Updated Digital Rebel is ready to work
When it arrives in stores this month, the Canon Digital Rebel XT will carry the original model's price of $1,000, and it will include an 18-to-55-millimeter zoom lens. But many of its specifications, starting with an eight-megapixel image sensor, appear to come from the Canon EOS 20D, which sells for $1,600.
The XT includes many custom settings previously reserved for the 20D. But like most new cameras, the main improvement is a more powerful microprocessor that enables the XT to do things more quickly. The new camera, for example, eliminates a two-second warm-up time, which frustrated some Digital Rebel owners.
Photographers willing to tolerate the slightly slower performance of the original 6.1-megapixel Digital Rebel will be rewarded, too: its price has been dropped to $800.
The triple-interface drive comes in three storage capacities - 160 gigabytes ($200), 250 gigabytes ($280) and 400 gigabytes ($400) - depending on how much space you need to back up your computer's contents. By Iomega's estimates, the 400-gigabyte drive can store 600 hours of video, 7,400 hours of music or 1,600,000 digital photos in their standard sizes and file formats. More information is at www.iomega.com.
Each glossy black drive comes with backup software for Mac OS X and Windows users. For those who have a FireWire 800 connection, with its blazing transfer speed of 800 megabits per second, the backup session may be over before you know it.
Teleo, based in San Francisco, offers a VoIP service with a mix of features aimed at people on the go. The service includes desktop software that lets you make and receive calls on Internet-connected computers. You receive your own phone number, and calls from conventional phones can reach you when you are logged in. Incoming calls can be forwarded to a cell phone or a standard phone when you are away from a computer. For outbound calling, an automated dialing feature allows you to select phone numbers within Outlook and Internet Explorer.
Teleo costs $4.95 per month; incoming calls and calls to other Teleo users are unlimited. Calls to conventional phones in the United States, Canada and many other countries cost 2 cents per minute; rates are higher for other countries. A $2.95 monthly plan comes without a phone number.
The Teleo offerings, now in testing mode, are at teleo.com; the company expects to introduce a full version in April or May, said Peter Sisson, its chief executive. A voice mail feature will be included, and a USB adapter to attach a conventional phone to computers will be available as an accessory.
"The easy way to think about the Adventure Cam is that this is a camera that is suitable for any sport with a helmet," said David J. Ollila, president of Viosport, based in Marquette, Mich.
The Adventure Cam 3, tiny and tube-shaped, is known to producers of reality television shows as a lipstick camera. With a base price of $296, the device is aimed at amateur videomakers who want to capture the action from the point of view of the participant.
Ollila said many of his customers were mountain bikers. To capture their trips along the trail, they fasten the camera, which is available at www.viospor.com, to a helmet, then connect it with two cables to a video camera with an analog input jack.
Adventurers are advised by Ollila to edit video to a few compelling minutes before presenting it to an audience.
"Unfortunately, compelling video usually involves someone crashing," he added.
The device can play music files in the MP3 or Windows Media Audio formats, and has an FM radio tuner.
A 256-megabyte flash memory chip tucked inside the white and silver exterior has room for about 60 songs in the 128 kilobits-per-second MP3 format or 120 tunes in the 64 kilobits-per-second WMA format.
It connects to the PC with a USB cable for music transfers from hard drive to portable player. Other audio players can use the PSS110's speakers through a line-in port on the back.
The Philips PSS110, which is due in stores by early April, will sell for $150. The company says the battery is good for up to 10 hours.
The player, which comes with the MusicMatch Jukebox software, is compatible with Windows 98SE and later.
At slightly more than 7 inches long and 2 inches high, the PSS110 is travel-friendly. Its integrated alarm clock enables you to wake up to your own music on the road, bringing a taste of home to your hotel.
Forty-six percent of households with more than one computer now have a home network, up from 29 percent in October 2002, the last time the survey was conducted. Among those households equipped with networks, 52 percent now use wireless technology, according to the survey.
The number of homes with more than one computer grew as well, from 27 percent of all households in October 2002 to 32 percent in January 2005.
Lee Rainie, the director of the project, said the increase in home networks was driven largely by faster Internet connections (50 percent of home users in January had high-speed Internet service, compared with 24 percent in 2002) and the surging popularity of laptops.