Digital Shot

It’s probably a fact that your internet “dates” could turn up in a slightly higher resolution, don’t you think? Well maybe it’s time to turn on the Clique Communications’ Clique Hue HD flexible webcam, which will broadcast or capture any variety of web-related video “activities” at the cushy resolution of 1280 x 1024 (but at a measly 10 FPS), or you can knock it down to 1024 x 768 for a decent 30 FPS situation. If you’re just interested in still-framing it, this little dude can rock resolutions up to 2560 x 2048, although apparently it all happens via software trickery, which means your lovely date may still look somewhat… um, messed up.

If we’ve learned anything from Hollywood’s recent penchant for pairing muscle-bound leading lads with toddlers, it’s that taking care of tykes ain’t easy.

But if you think changing diapers is the hard part, just try getting one to smile on demand.

We’ve already shown you how to get adults to smile, so here’s a quick tip for the little humans in your life.

1) Acquire PEZ dispenser. 2) Carefully cut away at the bottom with an exacto until it’ll slide into your camera’s hot shoe. 3) Train camera at unsuspecting child. 4) Capture a rare moment of unexpected joy.

Mix and match dispensers for variety, and take a gander at the how-to pics by Federico Sartorio for the details. [via reader sarah lee]

Tell us your favorite way to get kids to smile!

In the Forum…Share your best photo of something green, tell us what music gets you snapping, talk about the NYC photo ban, and more…

Link to this | Filed under Tips.

So in addition to their newest PMP cam, Samsung also loosed three updates to their NV (as in eNVy, yuk yuk) line-up of digital cameras. On the mostly meaningless megapixel scale, we’re looking at the 8 megapixel NV8, 10 megapixel NV15, and 12 megapixel NV12. All the new NV cams feature Samsung’s “Smart Touch” softkeys surrounding a 2.5-inch LCD, Schneider optics with a 3x optical zoom, likely useless ISO 3200 max sensitivity with ASR image stabilization, face detection technology, SDHC expansion, and VGA video at 30fps. The NV20 and NV15 both hit the US in the Fall for $399 and $299, respectively, while the NV8 is TBD on all accounts.
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Here ya go, another 8 megapixel shooter only this time, it’s Samsung doing the honors. The new 0.8-inch thin i85 brings the PMP action like their i7 without the swiveling novelty of that rear LCD. Instead, the brushed aluminum, i85’s 3-inch LCD remains fixed with the sound provided by the built-in stereo SRS 3D speakers or 2.5-mm headphone jack. Unfortunately, the i85 supports WAV and MP3 audio and MPEG, AVI, MOV, WMV and ASF video files only after conversion via bundled software. Rounding out the specs are a 5x optical NV zoom lens, Samsung ASR image stabilization, ISO 1600 sensitivity, 256MB of onboard memory with SDHC expansion, and a maximum shutter speed of 1/2,000 sec. Available this Fall for $349, list.
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Panasonic just announced the availability of their HDC-SX5 and HDC-SD5 3CCD AVCHD camcorders for the the North American and European markets. Just for the sake of confusion, these appear to be the exact same cameras already announced for Japan under the HDC-DX3 and HDC-SD3 models. As such, we’re still looking at 1920 x 1080 recordings direct to SDHC cards (the SD5) or to 8-cm DVDs (the SX5) with built-in optical image stabilization. The only real news then is the date: September 2007 for an undisclosed price though likely around $1,200 (including tax) like their Japanese brethren.