The Samsung Pro815 is a high-end digital camera with a non-interchangeable zoom lens, offering features and image quality comparable to an SLR camera. A hybrid model filling the gap between expensive SLR cameras and “poor” compact models.

• Its huge 15x zoom Schneider-Kreuznach lens is the most powerful on any non-SLR digital camera.
• It has the biggest display on any digital camera, a massive 3.5in screen.
• It has the largest battery of any digital camera, with 1900mAh of capacity.
• 8.0 effective Mega-pixels, 8.3 total mega-pixels
• Auto-focus & Professional manual focus, zoom ring
• Superb fast shooting mode - 10 shots per second @ 1024*768 resolution.
• Built-in flash and external flash bay
• Normal, macro, super-macro modes without changing the lens. Super-macro from 3cm.

If you need to be able to shoot higher quality, more detailed images and think that it’s time to upgrade your compact mini-lens camera, Samsung Pro 815 might be the one.

DeFIBulator is available for about a year now but worths a revisit. It measures vibrations in the voice to work out if the person speaking is being dishonest.

The maker of the product, Spion of Singapore says that “These vibrations are caused by the user going from a state of calm to being a little nervous as you would be when you lie. Even an FBI polygraph isn’t 100 per cent accurate but after extensive testing the DeFIBulator was shown to have a 65 per cent accuracy rate.”

A key feature is the character on the screen, “Demonochio”. The greater the tension in the voice, the longer his horns and nose become.

Spion says the device shouldn’t be used for serious purposes, but its success rate means it can spice up a game of truth or dare at a party.

To train the device to the subject’s voice you ask three yes/no questions and then record the voice to establish a baseline. Connecting it to your mobile phone improves levels of accuracy because of the digital connection.

Pixma iP6600D is based on Canon’s bubble-jet technology and makes use of six different ink colors. The ink droplets are 1 picolitre small, allowing good printing accuracy and a high resolution of 9600×2400. This makes the PIXMA iP6600 a good choice for both enthusiasts and semi-professional photographers.

This A4 printer features a second paperfeed, plus an extra feed to print onto CD and DVD discs. Pictbridge and Hi-Res color LCD screen allows printouts to be made directly from digital cameras and cellphones or from the memory-card.

Some users have noticed scratches on pictures but that is solved by choosing the right paper type. The printer may revert back to plain paper, so making sure that it’s set to glossy paper just before printing a new photo would solve the problem.

The Canon PIXMA iP6600D is a high-speed photo printer with an excellent quality for an affordable price. Hard to beat at its $150 -$250 price range.

The SanDisk Extreme IV is the fastest card available at the present time. Apprx. 20% faster than the previous Extreme III version. The card can withstand moisture, dust and shocks, making it the most reliable card for the semi-professional and professional digital photographers who require the highest possible performance and the largest capacities for their medium format and high-end digital SLR(Single Lens Reflex) cameras. SanDisk Extreme 4 has extremely fast read/write speeds of up to 40MB/sec.

Specifications:

• 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities
• Extreme performance: Read and write performance of 40MB/sec with ESP Technology
• Extreme reliability:
  - Extended temperature testing (-25 to 85 C)
  - Shock-vibration tested (RTV silicon)
  - Water resistance
  - Included RescuePRO Deluxe™ data recovery software and premium travel case
  - Lifetime limited warranty

The RescuePRO is a strong data recovery software which can recover most photos even after several full card formats. It is a very useful yet “dangerous” tool.

The InFocus IN76 is a very fine design with a nice aesthetic. Glossy black is always good.

IN 76 is a DLP video projector with 1280×720 wide-screen resolution that is capable of providing bright(1000 ANSI lumens), sharp(3000:1 contrast ratio) and bigger images than any current flat screen technology.

IN76 is the highest resolution model of InFocus’ Play Big series. Other models include IN74 @ 1024×576 and IN72 @ 854×480 resolutions with the same black & silver casework.

