Digital

Although we’d all be lost without our trusty mice helping us navigate around our virtual desktop, there are some tasks that they just aren’t suited to. Anyone who has attempted to draw the simplest of pictures using the mouse knows that they are a poor substitute for the control that can be had from a traditional pen or pencil. That is why graphics tablets are such an essential tool of the trade for graphic artists, photographers and designers to name but a few. And probably the biggest name when it comes to graphics tablets is Wacom, so when they release an update to their popular Intuos line of pen tablets it’s worth taking a look see.  Read More

Crayola is a name that conjures up happy childhood memories for generations of kids – or former kids. Although the Crayola brand is synonymous with crayons and other assorted ‘coloring implements’, that hasn’t stopped them embracing the digital age with a range of colorful electronic toys designed to combine learning with fun. Gizmag got the low down on the latest from the company at the recent Australian Toy Hobby and Nursery Fair.  Read More

Barbie turned 50 this month but she doesn’t look a day older than at her debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959. Sure, she’s copped some flak along the way for being empty-headed and ‘tarty’, and reinventing herself to conform to current fashions, but essentially she’s still as glamorous as ever, not to mention technologically savvy.  Read More

The convergence of video and still cameras has been happening practically since the first digital cameras rolled off the production line. It’s now pretty standard for still cameras to be able to capture short bursts of video and it’s easy to capture a still pic using most video cameras. Sanyo’s Xacti dual camera range seeks to blur the lines between still and video cameras even further by allowing the capture of still and 60 fps video images simultaneously.  Read More

Bathing a baby has to be one of the harder jobs for a new parent. Not only do you have to continually support their slippery, wet, little body, you also have to make sure the bath water is at exactly the right temperature. The 4moms Cleanwater Infant Bath tub with digital thermometer could make the job of bathing baby a little easier via a unique design that allows clean running water to enter the tub and be tested for correct temperature before coming into contact with your baby’s delicate skin.  Read More

The camera on your mobile phone might be about to see the next major upgrade to its software and image processing capabilities. Tessera Technologies has demonstrated several intelligent scene analysis technologies aimed at simplifying the process of taking quality pictures from your mobile phone. FotoNation is designed to improve image quality of the camera on the software side, while still keeping mobile picture taking fast and easy.  Read More

Yamaha’s new Avant Grand digital piano fuses twenty-first century technology with Yamaha’s more than a century of piano-crafting experience. The result is a digital piano that mimics the touch of an acoustic piano by using the same key, level, and hammer mechanisms of an acoustic piano combined with special embedded speakers to recreate the feel of an acoustic piano's keys to the player's hands.  Read More

The folks over at GigaPan Systems, a collaboration between Google, Carnegie Mellon University and the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group, have finally released to the public a new and very special toy. The GigaPan Epic mount is a robotic tripod for a standard digital camera that has the ability to create large panoramas and pictures with many magnitudes more detail than the average camera could take on its own. It works by positioning the camera automatically and taking potentially hundreds of photos. Specially designed software will then stitch the pictures together to create a seamless panorama which can be navigated and zoomed in on in the style of Google Earth, which has itself been upgraded to incorporate uploaded panorama’s into a layer that can be viewed in the mapping software.  Read More

Samsung Electronics seem to be busy beavers of late, with new products landing on the shelves all over the place. The latest releases, just in time for PMA09, are the TL320 and HZ15W, the former featuring a hi-tech, hi-res three-inch AMOLED screen and the latter, a class beating 10x optical zoom.  Read More