MakerBot Digitzer turns real objects to digital models

Finally, the technology exists to replicate garden gnomes.

It’s called the MakerBot Digitizer, and it allows you to scan 3D objects in the real-world and convert them into digital models. That way, you can modify the objects as needed, or just clone them using a 3D printer.

MakerBot’s website uses a little gnome as its prime example. You could, for instance, scan the gnome, add a silly hat, fluff out the gnome’s beard and resize the gnome before printing it out again. In addition to replicating figurines, the Digitizer could be useful for creating digital animations from real-world objects.

MarketBot’s website for the digitizer shows how the scanner can copy real objects like this garden gnome.

Digitizer rotates the object automatically and uses laser scanning to create a model with hundreds of thousands of triangles—a process that takes about 12 minutes. The included software converts those points into a 3D model and outputs an STL file, which users can then sculpt and modify as needed.

Digitizer does have some limitations. It can’t detect colors, and, as MakerBot’s FAQ points out, it doesn’t work very well on surfaces that are shiny, reflective, fuzzy, or very dark. (Users can work around some of these limitations by covering the surface in cornstarch.) Surfaces that are hidden from the laser’s view won’t be detected, of course, so don’t expect to accurately model the inside of a shoe. Digitizer can detect details down to 0.5 mm, but MakerBot warns that it’s not an ideal tool for engineers who need high-precision scanning.

As you might expect, the tech is expensive: MakerBot charges $1400 for the Digitizer, and the company’s Replicator 3D printer costs another $2199. MakerCare support costs another $150 for the Digitizer, and $350 for the printer. Getting everything you need through MakerBot, you’re looking at up to $4100 to scan and print 3D objects.

A side view of the MarketBot Digitizer

But the hope is that over time, the cost of 3D printing will fall drastically. You can already get certain 3D printers for less than $1000, and the cost of 3D scanners will likely drop over time as well. It’s clearly a product for enthusiasts and professionals now, but someday we might all be able to contribute to the great garden gnome invasion.

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Digital TV spectrum clear for 4G

The clearing of spectrum for 4G networks was today completed, Ofcom has confirmed.

The 800MHz frequency was originally used for digital television channels and wireless audio devices, such as wireless microphones.

4G_290x230_istockphoto_thinkstock.jpg
However, with only a finite amount of spectrum available and with the lower frequency’s capability to cover wide areas and penetrate through walls, the telecoms regulator decided to repurpose the band and make it available to mobile operators.

The process of clearing the spectrum took four years, with more than 600 transmitters having to be upgraded throughout the UK. The work was taken on by Arqiva and Digital UK and completed five months ahead of schedule, speeding up the move towards 4G.

“This week we are clearing the path for 4G mobile broadband, allowing mobile companies to provide coverage across the UK,” said Ed Richards, CEO of Ofcom.

“4G services will reach 98% of the UK population indoors – and even more when outdoors – which will provide a significant boost for rural businesses and consumers.”

The spectrum was auctioned by Ofcom earlier this year, with all the major operators taking a slice, as well as BT – which plans to use the band to boost its Wi-Fi offerings.

The regulator also sold the 2.6GHz band in the process to enable higher data levels to be transferred faster across smaller areas. To clear this spectrum, some air traffic control and radar systems will have to be upgraded, but Ofcom said it was due to be completed in most areas by the autumn.

Review: Digital Storm's Virtue delivers superior power in a midsize tower

Digital Storm Virtue $2,199.00 Powerful components and room to grow make the Virtue a great gaming desktop if the price tag doesn't manage to scare you away.

What’s in a name? HP goes for an emotion to describe its high-end computers: Envy. Acer conjures aggressiveness for its gaming PCs: Predator. And Dell uses a spelling-challenged acronym for its best PCs: XPS (Xtreme Performance System). What concept does Digital Storm seek to conjure with its pricey ($2200) Virtue midtower gaming rig—moral superiority?

The company’s actual goal isn’t quite that lofty. “We noticed there are not many PC manufacturers designing mid-tower gaming systems with the same ardor and attention that ultra-tower PCs receive,” Digital Storm’s director of product development, Rajeev Kuruppu, said when the Virtue was announced. “As its name suggests, Virtue represents a higher standard of PC gaming, both in terms of aesthetics and performance.”

Robert Cardin"Modest" might have been a better name for this PC, given its unassuming enclosure. 

To reach that standard, Digital Storm packed an unlocked Intel Core i7-4770K CPU from Intel’s new Haswell family of processors, 16GB of DDR3-1600 memory, and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 780 discrete graphics card into a compact steel-and-brushed-aluminum case. (The Virtue also comes with Windows 8.) The result is a compact gaming rig that delivered a very respectable Desktop WorldBench 8.1 score of 399. It fell just short of the cheaper Micro Express MicroFlex 47B’s score of 421, though the latter is a full-size tower and has a more powerful video card. Why? While neither manufacturer elected to overclock its system, Micro Express splurged with a 512GB SSD where Digital Storm provides just a 120GB SSD. As a result, the MicroFlex performed much better on our productivity benchmarks.

