How to Use Windows

You wait ages for a Micro Four Thirds camera and two come at once. The second release from Panasonic this week, housing the company’s Lumix G Micro System, is the DMC-G2. Following up from the mightily successful G1 , the G2 is a camera sporting 12.1 megapixel Live MOS sensor, the new Venus Engine HD II processor, double Live-View function, AVCHS Lite high definition movie recording, and a sparkly new iA (Intelligent Auto) mode. The camera’s LCD is a 3-inch touchscreen, like its stable mate the G10 , and allows the user to release the shutter and use the autofocus with a single touch of the screen. The LCD also offers a 100 per cent field of view, so exactly what you see is exactly what you shoot.

The full story can be found on Tech Radar

With the announcement of its Wind U135 ‘Special Edition Netbook’ line, MSI and its entourage of ultraportables arrive fashionably late to the Pine Trail party. ‘Special,’ in this case, probably refers to the U135’s “stylish color film printed case,” which MSI claims prevents smudging. The rest of the U135 is like just about every other Pine Trail netbook we’ve seen to date. Flying in the Wind is an Intel Atom N450 processor, along with Intel GMA3150 graphics, 1GB of DDR2 memory, 160GB or 250GB hard drive, 802.11b/g/n, 1.3MP webcam, three USB 2.0 ports, a 4-in-1 memory card reader, 3-cell or 6-cell battery, and Windows 7 Starter

For the full story, go to Maximum PC

Just last year Sony introduced the world to the Webbie – a fun point and shoot camera which looked to try and chase the same market that Flip had pretty much sewn up. Coming to the UK as the PM1, the cam was easy to use and was a decent go-anywhere device. At CES 2010, Sony has announced the PM1’s successor the interestingly titled Bloggie. Sony is hoping those who buy the device will record their life as much as possible.

The full story can be found on Tech Radar

Engineering eggheads from the University of Cambridge have developed a system called ProFORMA (Probabilistic Feature-based On-line Rapid Model Acquisition), which is capable of turning any standard webcam into a pretty powerful 3D scanning tool. A video demonstration shows how it’s done, which you can view here . What’s pretty amazing is that the 3D models are constructed in real-time as end-users slowly rotate objects with their hand in front of the webcam. The engineering team says the system works by “calculating the Delaunay tetrahedralisation of a point cloud obtained from online structure from motion estimation, which is then carved using a recursive and probabilistic algorithm to rapidly obtain the surface mesh.” Put more simply, the system generates and displays partial models of an object on the fly, which then allows the user to plan how to manipulate the object to generate additional views. The finished product is a 3D representation of the object that can then be tracked with rapid movements

For the full story, go to Maximum PC