When undergoing medical treatment, physicians frequently determine that a patient’s vital signs need to be monitored. This includes closely monitoring things like blood pressure and heart rate. For most patients today, this means a variety of wires and sensors will be attached to their bodies. But thanks to technology developed at NASA, there might be a better way.

A new biomedical sensor which incorporates technology pioneered at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, is currently being developed by a company called Endotronix. The company is investigating using the sensors to measure blood pressure and heart rate.

“When this opportunity came about, we immediately understood that we could tailor our technology for a biomedical application. It was an opportunity for direct societal impact that could assist a lot of people in the medical community,” says Dr. Félix Miranda, one of the two Glenn scientists responsible for the technology.

The sensors are about the size of the head of a pin—1 millimeter wide and .5 millimeter thick. Crafted out of gold and silicone, each tiny sensor also includes a multi-turn loop antenna, which means data collected from the sensor can be wirelessly transmitted to an external unit. Called Biomedical Microelectromechanical Systems, or Bio-MEMS, each sensor makes use of NASA patented radiofrequency technology.

Developed for Space, Used on Earth
Dr. Félix Miranda, a supervisory electronics engineer, and Dr. Rainee Simons, a supervisory physicist, are both part of the Communications, Instrumentation and Controls Division at Glenn. In 2001, the Technology Transfer and Partnership Office (TTPO) at Glenn awarded the team $50,000 to work towards finding a way to use Glenn’s radiofrequency technology in the biomedical field.

“It is a testament to how much you can do with a small amount of seed money—how you can leverage that,” Miranda says. “The center has gotten an acceptable return on investment on this effort, and it has given us satisfaction because we have been able to evolve technology.”

Initially, the two were investigating the technology for potential use in space suits, as a way to remotely monitor astronauts’ health. The initiative was especially important for astronauts performing space walks, and could prove essential as plans develop to send astronauts further into space.

“There is an emphasis to develop sensors for astronauts that are convenient as well as accurate. Safety is the initial motivation,” Simons says.

Drs. Miranda and Simons achieved patents for their work in 2003 and 2007, and extensively published their work. Through these publications, Dr. Anthony Nunez, a cardiovascular surgeon and president of Endotronix, learned about the work at Glenn in 2006.

“Unlike other devices, ours is very small,” Miranda says. “[Dr. Nunez] was very impressed by that, and decided that this was the technology he needed for his cardiovascular products.”

Endotronix now holds the exclusive license for cardiovascular applications of the Glenn technology. Glenn and Endotronix signed a Space Act Agreement to work on developing and validating the technology for these particular medical uses. Though the Space Act Agreement has now ended, Endotronix keeps Drs. Miranda and Simons updated on their progress.

We want [Endotronix] to succeed. That is what NASA’s ‘For the Benefit of All’ is all about,” Miranda says.

Monitoring and Wireless Transmitting

The cardiovascular sensors will operate by being implanted in the body of the patient. Each tiny unit doesn’t require a battery, which means the unit can last indefinitely in the body while causing less damage to surrounding tissue and lessening the risk of infection or toxicity. The device, manufactured out of biocompatible materials, operates by sensing the pressure that the heart or an artery creates when the blood flows by a membrane. It transmits data to a small, portable external reader, which can be worn by the patient or kept nearby for readings. This transmission occurs wirelessly, and the absence of a wire in the body also helps prevent risk of infection and other negative side effects.

Because the sensors are so small, they are not disruptive to the patients in whom they are implanted. All types of patients can potentially benefit from the device, from nursing home residents requiring intensive care to active patients who wish to travel, while still monitoring their health. The external readers are easy to use, allowing patients to take their own readings.

“As this technology evolves to be a product for the general public, it needs to be as simple as possible without sacrificing the accuracy of the information,” Miranda says.

Building Bridges and Beyond

Drs. Miranda and Simons have received many accolades for their work. In October of 2009, the two were runners-up in the Wall Street Journal’s Technology Innovation Awards, in the wireless category. They also won a 2010 Northeast Ohio Technology Coalition Innovation Award (NorTech Award) for their work, and received commendations from the Ohio State Senate and the Secretary of the State of Ohio.