The Virtue looks much more interesting on the inside.
On the gaming front, the Virtue bested the MicroFlex 47B on both our synthetic and real-world benchmarks, delivering a 3DMark Cloud Gate score of 26214 versus the MicroFlex's 24864 at a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. With real games and visual quality set to Ultra, the Virtue just missed reaching the coveted 60-frames-per-second mark with Dirt Showdown at 2560-by-1600-pixel resolution (it hit 57.3 fps, versus the MicroFlex 47B’s 41.4 fps). The same goes for BioShock Infinite at those settings: Digital Storm’s system reached an impressive 55.4 fps compared with the Micro Express tower’s frame rate of 46.9.

The Virtue can accommodate a second two-slot video card, but not more.
If you’re considering a midtower system, you probably don’t want a plus-size PC sucking up a lot of floor or desktop space. And if you want something small, you probably expect it to be quiet, too. Digital Storm accomplishes that goal in part with a Corsair H100i liquid-cooling system that consists of a CPU water block and a 240mm radiator mounted to the top of the case. This machine won’t keep you up at night or interfere with movie-watching or music-listening sessions.

Despite its smaller case dimensions (17.7 inches high by 17.7 inches long by 8.3 inches wide), the Virtue has plenty of room for expansion inside. If you want higher frame rates with games, throw in a second graphics card (you can configure the Asus Gryphon Z87 micro ATX motherboard to operate with one x16 PCIe 3.0 slot or two x8 PCIe 3.0 slots, and it supports both Nvidia’s SLI and AMD’s CrossFire multi-GPU standards). The system’s 1050-watt power supply, Corsair’s Pro Series HX1050, provides more than enough juice to support such a configuration.

Our test Virtue came with a 1TB, 7200-rpm WD Caviar Black hard drive in addition to a 120GB Corsair Neutron GTX SSD, leaving room for one additional 3.5-inch drive and three more SSDs. A Blu-ray player/DVD burner resides in one of the 5.25-inch drive bays (the second bay is mostly blocked by the radiator mounted on the top of the case).

Two USB 3.0 ports as well as microphone and headphone jacks are conveniently located on the front of the machine. Four additional USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, gigabit ethernet, S/PDIF out, and the usual analog audio ports are around back. The video card’s mounting bracket has ports (one each) for dual-link DVI, single-link DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort.

The Virtue is jam-packed with quality components that enable it to deliver the performance of machines twice its physical size. Its dimensions and motherboard won’t let you go beyond two video cards, but it delivers solid performance on today’s games with the one card it has now. Gamers will love the Virtue, even if their wallets won't.

Britain's digital economy twice as big as government thought

Britain’s digital economy is significantly larger than official estimates, according to National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR).

The report, commissioned by Google, tracked digital footprints left by companies online to determine if they were a digital or non-digital company.

It found at least 270,000 companies form the digital economy – well above the previous government estimate of 188,000.

The report claims the areas with the highest concentration of digital companies can be found outside London, in places like Aberdeen, Middlesbrough and Manchester.

But a report out last week found that 17 of the top 20 startup areas in the country are found in London, with the area around Silicon Roundabout far outstripping everywhere else with 15,000 new companies set up in the area in the last year.

The NIESR report also found that the revenue reported by digital companies is growing 25 per cent faster than that reported by non-digital companies. The research also found that digital employers hire three more people on average than non-digital companies.

The researchers argue that Britain is using an out-dated business classification system which means hundreds of thousands of digital companies are being incorrectly identified by government and financial services and missing out on vital support as a result.

The researchers said that Growth Intelligence, a London-based sales software company, allowed them to spot digital companies working in 'traditional' sectors, such as software companies in architecture, publishing and engineering.

Tom Gatten, chief executive of Growth Intelligence, said: “This research demonstrates the need for a new way of understanding the economy, both for government and for businesses. Rather than relying on outdated codes or static lists, our new technology and internet data reveals new opportunities and insights for growth.”

More UK digital firms than thought

 The NIESR report says many technology firms are being wrongly classified Britain has many more technology firms than the government estimates, according to a new report.


Under its classification the government recognises 187,600 digital companies.
Research by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR) says there are almost 270,000 such companies in the UK, 40% more than the government estimate.
NIESR says the government's classification is "outdated" and misses out many tech firms.
The report used data from Growth Intelligence, a company which tracks the activity of firms on the internet and sells that information to clients.

Tom Gatten, chief executive of Growth Intelligence, said: "This research demonstrates the need for a new way of understanding the economy, both for government and for businesses.

