Canon PowerShot N Camera with WiFi for easy sharing and ‘Any Way Up’ Shooting

Canon updates its PowerShot line at the CES 2013 and the new PowerShot N is the camera maker’s effort to “open new dimensions of photographic expression”, and to bring smartphone snap shooters back to camera. Instead of conventional rectangular shape, Canon’s new camera has a square design. It includes an innovative zoom and shoot operation, Creative Shot mode and enhanced connectivity for easy sharing.

The PowerShot N, as you can see, comes in square shape. It features an innovative dual-ring control system. Located on the top and bottom of the lens, the outer ring controls the shutter which can be released from any point on the ring, and the inner ring controls the zoom. The system makes shooting easy and efforless and allows users to shoot any way up, diagonally, horizontally, low or high angles and even upside-down. Complementing the dual-ring system is the 2.8-inch capacitive touchscreen LCD with 90 degrees of tilt that lets users capture images from a wide array of angles and positions.

The compact PowerShot N comes with Creative Shot mode, a powerful tool to add artistic effects to photos. In Creative Mode, the camera will analyze the photo to apply a series of artistic elements by varying composition, lighting and color, and render five different variations of the shot in different color modes, crops, and styles. Sharing is easy and instant. With enhanced WiFi connectivity and a dedicated Mobile Device Connect button, users can upload photos and videos to their iOS or Android devices and social network easily and quickly.

End of Legendary PlayStation 2 Announced

And its over. The end of an era. Sony finally thinks the PS2 can’t go any further and has stopped its production. The console was introduced back in 2000. This was a story of 155.1 million units, over 10,000 game titles and 1.52 billion game units later, it is not only the bestselling but also the most influential game console of all time. Amazingly though, the console continued to outsell the PS3 almost 3 years after its announcement.

Although the PS2′s shipments were already stopped late last year, its only now that an official announcement has been made by Sony.

The PS2 was home to one of the most successful titles of all time including Gran Turismo and the earliest titles of Grand Theft Auto.

The end of era of the PS2 might mean that the announcement of PS4 is near. If the PS4 is announced in 2013, i.e. sooner rather than later, then discontinuing the PS2 will definitely be a good decision as with that the price of PS3 will drop too.

But whatever the reason might be, the PS2 will never be forgotten as it transformed the gaming industry into what we know it today. So, so long Playstation 2. May you rest in peace.

Just to mention, the price of PS2 is expected to drop in the coming months, and it is likely to remain a good a deal for those who can’t afford a PS3 or Xbox 360.

NVIDIA showcases Project SHIELD handheld gaming console running Android

After announcing the Tegra 4 processor, claimed to be the fastest mobile processor in the world right now, NVIDIA went on to showcase their latest creation, Project SHIELD.

So what exactly is this Project SHIELD? It’s a handheld gaming console that lets you play Android games and will also let you stream Steam games from your PC to the device wirelessly. And that’s just the gist of it.

Project SHIELD basically looks like an Xbox 360 controller with a foldable display attached. The display is a 5-inch, 1280 x 720 resolution ‘retinal’ multitouch unit, with a pixel density of 294 ppi. If you think that’s not enough, you can output the video to an external display through the HDMI port on the back, that too in up to 4K resolution! Other hardware features include built-in bass-reflex speakers.

On the software side, Project SHIELD runs on stock Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and you can control it either through the touchscreen or the controller. You also get access to the full Google Play Store, so unlike something like OUYA, which is limited to its own store, you can download pretty much any app or game on Project SHIELD available on Google Play.

But that’s just half the story. Thanks to partnership with Steam, you will also be able to wirelessly stream games running on your PC with NVIDIA GPU to your Project SHIELD. The rendering will happen on the PC and then the video will be streamed to the handheld device, similar to the way the WiiU works. It remains to be seen, though, how well this feature works, what are the hardware requirements for the PC and which titles support it.

As you can tell by the name, Project SHIELD is still in development and what we saw today was just a teaser. NVIDIA is aiming for a Q2, 2013 launch for the device, so we should find out more about it then.

Samsung SE-218CB Ultra Slim Portable DVD Burner

While most super-slim Ultrabooks do not have built-in optical drive, some users may need one for access to documents or multimedia content stored on optical discs. Here comes Samsung’s new SE-218CB super slim portable DVD writer with a sleek design and mobile size. At compact size of 148x14x143mm, the lightweight drive is an ideal companion for Ultrabook users who need to access optical media on-the-go.

The SE-218CB not only works with Windows (including Windows 8) and Mac computers, it also works with Android tablets with USB port. Though burning discs is not possible, you can read movie and data from the drive on your Android device. The portable burner is able to write DVD+/-R at 8X, DVD+RW at 8X, DVD-RW at 6x, DVD+/-R DL at 6x and DVD-RAM at 5x. It includes Smart Archive Technology to provide optimized recording quality for storing content for an extended time.

The Samsung SE-218CB also features Buffer Under Run technology to prevent errors during burning process and enable PC multi-tasking. It comes in various metallic finishes that match with Ultrabooks. Samsung will display the drive at the CES 2013.

 

Samsung Series 3 Chromebox XE300M22-B01US gets a new look

Samsung updates its Series 3 Chromebox with the new XE300M22-B01US model featuring a new look. The cloud-based computing device now comes in white and has a more curvey design and a latch covering front-facing ports. As for specs, the new model packs the same hardware as its brother XE300M22-A01 model.

The Series 3 Chromebox sports the same Intel Celeron B840 1.9GHz processor, integrated Intel HD graohics, 16GB SSD and 4GB of DDR3 memory. It has supports WIFi 802.11b/g/n connectivity and packs 2W speaker. It provides two DisplayPort and DVI outputs and six USB 2.0 ports. As its name tells, the Chromebox runs Google’s Chrome OS that boots up in just 7 seconds and comes with built-in virus protection.

Samsung’s Chromebox can be paired with optional full-size keyboard optimized for Chrome with a dedicated search key and a row of web-enabled keys.