Endotronix has licensed the technology for cardiovascular applications, but there are other potential uses for these pressure sensors. Companies have expressed interest in investigating the technology for other biomedical areas, such as general surgery and bone, neck and spine health. Other areas of human interest, like structural safety in bridges and buildings, could also benefit from this technology.

“We still have opportunities based on this concept that we’d like to explore, and the agency environment is consistent with this kind of effort. There are good opportunities ahead,” Miranda says. “We can really tailor the concept to support diverse applications.”

Here are Some top Virus removing tricks of Windows XP
Here are some Tricks in Windows Xp against some common Viruses…………

(Trojan)

1. Go to Start > RUN

2. Type regedit and press enter.

3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Policies > Explorer

4. On the right side of the screen, you can see some registry entry names, out of them, right-click on NoFolderOptions and click Modify option.

5.A new small screen pops up, on this screen, sen the value data field as 0 (zero).Press OK. That’s it but it requires reboot. Trouble Fixed.

OR

There is an easy way also……….

Download the registry File………

folderoptions.reg

And Double click it to add it on registry……….

After removing the virus completely from our system, you’ll face new problems such as you can no longer bring up Windows Task Manager from CTRL+ALT+DEL. You get the error message saying “Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator”.

You think that it’s easy to fix this problem by going to Registry Editor but you can’t! You get the error message “Registry editing has been disabled by your administrator“.

Folder Options and even Show Hidden Files & Folder is disabled! How frustrating! Don’t worry, here’s how to restore your Windows Task Manager, Registry Editor, Folder Options and Show hidden files & folders.

This problem is most commonly caused by a virus called “Brontok“. Brontok virus will make some changes to the system restrictions in order to hide itself from easy detection and also from easy cleaning. Here’s a free tool called Remove Restrictions Tool (RRT) which is able to re-enables all what the virus had previously disabled, and gives you back the control over your own computer.

Small and easy to use. Make sure you boot in to Safe Mode to use Remove Restrictions Tool (RRT). Just click on the buttons and it’ll do it’s job.

If your system is infected by this virus you can’t see hidden files and folders , even after applying the settings to show hidden folders. This setting is reverted back to Don’t show hidden files and folders by the virus. This happens because virus protects the two hidden ,system files called d.com and autorun,inf which are created by amvo.exe and amvo0.dll , amvo1.dll which resides in system32 folder on the OS drive (hard disk partition on which windows operating system is installed).

In order to fix the problems caused by this virus ,you will need to delete all these files created by the virus. Follow the set of commands to delete these files

1. Open Start>>Run and type cmd and press enter. This will open windows command prompt window. On this window, type as directed in steps further and press enter at the end of each step.

2. type cd\

3. type cd windows\system32

4. type attrib -r -h -s amvo.exe

5. type del amvo.exe

6. type attrib -r -h -s avmo0.dll ,repeat the steps 5 and 6 again to delete avmo1.dll

7. now type d: and press enter for d: drive partition.

8. type attrib -r -h -s autorun.inf

9. type del autorun.inf

10. type attrib -r -h -s d.com

11. type del d.com

Similarly repeat from steps 8 to 11 for all your hard disk partitions to remove the files created by the virus.

OR

1. First download Trend Micro HijackThis

2. Install and run the scan ,you will see an entry like this :

HKCU\..\Run: [amva] C:\WINDOWS\system32\amvo.exe

3. Check the above entry and click on the button which says Fix Checked and click yes on the prompt.

4. Uncheck amvo.exe from msconfig>> startup (type msconfig in run and click on the startup tab) also and restart your system

5. Open my computer and go to folder options >> check the option show hidden files and folders. Also un-check the option Hide protected operating system files (This will give a warning message, confirm by pressing yes button). After this click Ok.

6. Now access all your system drives by typing the drive letters in the address bar (for example c:) and delete the files like autorun.inf and other file with a name ms18us.exe (sorry but I am not sure about the second file name )

7. Also delete the files amvo.dll and amvo1.dll from windows/system32 folder.

Thats it…………..

