September 14, 2006, 6:51 PM PDT
Funnier than YouTube: Rooftop Comedy
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

Want a quick laugh? You have to search around too much to find something worth watching on user-generated content sites. Head over to Rooftop Comedy instead, the online home of hundreds of hopeful stand-up comics.

The site was designed to help comics get their work out to people who might be able to help them in their careers. Rooftop exec Will Rodgers (not a comic) told me that talent scouts for venues and TV shows use it to find acts they want to book. The secondary market, of course, is you and me. Rooftop Comedy is a slick site where it's easy to find some yucks. You can also use it to keep tabs on comics you like or on all the acts that go through particular clubs (only a very few clubs partner with Rooftop so far).

Users can rate acts and comics. There are contests, with winners taking home cash prizes. Users can also subscribe to a few regular compilation podcasts. There is no way to subscribe to a podcast that gets you everything for particular comic, though, at least not yet.

Like comedy night at your local club, not every act on Rooftop is actually funny. But there's a better chance that you'll find something entertaining on this site than on an unfocused free-for-all like YouTube.

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September 14, 2006, 5:10 PM PDT
Leica's latest Panasonic clones
Posted by: Philip Ryan

Anyone who's been following Leica's digital cameras probably knows that since the company works very closely with Panasonic to develop its cameras, it always has equivalent models in Panasonic's line. So it comes as no surprise that three of the cameras Leica introduced today are nearly identical to three Panasonic cameras that have either been announced or are currently on the market. The first, Leica's Digilux 3, is essentially the same as Panasonic's upcoming DMC-L1 SLR. It even uses the Four-Thirds lens mount instead of Leica's proprietary SLR lens mount. The second, Leica's V-Lux 1 is basically the same as Panasonic's DMC-FZ50. The third is Leica's D-Lux 3, which is nearly identical to Panasonic's DMC-LX2.

Aside from minor cosmetic changes, such as the distinctive Leica circular red badge and, in the case of the D-Lux 3, the elimination of the small protruding grip on the right hand side of the camera front, these new Leicas also use different processing algorithms than their Panasonic brethren.

The Leica Digilux 3 will be sold as a kit with a 14-50mm f/2.8 to f/3.5 Leica Vario Elmarit lens for an estimated street price of $2,500. The V-Lux 1 is expected to sell for $850, while the D-Lux 3 will carry a price tag of $599.

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September 14, 2006, 4:55 PM PDT
Say hello to the digital M
Posted by: Philip Ryan

Remember when your grandfather gave you his Leica Rangefinder and all those lenses and you thought, "What the heck am I going to do with all this?" Well, we hope you didn't throw those lenses away, because Leica has just introduced the long-awaited digital M rangefinder. Called the Leica M8, it does its heritage proud, sporting a classic rangefinder look, complete with brass top and bottom plates in your choice of black or silver finish, a shutter speed selector dial tucked next to the shutter release, and a threaded shutter release button, which accepts standard optional cable releases. There's even a tiny display showing the remaining space on your memory card (in pictures remaining) and battery (in a three-step bar). The most noticeable differences are the 2.5-inch LCD and accompanying controls on the camera back and the lack of a film-winding lever behind the shutter button.

The M8's 10.3-megapixel CCD sensor (manufactured by Kodak) isn't full frame, so you'll have to apply a 1.3X conversion factor to whatever lenses you use with this new M. That means PopPop's old 50mm f/1 Noctilux lens will give you an angle of view that is closer to what you'd get from his 65mm f/3.5 Elmar. Unlike most digital cameras, which have a filter in front of the sensor to eliminate moire, the M8 eschews a physical moire filter, relying on the image-processing engine to remove any moire effects that may arise. According to Leica, this decision was made to preserve the extremely high resolution for which Leica lenses have become famous.

Speaking of lenses, the M8 is compatible with Leica's new 6-bit coding system, which lets the camera identify which lens is in use, so it can process your images to correct for any imperfections that the lens may be known to have. Much like DxO Optics' lens-correction software, the M8 can compensate for vignetting or other lens-specific issues immediately. Of course, you can still use older lenses, without the company's 6-bit encoding system, though Leica does offer optional retrofitting of 6-bit encoding on older lenses through any authorized Leica service center. The camera's finder can be set to include framing lines for 24mm and 35mm, 28mm and 90mm, or 50mm and 75mm lenses.

