The Pipeline: Budget DSLRs, iTMS turns 2, cheat sheets for Luddites
Welcome to The Pipeline, where we brave the wild waters of the mainstream media to see whether we can stay afloat. This week, we look at a group of cheat sheets for novices (great for getting those cocktail party bores off your back), David Pogue checks out entry-level DSLRs and the Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro celebrates the second birthday of the iTunes store.
With Nikon's recent announcement of its D50 digital SLR camera, this is a good week to take stock of the market for entry-level DSLR cameras. David Pogue takes the lay of the land, with hands-on reviews of the Nikon D70s (pictured) and Canon's Digital Rebel XT. Both boast impressive battery life, with the D70s holding up for as many as 2,500 pics on a charge, and the XT handling a none-too-shabby 600. Pogue finds a lot to like about the XT, from its size (15% smaller and 10% lighter than the original Rebel), speed and autofocus system. In fact, he sees the $1,000 XT as a good choice for people who might have been considering the $1,300 EOS20D: "[T]he list of 20D advantages is now very short. Its primary items include a five-shots-a-second burst mode, slightly better autofocus and low-light sensitivity, and a metal body." Pogue also likes the D70S – particularly its battery life and improved burst mode. Of course, many customers will pick based not on reviews but on their previous investments; if you've got a cache of lenses from one maker or the other, your choice is likely already made.
David Pogue – Professional Cameras, Made for the Amateur. Go Ahead, Say Cheese.
Over at BusinessWeek,
Stephen Wildstrom takes a look at the Samsung P207 cellphone and finds that its voice recognition software actually works — within limits, that is: "Most dictation software aims for two goals: speaker-independence, meaning it will work without being trained to an individual's speech quirks; and continuity, meaning it understands normal speech, where words often run together.
[Samsung] took a different tack. The phone requires that the user spend about five minutes training the software, which involves reading a series words off the display. The speech recognition is then bound to that individual — but given the personal nature of phones, that's a minor issue. Also, the software only tries to understand one word at a time.
... This means you must speak very deliberately, with a brief but distinct pause between words. It takes a little getting used to, but the payoff is accurate recognition." If you use your phone to send a lot of email or text messages but are can't stand punching it out on the keypad, this could come in handy. Otherwise, you may be happy with the way your current phone handles your voice — it lets you use it to talk to people.
Stephen Wildstrom – At Last, A Phone That Takes Dictation
Rob Pegoraro toasts the second birthday of the iTunes Music Store (which comes this Thursday), and uses the milestone as an opportunity to assess the current state of the legal music-downloading biz. His gripes are familiar ones to anyone who has resisted the lure of sites like AllofMP3.com and tried to stay on the straight-and-narrow: missing artists (Beatles, Led Zep), better pricing (like lower per-song prices for back-catalog music), and that old chestnut, inflexible DRM schemes. As Pegoraro puts it:
"Non-copy-controlled downloads: This will sound like heresy to folks at the major music labels, who have insisted that stores selling downloadable copies of their works take measures to control buyers' use of these songs. But is that really necessary?
One answer comes from stores stocking music by independent and minor record labels. The minor-label outlet eMusic.com,
the world-music store Calabash Music, alt-rock retailer DownloadPunk.com and the Smithsonian Institution's upcoming Folkways Global Sound all sell or will sell songs as MP3 files with no copying restrictions. If the smaller labels supplying these stores — all of which lack the majors' entrenched distribution channels, vast marketing budgets and ready access to radio and TV — can survive this way, why not the major labels too?" Will DRM eventually go the way of software copy-protection dongles (are we showing our age here)? Right now, it sure doesn't look like it. But, then again, two years ago most pundits thought consumers would never choose to pay to download music if they could get it for free. A lot has changed, and a lot more will change in the future. In the meantime, Happy Birthday, iTunes — just don't expect us to shell out 99 cents to sing "Happy Birthday to You."
Rob Pegoraro – 5 Ways to Unleash the Music
This was a good week for cheat sheets. As usual, these handy guides are more valuable as ways to placate those relatives and friends who are always asking you for gadget advice than as resources you might use for yourself. A few we like:
Continuing his Spring series of buyers' guides, Walt Mossberg this week takes a look at digicams. Not a lot of specific brand or product recommendations this time, though he does have a lot of useful info that can help novice buyers pick a camera that meets their needs.
Walt Mossberg – Our Annual Guide to Buying A Digital Camera
PC World this week published a guide to DVD burners, which gives the pros and cons of recorders you hook up to a TV
and those you run on a computer. The guide even includes some good info on recording double-layer discs and using PC
video-capture gear – though we suspect that the intended reader of the article will probably opt for a set-top solution and be done with it.
DVD Recorders – A Simple Shopping Guide
USA Today's Edward Baig gives the rundown on wireless protocols — something that can be a little confusing for anyone who doesn't love acronyms and geeky branding attempts as much as we do. If your friends' eyes glaze over when you talk about 802.11g, ZigBee, EV-DO, MIMO and WiMax, hand over Baig's article and give them a multiple-choice test when they're finished reading it.
Edward C. Baig – Making sense of life without wires
Also:
Levy – Tiger's Out This Week. No Bull.
Cringely – WiMaxian Revolution
Dvorak – The Dumbing Down of America
Hesseldahl – Privacy Nuts,
Chill Out