Canon 18 Megapixels EOS Rebel T4i DSLR Camera Hands-on Review by ePhotoZine - DSLRphoto.com

Canon announced the highly anticipated EOS Rebel T4i (aka 650D) DSLR camera. This entry-level DSLR is equipped with a new 18 Megapixels CMOS sensor that offers a hybrid of phase and contrast autofocus, DIGIC 5 Image Processor, and 3.0-inch vari-angle LCD touch screen with 1.04 million dots resolution. Borrows from the EOS 60D DSLR, the T4i features a new AF system with a 9-point all cross-type sensor array and Hybrid CMOS AF to achieve fast focus when shooting stills or video in Live View mode. There is also a new Movie Servo AF mode for a continuous AF during HD video recording when using the newly introduced Stepping Motor (STM) lenses. The T4i also comes with stereo microphone, 5fps burst shooting (versus T3i's 3.7fps), ISO range up to 12800 (expandable to 25600), adjustable noise reduction strengths and two new creative filters: art bold and water painting.There are two new STM lenses that's announced along with the T4i - the EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens and EF 40mm f/2.8 STM lens. Both are Stepping Motor STM lenses which can support smooth and silent focusing to achieve continuous AF while recording video.

The EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens also comes with Dynamic IS (Movie Shooting Mode only) that uses a wide image stabilization correction range to help ensure steady video. The one-inch thick EF 40mm f/2.8 STM pancake lens boosts an aperture of f/2.8 making it an ideal lens for capturing portrait stills or video. The Canon EOS Rebel T4i is listed for an estimated $849 body-only, or $949 with an 18-55mm kit lens, or $1,199 with the new 18-135mm kit lens. That lens alone is listed for $549, and the new 40mm pancake is listed for $199. Here's the summary of hands-on review by ePhotoZine:"At the Jessops re-launch of the New Oxford Street store in London, we had a hands-on look at the new Canon EOS 650D in the Canon section of the store. Unfortunately it was a pre-production sample so we were unable to put a memory card in it to have a look at the image quality. We were, however, able to use the camera's new touch-screen interface, this lets you touch an area of the screen to select focus and take a photo. It's also possible to use the rear control screen to change settings directly on the screen. There are further benefits in playback with swipe to go from photo to photo, as well as multi-touch zooming - much like the iPhone interface. There are also new creative filters in playback mode. Improved live view and video modes are thanks to a new sensor based 9 cross type hybrid focus system, that is said to be more precise than the focus system on the 600D. Another benefit for anyone recording video is the built in stereo microphones. The 650D now features in-camera HDR creation, combining three exposures into one shot with extended dynamic range. There is also lens aberration correction, that now corrects for chromatic aberration, based on built in lens profiles. Pressing the Q button on the touch-screen activates the rear control screen, letting you change options. Live view focus seemed a little slow with the 18-55mm lens, although it will be interesting to see how a final production version performs, particularly with the new lenses and we will be putting the camera through the full tests when we get the camera in to review."

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Talk of Microsoft tablet resurfaces

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is gearing up to unveil its own tablet to boost its new Windows 8 operating system and counter Apple Inc's hot-selling iPad, according to media reports on Friday.

Such an effort, which the company has not confirmed, would be a departure from its usual focus on software and potentially throw Microsoft into direct competition with its closest hardware partners such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd <005930.KS> and Hewlett-Packard Co .

The world's largest software company has invited media to a "major" announcement in Los Angeles on Monday afternoon, but has not provided any details.

In the absence of information, talk is swirling that Microsoft will introduce its own tablet, according to anonymously sourced reports in the New York Times and the AllThingsD tech blog. Microsoft declined comment on the subject and those reports.

It is not the first time such talk has surfaced, as Microsoft looks for a way to make an impact with its new tablet-friendly Windows 8 operating system and put the best product it can in the market to counter Apple's iPad.

Apple, which makes both hardware and software for greater control over the performance of the final product, has revolutionized mobile markets with its smooth, seamless phones and tablets. Rival Google Inc may experiment with a similar approach after buying phone maker Motorola Mobility this year.