Since there's no winding lever, which also acted to cock the mechanical shutter on film-based M cameras, Leica was able to include a fully electronically controlled shutter in the M8, which offers shutter speeds up to 1/8,000 second, and all the way down to 4 seconds when selecting manually, or 32 seconds in auto mode. There's also a Bulb setting, so you can hold the shutter open for as long as the shutter button is pressed or tripped by a cable release.

Another byproduct of the electronic shutter is the camera's continuous shooting mode. According to Leica, the camera can shoot up to 10 images in a burst, at a rate of 2 frames per second. Also, the timer mode is activated by the same switch that controls power and selects the continuous or single-shot modes. The lever on the camera's front, which looks a lot like the mechanical timers on some older film cameras, actually selects the framing lines in the rangefinder. The camera's flash sync speed is a quick 1/250 second. Sensitivity ranges from the sensor's native base level of an equivalent of ISO 160, all the way up to ISO 2500.

For those of you unfamiliar with rangefinders, the cameras offer certain advantages over SLRs. Foremost is the lack of a mirror. Since they use a rangefinder instead of a mirror and prism, you never lose sight of your subject as you do when an SLR's mirror flips up to capture an image. You also don't get the internal vibrations that go along with the mirror slapping up inside the camera, which can rob your images of the extra level of sharpness capable with a rangefinder. Also, rangefinders are traditionally much quieter than SLRs, again the result of SLRs' mirror slap. This can be particularly advantageous in street photography or any other situation in which the photographer wants to remain unnoticed. Plus, since rangefinderrs are smaller than SLRs, in this case 5.46 by 3.16 by 1.45 inches (body only), it's easier to bring them with you wherever you go.

Possibly the biggest downside to rangefinders are their price tag and the cost of the associated lenses. The M8 is no exception. You'll have to dig pretty hard into that inheritance you got from Grandpa if you're going to shell out the $4,795 estimated street price (body only) for this history-making camera when it hits stores this November.

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September 14, 2006, 4:34 PM PDT
Alpine plus Sony Ericsson equals beautiful music
Posted by: Wayne Cunningham

While conducting a review of the Alpine CDA-9857 car stereo with the Alpine KCA-100BT Bluetooth module, we noticed a reference in the manual to streaming music via Bluetooth. Always eager to try out the latest technology, we grabbed a colleague who happened to have a Sony Ericsson K790A phone and pulled him into our lab. The phone and Alpine's Bluetooth module both use A2DP, a wireless protocol with enough bandwidth for streaming music.

We got the phone paired up with the car stereo easily, and music from the phone started playing through our car stereo speakers. New tech experiences like that always make us a little giddy. Even better, there was some control of the music on the phone from the car stereo. Buttons on the stereo pause, play, and skip tracks for music on the phone, which is very cool, but no song title or other information is displayed on the car stereo. Maybe that will happen in the next generation. When a call came in, the music paused, and the car stereo acted like a speaker phone. The phone takes Sony's micro Memory Sticks, which go up to 2GB, allowing for a pretty hefty library of music in the car, all without having to bring along discs or a separate MP3 player.

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September 14, 2006, 4:10 PM PDT
Some juicy prereview tidbits about Apple iTunes 7
Posted by: James Kim

Although the Microsoft Zune announcement threw a wrench into a timely iTunes 7 review, the delay allows for more time with the intriguing jukebox/movie store application (as well as allow more of the reported bugs to seep out). So far, we've heard of some nasty problems with Windows versions (such as crashing, some audio sounding choppy, and refusal to recognize the new iPod Nano), but I've had mostly excellent results on both platforms (a tired old PowerBook G4 and a Dell XPS P4 desktop). I spoke with Apple to clarify some things, mainly about purchased movies, and here's what I came away with:

As of September 12, all movies and TV shows have a general resolution of 640x480. This includes TV shows that were available at the then-standard 320x240 even just a few days ago. You will have to purchase a new version of the same file if you want to standardize your library. Predictable, but too bad. Apple likened the situation to upgrading to DVDs from VHS tapes, though in this case, the buying cycle is much shorter. So what happens if and when Apple decides to offer movies in DVD resolution (720x480) someday? Probably the same thing.

Many movies are available in wide-screen format. Sweet. But we were wondering if there any letter-boxing was going on since the movie files are 640x480. It turns out that wide-screen movies will have a resolution of 640xX, or in the case of The Incredibles, 640x272. That's fine on a computer, but on a 2.5-inch iPod, that's pushing it.

