New mail scam

The scamsters seems to be getting more and more ingenious. The mail, thankfully in my junk, is from the FBI, dutifully informing that I have a few million dollars waiting for me.

We believe this notification meets you in a very good state of mind and health. The FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) Washington, D.C United States of America in conjunction with some other relevant Investigative Agencies here in the USA have recently been informed through our Global intelligence monitoring network that you have a pending FUND transaction with a Bank regarding to an over-due Inheritance / Award payment which was fully endorsed to be paid in your favor.
It might interest you to know that we have taken out time in screening through this whole transaction as stipulated on our protocol of operation.

So, beware. Hope you all have your spam protectors ready.

Pint-size punch

HOLDING the Samsung HMX-H200 in my hand, I could not help but wonder how the video camera has shrunk over the years. A couple of decades back, a video camera would need an array of boxes of all shapes and sizes to carry it along with other paraphernalia — it could not be transported in anything smaller than a car. At weddings and other functions which needed to be recorded for posterity, the video cameraman was the chief guest, often dictating how the function should proceed.

Now, however, the video camera is a camcorder not bigger than your palm and still packs far more features than what its VHS ancestors could do. The H200 for instance is small and compact enough to come within the grip of a six-year-old, but it still has a 1920 x 1080 60i Full HD resolution recording and a top of the range 20x optical zoom.
To make sure that the HD and super zoom are exploited to their full potential, the camcorder also boasts of a Schneider Kreuznach lens equipped with Smart OIS (Optical Image Stabiliser). The Smart OIS eliminates the effect of shaky hands or body movement, especially when in maximum zoom, with minute shifts of the lens. It also helps that Samsung has thrown in a 1/4.1” 3M Pixel back side illuminated CMOS Sensor, which is far more sensitive than conventional CMOS sensors, thus reducing noise and distortion. The sensor also works wonders in low-light conditions. 
The camera can also be used to click stills at a decent 4.7 mega pixel, which I thought was slightly below par for a camera which has HD capability. But, interestingly, this feature can be used for time-lapse recording by presetting the camera to click at specific intervals and piecing the images together.
I liked the fact that the camcorder switched on by itself every time the LCD screen was opened. The touchscreen LCD has a very convenient menu, which can also be accessed with the buttons on the body. The interface is intuitive and tells you if the light is low and if the camera shutter has not been opened. This also means you can just touch on the screen to tell the camera where to focus. Talking of focus, the Smart Auto function sets automatically sets up the camera parameters depending on the scene.
Another user-friendly feature is that there are two ways to do most functions, users can just choose which way they like to do it. Then you don’t need to install a software on your PC to access or edit the videos as the built-in Intelli Studio software will take charge as soon as you plug the camera on to a PC through the USB.
But, Samsung could have added a small LED flash to go with the camera, but I guess that would have used up a lot of power. In fact, the H200 claims it can shoot up to two hours without a recharge, enough for you to record a full football match or one of those lengthy Indian weddings. The H200 is completely dependent on the SDHC card for storage, while its costlier siblings like H203, H204 and H205 have built-in solid state drives.
Overall, the H200 is a great buy at Rs 19,000.

The Mobile Navigator

The Google maps app for mobile leaves you with no excuses for getting lost.

 
Stuck in a train which just refused to reach Delhi, I started fiddling with the apps on my Nokia E63. Curious to know where I was, I switched on the Google Maps app which I had downloaded recently. My phone doesn’t have GPS and I was definitely not near a city from what I saw through the blue glass windows, yet the app plotted my exact location on the map — I was 20 km from Aligarh. As my fellow passengers tried to figure out where we had been stuck for the past two hours, I chipped in with my gyan, much to their surprise.
But the Google Maps app for mobile phones can get you far more than some brownie points on a forgotten Indian Railways express train. For instance, users in Delhi can get the app to show them how to get from Point A to Point B by the Metro. Along with telling you how much the journey will cost and how long it will take, the app also uses your location to direct you to the nearest Metro station. Sadly, I could not get the app to work in Kolkata, the other Indian city with a Metro network, or Mumbai which prides itself on its local train system. 
The app will, however, tell you road directions for anywhere in India. It plots the route on a map and gives you directions for the entire journey, telling you where to turn or which overbridge to take. In the big cities, it automatically factors in the traffic delays and tells you how long it will take to reach the destination—the accuracy of this feature is debatable though. It can also plot alternative routes, in case you are stuck in a traffic jam. As a third option, you also get to know the shortest walking route with detailed directions.
In phones with built-in GPS, the Google app can give other navigation devices a run for their money, with its voice output that reads out directions. As default the app shows locations on a map, you also have the option of switching to satellite view.
But the best feature of the app for me was its ‘My Location’ technology which shows where you are on a map using the nearest cell phone towers. This was correct to a few metres every time I checked, even in interior Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.
The app lets you use keys on your phone to zoom in on the map and find businesses that have been tagged, but there are not many tagged in Indian cities for now. In the US, the app can plot all the nearby restaurants and even pop up their contact details. In India, you can use the ‘Layers’ feature to see important marking on the map like airports, transit lines and so on.
Google Latitude, which lets you log in to your Google account and tell the world where you are at any given point of time, is also a part of the app. However, it is best left switched off in order to avoid embarrassing situations.
While the features available depend on the phone OS and your location, most basics are available on all phones. The good thing about this app, which is free like other apps from Google, is that you don’t actually need a smart phone to get it going. It works like a dream on cheaper phones too, provided you have a GPRS or WAP connection.
So, you don’t have an excuse for getting lost any more.