"Anything is possible if they don't feel their partners are doing it right," said Michael Silver, an analyst at tech research firm Gartner. "But it's hard to compete with companies that sell your stuff and still have a great relationship with them."

Other analysts suggested an own-branded tablet may be chiefly aimed at kick-starting the market for Windows tablets working on ARM Holdings Plc microprocessors - a new venture for Microsoft, which has traditionally relied on Intel Corp chips.

Microsoft charges hardware makers $50 or more to incorporate its software in machines and analysts suggest that hardware makers are struggling to produce tablets at a low enough price to challenge the iPad. By making its own tablets, Microsoft would presumably use its software for free, bringing down the overall price.

"It suggests to me that they've struggled to get OEMs (hardware makers) on board to bring the prices down, so they feel they have to subsidize these products to get them out of the door, at least in the first iteration," said Al Hilwa, an analyst at tech research firm IDC.

Making its own hardware for such an important product would be a departure for Microsoft, which based its success on licensing its software to other manufacturers, stressing the importance of "partners" and the Windows "ecosystem."

When it has ventured into hardware, the Redmond, Washington-based company has a mixed record.

Apart from keyboards and mice, the Xbox game console was its first foray into major manufacturing. That is now a successful business, but only after billions of dollars of investment and overcoming problems with high rates of faulty units - a problem which was nicknamed the "red ring of death" by gamers.

The company's Microsoft-branded Zune music player, a late rival to Apple's iPod, was not a success and its unpopular Kin phone was taken off the market shortly after introduction.

Microsoft has tried hard to generate the type of excitement Apple gets for its secretive product launches, but usually disappoints. Talk was rife at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2010 that Microsoft would pre-empt Apple's iPad with a slate of its own devising, but it never materialized.

The company killed off a two-screen, slate-style prototype called Courier later that year, saying the technology might emerge in another form later on.

(Reporting By Bill Rigby; editing by Andre Grenon)

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Time Inc to sell magazine subscriptions on Apple Newsstand

(Reuters) - Time Inc's stable of 20 magazines, including Sports Illustrated and People, are now available for subscription on Apple's Newsstand, the company said on Thursday.

The publishing arm of Time Warner Inc was the last holdout, among large magazine companies, to agree to sell subscriptions through Apple Newsstand.

"It's an important step toward fulfilling our goal of being everywhere consumers want us to be," Laura Lang, Time Inc CEO said in a statement.

Prior to the announcement, consumers have had to go through each magazine's website to get a digital subscription for the iPad.

Existing print subscribers of Time Inc will be able to access the digital editions at no additional cost.

Single-copy editions have always been available through Apple.

A bone of contention for publishers - since Apple launched the iPad in the spring of 2010 and courted content providers - has been the control of subscriber data and the cut of revenue Apple takes from publications. Typically, Apple takes a 30 percent cut from titles sold through its Newsstand.

Apple has wanted to be the primary contact for magazine subscribers, essentially controlling valuable information like addresses and other demographic details. Magazines, too, are keen on this data, which they use to sell advertising.

Subscribers may choose to share their data with the publisher, a process known in the industry as "opting in."

Terms of the deal with Time Inc were not disclosed.

(Reporting by Jennifer Saba. Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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SEC questioned Facebook about Zynga, mobile

NEW YORK (AP) — As Facebook's much-anticipated public stock offering approached, federal regulators wanted to know more about the revenue it gets from mobile devices, its $1 billion deal to buy Instagram and the control CEO Mark Zuckerberg has over the company.

Documents filed Friday show the back-and-forth the social-networking company had with the Securities and Exchange Commission on a variety of issues. As all companies do, Facebook Inc. amended its regulatory documents several times ahead of its initial public offering of stock. But the communications leading to those changes weren't public until now.

Facebook disclosed its letters with the SEC in regulatory filings Friday. The filings are a usual part of the IPO process. The letters are typically confidential until about 30 days following an IPO. Facebook's IPO took place May 17.