Good news for owners of "older" 5G iPods: Software update 1.2 allows for compatibility with the new games, compatibility with 640x480 video content, and the cool quick-scroll letter indicator feature. Gapless playback and search are not supported.

iTunes transfers the original 640x480 file to your iPod--no transcoding. The iPod simply plays back VGA content at 320x240. So you'll need a little more space on your iPod today for the same video you may have purchased preannouncement. Also, when you pipe video out to a TV, it will of course be shown in full 640x480.

iTunes' neat Get Album Artwork just isn't working too great for most users. The feature in theory helps both Apple (makes iTunes more attractive) and users (makes iTunes more useful and attractive), but if the "service" doesn't work well, why bother. Apparently, Apple is continuing to tweak some algorithms and back-end stuff to make this work properly, and I believe them. It's possible that you could use Get Album Artwork twice in within 10 minutes and get different results. Searches are done by scanning for Gracenote serial numbers and by scanning existing metatag data. By the way, the available album art is based on what's in the iTunes Store's existing library, though art for Nirvana's Nevermind and Elton John's Madman Across the Water was M.I.A.

When you first install and run iTunes 7, the app automatically analyzes your tracks for gapless playback. It's not actually seamlessly bridging gaps as I'd thought; rather, it is figuring it out based on format and bit rate, the best method for ungapping songs. If you turn Cross Fade off, all tracks will be played gaplessly. If not, you'll have to multiselect all tracks in a gapless album, Get Info, then indicate that you want the selection to be part of a gapless album. So far, gapless playback works very well on both iTunes and the iPod Nano. Now that Apple's in the gapless game, it's a must feature for the competition (though the Rio Karma introduced it, and Archos 04 players already have gapless).

Look for our full review of iTunes 7 tomorrow. In the meantime, let us know what you think about iTunes 7.

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September 14, 2006, 4:01 PM PDT
Yahoo's excellent Mail Beta now open to everyone
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

Yahoo's new e-mail reader is now in public beta [previous review]. It doesn't take very much time with it to come to a simple conclusion: it is a fantastic e-mail application. I found using it nearly indistinguishable from working with a dedicated e-mail application. There's a preview pane. Messages can be dragged and dropped between folders. Right-clicking the mouse does mail-specific things instead of performing browser actions. And there's no longer any concept of paging through your in-box. You can see all of your messages, no matter how many there are, in one big scrolling list. The interface is a bit slower than running an e-mail app on a PC, but not much.

Yahoo Mail Beta also has an RSS reader built into it. It prepopulates your feeds from your My Yahoo page, which is likely both the world's most used and most underappreciated RSS reader, and gives you an alternate way to view your feeds. Some people like reading RSS feeds in e-mail and some don't; with My Yahoo and Yahoo Mail Beta, you can easily go back and forth.

There are Contacts and Calendar buttons on Mail, but only Contacts is truly integrated with Mail. The interface is the same, and you can right-click a contact to begin an e-mail to that person. There's no similar function to create an appointment, though, and when you click the calendar icon in the main Mail navigation pane, it opens a new window to Yahoo's existing Calendar application.

I was not impressed with Yahoo's spam filters. When I fired up my Yahoo Mail this morning, about 50 percent of my junk mail was filtered out; the rest was still in my in-box. On the other hand, Yahoo does run a virus scan automatically before you attempt to download an e-mail attachment.

Yahoo Mail feels like a direct competitor to e-mail-reading software like Outlook or Eudora. It's free, it's fast, and if you're accustomed to using other e-mail applications, your learning curve will be very brief. But there's another school of e-mail, which Google leads. Gmail is a fundamentally different beast. It does smarter things with e-mail, such as grouping messages in a conversation together and converting some types of attachments (PDFs) into HTML for you. It also gives you more space to store your mail. Google doesn't do its thing as prettily as Yahoo does, but it does some things better.