"Rather than relying on outdated codes or static lists, our new technology and internet data reveals new opportunities and insights for growth."

In response, an official at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said: "We are confident ONS statistics reliably measure the size and shape of the economy according to best international practice."
'New measurement'

The report was commissioned by Google and its chief economist, Hal Varian, is one of the people behind Growth Intelligence.

"This is a groundbreaking and important report by NIESR not just because it shows that the spread of the digital economy into other sectors is driving growth and jobs throughout the UK but because - for the first time in 65 years - it presents us with a new way of measuring the economy," he said.
The report says that official statistics use only a basic definition of the digital economy.
The new research goes further by identifying digital companies that are working in traditional sectors including architecture, publishing and engineering, according to the report.

It cites case studies, including Scottish firm Kelton Engineering, which sells hi-tech equipment to the oil industry, but at the moment is classified as "business support".

Another is a publishing company, Stonewash, which provides web design and other internet services, but is classified as "other publishing".


Companies like those are being wrongly classified and could be missing out on investment, because investors use classification to identify potential investment targets.

GDS tracks 'digital by default' progress of top 25 government services

The Government Digital Service (GDS) has launched a new website to track the progress of the 25 transactions targeted as the first to be put online under the new digital strategy.

The 25 services – ranging from visa applications to benefit claims to booking prison visits – were identified as “exemplars” that would be the first to be redeveloped under the “digital by default” plan to put more public services online.

Since the strategy was launched at the end of 2012, 13 of the transactions have reached the discovery phase, six are in alpha, five in beta, and part of one – student finance – is already live.

The aim is to digitally transform the 25 services – among those most widely – in a 400-day time period that started earlier in 2013. The progress updates were provided today at a GDS event, called Sprint Alpha, to mark the conclusion of the first 100 days of the plan.

“We’ve really focused on growing out the transformation programme of 25 exemplar projects. A lot of that has been done quietly and in departments, out of the gaze of the public eye,” said Mike Bracken, executive director of GDS in a video published on the Cabinet Office website.

“The spending round took more time than anyone could have guessed, but we’re though that and looking forward to our transformation of public services.”

A statement from the Cabinet Office added: “This is the start of a transformation that will mean people can interact with government in the same way they do with their bank or with retailers.”

Over the next three months, the digital strategy will focus on moving more than 300 agencies’ and arms-length government bodies’ websites across to the central Gov.UK web platform; as well as publishing a new governance model for the delivery of technology across Whitehall to support the digital strategy, which is expected this month.

The Cabinet Office claims that the digital strategy will save over £1.2bn, by moving online a number of costly phone, postal and face-to-face transactions.

Government saves £500m by going digital

The government has saved £500m by controlling spending on IT and digitising a number of its services.

The claim was made in the latest report from the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG), formed by the coalition to cut the UK deficit and run by Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude and chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander.

The update said overall spending by the government had been reduced by £10bn – 82% higher than the previous year – with IT coming into play in a number of areas, sticking with the ERG’s initial pledge to “increase digitisation and the use of alternative delivery models” to save money.

IT spend controls and moving government services and transactions onto digital platforms accounted for £500m of the figure, but almost £2bn was also saved in procuring common goods and services, and renegotiating large government contracts – which would have involved IT spend.

The report also highlighted a £126m saving through using framework agreements for telecoms services and a further £42m from merging the DirectGov and BusinessLink websites into gov.uk – which it claims now receives one million hits each day.

Computer Weekly asked the Cabinet Office if the telecoms spend was specifically saved thanks to the PSN framework, but it had not answered our question by the time of publication.

The ERG said it aspired to cutting back even more costs in the coming years, aiming for annual savings of £20bn by 2015.

“We are working with government departments and focusing on getting more for less,” read the report. “We have achieved significant savings without affecting front-line services. We will continue to find ways to improve services, work smarter and unlock large savings.”

The digital silver lining for technology inclusivity

Technology – or the misuse of it – dominates the headlines on a regular basis. In one way or another our confidence in the online world is constantly under threat, whether from identity fraud, invasion of privacy or even the ability to print your own gun at home using 3D printers.

Even our brains are changing, according to neuroscientist Professor Susan Greenfield, who voices concerns about “internet addiction disorder” and warns that as a result we are becoming more prone to conditions like autism and dementia.

But there is a silver lining in our digital cloud. Just in time, it appears that technology has an emergent property – that of inclusivity. Mainstream devices are becoming increasingly user-friendly for disabled people as design becomes more inclusive for all of us. The gap between usability and accessibility is narrowing and with it the digital divide between disabled and non-disabled people.

Unsurprisingly, it’s less a case of inherent altruism on the part of developers and manufacturers, and more a matter of consumer demand. Today’s exacting customers expect the products that they buy to be more and more sensitive and responsive to their requirements – whatever they are and wherever they materialise. Indeed, such is the ramping up of both utility and expectation, that we expect our device to tune into our needs and even to anticipate them before they arise.