1. Open Start>>Run and type cmd and press enter. This will open a command prompt window. On this command prompt window type the following steps.

2. type cd\

3. type attrib -r -h -s autorun.inf

4. type del autorun.inf

5. now type d: and press enter for d: drive partition.

Now repeat steps 3 and 4. Similarly repeat step 5 for all your hard disk partition.

Restart your system and your trouble will be fixed.

The simplest method to get your command prompt back is to add a registry key , but you should be having registry editing is enabled.

1. Open Start >> Run and type the following command ( or just copy it )

REG add HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System /v DisableCMD /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

2. Copy the above command and press Enter. This will solve your trouble and your command prompt will be enabled. Note: Method 1 may not work when your system is severely infected by a virus and even the registry editing is disabled due to which you are not able to run the above command from run prompt.

Method 2: It involves a tool called RRT – Remove Restrictions Tool by sergiwa which can enable the disabled command prompt by virus.

This is a new virus called “BrokenMind” which inrtroduced in 2009…

And this virus is very common now….

This virus have the syptoms like

1) Task Manager Disabled

2) Command Prompt Disabled

3) Regedit Disabled

4) Folder Options Hidden

5) When double clicking on infected Drives ” Access Denied’ Message appears..

6) A text file generates automattically on Desktop with an appology in Malayalam Language and asks to contact him at brokenmind.info@yahoo.com…

7) Internet explorer title changes into “Broken Mind………..Memories”

And this virus is can’t detected by most common anti-virus softwares….

There are some processes which causes its working..

Broken.exe

Mind.exe

The paths of this files are..

c:\windows\mind.exe
c:\windows\broken.exe
e:\mind.exe

These are hidden and can’t delete these files….

And its registry activites are

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\MMC RestrictAuthorMode value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\MMC\{8FC0B734-A0E1-11D1-A7D3-0000F87571E3} Restrict_Run value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\MMC\{D70A2BEA-A63E-11D1-A7D4-0000F87571E3} Restrict_Run value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\MMC\{E12BBB5D-D59D-4E61-947A-301D25AE8C23} Restrict_Run value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer NoFolderOptions value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System DisableTaskMgr value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System DisableCMD value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main Window Title ….BrokenMind….For Your Memories
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer NoDriveTypeAutoRun [REG_DWORD, value: 000000FF]
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System DisableRegistryTools value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows load C:\WINDOWS\broken.exe
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced Hidden value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced ShowSuperHidden value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced HideFileExt value:
Solution for this virus attack

This virus has 2 solutions..

First Solution

First we have to stop the 3 processes…

Broken.exe
Mind.exe
Internet explorer Broken Mind….. Memories.exe
For Finding this we have to use a small tool Micro Hijack….

By using this we can find these 3 processes…..

We can fix it by this software…

Then delete the following files

c:\windows\mind.exe
c:\windows\broken.exe
e:\mind.exe

Then use the next tool Remove Restrictions Tool (RRT).

And by this we can remove the highligted problems and then restart the system….

Then go to run and type “regedit”..

Then search and delete all occurances of “Broken.exe” and “Mind.exe”

Then search “brokenmind”…

Then edit “BrokenMind…………Memories” and change it into “Internet Explorer”

Now ur system is free from broken mind virus……….

Alternate Solution

If ur system have still problem then follow this steps……….

Press “F8″ continously while booting…

Then a selection window appears.

Select “Safe mode” from it…

If ur task manager is disabled follow the steps in this hub

http://hubpages.com/hub/Top-Virus-Solutions-for-Windows-XP

If ur task manager is okey, make sure that the following processes are not working….

Broken.exe
Mind.exe
Then go to “folder options”…….

If that also not okey, go to the above link again….

If folder options is okey, then tick on “show hidden files” and unselect the two hide options below it..

Then press “Apply and “ok”

Then remove the following files..

c:\windows\mind.exe
c:\windows\broken.exe
e:\mind.exe

Then go to run and type “regedit”..

Then search and delete all occurances of “Broken.exe” and “Mind.exe”

Then search “brokenmind”…

Then edit “BrokenMind…………Memories” and change it into “Internet Explorer”

Now ur system is free from broken mind virus……….


