Fun Owl

By Dominic Donaldson

 With the 2008 international consumer electronics unlimited convention days away in Berlin, we take a look at the cutting edge in the world of cameras. It is believed that the focus will be on the developments in HD technology and Phillips have already announced the unveiling of their 38mm screen, however other manufacturers are expected to have some counter measures up their sleeves. The coup of digital technology has been felt around many markets and non more so than that of photography.

In both the domestic and commercial markets digital still and video technology had dominated, with the latest developments in HD filming actually replacing 35mm film at top levels of production. Digital has made home video production and post-production more accessible and the Oregon ATC2K camera is an example of this. It has been specially designed to make filming in adverse conditions easier. It is a strange looking camera and has ok picture quality, however the weight of the head and sound quality are pretty dire. It is ideal if you are looking to record action scenes that will be paired with music in editing, also it can be found for under 100GBP online.

Not so outdoorsy is the Casio Exilim Card EX-S10 digital camera. This belongs more in the tiny handbag of a young lady of a night out as opposed to rocketing off-piste with the Oregon strapped to your shoulder. It is thin, sleek and easy to use with a large live view screen and excellent home video options including a YouTube video feature. The down side to this Kate Moss of the digital camera world is that it is mostly automated and has very few manual settings. It has good ISO image quality but a low powered flash unit and is quite pricy at 220GBP.

Adobe Lightroom is literally fresh off the press. It is the latest version of the photo editing software and is still being tweaked by Adobe as we speak. The sneak preview shows that the photo categorising has improved vastly and as any photographer or editor will tell you, a large part of the post-production process is done before you enter the editing suite in the labelling of your rushes. This has been addressed as there are better options when downloading your photos however it is still too new to get an all round picture of the features and capabilities.

Digital technology is more accessible than ever and the Oregon action cam epitomises this, a weather proof digital camera with great picture quality for under 100GBP.

Dominic Donaldson is a journalist covering camera technology and provides advice on all digital hardware.

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Learn The Latest News In Eco Cars?
By Dominic Donaldson

 The environmentally friendly tag has been banded around as a marketing gimmick in the motor industry for years however it seems that now there are some major companies that are really investing in the technology. I doubt whether it is time for the oil executives to start sweating however there are is some good eco news and this article gives an overview of the latest environmentally friendly developments to hit the motor trade.

One of the biggest companies in the world is General Motors and uses the UK branding of Vauxhall Motors. There has been a campaign in the United States by a neurotic neurologist to rally up support for the latest GM model of electric car. The Chevrolet Volt was initial unveiled as a concept car however the website set up by the number one Volt fan has drawn in 33,341 signatures claiming they would purchase the car.

With everything in eco news it is all about feasibility. GM will not mass produce the car unless they can guarantee a return on it. The price tag GM is requesting is 40,000 dollars however on the website the prospective buyers have listed a maximum price they would expect pay at 31,261 dollars. With the GM price tag and assuming that all the prospective buyers actually buy GM would accumulate 1,336,440,000 dollars however there is no mention of how much the car would take to build and market.

There was a meeting between GM execs and the Volt car fans earlier in 2008 to discuss the issues and the car is suspected to arrive in 2010. Another major company that has been given the eco makeover is Range Rover. It must be made clear however that this is not done by the manufacturer who seem to be content churning out gas-guzzling Chelsea tractors, but by another company called Liberty Electric Cars.

They work on a build to order basis and are completely sold out until 2009. They have two different models which are priced 125,000GBP and 95,000GBP accordingly which come with all the trimmings including one years free electricity. This is a price tag that would usually appear on the balance of a mortgage, certainly not the price tag of a car but as with many innovative technologies is it is a success then it might well get picked up in more affordable formats.

Most manufacturers seem to be more interested in unveiling the next electric supercar which can achieve the most eco-friendly 0-60 acceleration record. Someday when they are finish flexing their design power then maybe the technology will leak through into the mass market in more cost effective models such as the NICE Megacity electric car which has a price tag of 10,000GBP however can only achieve 40mph.

Dominic Donaldson is journalist covering eco news and writes on all aspects of the motor industry.

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 Combined global STM publishing market grew 4.4% to $14.7 billion in 2007 (Source: Simba). There are hundreds and thousands of publishers who compete for a share of this market pie. Thanks to the emergence of technology enabled business models, the publishing industry has witnessed intense competition in the last few years.

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