This desire to use digital technology in whatever form in extreme environments - on the move, with ambient noise or in sunlight - is of huge benefit to the disabled user. Convenience features for the “able-bodied” convert a previously unusable piece of equipment into something enabling and empowering for those with a hearing, vision, motor or cognitive impairment.

What are we if not “disabled” when we want to use our mobile device while driving or jogging, on a noisy factory floor or during a seminar? We’re no longer able to use a traditional keyboard, mouse and screen. We need digital content to be presented in a variety of ways. We want to interact with our devices effectively and easily however limited or impaired we are at that moment by circumstance or location.

Technology can make life easier and more productive for the non-disabled, but can be truly life-changing for those with limiting conditions

Whatever our chosen platform – laptop, tablet, smartphone, or even wearable technology like Google Glass, Nike’s FuelBand or the rumoured Apple iWatch, we want user-friendly interfaces which fit our personal preferences whether controlled by touch, single switch, voice command or gestures.

“Fit for purpose” is a moveable feast, or more precisely an almost limitless banquet, and as devices and interfaces get cleaner, more flexible, leaner and simpler to use, they will inherently serve disabled people more effectively in the process.

The incorporation of speech recognition into standard voice over internet protocols (VoIP) allows the “able-bodied” real-time transcripts of conversations over Skype and other popular VoIP services for the first time. The obvious by-product of this development is that resulting data is indexable and thus part of the searchable web.

For the hearing impaired, this development is a hugely liberating innovation, allowing them to actively participate in the conversation at the same time as the other virtual meeting goers, with real-time subtitles. This is not the only by-product however; just think of the benefits of using services like Google Translate simultaneously to give live translations into a large number of foreign languages.

And it’s not just voice that is soon to become part of the searchable web. While images have been available as search results for many years, the technology relies on filenames or tags to identify them. Thanks to the latest advances, we are now seeing image recognition used to identify everything from text to brands to landmarks, and even individual faces - and we mean “individual” where a person can be quite reliably identified regardless of background, lighting or dress.

Moreover, real-time image recognition, combined with hi-tech gadgets like Google Glass, mean that the live world can be recognised and indexed too. While this is great news for the searchable web, like voice recognition it has even more significant implications for the disabled community.

Imagine a blind person using their smartphone camera (or even wearing Glass) and being informed of what is around them or what they hold in their hand, or someone with dyslexia or learning disabilities looking at text and hearing it spoken back.

Similar combinations of technologies hold great promise for people with a range of disabilities. Emotion recognition software has already proved to be of immense help to autistic people when attempting to identify people’s emotions and is similarly valuable for blind people too. Combine Google Glass with real-time voice recognition, and a deaf person can have live subtitles with them on their heads-up display wherever they go.

The combinations are endless and the technologies maturing at an exponential rate. Such technology can make life easier and more productive for the non-disabled, but can be truly life-changing for those with limiting conditions, and in the process the world is becoming an ever more inclusive place for everyone.

Robin Christopherson (pictured) is head of digital inclusion at disability and e-accessibility charity, AbilityNet.

App Smart: Apps for Digital Note-Taking

Many of today’s most popular tablets are finger-friendly, of course. But for a host of note-taking apps, the devices, like their fictional cousins, work best when paired with a stylus.

My favorite of these stylus-friendly options is Noteshelf, a $6 iPad app by Ramki. Its main interface is an empty page ready for you to write on, with controls in an icon bar at the top of the screen. You can choose from many predefined types of digital paper, including plain and ruled pages, and even one designed for musical notation.

Noteshelf supports digital styluses that connect to the app and relay information, like how hard you’re pressing on the screen, to produce light or heavy lines. But the app also works well with a basic stylus, and you can get similar results with some easy tricks — move the stylus faster to get a thinner line, for example.

Hand-writing notes feels a lot like writing with a pen and paper. A highlighter pen and eraser options are also slick, and there is a great system for selecting lines, drawings or text so you can adjust them later. There is even an emoticon option — a feature students may appreciate to cheer up boring class notes.

You can add photos to your note pages, using intuitive multitouch gestures to move and resize images. But switching from a stylus to finger controls is a little jarring.

Noteshelf is good at ignoring the touch of your wrist if you accidentally lean your hand on the touch screen while writing. Your finished notes can be shared as images over e-mail, Twitter or Facebook, or sent as PDF files.

On Android, a rough equivalent is Papyrus Natural Note Taking, which is free. Visually, the app is a lot like Noteshelf, with a page of simulated paper to write on and a slim menu bar at the top. It also has many of the same features. The similarity to writing on paper is enhanced by a feature that makes thicker or thinner lines depending on how hard you push the stylus on the screen — and no electronic stylus is necessary.