The communications in the months leading to Facebook's IPO have received greater scrutiny in part because of investor concerns about the company's ability to make money from its growing mobile audience. Facebook's stock price has lost more than a fifth of its value since the IPO. Many analysts, however, hold positive long-term opinions.

Facebook faces more than 40 lawsuits over the IPO. The lawsuits allege that analysts at the large underwriting investment banks cut their second-quarter and full-year forecasts for Facebook just before the IPO and told only a handful of clients. Facebook has called the lawsuits "without merit."

In a separate filing Friday, the company sought to consolidate the lawsuits in New York and laid the groundwork for its case, arguing that it did not violate any rules and followed "customary practices" throughout the process. They also suggest that trading problems at the Nasdaq Stock Market contributed to the stock price drop.

Much of the SEC's questions asked Facebook to clarify or explain things better. In its first letter in February, the SEC asked Facebook what it would mean if more of its users accessed the site through mobile devices rather than traditional computers. The SEC wanted Facebook to fully address "the potential consequences to your revenue and financial results rather than just stating that they 'may be negatively affected.'"

At first, Facebook said that users "could" decide to access the site on mobile devices. The SEC responded that they already do.

That led Facebook to amend its documents on May 9 — the week before the IPO. There, Facebook disclosed that the number of users logging in on mobile devices was growing faster than revenue, largely because it showed relatively few ads on mobile devices. The company's ability to make money from its mobile users has been one of the main concerns investors have and part of the reason Facebook's stock price has fallen.

In another letter, the SEC wanted to know how much of Facebook's $1 billion price for the photo-sharing app Instagram would be in stock rather than cash. The answer: $300 million in cash plus about 23 million shares. Based on Facebook's current stock price, the deal is now worth about $960 million.

Regulators also wanted to know about Zuckerberg's ability to designate a successor given that the Facebook co-founder has more than half of the company's voting rights. Facebook replied that Zuckerberg had no power to decide who would be the next CEO or get his voting rights when he dies. But, like all other shareholders, he is able to designate people who will receive his stocks in the event of his death.

The SEC asked Facebook about online game company Zynga Inc. because it relies heavily on revenue from the game company. In April, the SEC wanted Facebook to disclose that 7 percent of its revenue last year came from ads shown to users using Zynga apps on Facebook, while another 12 percent came from payments processing fees related to Zynga's sale of virtual goods and direct advertising purchased by Zynga. Facebook added the information to a subsequent filing.

On an upbeat note, Facebook's stock gained value for the week for the first time. The stock climbed $1.72, or 6.1 percent, to close at $30.01 on Friday. That's up nearly 11 percent for the week, though it's still down 21 percent from its IPO price of $38.

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Origin Beta 8.6.0.357

Origin lets you purchase and play EA games - any time and any place you want. With the in-game overlay, you can browse the web while playing select games.

Origin's social features allow you to create a profile, connect and chat with your friends, share your game library, and effortlessly join your friends' games.

Origin streamlines the download process, for quick, easy installation and use. Direct download of PC games requires the Origin client, and once you have it, you'll be able to access your game library from virtually anywhere. You can even play your favorite games on other PCs when you're on the go.

Origin is a replacement for EA Download Manager.

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Some New GTLDs Will Fail as Businesses, Experts Say

Several questions remain after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers unveiled 1,930 applications for new generic top level domains this week, long-time ICANN observers said.

While some of the new gTLDs will evolve into successful businesses, many others will not, ICANN watchers said. As ICANN begins to evaluate the applications, starting July 12, there will be questions about the business plans of some applicants as well as the technical ability of some to operate a new gTLD, they said.

The application process "almost seemed like a gold rush," said Richard Stockton, a lawyer with Banner and Witcoff, an intellectual property law firm. "There's going to be some [gTLDs] that perform and some that just don't."

Some of the new gTLDs will have benefits -- .pharmacy, for example, could help weed out counterfeit drug sales online -- but others don't have obvious business models, added Erin Hennessy, a partner in the technology group at the Bracewell and Giuliani law firm.

