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A week with Leica's T, the most beautiful mirrorless camera money can buy
Leica's cameras have always been good-looking, and they've always been expensive. You might expect the German camera maker's most visually stunning model yet to cost more than a pretty penny, and it does, but at $1,850 (body only), it's also one of the company's most affordable interchangeable-lens cameras to date. The Leica T, machined from a single block of aluminum and hand-polished for 45 minutes, is not going to be produced by the millions and marketed around the world. And considering the nearly $2,000 you'll pay for each of the camera's brand-new lenses, you can definitely invest in a more capable camera system for less. But the T is a work of art, and people will pay ridiculous sums for a desirable piece. This one just also happens to take pictures.
Leica's T mirrorless camera is built from a solid brick of aluminum
Leica's been making cameras for a full century this year, and to celebrate, it's just now getting around to releasing an interchangeable-lens camera that you might actually be able to afford... until you factor in the glass. Priced around $1,850 (without a lens), the T looks like a camera that you might want to own. Its core is chiseled from a solid brick of aluminum, resulting in a beautiful body (that's equally durable). There's a 16-megapixel APS-C sensor, a 3.7-inch high-res touchscreen, a 12,500 top ISO, 1080p video capture, a 5 fps continuous shooting mode and a pair of top-mounted control wheels for adjusting exposure. There's also integrated WiFi, and you can pop on an optional electronic viewfinder, if that's your thing.
RIM's BlackBerry Bold slider with OS 6 does a little dance, gets down tonight (video)
Pictures are great, but video's better. What holds true for salacious celebrity tattle is equally true for gadget gossip. So hold tight and prepare to leer, we've got the first quick and dirty video of RIM's new Bold slider running BlackBerry 6 after the break. Somebody alert TMZ.
Leaked Lenovo roadmap shows Calpella laptops coming January 2010?
Our compatriots at Engadget Chinese have happened upon what looks to be a roadmap for Lenovo's upcoming laptops between now and March 2010. Recently in the wild T400s is on there, slated for mid-July or so, with a pair of new SL models following in August. More interesting than all that, however, is the sheer number of new X, T, W, SL, and SLc laptops listed for the beginning of 2010 that utilize Intel's upcoming Calpella platform. We're not gonna put too much stock into these pictures right now, but it definitely raises a few eyebrows. More slides after the break.
Details surface for future ThinkPads: X200, SL, T and R series
Hang on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen -- we've got a preposterously large helping of ThinkPad news coming at you tonight. We're talking details and photographs of the forthcoming X200, SL, T, and R series laptops, so without further adieu, let's get to know the X200 a touch better. Preliminary slides are hinting at the following hardware: 12-inch WXGA panel 45nm Core 2 Duo CPUs up to 2.4GHz Intel Centrino 2 with vPro technology SSDs up to 64GB WiMAX / WWAN / GPS / WiFi / UWB / Bluetooth Magnesium alloy top and bottom covers 9.6-hours of battery life on the 9-cell pack DDR3 RAM 1.3-megapixel camera DisplayPort connector 3 USB ports Starts at 2.93 pounds If we've already got you hot and bothered, you should probably grab a dry towel before heading on past the break. There's more where this came from.
Does Smash Bros. Brawl merit a Teen rating?
We've all had a week to "FALCON PUNCH!" our way through the Wii's latest mega-anticipated title, scrambling for an innumerable amount of Smash Balls and mastering our technique with the subtly complex Jigglypuff, but in our excitement, we can't forget that group who is unable to join the Super Smash Bros. Brawl parade -- we speak, of course, of the twelve-and-under crowd, who are excluded from the party due to the game's Teen rating from the ESRB.A blogger for San Jose's Mercury News recently called the mildly restrictive rating into question, claiming that the "crude humor" and "cartoon violence" present in the game is comparable to any number of children's TV shows. While we're usually not ones to disagree with North America's most esteemed game graders, we can't help but see where he's coming from.What do you think about the rating -- is it completely unmerited, or does the game really run the risk of inspiring youngsters to attack one another with trophies and hammers?
Three carriers now offering service on Boston's subway
It seems that one of the last few cellphone-proof havens in the world is giving in at a fairly brisk pace now, with New York most notably committing to adding phone service in train stations. After a couple of aborted attempts in years past, Boston's T has now signed up to do the same with AT&T lighting up service in four stations this week (Verizon and T-Mobile did the same earlier this month). Though your call's currently going to drop as soon as the train leaves the station, the plan is to eventually blanket tunnels and other stations -- assuming carriers see that customers are using the service and are willing to foot the bill. The transit authority has wisely already put up signs in trains encouraging folks to keep calls quiet and quick, though with any luck, the racket of the trains and the crowds will limit most usage to data and texting anyhow.[Via textually.org and ITBusinessEdge]
Boston Herald created GTA controversy, politicians followed [update 1]
The Political Game piece by Dennis McCauley of GamePolitics helped highlight a little story from Boston this week about controversial advertisements on the MBTA public transportation system, known as the T, for GTA: Vice City Stories. As a Boston native and resident it behooves me to give a little more context to the T and, more importantly, The Boston Herald who hyped this story.None of the organizations or politicians demanding the T pull the ads have a leg to stand on without admitting to massive hypocrisy. GTA: Liberty City Stories, released last year, had advertisements all over the T and nobody said anything about it. There is also a profusion of liquor advertisements and far more potentially "objectionable" advertisements on the T. The head of the T, Daniel Grabauskas, promised to begin the process of amending the MBTA's advertising guidelines to prohibit M- and AO-rated games in the future. How are liquor ads promoting something that can only be purchased by someone 21+ appropriate for the public transportation system, but games for 17 year-olds and older inappropriate?A little context probably needs to be given to how this story got to this level. The Boston Herald and their reporters pander to the lowest common denominator and have been the ones pounding the drums of war on this issue. The Boston Globe may initially report on a story, but The Boston Herald sensationalizes it. If you live in a two newspaper town you know there is typically one standard paper (The Boston Globe) and one white-trash yellow-journalism fear-mongering newspaper (The Boston Herald). The Boston Herald is dying, having laid off most of its staff, and in its death throes hypes trash to gain attention, attempting to sell bundles of newspapers nobody will buy, which are then given away for free on the streets to keep circulation numbers artificially inflated. As long as Boston politicians finally learn to ignore The Boston Herald -- the same way the readership and citizenry of Boston has -- then issues like this will not occur again. What's even better is for all their faux outrage now, in early November The Boston Herald said GTA: Vice City Stories and GTA: Liberty City Stories "may be the most entertaining games available for the PSP."(Update 1: Fixed a few minor bits of the grammar)