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September 14, 2006, 2:59 PM PDT
Princeton researchers hack the vote
Posted by: Robert Vamosi

Researchers at Princeton intentionally injected malicious software into a Diebold Accu-vote-TS voting machine for the purposes of security research. In an online video the researchers, Ariel J. Feldman, J. Alex Halderman, and Edward W. Felten, conducted a pretend presidential election in which George Washington receives four votes to Benedict Arnold's one. Yet, when the voting machine is queried at the end of the day, its paper printout states that Arnold received three votes to Washington's two. Even the memory card, designed as a backup, reports the same fraudulent result. There is no way for an observer after the fact to disprove that voters did not give Arnold three votes to Washington's two--except that we saw in the video that the voters did in fact vote differently. The researchers at Princeton exploited well-known software flaws with the Diebold Accu-vote-TS voting to construct their malicious code and cited lax security procedures at the polling sites, such the ability to pick the lock on the memory card, as a means of spreading the malicious code. Full details are available in this PDF report. See also this story on News.com.

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September 14, 2006, 2:39 PM PDT
Pendantlike iRiver S10 sneaks onto the Web
Posted by: Jasmine France

What is it about the middle of September that compels every tech company and its mother to announce new products? In any case, while I was busy reviewing the new Nano, quite a lot of details surfaced on the iRiver S10, though I can't figure out from where exactly, because iRiver currently has no info on its Web site. No matter--plenty of other sites have info and pictures galore.

The pendant-style iRiver S10 borrows its design and interface from the larger iRiver Clix, though the S10 is quite the diminutive counterpart, measuring just 1.6 by 1.2 by 0.4 inches. Thanks to the innovative D-Click interface, the S10's navigation should be much less cumbersome than that of similarly small devices, since you won't have to rely on tiny buttons. The flash player will be offered in capacities up to 2GB and unfortunately is rated for only 8 hours of battery life (the downside to a teeny body). Unlike its larger sibling, the S10 won't play video, but it does support a variety of audio formats: ASF, MP3, Ogg, and WMA. The player will also have a photo viewer and a built-in FM radio.

So how does the S10 stack up against the new iPod Shuffle? (And do you suppose iRiver strategically planned this leak to coincide with the Apple announcement?) The S10 is nearly as small as the Shuffle, yet it offers a design-dominating color screen as well as many more features. However, the Shuffle is almost certainly cheaper, and it offers better battery life. Which one would you get?

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September 14, 2006, 1:48 PM PDT
New Slingbox on the way?
Posted by: Matthew Moskovciak

A new Slingbox is on the way, according to information posted on the FCC Web site. The folks over at TG Daily and Zatznotfunny unearthed the news--and a nearly complete manual--for the so-called Slingbox A/V. The main upgrades from the existing (original) Slingbox appear to be a new design that offers a smaller footprint and a dedicated composite-video input. Of course, the original Slingbox could accept composite signals, but you needed to use the included adapter cable.

Unfortunately, according to the manual, it seems like the new Slingbox will not have built-in wireless networking capability--which was our biggest gripe with the original Slingbox. That's a potential turnoff for those who don't want to run an Ethernet connection (or invest in a wireless bridge or a pair of power-over-Ethernet adapters) to their home theater. That's doubly true when you consider that the Sony LF-B20 LocationFree TV Base Station--due in October--does offer built-in 802.11a/b/g wireless capability. Of course, the LF-B20 has a list price of $250, and it's a fair bet the new Slingbox won't cost any more than the $200 street price of the current model.

Sources: TG Daily via Zatznotfunny via Engadget

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September 14, 2006, 1:15 PM PDT
Adobe Photoshop Elements 5
Posted by: Lori Grunin

This week, Adobe announced the latest version of its consumer image-editing package, Photoshop Elements 5. It's taken a while for the software to crawl out from the shadow of its celebrity sibling, Photoshop, but these days you'd be hard-pressed to find similarities between the two. There's the occasional familiar dialog box and a handful of traditional Photoshop interface quirks that may elude newbies--for example, how to enter the unit (such as "px" for "pixels") in the width and height of the crop box. But Elements seems to have settled into its identity as something more--and less--than a "lite" Photoshop.

Click here for a tour of Photoshop Elements 5's new features.

Overall, there seems to be more and better creative content in Photoshop Elements 5, and it's generally easier to work with. The organizer and photo downloader have also taken a step forward in elegance and usability. Ironically, however, the imaging tools don't seem to be keeping up. All four of the new additions--black-and-white conversion, curve-based correction, distortion correction, and a different take on sharpening--try new interfaces for old problems. But, at least to me, the approaches don't make the operations much easier or better. Just different.

Once I get the final version, I'll flesh out a review and deliver a verdict; the beta version I worked with was certainly zippier than previous releases, but I'd like to see everything hooked up before I lock in my opinion. Stay tuned.

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