On the other hand, .biz and .info, launched in mid-2001 "have never caught on," she said. There are about 2.2 million secondary-level domains on .biz and 6.5 million on .info.

"Now we're adding .inc and .llc," Hennessy said. "I'm not sure they're that different from a .biz and .info. I wonder how they're really going to be used."

Hennessy questioned if companies will do something substantially different with the new gTLDs that they didn't do with their .com websites.

Forrester Research analyst Jeff Ernst, however, expects some innovative business plans. "It'll take awhile for the more innovative [business plans] to come to surface," he said.

Still, Ernst expects that some gTLDs will fail. "They'll probably have the same rate of success as any new business venture will," he said. "A certain number will fail because they misread the market, or didn't get enough support."

A handful of companies applied for dozens of gTLDs, startup Donuts for more than 300, and these gTLD portfolio companies seem to be betting on strength in numbers, he said.

"For them, if three out of 10 can be very successful and another three out of 10 break even, and another four out of 10 are not successful, then they'll probably still come out ahead," Ernst said.

Applicants running an open registry like .food as opposed to a closed, company-focused gTLD like .ibm, will have a lot of business competition, Ernst said. But the new gTLDs may not need "massive volumes" like .com has in order to be successful, he said.

"They just have to have enough of an annuity stream from a niche community around that term," he said.

Ernst downplayed concerns that some applicants won't have the technical ability to run a registry. ICANN should weed out some shaky applicants, and some others will likely withdraw their applications.

Other applicants without registry experience will likely partner established registry operators like VeriSign and Neustar, he said.

"Anyone with any intelligence, I think, is going to be using a third-party registry service provider, to manage all the technology infrastructure," he added.

Buyers of domains on these gTLDs will have to evaluate the operators of the gTLDs and decide whether to invest money in websites on the new gTLDs, Ernst said.

Website operators will be concerned about the "operational experience and financial resources" of new the TLD applicants, said Steve DelBianco, executive director of NetChoice, an e-commerce trade group.

"Registrants will be ill-served if their TLD fails or fades after adopting a new domain name," he added in an email. "And internet users everywhere will suffer if a TLD operator lacks the experience and resources to detect and deter malware and fraud originating from their domains."

In the shorter term, another issue to watch for is the competition for gTLDs. ICANN announced that there are at least two applicants for 231 terms. For example, .app has 13 applicants, including Amazon.com and Google, .home has 11 applicants, and .art has 10.

There are also multiple applicants for . book, .llc, .inc, .music, .baby, .ltd and several other strings. Google and Amazon are competing on 21 terms, including .game, .movie, .shop and .search.

There will be a lot of "horse trading" among applicants as the ICANN evaluation process plays out over the coming months, Ernst said.

Some applicants may agree to drop out of one competition in exchange for their competitors dropping out of another term they both applied for.

The negotiations will make for "lots of intrigue and maybe some legal fights among competitors," DelBianco said.

Ultimately, ICANN can auction gTLDs if applicants don't reach agreements. It will be in the applicants' interest to stay away from the auctions, Ernst said.

"ICANN would love to have Amazon and Google bidding against each other," Stockton added.

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com.

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Sony Debuts New Android 4.0 Xperia Miro and Tipo via Facebook Campaign

Japanese electronics maker Sony has announced two new smartphones, the Xperia Miro and Xperia Tipo ahead of schedule following a successful social media campaign.

The new smartphones, which will run on Android 4.0, were launched 9 days early after Facebook users brought announcement date and time forward by 20 seconds with each click they made on the Sony page.

The two smartphones will be the first by Sony to run on Ice Cream Sandwich and will feature Facebook integration.

Despite having a low-end 800MHz Qualcomm processor and 512MB of RAM, the Xperia Miro will also feature a 3.5 inch touchscreen, a front-facing 5 megapixel camera, 4GB of internal storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, MicroUSB and contactless DLNA connectivity to enable content to be shared and viewed on TVs, tablets and PCs.

