xpherion - technology blog

Visual Studio 2008 will be available for download from msdn subscriber download on November 19th, 2007. Visual Studio 2008 and the .Net Framework 3.5 enable developers at all levels to rapidly create connected applications for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, mobile devices and the Web. Microsoft’s Visual Studio Team System is also expected to ship by the end of November. more

Technorati Tags: microsoft, visual studio 2008, orcas, .net framework 3.5

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and is the beginning of the traditional Christmas shopping season in the United States. Many retailers open very early (typically 5 A.M.) and offer doorbuster deals to draw people to their stores. Black Friday is frequently but erroneously referred to in the media as the busiest retail shopping day of the year. While it has been one of the busiest days in terms of customer traffic, in terms of actual sales volume Black Friday is usually the fifth to tenth busiest day. The busiest retail shopping day of the year in the United States (in terms of both sales and customer traffic) is usually the Saturday before Christmas. This BestBuy door buster deal is for new Sony VAIO Laptop (instant saving of $350) with 1 GB memory, DVD RW and 120 GB hard drive,minimum 15 per store.

Technorati Tags: cheap laptop, best buy, BestBuy, black friday, BlackFriday, laptop, sony vaio, doorbuster

iPod Touch has been announced recently. Apple is doing really good job marketing this product. After creating a smashing success with Feist and the iPod Nano ads, buzz on the new iPod Touch commercial is busting out all over. The spot features a quick-cut tour of the gadget’s features backed by a rhythmic beat and an enchanting female voice. The tune starts with the words “music is my boyfriend” and searchers got busy looking up that phrase. However, those words aren’t the song’s title. This song is by Brazilian indie band Cansei de Ser Sexy (also known as CSS). Search for this band went up 300%. Apple’s marketing department took the commercial’s brilliant concept from a British college student. Searches on “ipod touch commercial song,” “ipod touch,” and “ipod touch review” have all jumped over 50% this week. more

Technorati Tags: ipod touch, ipod touch review, css, music is my boyfriend, Cansei de Ser Sexy, ipod nano, apple marketing

This is studio light comparison of Nikon D300 and Sony A700 DSLR camera. This indepth test was conducted by David Kilpatrick. The choice of scenery for these test shots are very good with lots of details and color. Nikon D300 noise level in this test without any NR under tungsten light is impressive and the level of details is fantastic with JPEG. The color in the sample look very good all the way up to ISO 6400, with ISO 6400 showing some saturation. The new Expeed images processor is excellent. If you turn the NR off, you will get more details in the Nikon D300 JPEGs compared to the Sony A700 from ISO 1600 and above. we’ve come to the point where DX camera noise is leveling out and things like AF will matter much more. I don’t think you will see any difference between A700 and D300 in ISO 100-400 resolution. They are both using the same sensor. At ISO 1600 it looks like Sony A700 used more aggressive noise reduction than Nikon D300. You can see more chroma noise in the D300 (than the A700) but also more detail. Nikon is adjusting for tungsten WB by cutting the red channel levels, instead of by boosting blue channel levels. This would explain the increased actual exposure, and the superior noise performance. We can do more test like this when we get the camera and compare raw files.

Reference: Dpreview, David Kilpatrick

Technorati Tags: dslr, photos, sony a700, nikon d300, exposure, noise

This is Nikon D300 ISO 1600 sample from Dpreview forum user Edward. According to the photographer - NR in the camera was set to normal, no post processing, jpeg out of the camera and camera firmware 1.0. Nikon D300 seems to be faster than the D2xs and slower than the D3. Also it has the most advanced, accurate and fastest AF system in this class of camera on the market. These are impressive shots. In this picture chocolate is brown, and brown is dark red, which means no blue, no green, just an underexposed red channel, yet the noise is hardly discernible. This is very encouraging as far as high ISO performance is concerned. The donuts at ISO 1600 are significantly better than my D200 shots at ISO 1600. The shot is actually underexposed by 0.7. It will be interesting to see results from Capture NX processed RAW.