]]> http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/solution-for-broken-mind-virus-in-windows/feed/ 0 techyspot http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/the-5-essential-leadership-skills-of-virtual-project-managemen/ http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/the-5-essential-leadership-skills-of-virtual-project-managemen/#comments Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:19:23 +0000 techyspot http://techyspot.wordpress.com/?p=61 ]]> Virtual or not, these five leadership skills will increase the productivity and success of your team, writes PMPlanet columnist Ron Ponce of Fog City Consulting.
Years ago if you were not in the room, you were not part of the team. It was that simple. That concept of how a project team was formed and run has virtually gone out the window. Virtual project teams are a fact of life in business today based on a variety of reasons such as costs, organizational structure, skill sets, and time to market.

Virtual project teams are the quintessential example of a matrix and cross-functional team. As a result, risks around geography, culture, communication, and organizational structure present themselves in ways that haven’t done so in the past. In addition, there is a higher probability with virtual teams for misunderstanding and conflict that hinder their ability to produce and deliver a successful project.

It is bad enough that majority of project and initiatives fail to meet their original success criteria, but when you add the additional risks and burdens related to a virtual project it seems doomed to certain failure. Given the critical importance that virtual projects and initiatives have for an organization, how can you avoid failing?

The success of a virtual project team depends highly on five critical steps. These steps, if in place and executed successfully, will dramatically improve the productivity and overall success rate for any virtual project.

They are:

* Structure
* Communication
* Leadership
* Trust
* Motivation.

Structure

Organization to any project is very important, but it is critical to a virtual project. From the very start, there needs to be a very clear vision and mission statement for that project. Every person on that team needs to know what the project is chartered to complete, the timing, and the success factors that will be used to track and measure it along the way.

In a partnership, the roles and responsibilities of each member of the team from the sponsor, project manager, to the most junior person need to be documented and understood. It is recommended that a project-specific document is created in addition to the normal roles and responsibilities document. The project-specific document should include a biography of each team member preferably with a picture. The bio’s should include the role and skills of the individual, but also have something about them as a person. It will help for the team to bond a bit more if they are able to see that there may be others with like interests even if they are half a world away.

Finally, it is important that each team member is rated and tracked based on their performance; within their specific assignments as well as the overall performance of the project. They need to have some “skin in the game” so to speak with respect to making sure the overall project is successful. The rating process is important even if there is no monetary component tied to the successful delivery of the project. The rating process must be consistently applied across all geographic areas covered by the project so that there is no possibility of dissension within the team because one group is looked upon more favorably than another.


]]> http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/the-5-essential-leadership-skills-of-virtual-project-managemen/feed/ 0 techyspot http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/social-web-email-close-digg-slashdot-fark-stumble-reddit-mixx-del-icio-us-newsvine-technorati-facebook-buzz-up-twitter-your-name-your-email-address-reci/ http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/social-web-email-close-digg-slashdot-fark-stumble-reddit-mixx-del-icio-us-newsvine-technorati-facebook-buzz-up-twitter-your-name-your-email-address-reci/#comments Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:57:48 +0000 techyspot http://techyspot.wordpress.com/?p=57 ]]> As we arrive at 2009, cloud computing is the technology creating the most buzz. Cloud technology is in its infancy, however, and enterprises would be wise to limit their efforts to small, targeted projects until the technology matures and vendors address a variety of potentially deal-breaking problems.

First off, let’s define cloud computing. Gartner says it is “a style of computing whose massively scalable and elastic, IT-related capabilities are provided ‘as a service’ to external customers using Internet technologies.”

The two most commonly cited examples of cloud offerings come from Amazon.com and Google, both of which basically rent their data-center resources to outside customers.

For example, Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) lets customers rent virtual-machine instances and run their applications on Amazon’s hardware. Other services under the EC2 umbrella include storage and databases in the cloud. Amazon uses Xen for virtualization and offers customers a choice of Linux, Solaris or Windows operating systems.
The pitch is that customers can take advantage of Amazon’s expertise in running large data centers, that customers pay only for the compute and storage resources they use, and that Amazon can scale up or down easily, depending on the demand.

