Here’s another image from my test shoot around Times Square a couple of weeks ago, showing some of the more prurient aspects of Times Square.
As this post is being sent from e-mail, the image is cropped to 320x240 - the original portrait mode image has much better compositional elements. But again, this is all natural lighting.
As I wrote sometime back, I have a Nikon D2x camera that I absolutely adore. It’s very responsive, does great in low light conditions, has extremely fast focusing, and just a delight to work with. However, when traveling on business instead of a photo shoot, it’s awfully bulky.
So when Nikon announced the new D200 a couple of months ago, I was thinking this might be my high end travel camera. I was in New York City on business a few weeks ago, and after much hunting located a D200 kit in stock at Adorama on West 18th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue (if you go there tell Efraim I sent you). I had also on a previous day purchased a Nikon f/2.8 14mm rectilinear fish eye lens from B&H Photo and Video, although with the smaller sensor of a digital SLR like the D200 or D2x it just becomes a rectilinear 21mm wide angle lens (in 35mm film equivalents).
Below is a test shot I took at the corner of Broadway and West 45th Street late at night.
As the above image shows, the camera does brilliantly in low-light conditions - no discernable noise. Mind you, one of my favorite types of photography is natural light and low light, capturing motion as a blur, with static elements in focus.
The D200, while coming in with only about 10 megapixels vs. the D2x’s 12 megapixels of resolution, also weighs in quite a bit less, and most importantly (at least for the reason I bought it), it’s about 30% smaller than the D2x, which makes a world of difference to someone like myself who cannot pack lightly no matter what.
I plan on putting the camera through its paces in the coming two and a half weeks while on vacation all over the place, but so far I’m pretty impressed with it. The D2x will still be my major workhorse on professional shoots, but the D200 is an excellent back-up (and in some cases primary) camera.
About six years ago, I helped launch Caribbean WebCams, LLC (CWC) - a company I founded with my friend Dan Senie of Amaranth Networks. The purpose of CWC was to develop WebCam systems for deployment in the Caribbean for tourism purposes.
There’s a bit more history later in this blog entry, but I’m pleased to say that after nearly two years of trying to find better WebCam equipment we could use outdoors, at a reasonable price, we finally came up with a hardware solution that met all of our needs, and have deployed the first in a series of new outdoor WebCams on Bonaire.
This new camera is called the DonkeyCam, and can be viewed in large form here and in the regular medium size at http://www.DonkeyCam.com. The DonkeyCam is installed at the Bonaire Donkey Sanctuary and funds to purchase it were donated by a Donkey Sanctuary Supporter - plus, CWC kicked in money as well.
Below are some pictures of the DonkeyCam.
So, a bit of history about CWC now…
The first demo system we developed was the Bonaire WebCams, which featured (and still does to this day) the world’s only open-ocean, underwater ReefCam. Sadly, as neither Dan nor I like to be sales people, and didn’t have a lot of time to invest in the project, we didn’t manage to sell any additional WebCam installations anywhere else (yet). To pay for on-going support of the Bonaire WebCams, we started a membership site where all captures since December 2000 could be perused for a small fee ($24.95/year) and better bandwidth could be had for viewing image updates (which occur every two minutes). We also found a sponsor in Eden Beach Resort a couple of summers ago when the cameras had to move from my rented home to another ocean front location because I was moving inland.
The Bonaire WebCams have remained stable over the years, until now, with 3 top-side cameras and one underwater one. Locations have changed with these base four cameras, but not much else.
However, now that we have the new equipment package figured out, we are in talks with several businesses on Bonaire to add WebCams at their facilities, which will hopefully lead to the introduction of a downtown KralendijkCam and a WindsurfCam by mid-year.
And one very nice thing about these cameras is that they can capture imagery in very low light conditions, making night time shots appear almost as bright as day-time - just take a look at the DonkeyCam in the middle of the night as an example.
At many tradeshows, vendors are often willing to give away samples of their products or at least sell them at a much reduced price, for a variety of reasons.
For example, when it’s the end of the show and they don’t want to lug everything back to the office or even have to pack it all back up. In this category, I happened to stop by the stand of MCA / Manhattan Cellular, a French company which makes incredibly nice looking leather cases for mobile phones, iPods, and Sony PSPs. After admiring their wares (which they were slowly packing away since the show was closing in less than a half hour, and getting ready to walk away, the beautiful French woman doing the packing asked me if I wanted one or more of the cases. I ended up walking away with a great white leather case for my video iPod, and several PSP cases (one for each of the kids and PSPs in my family - mine, my son’s, and my daughter’s). I am staring at that nice iPod case here in my hotel room as I write this entry.