The app has different paper backgrounds, and you can add images. Adding typed text to your handwritten notes or drawing geometric shapes requires an in-app purchase. Because of all the different versions of Android and the multitude of devices that run it, interacting with the menus in this app may require a little more effort than you expected, but they still work well.

On iOS, the $2 app ePaper by Effectmatrix is a more open design and departs from the idea of simulating the notepad you would use in classes or meetings. It also has tools that let you sketch and paint onto your note pages. A broad array of pen, pencil and brush-emulating tools are included in the basic price; a pack of additional paper designs costs $1.

EPaper’s menu system can take some getting used to; to get access to options, you “scroll” the on-screen icons with a swipe of your stylus in a slightly unexpected way. But over all, it’s easy to use, and if your notes tend to be artistic and free-form, this may be a good app for you.

On Android, the free Write by Stylus Labs is a simpler offering, with fewer pen types and digital paper designs. But it’s still powerful, and you can export notes as images or PDFs via a variety of services like e-mail or Dropbox. It can also support electronic styluses. Relaxed note-takers will appreciate not having to worry about moving to a new page when you’ve filled one: the pages automatically scroll up to expose more blank space when you approach the bottom edge.

Penultimate (free on iOS) and FreeNote, note everything (free, or $6 for all features on Android) are also notable choices. Taking handwritten notes, even on a digital tablet, is much more personal than typing in a word processor, so it’s worth trying some alternatives to find the one you like.

Quick Call

Hundreds, a hit puzzle game on iOS, has arrived on Google Play for Android devices for $3.14 (on sale; ordinarily it’s $5), It’s deceptively simple and very addictive. ... AT&T Locker, a cloud storage service for AT&T customers previously available on iOS and Android, is now available on Windows Phone 8 smartphones. The app is free.

Gadgetwise Blog: Training From a Difficult Digital Coach

FX-Sport VR1 Programmable Personal Trainer Headphones are a smart concept — a pair of headphones that have a built-in coach. But the coach could be easier to work with.

The FX-Sport is an on-the-ear-style headphone with a springy wire that runs behind the neck and curls up for storage. You can buy an accessory silicone cover to use the headphones when swimming as well.

The FX-Sport can be used in a few ways: to play music stored on its eight-megabyte internal drive; to allow a user to run against a virtual opponent while listening to music; or to set up audible instructions, say for interval training, for when to sprint and when to rest.

The value of racing a pretend competitor is pretty well established. In a test in England, cyclists exceeded their previous limits when faced with a virtual opponent.

Because the virtual opponent runs against the clock — there is no GPS — it can spur increased effort even on treadmills and stationary bikes.

The idea is terrific, but the setup had problems.

To use the headphones you have to download software for them to work with an Apple computer or PC. I used a Mac, and the software was easy enough to download.

On my test unit, music came preloaded. And it worked well. But I found it difficult to load my own music because each song must be selected individually from a music library. For me, sorting through 10,000 songs for the 100 or so I might want would take too much work. If you have a group of songs listed consecutively, you can grab them as a group and move them to the device.

Once I had loaded some of my music, I had some trouble playing it. Duncan Walsh of Mi-Sport Global, the company behind the FX-Sport, said the problem might have been with a song in my folder — that it was either corrupted or copy-protected. “The only digital music files that cannot be played on the FX-Sport are DRM-protected files,” said Mr. Walsh, referring to files that cannot be copied.

The “race mode” was easy enough to set up. I entered my name and that of an imaginary competitor, then set the range of time for the competitor’s finish. The competitor can change speeds, so he could challenge a comfortable lead with a sprint finish. I set it slightly faster and slightly slower than my typical finish. The program would pick a random finish time within that range. You tap the headphone control to hear your opponent’s progress.

In “pace mode,” you choose a finish time for the opponent, who plods at a steady speed to the finish at that exact time.

The programmable trainer lets you write custom messages that a computerized voice reads back at the times you set. So you can have it tell you “go” for a 20-second sprint, followed by “rest” for 10 seconds over a four-minute period, for instance. It worked, but required a couple of tries to get right.

At a price of $190, the headphone may be in the race, but it has to improve its performance for a podium finish.

