Nuance Communications is putting some hands-free voice control into the Palm Treo and Centro smartphones. The Treo 755p from Verizon Wireless and the Centro from AT&T will both be loaded with Nuance VSuite. In addition to these models, the VSuite software is also supported on all Palm OS based Palm Treo smartphones.

VSuite gives users the ability to use their voice to dial by name, dial by number, address messages, look up contacts, and launch applications. If you want even more voice control, then Nuance offers a subscription service appropriately called Nuance Voice Control. This service allows the user to connect to the mobile Web with his or her voice in addition to dictating e-mail, text messages, and calendar entries. The service can even search the Web for business listings, news, weather, stock quotes, and sport scores using your voice.

Hands-free use of a smartphone can be pretty tough even with a Bluetooth headset. Nuance is offering users the ability to add some voice commands to their smartphones to make their Palm devices truly hands-free while at the same time allowing folks to remain productive while on the go. Best of all, no training is required, since the software uses simple commands.

Read more from the Nuance press release.

»read more from "Use your voice to control your Treo or Centro"

Over at security conference CanSecWest, hacker Charlie Miller has successful broken into a macbook air, winning him both the slimline notebook and $10,000 in the PWN 2 OWN contest. The exploit, will remain a secret until the show’s organizers are have passed the information on to, we presume, Apple. What we do know is the Miller managed to hack the Mac in just two minutes by browsing to a website containing malicious code.

Two other notebooks remain to be won, if they too can be cracked. The Mac might have fallen first because it was less secure. More likely is that contestants ignored the Linux and Windows boxes in favor of trying to win Apple’s svelte and desirable notebook.

Gone in 2 minutes: Mac gets hacked first in contest [MacWorld]

Conference page [CanSecWest]

»read more from "MacBook Air Hacked In Two Minutes"

Having a HTPC system in your home is a delicate affair, as you not only have to think of what components to put inside but the type of casing as well, as there really isn’t any point in aggravating the missus by having an awful-looking PC case right smack in the middle of the living room, throwing the rest of the home’s decorations out of whack. The R240 Grace HTPC case from 3Rsystem of Korea makes sure this gets the approval of the person wearing the pants in the house, featuring a high glossy bezel with a black-coated half mirror in addition to a wine red-colored LCD display. Prices range from $70 to $80 each.

»read more from "3Rsystem R240 Grace HTPC Case"

Remember last week’s post about the toy gramophone which records not onto a wax cylinder but instead onto a coffee cup? Make magazine’s Phil Torrone took a trip to Tokyo and visited the toymaker, Gakken. Here’s the video of the “Edison-Style Cup Phonograph Kit” in action.

And if you don’t care about a gadget which will record audio onto a plastic cup (in which case you might be reading the wrong blog) then watch it for the Gakken guy singing “Hey Jude”.

Thanks to Make you’ll no longer need to trawl Ebay to get one. The magazine’s online store is selling them for $35.

Product page [Make]
Edison-Style cup phonograph kit [Make]

»read more from "Video: Plastic Cup Gramophone In Action"

Colour Changing Weather Clock
Now, in the search for mind-bending convenience, they’ve created the weather forecaster-cum alarm clock you don’t need to move the duvet to see. And best of all, it even works while you’re awake!

See price

»read more from "Colour Changing Weather Clock"

As someone who has uploaded a few videos in YouTube myself, I sometimes long for the ability to see more detailed information about my uploaded video’s viewers. I’d like to know where visitors came from, how much time they spent going from one of my videos to another, is there a specific time of day when they stay longer than usual watching my videos, etc. And just recently YouTube has revealed that it now lets users do exactly that, providing a Google Analytics-like service with Youtube Insight.

With YouTube Insight, uploaders can now “see how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time.” It’s really just as simple as applying the principles of regular web site tracking programs for YouTube page views. The resulting statistics from YouTube Insight can then be used by uploaders to optimize their content, presentation, and overall delivery in order to get the most out of their uploaded videos.

As of now, YouTube hints that the service is still not going to be delivered in its entirety—they’re probably tweaking the systems up a bit to make sure no bugs or errors ever occur for users. But you can get a taste of the upcoming full YouTube Insight service by going to My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos and then click on “About this video” for any uploaded video. From there you’ll be able to see a graph representing your video’s number of page views as well as a geographical map detailing where in the world your visitors are all coming from. It’s actually pretty neat by itself right now that if YouTube hadn’t posted about it in their blog, I would never have known that this service was not yet complete. So I’m really excited for them to release the full version. I’m sure they’re going to do just that very very soon.

Read [The YouTube Blog]

Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! - Subscribe to our feed →

»read more from "Google Analytics + YouTube = YouTube Insight"

The Japanese always have the most funky toilet, and the Nankai Electric Railway Co. is going to up the ante by offering water-free urinals at 18 men’s toilets in stations along its lines. Before you start to wrinkle your nose in disgust, check out the main reason for this seemingly unhygienic move. For starters, how does saving 22,000 tons of water and about 6 million yen in utility bills sound to you? These upgraded urinals won’t stink either, since they are covered in a low friction material that ensures condensation does not build up on them, doing away with the need to flush after use. After all, urine will be deposited into special cartridges which help reduce odors. It will take a mental paradigm shift to accept this idea, but it looks like it will work for me. I wonder if they have made provisions for people who love spitting their phelgm into urinals…

»read more from "Water-free Urinals in Japan"

The Zero electric motocross bike offers you all the action of a two-stroke gasoline engine minus the noise - after all, it is powered by electricity. Despite that fact, riders will find that the performance level is on par with that of a 250cc gasoline bike. According to Zero, this bike is powered by 300 amps and will be able to hit 0 -30 within 2 seconds, with 100% torque being made available at all instances. The whole bike is also lightweight, weighing a mere 140 pounds. A 2 hour charge offers a 40 mile range, so make sure you don’t stray too far away from home. The Zero will come in standard and high power models, retailing for $7,450 and $8,350 respectively.

»read more from "Zero Electric Bike"

The Nuvi 860 will be hitting Europe sometime this May for 600€ a pop.

• Bluetooth connectivity
• Voice-guided instructions
• Speech recognition
• FM traffic receiver
• FM transmitter
• microSD memory card slot

If you’re wondering whether the above mentioned specifications sound familiar, that’s because the Nuvi 860 is the European version of the Nuvi 880.

»read more from "Nuvi 860 hits Europe"

Filed in archive Photography by jim on March 28, 2008

<!– <rdf:Description rdf:about=”http://www.digital-shot.com/50226711/digital_photography_and_people_pictures.php” trackback:ping=”http://www.creative-weblogging.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.pl/118008″ dc:title=”Digital Photography And People Pictures” dc:identifier=”http://www.digital-shot.com/50226711/digital_photography_and_people_pictures.php” dc:subject=”Photography” dc:description=”" dc:creator=”jim” dc:date=”2008-03-28T00:00:08-08:00″ /> –>

Most people who have a digital camera use it, among other things, to take pictures of other people.

How many times have you heard: "Smile", "Look into the camera", "Hold still", etc?

Well those commands may be OK for a formal portrait, and those are just fine, but this type of picture doesn't really capture the essence of an individual.

What you want is a picture that looks natural, not posed. For this type of shot you'll want your subject to do something other than to stare directly into the lens and have the result look like a mug shot.

This article is written by someone who maintains the same train of thought when it comes to taking people pictures with your digital camera.

Here's more on the way to pose an individual for a naturally good portrait.

»read more from "Digital Photography And People Pictures"