That’s the most basic level of cloud computing – infrastructure in the cloud. In this scenario, the customer is aware of and makes choices concerning the infrastructure itself.

The next level is cloud computing as a Web development platform. The best example is Google’s App Engine, a place where Web application developers can upload code (as long as it’s written in Python) and let Google’s infrastructure take care of deploying the application and allocating compute resources.

The third level is running enterprise applications in the cloud. A cloud vendor could host an enterprise application and take responsibility for that application’s availability and performance. Gartner predicts e-mail will become one of the first enterprise applications that move to the cloud.

How is that different from software-as-a-service (SaaS)? Without getting too tangled up in semantics, SaaS typically refers to a specific vendor – Salesforce.com, for example – offering its application to multiple customers in a hosted model. Theoretically, a SaaS vendor could use the cloud infrastructure to host its applications. Also theoretically, a cloud provider could host anybody’s application.
That brings us to the ultimate cloud scenario, in which these “private” clouds owned by such companies as Amazon and Google melt into one giant, public cloud that contains all the user’s data and applications and is accessible anytime on any device.

That’s a long way off, however. In addition, the potential roadblocks are many. They include issues of licensing, privacy, security, compliance and network monitoring. A final potential stumbling block is that enterprise applications tend to be customized and intertwined, with one system feeding into or reporting back to another. That makes it pretty tough to pluck out an application and run it in the cloud without affecting every related application.

So for now, keep an eye on the cloud, but keep your feet firmly planted on the ground.


]]> http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/social-web-email-close-digg-slashdot-fark-stumble-reddit-mixx-del-icio-us-newsvine-technorati-facebook-buzz-up-twitter-your-name-your-email-address-reci/feed/ 0 techyspot http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/green-is-in-for-wireless-companies/ http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/green-is-in-for-wireless-companies/#comments Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:26:50 +0000 techyspot http://techyspot.wordpress.com/?p=53 ]]> NEW YORK–Green is the new black in wireless as companies like Sprint Nextel and Samsung announce new products and programs geared toward environmental sustainability.

NEW YORK–Green is the new black in wireless as companies like Sprint Nextel and Samsung announce new products and programs geared toward environmental sustainability.

At a press event Thursday at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum here, the companies announced a new eco-friendly device called the Reclaim and an overall strategy to green the wireless market.

The news comes as consumers are increasingly buying products and services based on environmental sustainability. From energy-saving light bulbs to hybrid cars and now environmentally-friendly cell phones, green is all the rage



re are many customers who care very much about the environment,” said David Owens, Sprint’s director of customer acquisitions. “These are customers who buy products and services from companies they feel are good companies with good sustainable products. So we think that people will come to Sprint because of that. And then we hope the other improvements we’ve made in our network reliability, device line-up, and customer service will keep them with us.”

“We really are a different company than we were 18 months ago, but there’s been a bit of a perception gap between,” he added. “And we’re trying to change that.”

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, more than 100 million cell phones are tossed every year in the United States alone. These devices have the potential to leak mercury, cadmium, arsenic and other substances into water streams if they’re thrown in the trash and end up in city landfills.

All the major wireless operators have had a recycling program for years. Verizon Wireless has a program that allows people to take their old cell phones and donate them to HopeLine, a resource for victims of domestic abuse, or other charities. AT&T has a recycling program that offers refurbished phones to soldiers serving in the military. AT&T has also announced a major commitment to using alternative-fuel vehicles.

But now Sprint says it wants to be a leader on the environment. It announced Thursday that it plans by 2017 to be recycling or reclaiming 90 percent of its devices that will be in the market. Sprint’s collection rate today is about 35 percent, which is higher than the industry average.

The company has also committed itself to reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by 2017 and to also use renewable energy for about 10 percent of its energy consumption by that time as well. Currently, about 90 percent of the power used at the company’s headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas comes from renewable energy sources like wind.

Also as part of this agenda to make the earth a better place, the company has adopted a set of minimum environmental standards for devices it sells for its network.