Nikon D40 Digital SLR Camera

I am not a professional photographer, nor am I a devoted hobbyist, but I do like to take good pictures. Digital SLR cameras resemble older single lens reflex film cameras in form and function but don't mind if you shoot mostly in "auto," that is to say, "idiot" mode, so I like them a lot.
I have always been partial to Nikon's DSLRs. This summer, when I studied the market, the Nikons shot better than Olympus' E-Volt line, and were priced comfortably below the equally good Canon Digital Rebel. Nikon's big news this year was the D80, a bit too high-end for beginners. But now the company is addressing beginners directly with the introduction of the $600 D40. The question on the minds of holiday shoppers: how does the new D40 compare to Nikon's current great deal, the D50? Both are 6-megapixel cameras that shoot a speedy two and a half frames per second, and use only SD memory cards. Both come with lenses (for $100 more, the D50 also comes with an 18-55mm starter zoom lens). Both are compatible with many of Nikon's pricier pro lenses as well. The D50 has two LCD screens. One is a two-inch, 130,000-pixel, color display for reviewing shots and viewing menu options. The other is a little always-on monochrome display that shares quick facts, like your flash setting or the number of shots remaining on your memory card. The D40 has just one LCD, a larger 2.5-inch, 230,000-pixel screen. For a seasoned shooter, the D50's extra screen is a benefit, because it means he or she can make on-the-fly adjustments without firing up the bright main LCD. The fact that the D40 doesn't have the extra screen is just the first indication that it really is geared toward novices, far more than its predecessor. The D40 is a teacher. One of its most fascinating attributes is the Info screen, which appears at the touch of a button, appropriately marked "Info." The screen contains all sorts of data, mostly photographic mumbo jumbo. But the screen also has a visual representation of that mumbo jumbo, so you can figure out what it means. For instance, as the number next to the letter "F" goes up, the image of the camera's aperture gets tighter. It doesn't take long to sort out, then, that the higher the "f-stop," the more closed the camera's aperture. Beginners will appreciate the fact that the D40 has a knob of preset modes, not just my favorite "auto" mode but "portrait," "sports" and more. What's cool is that, when you change modes, the screen shows the changed settings. Little by little, the notions will start to sink in: what the camera is trying to do to shoot action, what it needs to take a portrait at night, etc. The D40 is also an editor. Once, I was shooting at a high-school graduation, and I realized halfway through that a setting was making my pictures too dim. When I got home, I had to adjust them in Photoshop Elements. If I make the same blunder on the D40, I could lighten up the shots right on the camera, which saves the edited image as a separate file, in case you don't like the fix. This is helpful not just when you're clumsy, as I was, but when you say, shoot in low light and want to edit out the yellowish cast that always appears, or if you shoot something wide and think it would look better cropped. To top it all off, the D40 is smaller than the other Nikons. There's still no chance you'll be able to stick it in your pocket, removable zoom lens or not, but it isn't as much bulk when you're on safari. Shooting wise, I would not be able to tell the difference between it and the D50. The only downside is, once the D40 has revealed to you the secrets of photography and made you a master shutterbug, you might wish you had that little second LCD screen for quick aperture and shutter-speed adjustments.
As the Earth's population booms and cities grow ever larger, the spotlight on energy innovation becomes greater. TIME looks into the new energy sources powering our world and sustaining our future.


Follow me on Twitter @sajilpl

New trust wants to protect digital Bitcoins like physical gold: In vaults

A U.S. regulatory filing for a Bitcoin investment trust from the Winklevoss twins said they will protect the virtual currency like gold bars—in vaults.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, famous for their early association with Facebook, are selling the trust as a way for institutional and retail investors to invest in bitcoins without dealing with the hassle of exchanges and the thorny security problems around storing bitcoins.

The goal of the fund centers on an anticipated appreciation if bitcoins become more widely used as a means for exchange. Some businesses are using bitcoins, but volatile exchange rates and regulatory issues remain a concern.

In a 74-page document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, the twins write they will use a network of secure vaults around the U.S. to store their investors' bitcoins.

Their company, Winklevoss IP, owns intellectual property related to patent-pending technology that will be used by the trust, the filing reads. That includes what is described as a "proprietary security protocol."

A bitcoin is essentially a secret number that can be transferred to another computer using public-key cryptography. A bitcoin has a private key that if unencrypted allows the coin to be sent to another computer using peer-to-peer software.

A bitcoin transaction is seamless and fairly quick, but since the private key is often stored on a person's computer or with a web-based service, hacking remains a real risk.

Some bitcoin enthusiasts have written private keys down on pieces of paper in so-called "offline" wallets. But losing a private key to a bitcoin means that it can never be used and is lost forever.

The long list of risks highlighted in the SEC filing shows that an investment with the twins' trust is only for those with steely nerves. And they make no guarantee that the security system will be able to thwart hackers.

The trust's sponsor, Math-Based Asset Services, which is owned by Winklevoss Capital Management, is not liable for losses due to "failure or penetration" of the security system, absent gross negligence, fraud or criminal behavior by the sponsor, the filing reads.
 
Also, the people responsible for the day-to-day administration of the trust "will also not be liable for any system failure or third-party penetration of the security system."

They also anticipate their trust "may become a more appealing target of security threats as the size of the trust's assets grows."

The warnings may not put off people familiar with bitcoin, which has made a handful of people who bought in after the system launched in 2009 very wealthy.