The Xperia Miro features Sony's xLoud audio technology and also comes preloaded with the Music Unlimited app which has access to millions of music tracks on the Sony Entertainment Network for a monthly subscription fee.

The Xperia Tipo is targeted at a slightly lower end of the market, featuring a 3.2 inch touchscreen, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and a 3.2 megapixel camera.

Pricing for the two phones has yet to be released.

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Mixcraft version 6.0_b185

Record your music YOUR way with this powerful, but easy to use multi-track recording tool for Windows.

My father had a party band while I was growing up. I got introduced to music early on; and as we listened to some vintage reel-to-reel taped, recordings of those band gig's I began wishing that some of the computing technology we have today would have been available back in the early 1970's. It would have made listening to some of those recordings a much better experience. However, I'm glad there are applications like Mixcraft today. It’s a multi-track recording tool for Windows.

Mixcraft 5 is a powerful and easy-to-use multi-track recording studio that enables you to record audio, arrange loops, remix tracks, and compose original music with virtual instruments. You can also write entire scores, edit video, and add effects to create professional compositions. The basic features are easy enough for everyone.  The more advanced features are powerful enough to satisfy serious and professional musicians alike.

Mixcraft has a polished professional look. Its custom loop library includes over 3000 royalty-free sounds in dozens of musical styles, including 70's Funk, Cool Jazz, Surf Rock, Reggae, and Vegas Rock.  Mixcraft also works with both Acid and Garage Band loops.

Mixcraft's new Master Track allows you to smoothly automate the global effects parameters and master volume of your recorded music, for smooth and easy fade-ins and fade-outs. Send Tracks allows you to route audio from multiple Audio Tracks and Virtual Instruments to a single set of audio effects.  Finally, to make it all come together, Mixcraft's powerful mixer interface provides a convenient and familiar way to complete your project. Its mixer interface also includes a 3-band equalizer on every track, allow for precise mixing control.

Pros: Powerful tools, stunning interface, buying options include a payment plan

Cons: Users must first understand music mixing and composition before they can understand how to use the software.

Conclusions: Mixcraft's publisher really wants to bring music mixing to everyone.  The software provides power tools and multi-track recording to a Windows PC near you.  However, in order to use it, you have to understand how mixed music and MIDI instruments work. Its professional tools provide ease of use and automation, allowing for even those moderately initiated into the process to create sophisticated music compositions.

Mixcraft 6 is a powerful music production and multi-track recording workstation that comes packed with over thousands of music loops and dozens of audio effects and virtual instruments. Mixcraft enables you to record audio, arrange loops, remix tracks, compose with MIDI and virtual instruments, add effects, score and edit video, and mix and master your...

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Mystery galaxy is older and more aggressive than expected

The Hubble Deep Field, with the location of galaxy HDF 805.1 marked. This galaxy, completely invisible in visible light, formed 1.1 billion years after the Big Bang.

In 1996, the Hubble Space Telescope took a set of long-exposure images of a single tiny patch of the sky. This Hubble Deep Field (HDF) survey obtained data on over 1,500 galaxies stretching back to the earliest days of the Universe, in a wide range of wavelengths of light. The HDF has provided riches for astronomers but also an enduring mystery in the form of HDF 805.1—the brightest object in the infrared part of the spectrum. The wavelength in which HDF 805.1 is brightest corresponds to dust surrounding strong star formation, but the object is invisible in other types of light. Without other data, astronomers couldn't determine the size of, or distance to, HDF 805.1.

Now a research team using the Plateau de Bure Interferometer (PdBI) in the French Alps and the Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico have detected HDF 805.1 in submillimeter radio light. As Fabian Walter et al. report in Nature, the location of HDF 805.1 corresponds to a bright source about 12.6 billion light years away, meaning the object formed only 1.1 billion years after the Big Bang. The light measured from the HDF and PdBI together suggests a galaxy about 130 billion times the mass of the Sun (comparable in mass to the Milky Way) with a high rate of star formation. This discovery is surprising for two reasons: the star formation rate is higher than predicted for a galaxy that early in the Universe's history, and the amount of dust required to hide it completely in visible light is larger than expected.

