Archive for November, 2006

Alaska senator Ted Stevens has become the epitome of I-have-no-clue-about-technology US Senators after his describing Internet as “series of tubes” (and don’t dare sentence them to ignominy if you’re -like me- from France, a country where President Jacques Chirac failed to remember a few years ago the name of this little rodent we use with our computer and christened it “mulot” (vole) instead of “souris” (mouse). However, some wonder about the real positions these US Senators take when voting on real laws. This is why C|net decided to rank the US Senators and some surprises are to be found.

Those appearing at the top of the list are modestly satisfied of course. Top score goes to “George Allen, a first-term Virginia Republican who won the top score in the Senate, at 78 percent, after becoming chairman of the Senate High Tech Task Force five years ago.” Rep. Ron Paul, Texas-R topped the House with 80%.

But “Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, voted in the pro-tech direction in only 2 of 13 votes. That put in him second-to-last place in the Senate, with a score of just 15 percent.” The Senate bottom seems to be Democrat Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, with just 14 percent (Akaka scored well on just 2 of 14 votes).

Of course, the loosers do complain about the quality of the rating.

Version 1.0.5 fixes a bug around wrongly displaying the number of continuous shots which can be taken and adds a semi-gloss paper option for direct printing (on PIXMA Pro9000 and other PictBridge-compatible printers).

Download the new firmware, copy it on a memory card and the Canon EOS 30D will update itself on startup.

After the rumour of the D60 digital single lens reflex camera from Nikon, it appears that the name was wrong. and we start to know a little more.

A very reasonable German online shop (Neckermann.de) seems to have leaked the data by accident earlier today (it as been removed now). This gives a lot of insight about the product. First, the name should be Nikon D40. And it seems that this comes from a very low-end target (lower than the D50).

• Still 6.1 mega-pixel
• No status LCD, but a 2.5″ 230K pixel one on the back
• 3D Color Matrix Metering II (420 Pixel Metering)
• Center-weighted metering (75% of center field), 8mm spot
• 3 point auto-focusing
• Probably no AF motor
• Iso 3200 (Hi-1).
• 1/500 Flash Sync
• i-TTL compatible
• USB 2.0
• SD, SD-HC memory cards
• Lithium-Ion battery EN-EL9
• Obviously smaller body (BxHxT: 94×126x64 mm ) with the same look as the D50
• 475 grams without battery, memory card

The price point is unknown but this set of features should put it at the lowest possible target (it has to cover the market that others are leaving when moving up to 10MP). It should be a real price crusher.

The blogs of Le Monde (French major newspaper) just moved to a new level. From their previous TypePad-supported architecture, they are now using WordPress.

Good confirmation of the world-class quality of WordPress as a blogging software.

Source: Toni’s Garage.

Today, November 3rd, Sony officially accepts the first pre-orders for its best telephoto lens: The SAL-300F28G - 300mm f/2.8 G-Series with high-speed SSM motorization. It is supposed to be as exceptional as the original Konica-Minolta issue.

Unfortunately, the retail price is expected to be around 6000 USD.

This lens is evaluated on:

• Karlsen photography
• La photo selon HH (in French)

Nikon is supposed to announce tomorrow (2nd November) its new D60 digital single lens reflex camera (a replacement for the D50 and a complement for the recent D80). Not much is known except the information collected from Ken Rockwell:

• Moving downmarket, it will come in silver paint as well as professional black. Please get the black.
• It will replace the D50. It’s got a somewhat newer, cleaner looking body and weighs even less.
• I expect the D60 to sell for about $599 for the body alone.
• It uses the modern EN-EL3e battery.
• The monitor is a new 2.7″ LCD.
• I expect it to the same 10MP sensor as the D80 (standard DX sensor size) and 2.5 FPS. Image quality will match the D80 and D200, with a lower price and a few less features.

Personally, I am unsure about the details (really nobody else seems to have precise data - the NDAs must be very strict and the Nikon lawyers are pobably hunting anybody willing to show some precise information).

Yes! It has already been 10 years since the inception of SpamAnti.net. It started on Compuserve then migrated to various hosting solutions. The name changed several times (from Spam Anti to Spam.Anti to SpamAnti! to SpamAnti.net), but I kept the same will to find easy practical solutions to the permanent flooding of our mail boxes and some adequate information/news.

Original image by Josef Stuefer

Happy Birthday SpamAnti.net!

This is the title of an article from Scientific American (October 2006 issue, “Working knowledge”) that describes with clear and simple details the various techniques used to stabilize images in today’s photo cameras and video cameras:

• moving an optical element
• deforming an optical element
• moving the sensor
• digital or software stabilization

Source: Scientific American newspaper magazine or the article introduction on their web site.