]]> http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/green-is-in-for-wireless-companies/feed/ 0 techyspot SamsungReclaimBlueopen http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/dodging-traffic-with-waze-iphone-app/ http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/dodging-traffic-with-waze-iphone-app/#comments Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:18:29 +0000 techyspot http://techyspot.wordpress.com/?p=50 ]]>
Launched on Thursday, the Waze iPhone application is designed to give users real-time road information. Based on input from other users’ iPhones, the app can provide traffic speeds, reports on accidents or other notable road conditions, and much more. In addition, the app can give drivers turn-by-turn directions and send out tweets based on reports they make while driving.

Here, the Waze app is showing a live map while driving through San Francisco. The red rectangles denote traffic speeds as reported by other users.


]]> http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/dodging-traffic-with-waze-iphone-app/feed/ 1 techyspot Withtrafficspeeds http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/it-outsourcing-continues-apace-despite-recession/ http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/it-outsourcing-continues-apace-despite-recession/#comments Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:11:14 +0000 techyspot http://techyspot.wordpress.com/?p=45 ]]> Network Services segment has been particularly strong, accounting for about half of the major outsourcing deals in 2009, research shows.
Even IT outsourcing is suffering during the current difficult economic downturn, according to a report issued Tuesday by outsourcing advisory firm TPI, which said the number of outsourcing awards fell 7.5% from the first quarter to the second quarter to a total of 135.

The TPI Index, which follows commercial outsourcing contracts of $25 million or more, found that the market in the first half of 2009 had 11% fewer contracts with 22% lower total contract value than for the like six-month period in 2008.

“The first half of 2008 was extremely strong for the outsourcing industry, which makes year-over-year comparisons tough,” said Mark Mayo, partner and president of TPI Global Resources Management, in a statement. “In addition, over the past six months, companies have been more tentative and tactical about making sourcing decisions as they try to navigate these challenging economic times.”

Mayo said some very early signs of stabilization are showing up in information technology outsourcing in the U.S. “which gives us some encouragement that we may be seeing a bottom to the current slump.”

Additional encouraging signs were reflected in IT outsourcing demand that is increasing in some vertical markets including telecom, diversified financials, transportation, and retail sectors. The steady IT outsourcing market has tended to stabilize the broader market, TPI said, adding that the Network Services segment has been particularly strong, accounting for about half of the major deals and relationships to date in 2009.

• Read the Original Article at InformationWeek
  
  ]]> http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/it-outsourcing-continues-apace-despite-recession/feed/ 0 techyspot http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/camera/ http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/camera/#comments Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:56:34 +0000 techyspot http://techyspot.wordpress.com/?p=40 ]]> What’s long, wide, and thin and takes xD cards?
  by Joshua Goldman

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  In case you haven’t been paying attention, the gotta-have-it trend in compact cameras is a wide-angle, longzoom lens, such as the one in the 1-inch-thick Olympus Stylus-7010. Available in August in a choice of dark gray, silver, or pink, the 7010 has just about every feature I look for in a pocket camera in its class:

  * 12 megapixels
  * 7x f3-5.9 28-196mm-equivalent lens
  * 2.7-inch LCD
  * Dual image stabilization
  * xD memory cards (microSD with adapter)
  * VGA movie capture
  * 3.8 x 2.2 x 1 inches (WHD)

  The lack of HD movie capture and its dependence on xD cards are really the only letdowns. Beyond those enticing specs though, the Stylus-7010 differentiates itself with AF tracking so the camera keeps a moving subject in focus, digital filters–Pop Art, Pin Hole, and Fish-Eye–for creating some custom looks in the camera, contrast compensation for pulling out shadow detail, and an in-camera panorama mode. The camera also has a new Olympus Recommended button (OR) that is used for activating these and other features quickly.

  It’s certainly a feature-filled little camera for the reasonable street price of $199.99. Even if its photo quality is merely decent, the Olympus Stylus-7010 may be a standout in a now crowded field of wide-angle, longzoom pocket cameras.

  
  ]]> http://techyspot.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/camera/feed/ 0 techyspot Silver_Front_610x1100