Honey, they shrunk the PC

Small form factor has made the CPU the size of a shoebox

As you were trying to find some space on your computer table to squeeze in a new set of speakers, computer makers have squeezed the computer itself into the size of a regular desktop speaker. Surprised? Well, welcome to the world of small form factor, the biggest change your home computer has seen since the CD drive.

While the first computers were big enough to fit into entire floors of university buildings, the shrinking began when scientists started makings smaller chips, processors and motherboards. With most of them shrunk to the size of postage stamps, the computer had no business to be as big as the ones we now have at homes. The transformation started in 2005, when Apple introduced its Mac Mini, a complete CPU in all of 1.4 litre. The Mini was uncommonly small for a PC at just 6.5 inches square and 2 inches tall and weighing just 1.31 kg. Things have moved on since, and if you haven’t noticed, the latest rage is the all-in-one PC where all you see is the LCD screen, with the CPU tucked away behind it.

S Rajendran, CMO of Acer India, which recently launched its 1-litre AspireRevo R3600 PCs in India, says, “Small form factor has become a reality due to a combination of components that form the core of the PC. The Revo’s platform includes the MBD (Nvidia ION) and an Atom processor. The Hard Disk and RAM used here are similar to the ones in notebooks, thus enabling a decrease in the overall product size.” The only component which the Revo does not have is an optical drive or DVD-RW.

“Most of the components needed in a regular PC are present in these compact PCs. However, the heavy processing power required in professional units might not be possible with the options available now. But it won’t be long before your see PCs with heavy processing power which will completely make the current bulky structure redundant,” adds Gautam Ghosh, Country Manager of ViewSonic India .

His company recently launched the VPC100, which with a 19” LCD display at just 35mm could be one of the thinnest desktops available. ViewSonic is now planning to launch its PC Mini, a 0.6 litre CPU, in India. Acer is also in the all-in-one PC race with the ultra-compact Gateway ZX2300, an 18.5-inch LCD display with a touch panel, 160 GB hard drive and DVD writer.

HP has taken things up a few notches with its HP Touchsmart PC, which, as Ketan Patel, the company’s Country Manager for Consumer Desktop PCs, explains, “does not look like a PC at all”. The Touchsmart, as the name suggests, has an all-touch interface, making it an ideal entertainment kiosk for the home, a replacement for the TV, music system and DVD player. The company’s CQ 2000 and CQ3000 range of CPUs are also in the slim-fit category, using much lesser space than regular CPUs.

Small not only means lesser space, but also lower power consumption. “Atom in its small form is a low thermal processor and its power consumption is astonishingly low, just 4W. This along with the smaller/leaner form factor and new motherboard platform ensures that the smaller PCs also justify their energy star certification,” Rajendran explains.

The evolution of the small form factor has reached a crucial stage with the extremely small, power efficient and cheap Nettops or Net PCs, meant for surfing the Internet and accessing web applications. However, most of them have no, or very limited, storage capacity and processing power. One of them, the Nivio Companion is already available in India through Airtel.

But what is the real cost of the small size? Since small form factor PC are devoid of most internal expansion slots and memory slots, the scope for expansion is limited. You might have to buy a few accessories, like DVD writers, which are inbuilt in regular PCs. That could be a small price to pay for those who get space at a premium. Couple this with the low carbon footprint and there is no doubt that small is the future of computing.

Business projections

Back in college, everyone would dread being entrusted any work with the ancient projector. Reason: the projector bulbs were notoriously flimsy and expensive. So, if the bulb blew up, which it did at regular intervals, anyone within a 10-metre radius would have to chip in for the replacement. But that was over a decade ago.

So the first thing that interested me in NEC’s new NP500G projector was its Eco-mode which ensures that the lamp lasts longer and reduces noise to a minimum. The unit also uses less power in this mode. Moreover, it even has a meter indicating how much longer the bulb and filter will last in normal course.

That’s not all. This was the first projector I’d seen where the colour split was not so obvious—in most the projected image splits into the Vibgyor from certain angles. The unit also has wall colour correction so that the image looks good even on coloured walls. The auto adjust button puts the image to the best fit for the conditions, while the aspect ratio selector allows users to choose the best screen mode—this is ideal if you are watching movies.

