Category Archives: Photography

IFA ATTRACTS TECHNOLOGY FROM EVERY GLOBAL CORNER

IFA 2017 attracted more than 253,000 visitors to Berlin, a global trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances. With more than half of all trade visitors coming from abroad, IFA Berlin provided a huge boost for both manufacturers and retailers in the crucial run-up to the holiday period, which runs from Thanksgiving in the United States all the way to Christmas and the New Year. Once again, IFA was operating at full capacity, with 1,805 exhibitors showing their latest products and services on 159,000 square meters of fully booked show floor at Messe Berlin. The mood among exhibitors was highly optimistic, not least given the expected order volume of 4.7 billion euro achieved during the six days of the event. 

The Annual 2017 IFA tradeshow in Berlin ends today with a slew of smart and sometimes crazy technology.                                                                                 Much was about the newest wearables, laptops, phones or speakers which are basically incrementally better than older models. But exciting technology is about how to do or experience things, in a new way.

Here are some of my favourites.

BIG AND SMALL HOME APPLIANCES                      The Smart Home appliance category ruled. German high end Miele’s Dialog oven uses a combination of electromagnetic waves (like microwaves) a convection fan and traditional radiant heating elements to cook food, precisely.

Miele: three heat sources and smart sensors…

 

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KUTNA HORA’S CURIOUS BONE COLLECTION

  • Kutna Hora’s Bone Church outside Prague houses the bones of 40,000 people excavated centuries ago after the surrounding graveyard, sprinkled with imported dirt from Golgotha,  overflowed with believers. The meticulous, artistic, macabre and somehow amusing arrangement of human bones, including a huge candle lit chandelier is a YOLO moment for the living.

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WILL SAMSUNG AND APPLE BEAT UPCOMING LG’S V30 CUTTING EDGE FEATURES?

The rumour mill has been at high pitch over the past few weeks on what smart phones electronic giants will soon be launching. It’s still anyone’s guess what the new phones will be like from Apple and main competitor Samsung, whose new Note 8 launches August 23, but LG has taken a different approach, bi-passing the Fake News tech world.

LG Electronics has been pealing payers of new features on its upcoming LG V30 phone will have, expected to launch at IFA Berlin 2017 in a few weeks. Here are some that currently put it in the lead of current phones in the market:

  • An F1.6 aperture camera and glass lens in the dual camera delivering 25 percent more light to the sensor compared to an F1.8 lens. Glass Crystal Clear Lens also delivers greater light-collecting ability than a plastic lens as well as better colour reproduction. The camera in the V30 cuts edge distortion by a third and still be a lower profile, but 30 percent smaller in size compared to its previous model. It will feature UX featuring laser detection AF, optical image stabilization and electronic image stabilization.
The LG V30 glass lens closely matches camera enthusiasts’ picture quality

Continue reading WILL SAMSUNG AND APPLE BEAT UPCOMING LG’S V30 CUTTING EDGE FEATURES?

WILL SAMSUNG AND APPLE BEAT UPCOMING LG’s V30 CUTTING EDGE FEATURES?

The rumour mill has been at high pitch over the past few weeks on what smart phones electronic giants will soon be launching. It’s still anyone’s guess what the new phones will be like from Apple and main competitor Samsung, whose new Note 8 launches August 23, but LG has taken a different approach, bi-passing the Fake News world.

LG Electronics has been pealing payers of new features on its upcoming LG V30 phone will have, expected to launch at IFA Berlin 2017 in a few weeks. Here are some that currently put it in the lead of current phones in the market:

  • An F1.6 aperture camera and glass lens in the dual camera delivering 25 percent more light to the sensor compared to an F1.8 lens. Glass Crystal Clear Lens also delivers greater light-collecting ability than a plastic lens as well as better colour reproduction. The camera in the V30 cuts edge distortion by a third and still be a lower profile, but 30 percent smaller in size compared to its previous model. It will feature UX featuring laser detection AF, optical image stabilization and electronic image stabilization.
The LG V30 glass lens matches camera enthusiasts’ photos

Continue reading WILL SAMSUNG AND APPLE BEAT UPCOMING LG’s V30 CUTTING EDGE FEATURES?

FUJIFILM INSTAX SQ10 HYBRID HAS IT ALL…EXCEPT ONE THING

The new Instax SQUARE SQ10 hybrid instant camera, $369.99, manages to combine the fun of popular instant Polaroid picture snapping and printing with cutting edge digital backups, stored in the camera. Re-prints anyone?

Smart? Yes. Win-win? Maybe. Practical? No.

Instant magic prints with digital backup. You’re the life of the party!

Continue reading FUJIFILM INSTAX SQ10 HYBRID HAS IT ALL…EXCEPT ONE THING

NEW LG G6 PHOTOGRAPHY: SIMPLY UNMATCHED BY ANY OTHER PHONE

The new LG G6 smartphone has a feature no other phone maker can match:

Breathtaking super-wide 13 megapixel photos, part of its unique dual camera design using a standard 71 degree view f1.8 normal optical image stabilization (OIS) lens and a unique zoomable f2.4 software stabilized 125 degree view lens, also 13 MP.  Its wide view coverage can be zoomed to where the standard lens takes over. The front 5MP f2.2 selfie also offers a 100 degree wide view.

National Palace of Pena in Portugal through a two meter-wide enclosure

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SAMSUNG’S GALAXY S8 EXCELS BUT WILL HAVE UPHILL CLIMB DESPITE ITS HI-TECH FEATURES  

Today Samsung launched its flagship Galaxy S8 smart phone, in New York and London.

The S8 and S8+, bare little resemblance to Samsung’s original candybar 320×480 3.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen Galaxy Phone GT-I7500, launched on April 27, 2009. That’s some 169 successive Galaxy devices ago!

Continue reading SAMSUNG’S GALAXY S8 EXCELS BUT WILL HAVE UPHILL CLIMB DESPITE ITS HI-TECH FEATURES  

MOTO Z PLAY IS SWISS ARMY KNIFE OF SMARTPHONES

Shooting your child’s big-time school play or soccer game with your smartphone? It’s challenging. Camera phones zoom but with extreme photo quality loss.

Enter Lenovo’s Moto Z Play, a Swiss Army phone with useful accessory features unlike any other.

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AFFORDABLE PHONES KEEP ON GETTING BETTER

The new ZTE Axon 7 Mini, $0 on a gold two-year term or $399 with no term from Virgin Mobile, thinks it’s a top tier phone with a low sticker price.

It follows a smart industry trend of quality affordable phones like the Alcatel Idol 4S, Samsung Galaxy A5, Moto G4 Plus and Nexus 5X with features and performance that won’t break the bank.

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12 TECH DAYS OF CHRISTMAS…DAY 11

Follow my daily 12 tech days of Christmas. The words of the perennial 1909 festive song by Frederic Austin’s original have changed slightly, but the meaning is all the same. Merry Christmas!

“On the eleventh day of Christmas my tech love gave to me, the most hi-tech items, ten low-tech gizmos, nine stocking stuffers, eight vacuum cleaners, seven image catchers, six shiny laptops, five top-tier smartphones, four odd collections, three streaming players, two instant photos and a java in a pear tree.”

These awesome gifts are the best consumer technology offerings for extreme experiences. They range from several hundred bucks to more than a thousand. What is unique about them? Will they satisfy a need to go beyond what you have been used to? You may not want to go back.

Continue reading 12 TECH DAYS OF CHRISTMAS…DAY 11