Autographer camera has a mind all its own

The Autographer is an upcoming wearable ultracompact that aims to enable users to "see the unseen" by automatically capturing images based on its five built-in sensors. These sensors -- color sensor, accelerometer, magnetometer, infrared motion detector, and thermometer -- work together to tell the camera when to capture an image.

A GPS module works in tandem with the cam, tagging location information to every image captured.

"The user can live the experience while Autographer spontaneously captures the stories that unfold," says maker OMG (Oxford Metric Group). "This is not just a new camera but a whole new photographic approach." … Read more

Amazon lights up $119 Kindle Paperwhite

Amazon introduced its Kindle Paperwhite e-reader today, showcasing the new device's lighted screen and lengthy battery life at an event in Santa Monica, Calif.

With more contrast and brightness than found on previous Kindles, the Paperwhite has a resolution of 212 pixels per inch (62 percent higher resolution than the current Kindle) and boasts eight weeks of battery life with the light on at half brightness (based on 30 minutes of use a day with WiFi off)  -- twice as much longevity as the Nook Glowlight, CEO Jeff Bezos said at the event. The Kindle Paperwhite is 9.… Read more

Curiosity does the Martian wiggle! (picture)

In preparation for driving the Curiosity rover around the Martian surface, NASA engineers today wiggled the wheels from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a test of the rover's steering systems. This animated series of four images shows the movement of Curiosity's rear right wheel as rover drivers on Earth turned the vehicle's four corner wheels in place in the gravel at the landing site on Mars.

Geology rocks! New photos from Mars (pictures)

It was just a week ago NASA's Mars rover Curiosity landed on the surface of Mars, and began transmitting high-resolution images of the stunning landscape from the landing site inside the Gale Crater. New color mosaics from the Mastcam show the geological environment around the rover, including layers of cobbles and pebbles embedded in a finer matrix of material, as well as a network of fluvial valleys believed to have been formed by water erosion. Click the images to see the full-sized photos from the surface of Mars. (And when you're done viewing a full-size version, scroll to … Read more

Curiosity's Gale Crater panoramic vistas (pictures)

With the masthead fully extended and the Curiosity rover's systems coming to life on the surface of Mars, NASA is beginning to return stunning views of the Red Planet, and today the agency released two stunning 360-degree panoramas from inside the Gale Crater.

Click the images to see the full-size panoramas from the surface of Mars. (And when you're done viewing a full-size version, scroll to the bottom right corner of the image to close it.)

 

 

You can see the full-resolution version of the above panorama here.

 

 

You can see the full-resolution version of … Read more

Descriptive Camera shuns photos for text images

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but Matt Richardson has figured out how to make 20 words worth a picture. Richardson is the creator of the Descriptive Camera, a camera that prints out text descriptions of what it sees, rather than actual photos.

There's a human element to making this work. Point the camera (in this case, a USB Webcam) at a scene. Take a picture. The picture is sent to Amazon's Mechanical Turk outsourcing service. A human writes up a quick description and sends it back. The camera prints it out using a tiny thermal printer.… Read more

Hubble focuses on star cluster Messier 9 (photo)

Globular clusters of stars such as Messier 9, seen here in a recent image from the Hubble Space Telescope, are twice as old as our Sun, and are made up of stars that are among the oldest in our galaxy. About 8 Billion years old, the more than 250,000 stars of Messier 9 are enriched with far fewer heavier elements than the Sun. Elements crucial to life on Earth, like oxygen and carbon, and the iron at Earth's core are rare in Messier 9. Spotted with color, this image shows the wide range of temperatures in the stars … Read more

Nikon expects D800 shortages

A notice from Nikon Japan today indicates troubling times for those aiming to purchase the upcoming D800 dSLR.

Due for release Thursday, the highly anticipated 36.3-megapixel full-frame D800 features a dizzying array of features, and up to 1080/30p video recording.

With reservations and demand "far above expectations," the company said in a statement that it is facing D800 supply shortages until further notice.… Read more

Hacker collective focuses on biotech (audio slideshow)

SUNNYVALE, CALIF., - When it comes to splicing genes and replicating DNA, backrooms and basements are not the most ideal labs. The next wave of home hacking appears to be in biotech, and around the country, a handful of collectives have sprung up in the past few years to accommodate these biohackers.

As the members of a loose-knit biohacking group in the San Francisco Bay Area saw the passion for their homebrew hackers club growing rapidly, they decided it was time to expand. What they eventually built opened late last year as BioCurious, the Bay Area's first hackerspace for … Read more