HDF 805.1 is one of a class of objects known as submillimeter galaxies (SMGs), not because they are tiny, but because they emit light primarily at submillimeter wavelengths. By the spectrum of light they emit, we know SMGs produce new stars at a rapid rate. But the environment of the star formation is very dusty, blocking almost all the visible light. Without that spectral information, it is difficult to measure their distance, as well as the size of the galaxy. However, SMGs are potentially valuable in mapping the history of galaxies and star formation in the Universe, so astronomers have tried since 1996 to solve the riddle of HDF 805.1.

New techniques, highlighted in the present study, use dedicated submillimeter instruments to measure the spectra of the SMGs. In turn, this reveals their redshift—the amount the wavelength of light is stretched as the Universe expands. Redshift is a proxy for distance and age: a larger redshift indicates the light was emitted earlier in time and traveled farther to reach us. For HDF 805.1, the researchers focused on two carbon monoxide (CO) and ionized carbon (CII) spectral lines, which are easily identifiable signatures in star-forming regions.

Both types of observations agreed: HDF 805.1 is at a high redshift, meaning the wavelength observed at Earth is stretched 6.1 times its emitted value. Using the Hubble relation, this redshift means the galaxy emitted the light only 1.1 billion years after the Big Bang. While this isn't the earliest galaxy ever seen, HDF 805.1 certainly has more active star formation than its peers.

Additionally, dust in galaxies is comprised of atoms like carbon and oxygen, (formed by stars) rather than being present in the very early Universe. The amount of dust present in HDF 805.1 must be sufficient to hide it in visible-light wavelengths, but it's uncertain where it all came from that early in the Universe's history. Finding similar high-redshift SMGs may help resolve that problem. Currently, only a handful of similar star-forming galaxies (that is, submillimeter-bright galaxies with no evident supermassive black hole) are known, and none are as distant.

As is often the case, solving one mystery—the distance and character of HDF 805.1—has led to further questions. However, the advent of new submillimeter telescopes, including the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, should help enlighten us about the history of galaxies and star formation in the early Universe.

Nature, 2012. DOI: 10.1038/nature11073  (About DOIs).

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Super Socks5Cap Portable Version 2.3.4.0

Networktunnel Inc in Internet \ Download Managers

Super Socks5Cap = sockscap + socks finder + socks checker, is a program that allows network applications that do not support working through proxy servers to operate through a HTTPS or SOCKS4/SOCKS5/SSH proxy server and Super Network Tunnel Client/Server proxy and support NTLM identification, and can connect any destination port bypass firewall ) .With Super Socks5Cap you can work with any Internet client (browsers, ftp, P2P, ICQ, IRC, eMule, telnet, ssh, video/audio, games...) through a network that is separated from the Internet by a firewall (only one open port is required).Super Socks5Cap allows you to: Like 'sockscap', can tunnel tcp / udp connection , but it support vista and windows7/ X64 bit. Embed proxy finder and proxy checker function, can automatically search proxy and pick up thousands of free socks proxy every day.Work with super network tunnel , can easy bypass pure http proxy, and connect to any destination port. Use five types of proxy servers: SOCKS v4, SOCKS v5, HTTPS, Super Network Tunnel C/S Proxy, SSH Proxy. "Tunnel" the entire system (force all network connections in the system work through a proxy server). Resolve DNS names through a proxy server (fake mode) and also support real remote DNS resolve. Support flash drive portable version not need install, can be run from removable media such as USB stick, floppy, etc... and not need admin rights in vista

Super Socks5Cap Portable Version 2.3.4.0 Download Managers software developed by Networktunnel Inc. The license of this download managers software is shareware, the price is $29.00, you can free download and get a free trial before you buy a registration or license. Do not use warez version, crack, serial numbers, registration codes, pirate key for this download managers software Super Socks5Cap Portable Version. If you want to get a full and unlimited version of Super Socks5Cap Portable Version, you should buy from original publisher Networktunnel Inc.

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