I also ended up buying a collection of Pelican (hardened plastic) cases that Pelican staff didn’t want to ship back to their office, at about 60% off list.
Another reason a company might part with their wares is because you have a need, and ask for a sample.
Again, I experienced this twice. My issue was that my new Sony VAIO TX-690P notebook needed to have its system restore data backed up onto two DVD discs, and I only had one in my hotel room. At an evening event I came across Imation, a well known maker of computer media. When I explained my plight they were nice enough to open up a package of DVD-R media and give me a disc. They also gave me their press kit on one of the cool USB flash wristbands they are now producing, as well as a sample of their new scratch proof CD-R media. And yes, the Imation ForceField CD-R media really does appear to be scratch proof.
However, I found I goofed - what was back in my room was a DVD+R blank, and not a DVD-R as I originally thought. While it might not make a difference, I figured the Sony DVD writing software for generating the restore discs would prefer consistent media types, so the following day I stumbled across Sky Media Manufacturing, which produces color displays (LCD and Plasma) as well as blank optical media, under the Swisstec name (CompUSA sells their products, although I had never heard of them before). I asked if they might have a loose DVD-R disc, and they just gave me a package of 20 of them instead. Greatly appreciated. And thanks to Imation and Sky Media, I was able to safely back-up my new notebook that same evening.
Exhibitors also give away product for special performances, typically during presentations they are giving. Such performances including yelling the loudest, jump up and down the most, parroting answers to posed questions, or doing other embarassing things. Occasionally just being at the right place at the right time works too, but that’s rare. There’s also the not-so-rare raffle drawing.
Finally, folks might just give you a product because they are giving everyone products. Typically this only works if you’re among the first ones there, as no matter what the product is, if it’s free, it’s soon gone. I don’t recall having good enough timing for anything like
And all that is in addition to other interesting hand outs, like pens, prop-up plastic things to hold up your PMP or MP3 device, the occasional t-shirt (not so many of those this year), pins, buttons, and notepads, never mind bags to carry brochures and stuff in. I hesitantly accepted a $5 Starbucks gift card from one vendor at a press event, and completely bypassed another stand where cash bribes (not much, just a few dollars) were being proffered - cash crosses the line into the tasteless and unethical if you ask me.
While at the Las Vegas Hilton last month, after the Sony Keynote, I was wandering about to a meeting when I stumbled across a vending machine selling tech toys. I thought this was incredibly apropos considering it was during the Consumer Electronics Show, and figured it had been planted at the Hilton for just that reason.
While discussing the machine with my fellow bystanders, a couple of folks from Zoom Systems wandered up to service the machine and restock it, and we learned that this machine was one of approximately a dozen deployed throughout Las Vegas, and that product was selling rather quickly too. The Zoom Shop vending systems had been in place for a number of months already, as well.
So what goodies did I find in the Zoom Shop machine? Well, for starters, iPod Nanos, video iPod, headphones, arm clips, power supplies, and Sony PSPs. And not discounted as best I could tell.
As I travel far too much (e.g. New York last week for the New York International Gift Fair and client meetings, Washington DC this week for a deposition in a patent case I’m working on), I rely heavily on my notebook computer. And more importantly, being able to quickly access my desktop as well as shut down my notebook, with the work state saved.
Under Windows XP (as well as previous Microsoft operating systems) there are two ways to save the state of the system so you can quickly go back to that state when you turn on the computer - standby and hibernate. Standby tends to drain the battery over time because it keep power going to memory so that you don’t lose your data, but getting in and out of standby is rather fast - typically a matter of seconds.
Hibernate is where the memory of your system is saved to a file on your hard disk, and then the system powers down. Pressing the power button lets the computer boot up, and when it sees an active hibernation file, it restores the system memory and state from that. This may take up to a minute each way (going into hibernation and coming out), but is still a lot faster than the typical 2-4 minute system boot and shutdown one experiences with Windows XP. It’s great for notebooks and desktop systems alike.
That’s when it works.
Turns out that for at least three years there has been a problem with Windows XP and hibernation on systems with more than 1GB of memory - an amount of memory that is becoming increasingly common these days.
What happens is that if memory has become fragmented enough (i.e. you run a bunch of applications that are memory intensive), then, when you attempt to enter hibernation, the screen blanks, indicates it is going into hibernation, but then flash and returns to your Windows display, upon which you get an error in a pop-up bubble at the right end of the system tray which says: Insufficient system resources exist to complete the API.
At this point the system will no longer let you get into hibernation (although standby still works, at least until your standby has timed out and tries to go into hibernation on its own, at which point you may be carrying a fully powered notebook computer in your bag which you think is standing by but is instead draining your battery and possibly overheating).
Your only recourse when the hibernation crash occurs is to reboot the system.