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Nikon D300 sample and Noise
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Nikon D300 Pre-Production ISO 6400 sample

Technorati Tags: dslr, nikon, d300, high iso sample, donuts, food shots

Android™, a complete set of software for mobile devices: an operating system, middleware and key mobile applications will be released as SDK on November 12, 2007. Android will be a “living” platform and google will be working with the developer community to continuously enhance and enrich the platform. Android is not the elusive Google Phone that has been rumored for several weeks, but a Linux-based software stack. SDK is going to licensed under the Apache version 2 license. Android would be a completely open, cost-effective and efficient way for developers to write applications for mobile phones. Android and the alliance are interesting because they show an effort to create some commonality in a sea fragmented by multiple operating systems. Android has an uphill battle against leading mobile operating system Symbian, which has roughly 70 percent of the market. Linux has about 15 percent of this market, with Research in Motion and Microsoft each owning roughly 5 percent. This is time for open source in mobile platform. This is good move by Google.

Reference: Where’s my Gphone, Open Handset Alliance

Technorati Tags: android, dream, google, htc, oha, sdk, open source, mobile, linux

This futuristic lens discussion is from dpreview forum by Bobby Handal. This sketch was posted several years ago by Ming thein, a brilliant futurist. F-stop is the focal length of the lens divided by the diameter of the aperture. One definition I have seen qualified this as the aperture as seen from the front of the lens. If you could get the optics working correctly it would seem that a 50mm f/0.5 lens would be in the same range of aperture opening as on 300mm and 200mm lenses. more

Technorati Tags: photos, nikon, dslr, futuristic, 50mm, lens, aperture

This Nikon D3 shot taken by Photo Business News and Forum blogger John Harrington.According to the blogger - I spotted, in use by the AFP staff photographer - a bona fide Nikon D3, and handsome D3 strap at a hotel for the President’s remarks on health care. The photographer seemed pleased, shooting the 24-70mm and 85mm f1.4 on the Nikon, and shooting with his 70-200 on his Canon. I was amazed, when I’ve looked at the various files, at how well they are handling the noise issues this time around. Perhaps next up will be, if history is any indicator, a D3x. Nikon PR is doing really good job by distributing D3 to all the pro photographers to test it. Hopefully, the major bugs have all been filtered out. A D3 is pro camera for Nikon to try to gain market share in the pro market, or at least to try to gain confidence and stop more switch.

Related Articles:

Nikon D3 preview from Denmark
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Nikon D3 Night Sample
Nikon D3 First Impressions from Luminous Landscape
Nikon D3 low-light performance
Nikon D3 DR Samples
Nikon D3 in NFL
Nikon D3 sports shots
Ultimate high ISO sample with Nikon D3
D3 Simply Amazing
Impressive high ISO performace from Nikon D3
A Nikon D3 Shot from Glacier
Low noise from Nikon D3

Technorati Tags: Nikon, d3, white house, photo journalist

This is exclusive inside look of new ASUS Eee PC from Tweaktown. The current ASUS Eee PC on sale has a Generic ASUS-customized Xandros Linux with “Easy” and “Standard” GUI modes that has all the essentials preloaded, including special draw programs similar to Paint, chat programs such as MSN and Skype and ICQ. According to the reviewer - With the top layer off I was ready to put down my tools and get the camera snap shots. Check out these gorgeous pictures. The Eee PC is opened up and if you zoom in you can see the backside of the motherboard. The central white crevasse in the middle is the slot where the DDR2 RAM fits in. In conclusion, the Eee PC is not for everyone; but having said that, it also seems to have a bit of everything (except a Microsoft OS, but they are working on that). It comes in a neat little package (Dimensions: 22.5 x 16.4 x 2.15~3.5 cm) with five different colors available, from the pastel green, blue or pink, to white or black. In the eastern countries it is already selling as fast as they can get them onto the market. The west however would be a little more circumspect and perhaps needs some time to grow into them, more

Static sample of Asus eee pc UI.

Technorati Tags: asus, eee pc, EeePc, disection, tweaktown, linux

Nikon announced that D300 will be available on Nov 23, with the D3 a week later. In addition, the first 300,000 purchasers worldwide of the D3 and D300 will receive an offer for a free copy of Capture NX 1.3. more

Technorati Tags: nikon, d300, d3, available, capture nx, free

Canon UK acknowledges the pending sub-mirror fix, asks that units of the EOS-1D Mark III on dealer shelves be returned and indicates that shipments of the camera are suspended for the moment. A shipping recommencement date is promised at a later time. This is a bold move by Canon, more

Technorati Tags: recall, EOS-1D Mark III, Eos-1dMarkIii, DSLR, canon