Reviews : Apple iPod touch, A Sleeker, Speedier touch

It’s cheerful, colorful and versatile, and though it technically has competition, Apple’s iPod touch still stands alone. More like a smartphone without the phone than an MP3 player, it brings more than 700,000 iOS apps along with iTunes, iBooks, and the rest of the Apple ecosystem to folks who don’t want to pay full iPhone freight. This year’s touch is faster, with a much better screen, a new camera, better earphones, and a new body design to die for—but this five-star product comes at a three-star price. There’s nothing like it that’s quite as good, but the entry-level $299 price (for 32GR of storage space) is much more costly for all the people who want to use it for light gaming, Web browsing, and music.

PHYSICAL DESIGN AND WI-FI

The new iPod touch is one of the most elegant devices I’ve ever handled. Measuring an amazing 0.24 inch thick and weighing only 3.1 ounces, it’s almost two-dimensional and weightless. Its increased 4.86-inch length lets it accommodate a super-sharp 4-inch, i,i36-by-640 screen, but its width is the same as that of previous touches (2.31 inches). The new display is just like the iPhone 5’s, and noticeably brighter than the previous touch’s screen. Even the aluminum casing, available in blue, pink, red, yellow, gray, or black, looks better. On the bottom you’ll find an extremely tinny-sounding speaker, the 3.5mm headphone jack, and Apple’s new Lightning connector, which isn’t natively compatible with existing accessories without a $29 adapter.

In the box you get a pair of Apple’s vastly improved EarPods, and a color-coordinated wrist strap that attaches to a pop-out button on the card slot for expansion here: Built-in storage is all you get.)

Battery life was a bit disappointing: The touch lasted 4 hours, 55 minutes of video playback with the screen at full brightness and Wi-Fi on.

CAMERA AND MULTIMEDIA

The 5-megapixel rear camera is one of the touch’s flagship features, but I’m lukewarm on the entire concept. Yes, it’s much better than the previous iPod touch camera, but it’s still just a decent smartphone camera. The 5-megapixel main camera and 1.2-megapixel front camera take sharp shots outdoors with plenty of light, but sharpness and focus suffer in low light. I also saw some serious problems with the autofocus locking in when the flash was needed.

In terms of video recording, we captured io8op video with the main camera and 720P with the front camera, each at 30 frames per second (fps) outdoors. But in moderate indoor lighting, that dropped to 27fps on the main camera and 24fps on the front camera with focus problems.

Remember that you can get a good, basic 14.1-megapixel camera with optical zoom for about $100 nowadays; if the touch cost $199 rather than $299,1 wouldn’t be complaining. The rear camera here is a “nice-to-have” feature, but I don’t see it as a core part of the iPod touch experience. The front camera, on the other hand, works with FaceTime, turning the iPod touch into a terrific video phone when you’re connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Music and video playback are as high quality as always; sound is still quite bright, if a little weak on bass. The touch still syncs with iTunes (although now it can do so wirelessly) and still plays any MP3 or AAC music or MPEG-4 video file, whether purchased from Apple or downloaded from elsewhere. The touch also plays Audible, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV, but not FLAC or OGG, files; and the array of streaming video apps on iOS is unmatched.

CONCLUSION

There are a few Android-based music players out there, but none of them can touch the touch. The device’s true competition might be $200 7-inch tablets like the Amazon Kindle Fire HD and the Google Nexus 7, which offer top-notch Web browsing, e-reading, and gaming experiences on a larger screen for $100 less than the touch— although neither will slip into a pocket.

As a music player, the $299 touch is overkill. Teens who want to play Talking Tomcat, Fruit Ninja, and Temple Run can stick with the $199 entry-level iPod touch—and if you already have that, there’s no reason to jump on this one. If you need a good camera, buy an entry-level point-and-shoot and save some cash. But if you were intending to use your touch to store and play a lot of music or videos, spring for the new model. Once you’re looking at 32GB of storage the difference between the two devices drops to $50, and the bigger screen, lighter body, and even the camera make a real difference in the experience.