My old S-series Sony VAIO notebook had exactly 1GB and I never had a problem. My new Sony VAIO TX-690P has 1.5GB and the problem is consistent whenever I seem to run Adobe Photoshop CS2 and/or Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 in addition to my e-mail software (Eudora 5.1) and various Microsoft Office applications (e.g. Word, Excel). If after a reboot I only run e-mail and Office programs (in moderation), I can successfully hibernate. However as soon as I then also need to edit an image in Photoshop or a web page in Dreamweaver, I am pretty much hosed - hibernation will produce the error I indicated above.
Here’s the irony - Microsoft has been aware of the issue for at least three years, and even has a fix out for the original Windows XP, but that fix will not work on XP systems upgraded to Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2 (all new XP-based systems ship with SP2). And there’s some question as to how well the fix actually worked on older systems.
There’s an extensive thread in Microsoft’s Community Forum about this this issue, with people owning Dell, HP, and other brands of systems all experiencing the same problem. The thread closes with a gentleman who got a suggestion from Microsoft that to resolve this hibernation issue, he should tell XP to not use more than 1GB of system memory.
That’s just bizarre in my opinion. We spend good money to get as much memory as we can in our computers, and here Windows XP won’t support more than 1GB if you want to hibernate? Ridiculous.
And apparently computer makers are either not informed, passing the buck, or unable to have Microsoft make it a priority to fix this bug, which from my perspective is a serious detriment to portable computing.
Wasn’t stability and the ability to run multiple programs without causing problems the reason we all switched from DOS to Windows in the first place?
I wonder if this problem is solved in Microsoft’s forthcoming Vista operating system (not that I think Vista will run well on many current generation notebooks). Wouldn’t it be a hoot if they didn’t fix this in Vista? Oops.
There’s a lot of panic out there - among politicians, lobbyists, lawyers, CEOs, managers, and just about anyone else that uses a Blackberry-branded hand held communications devices.
Rumors abound of a possible injunction by NTP, a small Virginia-based patent holding company, against Research In Motion (RIM), a Canadian company which makes the extremely popular Blackberry family of devices. An injunction would mean that the Blackberry data services - in particular e-mail - would cease operation for as long as the injunction is in place (which could be forever in the worst case scenario).
The basis of the rumored injunction is that NTP has patents claiming certain technology, and RIM has been found to infringe. NTP, as
the owner of the patents has the right granted to anyone who holds the patent, namely to prevent others from making or using their owned invention. Most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear RIM’s appeal.
NTP has asked for a rather significant license fee from RIM, but as with all things, it’s relative. NTP has an expectation that it should be paid for the use of the inventions it owns, and that is not unreasonable. And Blackberry cannot afford to be selling devices and technology which is crippled by injunction. Ultimately, the two will come to some sort of compromise - they have to. NTP’s shareholders will not want to walk away empty handed, while RIM shareholders (and clients) have an expectation that the company will remain solvent and viable.
But will an injunction be so bad?
Sure, there would be the physical twitching - thumbs and fingers going through motions to scroll through lists of messages which are no longer there. These physical manifestations of information absence would undoubtedly be analogous to withdrawal symptoms when one goes cold turkey from alcohol or drugs. But after a few days those would go away.
There would still be the occasional forlorn gaze at the now purely decorative (if that’s what you can call the ugly lump of plastic that is a Blackberry) device void of electronic life. It might still be usable as a phone, though.
The twitches would come back when the despairing Blackberry user saw people with Treos or with Sidekicks, of course - much as an ex-smoker reputedly gets cravings for a cigarette when in the company of active smokers.
However, without the Blackberry to distract them from daily life, thumbs will regain their proper shape and be less sore, and ex-Blackberry users might realize they have friends and family who have been neglected in favor of getting that one last message out before dinner or going to sleep. They may realize that what they really had was an addiction to the illusion of data mobility.
I speak from experience. Last March the data network supporting the T-Mobile Sidekick II data phone went out for about a week while I was at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. I went through all the above symptoms and scenarios. It was a real eye opener. Sidekick users had no warning, and support calls claimed nothing was wrong. Blackberry users have it so much better - they have warning that something drastic may soon happen and can prepare contingency plans. They can organize their support groups in advance. Heck, they can even practice Blackberry abstinence now in preparation for the likely injunction.
Hello Kitty! - Unless you live on a rock, you’ve probably heard of Hello, Kitty, one of the most amazing merchandising successes in the last few decades. There’s not a product I can think of that isn’t available with a Hello Kitty adornment. Gloves, watches, umbrellas, clothing, flashlights, and even vibrators.
Well, at CES Unveiled there was the Hello Kitty Fender guitar:
I’m not into Hello Kitty, mind you, but this was amusing.
