digital cameras

Digital Underwater Camera Mask

Shoot video underwater, with no hands

Thirty-five millimeter film is dead. Everyone over the age of nine now owns a three-megapixel digital camera with a 10X optical zoom. Parents upgrading to telescopic lenses are passing down their relics to kids who can’t aim and have never loaded a roll of film. In the digital revolution, the disposable camera was merely an innocent bystander (along with Polaroid). But at dive shops and drug stores, the single-use underwater film camera has survived as the practical option for honeymoon photography and pool party documentation. With the recent launch of the 5.0-megapixel Digital Underwater Camera Mask from Liquid Image ($99; a 3.1-megapixel version costs $79), the end is near. To see how potent the gadget could be, I spent an afternoon underwater attempting to document a most difficult subject matter: two kids under the age of seven.

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Map Your Shots

A GPS-equipped camera knows where you’ve been

Remember that beautiful sunset photo from Jamaica? Or was it the Bahamas? No worries—the first high-end camera with a built-in GPS receiver keeps track for you.

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The Grouse

Gadget Myths—Exposed!

The Grouse debunks a few techie urban legends and solicits your advice

The readers have spoken—and I shall heed your call! Based on the flurry of responses from a Grouse column last month (in which I bemoaned the snake oil sales tactics of the overpriced cable market), theres clearly a hunger out there for clarity when it comes to parsing the jargon-filled nonsense thats used to market consumer electronics. Hype is always to be expected when it comes to sales, but unfortunately sometimes conventional wisdom gets swept up in the hubbub and eventually we find ourselves believing in techie urban legends. Great for sellers, not so much for consumers. So taking my own advice, Im following the Gadgetry Golden Rule and passing on a five choice bits of somewhat counter-intuitive wisdom Ive had need for and which may inform your next purchase. Pay it forward—hit the comments section with your own, and spread the word.

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One Camera, 12,616 Lenses

Stanford researchers are developing a digital image sensor equipped with 12,616 lenses to generate 3-D images

Multiple Cameras, One Chip: The testing platform for the multi-aperture image sensor. Photo by L.A. Cicero/Stanford University
Last year, we reported on the Adobe light-field camera, a prototype device with 19 lenses which captures 19 versions of the same image at different focal lengths. The associated software then lets the user choose which parts of the resulting photograph should be in focus, which can produce a virtually 3D image. We also briefly mentioned a project at Stanford University which is experimenting with their own multi-lensed device.

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When a $100 Laptop is Too Expensive

A former OLPC exec moves on to make a $75 laptop

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Can Digital Photos Be Trusted?

The web is crawling with jokes, hoaxes and more insidious fakes. Digital-image experts aim to develop foolproof detection tools, but until then, seeing is not believing

Lance Corporal Ted "JOEY" Boudreaux Jr. was bored. It was the summer of 2003 in Iraq, the pause between the heavy lifting of the U.S. invasion and the turmoil of the insurgency, and you can joyride around the desert in a dusty Humvee only so often. Loitering at the back gate of his base, mingling with locals, Boudreaux says he scribbled "Welcome Marines" on a piece of cardboard and gave it to some kids, who then posed with him, smiling, for a snapshot. He e-mailed the picture to his mom, a cousin and a few friends, and he didn´t think about it again. Boredom moved on.

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Gusty Shooters

VGA Digital Cameras

CASIO
EXILIM Zoom EX-Z750
MSRP: $449
Resolution [effective]: 7.2 megapixels
Video file type: MPEG-4
Zoom lens type: 3x optical/ 8x digital zoom lens, f2.8-5.1 [38-114mm 35mm equivalent]
Lighting: AF Assist lamp
LCD size: 2.5"
Frame rate and window size: 30 fps at 640x480
Dimensions: 3.5" x 2.3" x .88"
Weight: 4.48 ounces [w/o battery]
Memory Type: SD Card

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