We hate to see “so called fast computer systems” with an expensive CPU; namely, an Intel, because most people don’t even know about AMD and that those who know AMD CPUs are usually not the ones to be easily fooled. The rest of the ”outrageous system” which you can fly to the moon with, has the cheapest mainboard, a no-name RAM, a darn slow hard-disk and a graphics card without a cooler fan?! -It’s 2006 boys, graphics power isn’t only about gaming anymore. Oh and, Stop fooling people!

OK, we feel better now!

The moral of this story: Always do your homework and research every single part of your computer system before you buy. A system can be as fast as the slowest part of it. If you want performance, the second most important element is your hard-disk which is usually ignored and thought to be for storage only.

More about the Raptor X: Because of the reason that WD Raptor is a performance drive and built for speed instead of mass storage, the size is currently 150GB. If that’s not close to what you need, simply get another drive for mass file storage and backup. Doing so will also decrease the risk of data loss caused by a hardware failure, and will let you save precious space from WD Raptor which you can use for games and hungry sound and video editing applications.

WD Raptor® X:

• 10,000 RPM
• 1.5 Gb/s
• 16 MB Cache
• 1.2 million hours MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure)
• The first ever drive with a view. Crystal-clear lens on the drive lets you see the drive in action
• World’s fastest SATA drive, period.

We love it and recommend it without hesitation to anyone who wants the best hard drive out there.

This is an all-in-one, “I want it badly” type of gadget. Samsung Q1 is an extremely compact companion PC running on Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. The 7-inch touch-screen allows all the usual features of a notebook computer. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth allows you to connect to the Internet and chat with VoIP. Play all media file formats, run all your business software, play online multiplayer games… It’s a full featured mini PC.

The Q1 also has the “AV Now” mode that lets you play media files without even having to boot Windows.

The new model of Samsung Q1 offers a 1Ghz Intel Pentium M CPU, 1GB of RAM, 60GB HDD and a 128MB graphics chipset.

External keyboard and the classy organizer case look essential.

B&W’s CM1 The speaker box is finished in natural veneers (Maple, Rosenut and Wenge) and polished aluminum rings to complement its drive units.

• Despite the size, unbelievable bass output
• Nice sound tone color and detail
• Excellent build quality and finish

• Kevlar has properties that benefit the cones of wide bandwidth drivers.
• Flowport uses golf ball aerodynamics theory to achieve lower turbulence distortion in reflex ports.
• Tapered tubes filled with fibrous material effectively absorb the unwanted sound from the back of the drive unit.

With a price tag of about $900 a pair, CM1 is actually a good value for money in its audiophile class of mini-monitor loudspeakers. Suitable to complement your HiFi amplifier.

Muse Research Receptor is a hardware that is capable of running VST Plug-ins and VST instruments without the need of a computer. It can be connected to a computer via ethernet or can be used through its own interface with a standard monitor. MIDI instruments can be directly connected to Receptor. You aren’t limited with the pre-installed plugins. New VST plugins can be installed by a simple drag & drop action into the plugins folder of the unit.

With its own harddrive, CPU, RAM and soundcard, Receptor provides a more stabil environment for music production compared to a computer. However, besides the stability, the selling point of this equipment is actually its ease of use so that you don’t have to go through many menus and setup screens and start playing right after you switch the power button.

Is it essential? Well, no. But it’s about comfort and charisma! In a concert for example, a computer would look quite weird on the stage. You got the idea.

When it comes to performance, VST is based on sound recordings called samples and the performance is mainly dependent on how quickly you reach the data. It’s possible to get similar results from a high-end PC with a superb fast harddisk like Western Digital Raptor and a CPU such as a dual core AMD X2. But again, comfort and charisma must be there with you on the stage!

A hilarious parody commercial well worth watching. Excellent use of corporate identity elements of Apple. The packaging and presentation looks like the real stuff.

Kudos to the producers at National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP).