from the laptop’s “long haul” battery (we’ll take two of those batts, thanks). That marathon battery life is made possible in part by the slow-spinning 4,200 rpm 30GB hard drive and low-power (in more ways than one) Core Solo U1300 processor, running at a sprightly 1.06GHz. You can bump up the hard drive to 40GB running at a speedier 5,400 rpm if you so desire, though you’ll have to give up about two hours of battery life for the pleasure. On the other side of things, Toshiba’s new Dynabook SS M36 opts for durability over longevity, with a ruggedized design that’s promised to protect the laptop from falls of about two feet. The M36 also packs a bigger punch than the S30, with a Core 2 Duo T5500 processor powering things (or Celeron M 430 if you’re looking to save a few bucks), 512MB RAM (up to 2GB), a 40GB hard drive, and a combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. Look to get between 3.4 and 5 hours of battery life from it depending on the configuration. Both laptops should be available sometime next month, with the S30 starting at 267,750 Yen ($2,300) and the M36 running 197,400 Yen ($1,700) for the Core 2 Duo config.

[Via Impress]
more info
from engadget

While it’s fun to watch manufacturers stuff ever-larger hard drives into their ever-sexier NAS products, it gets a bit tried after a while. That’s why we’re excited to see Buffalo mixing things up a bit with some fancy new iTunes sharing. For the most part, Buffalo’s new HS-DHGL “LinkStation Living” lineup sticks to the general HDD bump scheme, with options for 250GB, 320GB and 500GB hard drives (at the respective prices of roughly $287, $306 and $441), but spices things up a bit with DLNA for media pushing, and breaks new ground with iTunes server functionality. We’re not exactly sure if that means these things can serve up iTunes DRM’ed music, or just your standard fare MP3/AAC files, but it’s a welcome addition all the same. We did see that iHome Multi-Center a couple months back that was touting FairPlay compatibility, so we know the former is at least possible. Stir in a bit of gigabit Ethernet and TV recording functionality (over USB and Ethernet, it seems), and it looks like Buffalo has quite the winner here, though it looks like most of this winning will be happing in Japan for now.

[Via Impress]
more info
from engadget

Kenwood’s been churning out DAPs with high quality audio for awhile now. Some with disks, some with flash, but all with superior sound quality to the usual wares. Now they’ve taken the whole kit and shrunk it down into this, the world’s smallest disk-based DAP. Sporting a 10GB (presumably 1-inch) disk drive, the new Media Keg HD10GB7 brings that same “clear digital amplifier” and sound processing found in their flagship player. The screen has been reduced to a mere 1.5-inches which if fine by us — not like the Media Kegs’ support video anyway. Fortunately, the battery doesn’t suffer from miniaturization as it’s capable of pumping MP3s for a full 24-hours; after which a 3-hour recharge from USB will top things off. The Napster to Go supporting HD10GB7 measures in at 78-grams / 62×44×17-millimeters so it’ll go just about anywhere, especially Japan where these will hit first come December for about Â¥40,000 or about $345.

[Via Impress]
more info
from engadget

Sure, we knew 4×4 was on the way, and we had an idea AMD was prepping a fancy new “Quad FX” moniker for the spankin’ new chipsets, but we were still waiting for the stamp of legitimacy, which just came in the form of an AMD unveil this morning in Japan. The new chipset integrates NVIDIA’s nForce 680a SLI chipset with AMD’s fresh Athlon 64 FX-70 dual-core processors to great effect, with clock speeds hitting 2.6, 2.8 and 3.0GHz for the FX-70, FX-72 and FX-74 processors. The 90nm chips include 2MB of L2 cache, consume no more than 125W of power, and can support 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM, all based on AMD’s Socket F workstation infrastructure. Of course, all this integrated action doesn’t come cheap — or tiny, as the picture above proves — since the CPUs will run you $599, $799 and $999 respectively. By the time you buy two of ‘em, plus 4 NVIDIA cards and a motherboard to hold ‘em all, your bank account will be hurting mightily, but if cost is no concern, there’s no arguing with the power potential here.

[Via El Reg]
more info
from engadget

iPod car integration has long since gone from being mythic desire to nearly stock feature, but plugging an iPod in via USB and it just running, that’s still a pretty fresh experience. Alpine’s forthcoming aftermarket iDA-X001 iPod / media-ready receiver promises just that having been “designed and developed with input from Apple.” (Perhaps this is what Steve’s gonna put in his Mercedes SL55 — don’t ask us how we know that.) Expect this too in the CES timeframe, all you iPod modding car audio mavens.

from engadget