Though the company would like to project this as a business accessory, it works fine for home viewing too. I used it to watch a DVD movie and the effect was big-screen all the way. To add to the viewing pleasure, the menu has presets for movies, presentations and so on, which pick the best setting for the task at hand.

But no doubt this is a business projector. Just consider the number of sources it can handle—two computers plus a direct LAN input, S-video as well as a regular RF input. It can also play sound from all these sources using its two 7w speakers. The picture can be magnified too—I zoomed in on a word file and got a comma which was two feet high. This function is ideal if users need to focus on a specific chart in a presentation.

The projector is easy to plug in on computers and laptops. The extra long power cable, as well as the carry bag, is a very thoughtful addition.

But I did have some trouble with the keystone correction and image was slightly skewed at the sides. I found a way around in by beaming the image at an aspect ratio that stayed clear of the corners.

The NP500G costs Rs 75,000 plus taxes.

The others

VIEWSONIC: A cheaper option would be ViewSonic’s new portable DLP Projector PJD6210, with the latest BrilliantColor Technology. Its sophisticated five-segment colour (RGBWY) wheel promises to provide greater colour accuracy than any standard DLP projector with a four-segment colour wheel. The high 2700:1 contrast ratio guarantees bright images in virtually any setting. The 2.4-kg projector has a high brightness of 2,200ANSI lumens and also comes with the eco-mode option which extends lamp life to 4000 hours. The PJD6210 is priced at Rs 55,000.

CANON: On the other end of the scale is the Canon SX80 which features the new AISYS technology and LCOS reflective panels to ensure light efficiency, uniformity, and expanded colour space for extremely accurate colour reproduction. The projector has a 3000 lumens brightness coupled with a 1.5x zoom lens to reduce distortion. The USB / Pictbridge Connection allows for PC-free presentations. It also operates at a near-silent 31 decibels. Priced at Rs 2,49,995.

Director’s choice

Not impressed by the latest emotional concoction on offer from Bollywood? Well, it’s time to buy yourself a megaphone and light meter and catch the next train to Filmistan. That is if you first lay your hands on a Canon HF 11 HD camcorder, simply the sharpest smoothest handycam in town.

But to call the HF 11 a handycam would be like calling champagne a wine with fizz, for this is the first non-professional camcorder with a 24Mbps bitrate, the highest in AVCHD format. The camera, which weighs just 380 gm and easily comes within even a teenager’s grip, also has 32GB storage space — that’s about 12 hours of High definition video.

Though the camera is actually an improvement on the HF10 which was ruling the top spot till now, it also has Dual Flash Memory camcorder which allows users to record on the 32GB internal memory as well as the removable SDHC card -- can decide the capacity of that one.

But as someone who’s tried out some other cameras before, the feature that appealed the most to me was the zoom. To use a cliché it’s like a hot knife on butter, and can easily be mastered by even the most unsteady hand. And the 12x HD video zoom lens means that I could focus on the fireworks in a banquet hall down the road as if it was next door. To make life easier, the optical image stabiliser negates much of the noise that you would associate with digital images.

Though a touchcreen would have been really handy, the joystick perched just beside the 2.7” Multi-Angle Vivid Widescreen LCD just about makes up. The function and VCR controls are placed just below the flip-open LCD, not on the body opposite like some earlier camcorder models, and can be easily accessed with the joystick.

Though it has a maximum shutter speed of 1/2000, the night shooting is still a little below expectation. However, there is an autoflash if you want to take still photos and the HF11 can easily double up as a still camera. And like still digital cameras, this one too has white balance modes which can add to the effect along with preset transition effects and even an artistic mode thrown in for good measure.
The Image Mixer 3 software will do in the post production stage what you missed out with the camera and skills, but make sure that your PC has the potential to take the load.
Overall this is an ideal choice for those of you who would like to graduate from your handycam to a clearer picture and more flexibility—who knows, maybe even some independent cinema. There is a dampener though: the price. The HF11 costs Rs 95,995, so better be serious about what you do with it.

• The others
  

• Sony Handycam HDR-CX100E:This brand new Flash memory handycam can capture those special moments on 1920x1080 high-definition video. The model also features intelligent Face Detection and Smile Shutter technology — which clicks candid smiling photos while simultaneously recording video— along with 8GB of embedded memory. In addition to a high-quality Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 10X optical zoom lens, the camcorder comes with Steady Shot image stabilisation that reduces shake for smooth video and clear photos. Cost Rs 36,990.

• Sony Handycam HDR-XR100: This one integrates the new ‘Exmor R’ CMOS Sensor and BIONZ image processor technologies, doubling light sensitivity to produce images of exceptionally high resolution even in low light environments. With the new highlight playback feature, the camcorder can also automatically extract key highlight scenes recorded based on features used such as Face Detection, Smile Shutter and Dual Recording. Cost Rs 39,990.