Many others, however, have racked up losses after buying bitcoins during a rapid, speculative rise to $260 per coin in April before falling as low as $56. A single bitcoin sold for around $90 on Tuesday, according to the largest exchange, Mt. Gox in Japan.

The Winklevoss twins told The New York Times in April that they held as many as 1 percent of all of the bitcoins in circulation. There are about 11.3 million bitcoins in circulation, putting their holdings conservatively at $9 million today.

According to their plans, the trust would offer "baskets" of shares, of which each share is comprised of one-fifth of a bitcoin. The baskets would be redeemed in blocks of 50,000 shares based on an average bitcoin market price calculated from exchanges.

For the First Time, You Can Actually Own the Digital Comics You Buy

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — If you’ve ever bought a digital comic book, your experience probably went something like this: You opened up an app like ComiXology, paid around $1.99 to $3.99 — likely, the same price as a print issue — but never downloaded the file for the comic to your hard drive. That’s because you don’t really own it — you’ve simply licensed the right to look at it in someone else’s library.

It’s a digital sales model that has been adopted by every major U.S. comics publisher — and most e-book publishers as well — and was inspired by fears that piracy of digital copies could hurt not just digital but also print sales. It has also essentially prevented the comic book readership (or at least, the legal comic book readership) from truly owning any of the books they buy. At least until this morning, when comic book publisher Image Comics announced at its Image Expo convention that it will now sell all of its digital comics as downloadable via its website for both desktop and mobile users, making it the first major U.S. publisher to offer DRM-free digital versions of comics. Readers can even choose the file format they prefer: PDFs, EPUBs, CBRs or CBZs.

“My stance on piracy is that piracy is bad for bad entertainment,” Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson told Wired in an exclusive interview. “There’s a pretty strong correlation with things that suck not being greatly pirated, while things that are successful have a higher piracy rate. If you put out a good comic book, even if somebody does download it illegally, if they enjoy it then the likelihood of them purchasing the book is pretty high. Obviously we don’t want everybody giving a copy to a hundred friends, but this argument has been around since home taping was supposedly killing music back in the ’70s, and that didn’t happen. And I don’t think it’s happening now.”
‘My stance on piracy is that piracy is bad for bad entertainment. There’s a pretty strong correlation with things that suck not being greatly pirated.’ — Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson
And while Image comic books will still be offered for sale on ComiXology, iBooks, and every other platform where it was previously available, Image’s Director of Business Development Ron Richards says that offering the direct-to-consumer downloads is important. “There’s something to be said for the ownership factor. If readers purchase a book on ComiXology, that may be their library [on the service] but from what I understand that could be revoked. And God forbid, if ComiXology goes under or their data center has an earthquake all their hard drives go away — then you’ve got nothing.”

Indeed, there have been several snafus so far that have illustrated the limitations of ComiXology’s model of digital sales. In March, a server crash caused by massive demand for a Marvel Comics promotion not only shut down sales of new comics, but also user access to the reader and any comics stored in the cloud. In April, ComiXology refused to submit an issue of Brian K. Vaughan’s popular Image comic Saga to Apple’s iOS store based on its sexual content, and later removed 56 other comics for content issues. Other comics have been “pulled back” after they were purchased by readers and locked until a later date.

Image, whose comics include The Walking Dead and Saga, is currently the third-largest comics publisher after the “Big Two” superhero companies Marvel and DC, and has a long history of breaking away from the corporate model of doing business. Founded in 1992 by a group of high-profile comics creators who wanted to keep the rights to their work, Image remains a publisher of creator-owned content — meaning writers and artists get to keep the rights to their work — rather than the work-for-hire model that dominates mainstream comics, where creators typically receive no further royalties. This distinction, which sits at the heart of the most contentious legal and ethical issues within the industry, has made Image an attractive home for the original work of numerous A-list superhero writers and artists.

But despite Image’s history of innovation — and thumbing its nose at the corporate status quo — its decision was informed not just by ideas but by data. Despite the industry’s initial fears that digital comics would hurt print sales, or disrupt the fragile balance of the direct market in comic book shops, the exponential growth of digital sales hasn’t hurt print — and may have even helped it.

“Over the last several years, we’ve learned the answer to the big question, and guess what: Digital comics have not destroyed the industry. Digital has shown tremendous growth, but we’ve also seen growth in the direct market and the book market,” said Richards. “If you look at other publishers, they’re seeing the same thing.”



Image has the statistics to back it up — and even more surprising in an industry where publishers have been notoriously cagey about providing data about digital sales, actually shared them. Although the publisher only started selling digital comics in 2009, digital sales now make up more than 11 percent of the company’s overall revenue, and is currently projecting sales of 15 percent by the end of 2013. Image’s best-selling comic, The Walking Dead, sees 22 percent of its sales in digital. And when measured solely against print comics sold in the direct market at comic book stores, digital makes up 27 percent of revenue.