I know I am probably not the typical user of cell phones nor of MP3 players. My cell mobile phone (sorry, I’m a tech-term dinosaur, I guess) usage is limited to only when I’m away from my office or hotel room, and then used sparingly. I abhor ringing mobiles phones in public places, and with rare exceptions, my phone is on vibrate.
And I use my iPod only when in planes or airports, as my work commute consists of walking forty feet from my bedroom to my office, and by the time I have my iPod on, I’m in my office and can just listen to music on my PC (ripped CDs - legally owned - stored on my file server, incidentally) and its external speakers.
I just can’t fathom why someone would risk a lack of situational awareness by cranking music and drowning out their surroundings while walking alongside a busy street or on a sidewalk filled with strangers - I personally would like to be able to hear someone shout out a warning that a car has jumped the curb, or determine whether someone might be following me by the echo of footsteps behind me.
And that’s why the whole Bluetooth headphone/headset madness bewilders me. A good friend has a Bluetooth headset for his cell phone and looks like someone out of a Star Trek episode with that eerie blue light emanating from the right side of his head. And he can be looking right at you, yet speaking with someone else. Disconcerting, to say the least. Make the call and get it over with!
At CES, dozens of companies had Bluetooth headphones for listening to music on MP3-player devices, like the ubiquitous iPod. But why? Isn’t the whole point of a portable MP3 player that you can easily carry it around with you in the first place? One company suggest it would allow someone to put the iPod on a shelf and then sit on a couch across the room, with wires. Well, that’s also without any sort of control of the iPod too (without getting up, walking over to the shelf and doing the finger twirl thing iPod users do so well.
Wired headphones never run out of power, and you always know where the player is because you’re tethered to it.
But for me, the most important thing is that you can use wired headphones or earphones on a plane. Bluetooth headphone are strictly forbidden when in flight because they are transceivers.
I asked at a number of CES booths where Bluetooth headphones were being presented whether they had a wired option for those phones. They looked at me as if I was from another country (which, at least by virtue of my legal residence, I am). When I explained the plane issue and that that was where 95% of my iPod use occurred, I was told I needed to use a wired headphone. Duh.
I am sure there are people out there absolutely thrilled by Bluetooth head sets and don’t mind having to now have two extra devices to charge (the headphones and the transceiver that plugs into the MP3 player, but I’ll stick with my new Shure E4c earphones - wires and all (and no batteries).
Last year at CES, Powergrid Fitness introduced a couple of devices which replaced the typical game controller for a console like the PS2 or Xbox with a workout intensive resistance device. I was sore the next day after only about a 10 minute work out on one of these on the show floor at the time.
Problem with those devices was that they were large and expensive. You’d need a small room set aside just to use the exercise device in. Apparently I wasn’t the only one with that concern, as the company has now developed a much smaller, portable version of the exercise machine, and will be selling it in select Best Buy stores starting in March 2006. The new device is called the Exer-Station and will retail for just under $200.
The ExerStation works by converting pressure on the center vertical rod into joystick data. The responsiveness of the ExerStation can be adjusted to require almost no pressure to get movement in a video game, to excessive pressure for a real workout. The harder the user pushes, pulls, and leans the controller rod, the greater the movement on screen (since it translates to a greater angle on the “joystick”. All the various controller buttons found on a typical game controller are integrated into the handle.
At CES Unveiled, where the ExerStation was shown, they were using Blood Wake on the Xbox as their demonstration platform (Blood Wake was widely panned, but I enjoyed playing it when it first came out), and it was a good fit.
Powergrid Fitness claimes that the ExerStation can increase a person’s metabolic rate five times that of resting leel, and can burn 350 calories an hour. The device is (or will be) compatible with the PS2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC. Xbox 360 support is being investigated.
The ExerStation is 2 feet tall, but rather compact, and very easy to set up from what I saw. But in my use I found that it was a bit cramped (no doubt the result of my being 6’ 3” tall - not exactly average or petite). Likewise, I found the controller too close to my body - I would have liked some adjustability in the ExerStation. Also, the based platform the rod is mounted on had sharp corners - a sure way to leave permanent dents in one’s thighs (or worse). However, I was assured that this was still a prototype and that greater ergonomics would be in the final shipping product.
Seeing as I am a video game junk and an exercise slug (I think slugs actually exercise more), the idea behind the ExerStation certainly appeals to me.
In the hopes that this could be my exercise panacea, I’ll add the ExerStation to my wish list as well, and once I get once, I’ll post a more in depth review. I’m already thinking of the great response to my wife complaining about my spending too much time playing video games - “But honey! I’m exercising! You want me to be healthy, right?”