The Tech of Skyfall

Technology is as much a part of any James Bond film as an Aston Martin, scantily clad women, and 007 himself—shaken, not stirred, of course. But the newest Daniel Craig-powered title, Skyfall, takes tech to a new level, while still keeping things classy.

Gadgets abound when Q, the new, young Quartermaster, sends Bond along his merry way with new field equipment, including a biometrically encoded Walther PPK, which is coded to Bond’s palm prints and lets him, and only him, fire the gun. There’s also a radio transmitter to trace Bond’s whereabouts.

Q boasts during his first meeting with Bond that he can “do more damage on my laptop in my pajamas” than the secret agent can do in a year in the field. That same principle is demonstrated by the filmmakers, who worked with top-level cameras, computers, and stunt equipment to produce Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond movie.
The movie’s stunt coordinator, Gary Powell, chatted with PC Magazine about the technology used in front of and behind the cameras, how advancing technology has shaped the Bond universe, and what it’s really like to work with classic icons of 007 history.Could you talk a little bit about the technology that was used in the cars in the movie, and the role that plays in the film?

One of the biggest pieces of technology we use is this thing called the pod, which basically sits on top of the car, and allows the stunt guys to drive the car while the actors are inside it, acting. And it allows us to make the cars go a lot faster, put them more right on the line doing action. You have to [make sure] the actors inside are totally safe; they’re concentrating on their acting. All the mechanics inside the car [are] connected, so if they pull the steering wheel the wrong way, it’s not going to affect the car or anything like that. For us, that is a huge help, because we can put the camera in better places, [and] we can put the actors in better action scenes.

How important was it to have the car technology, particularly the Aston Martin, in the film?

It’s a flashy piece of Bond history. The diehard fans love it when that car turns up, and the new ones—it’s an introduction for them. We’ve got new technology now where we can still put that car there with the machine guns and all that sort of stuff, and it really just adds to the film. It’s actually one of our favorite parts of the film when that car turns up. It sort of becomes a James Bond film totally.

Did you want to add machine guns to the cars from the beginning?

It developed as we went along. There were sort of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that got put together. We’ve got the car there, and it’s like, “Right, what can we do with the car?” Ideas were thrown on the table. Tt sort of just made sense to put it there. Bond fans are gonna love it. And also, we can get inside the car now, because the cameras are smaller now, whereas years ago the cameras were massive, so you could never have done this sort of dialogue interior car stuff that we can do nowadays. There are tracking vehicles where we can be outside the cars while dangling Judi Dench inside. Modern technology obviously really helps out in numerous ways.

Are you a lifelong Bond fan?

I have been, for a long time. The first one [I saw] was Diamonds Are Forever (1971). I didn’t really know what a Bond film was then; I can just remember it being sort of a really cool film.

Bond’s in that little space pod driving across the desert, getting chased by cars. I just thought it was brilliant. It wasn’t until The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) came out [that] I understood what a Bond character was.

Was this something you ever thought could become part of the Bond films, or were you surprised at how much technology you were really able to work into this?

It’s just these illusions, really. Even back then, there was technology there. CGI’s gotten better, so that helps us to do things. Cameras have gotten better. Stunt equipment has gotten better. Cars have gotten better. When you watch the older stuff and you see some of the stuff they’ve done,

TAGG—THE PET TRACKER

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Review : Under Water Camera : LIQUID IMAGE EXPLORER SERIES



Whoever invented the underwater camera clearly neglected to address one vital detail: You need your hands to swim. Now, as Finding Nemo's Dory would say, you can “just keep swimming,” because Liquid Image has made a swim mask with a built-in waterproof digital camera. Available in 8- and 3.1-megapixel models, the camera can take still shots and shoot video at a depth of up to 15 feet. It has 16MB of integrated storage and a microSD card slot for adding more.