Digital comics has transformed from a threat to a boon, a new channel for sales that not only serves existing readers in new ways but opens to the door to a different and far larger audience than brick and mortar stores. “There’s a lot more potential for outreach with digital comics,” said Stephenson. “I mean, how many comic stores are there? Maybe 2,000 or 2,500 in the United States? There are more radio stations than that. If you’re trying to convince casual [and new] customers to find comics, we’d be better off selling to radio stations than comic book stores.”

Still, says Stephenson, it may take time for certain calcified ideas within the industry to change, particularly regarding digital comics and piracy. “Piracy is not going to stop; everybody’s doing a completely ineffectual job of stopping it now, and I don’t think that this is going to add to it… Now that the technology has caught up to us, then the attitudes and the opinions [in the industry] have to catch up as well. And that takes time, because it’s a shift in the paradigm. There are a lot of people who still don’t quite understand it.”

The Image Comics website, which relaunched today with its new DRM-free offerings, will focus initially on releasing new comics and best-selling series like The Walking Dead, with more of the back catalog to be added as time goes on. And while the new downloadable format will not retroactively be available for Image comics purchased on other apps like ComiXology or iBooks at the time of the launch, Richards says it’s something they’re looking into.

But for any comics that readers buy directly from Image moving forward, the model is simple. “As long as you purchased them, they won’t go away,” said Richards. “If you bought it, you own it.”

Nikon D40 Digital SLR Camera

COURTESY OF NIKON

I am not a professional photographer, nor am I a devoted hobbyist, but I do like to take good pictures. Digital SLR cameras resemble older single lens reflex film cameras in form and function but don't mind if you shoot mostly in "auto," that is to say, "idiot" mode, so I like them a lot.
I have always been partial to Nikon's DSLRs. This summer, when I studied the market, the Nikons shot better than Olympus' E-Volt line, and were priced comfortably below the equally good Canon Digital Rebel. Nikon's big news this year was the D80, a bit too high-end for beginners. But now the company is addressing beginners directly with the introduction of the $600 D40. The question on the minds of holiday shoppers: how does the new D40 compare to Nikon's current great deal, the D50?

Both are 6-megapixel cameras that shoot a speedy two and a half frames per second, and use only SD memory cards. Both come with lenses (for $100 more, the D50 also comes with an 18-55mm starter zoom lens). Both are compatible with many of Nikon's pricier pro lenses as well. The D50 has two LCD screens. One is a two-inch, 130,000-pixel, color display for reviewing shots and viewing menu options. The other is a little always-on monochrome display that shares quick facts, like your flash setting or the number of shots remaining on your memory card. The D40 has just one LCD, a larger 2.5-inch, 230,000-pixel screen. For a seasoned shooter, the D50's extra screen is a benefit, because it means he or she can make on-the-fly adjustments without firing up the bright main LCD. The fact that the D40 doesn't have the extra screen is just the first indication that it really is geared toward novices, far more than its predecessor.

The D40 is a teacher. One of its most fascinating attributes is the Info screen, which appears at the touch of a button, appropriately marked "Info." The screen contains all sorts of data, mostly photographic mumbo jumbo. But the screen also has a visual representation of that mumbo jumbo, so you can figure out what it means. For instance, as the number next to the letter "F" goes up, the image of the camera's aperture gets tighter. It doesn't take long to sort out, then, that the higher the "f-stop," the more closed the camera's aperture. Beginners will appreciate the fact that the D40 has a knob of preset modes, not just my favorite "auto" mode but "portrait," "sports" and more. What's cool is that, when you change modes, the screen shows the changed settings. Little by little, the notions will start to sink in: what the camera is trying to do to shoot action, what it needs to take a portrait at night, etc.

The D40 is also an editor. Once, I was shooting at a high-school graduation, and I realized halfway through that a setting was making my pictures too dim. When I got home, I had to adjust them in Photoshop Elements. If I make the same blunder on the D40, I could lighten up the shots right on the camera, which saves the edited image as a separate file, in case you don't like the fix. This is helpful not just when you're clumsy, as I was, but when you say, shoot in low light and want to edit out the yellowish cast that always appears, or if you shoot something wide and think it would look better cropped.

To top it all off, the D40 is smaller than the other Nikons. There's still no chance you'll be able to stick it in your pocket, removable zoom lens or not, but it isn't as much bulk when you're on safari. Shooting wise, I would not be able to tell the difference between it and the D50. The only downside is, once the D40 has revealed to you the secrets of photography and made you a master shutterbug, you might wish you had that little second LCD screen for quick aperture and shutter-speed adjustments.

As the Earth's population booms and cities grow ever larger, the spotlight on energy innovation becomes greater. TIME looks into the new energy sources powering our world and sustaining our future.