My CES 2012 Top 7 Picks

#1
JCV 4K Camcorder
http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/10/jvc-4k-camcorder/

Why? Because this camera is by far the lowest cost entry into the world of 4k movie making. For 1080p, the world is your oyster. Even my iPhone can do that! But 4K video is massive. This system can put out 2160p60f. Check the 4K display below to show off your video masterpiece.

Why Not? At $5K, this is not in the budget for most people to dabble in 4K. That needs to sink under the $1000 range at least. Maybe in a few years.

#2
Airplay, in everything
http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/10/viasat-12mbps-exede-broadband-gets-official-date-and-data-bund/

Why? Airplay is an Apple technology that some of you have been using for a couple years now. The rest of the world now gets to have some fun too. There were many announcements from major brands now compatible with this standard. It enables your mobile devices to quickly share wirelessly music or video to your TV, computer, or audio appliance. Setting up sharing your multimedia has mostly been restricted to having people huddled over your phone or tablet. Not anymore.

Why Not? There are wireless standards that also allos you to play HD video. WHDI and WirelessHD (WiDi) are great alternatives that push video up to 4K but require new radios to be used that mobile devices don’t have yet. This may end up eventually becoming the replacement technology, but for at least a few years, the AirPlay solution over Wifi makes the most sense.

#3
D-Link 802.11ac Devices
http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/10/d-link-802.11ac/

Why? 1Gbps Wireless routers. This is a substantial bump in speed for your home network.

Why Not? There were no actual products to be announced so this holds even less weight than a vaporware product. Maybe another vendor will announce an actual product.

#4
ViaSat 12Mbps satellite
http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/10/viasat-12mbps-exede-broadband-gets-official-date-and-data-bund/

Why? Most of you will wave this off, but you are people who live is cable and DSL abundant areas that boast about your 50Mbps speeds. If you live in any rural area or the edge of a developed area you are out of luck. This may be a great alternative broadband solution for possibly millions of customers.

#5
Toshiba 55-in 4K 3DTV
http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/08/hands-on-toshibas-55-inch-4k-glasses-free-3dtv/

Why? The 4K world is awesome. It is the next big resolution bump: 480p, 720p, 1080p, 2160p. 4K is 4 times the pixels on screen. By contrast, 720p is 3 times the image than the old 640x480p quality. The TV will upscale older 1080p images so they will appear even better that the original source.

Why Not? It is real but incredibly expensive at this point. Maybe three to fours will knock it down into the sub $4k zone. Also, there is no content available, and scare hardware to decode what you can find out on the internet.

#6
Tamaggo 360-imager
http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/10/tamaggo-360-imager-teams-up-with-your-pc-or-phone-to-take-360-de/

Why? Because this $200 standalone fisheye camera automatically warps the image into a sharp 360°x90° 14MP equirectangular image. A good fisheye lens can cost anywhere from $80-$1000 and you will usually still need to do manipulation to get the results into something that looks good.

Why Not? If you are into this type of photography you can get a similar result at a cheaper price point.

#7
Samsung / LG 55-inch OLED TV
http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/10/samsung-55-inch-super-oled-tv-eyes-on-video/

Why? Because this is the largest OLED display to be shown as far. While this product is not to market yet, it shows that it could be released in the near future.

Why Not? The current largest OLED display is only 25″ and is over $6k. The market has been working on the OLED recipe diligently for more than 30 years to get it right. That doesn’t bode well for this TV to ever hit the market, much less cost anything under a king’s ransom.

 
(Updated 1/11/2012)

iPhone Camera Comparison

Below is a table of the evolution of the iPhone camera system with features and specifications. The newest iPhone 4S includes an image signal processor to speed up functions of the capture and image processing system.

Apple Claim’s
* Increased Light (+73%) (Contrary to the sensor specifications, only 37% of what is claimed, would need to be 2.6x better to match up with the numbers. 848 mV (lux-sec))
** Increased Capture Speed (+33%)

*** Update: Even though the resolution and other specs matchup, a recent tear-down has shown that Apple has started using Sony as sensor supplier. This can explain the sensitivity mismatch when the sensor was previously believed to be Omnivision’s OV8830 sensor. http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/14/first-iphone-4s-image-sensor-to-be-identified-comes-from-sony/

Pano

Casa Mar Condos, Siesta Key, Florida on 7/3/2009 at 3:21 PM.
Nikon Coolpix S210 with Magnetic Fisheye Lens.
Click here for 360×180 Equirectangular image.
Click here to download Quicktime VR.

Taken with 8 shots horizontal, 1 up, 1 down. Had a real issue aligning bottom photo, major flaws and cleanup in Photoshop.

Pano

On Beach in front of Casa Mar Condos, Siesta Key, Florida on 7/3/2009 at 5:26 PM.
Nikon Coolpix S210 with Magnetic Fisheye Lens.
Click here for 360×180 Equirectangular image.
Click here to download Quicktime VR.

Taken with 8 shots horizontal, 1 up, 1 down. Still having issues aligning bottom photo, major flaws and cleanup in Photoshop.

Here is a list of the current line up of large flat 3D HDTVs that are not DLP. (as of October 2010) Major systems lacking a 3D option so far include Philips , JVC, and Sanyo.

65″ Panasonic TC-P65VT25
65″ Samsung UN65C8000XF
60″ Sharp LC-60LE925UN
60″ LG PX950
60″ Sony XBR-60LX900
55″ Toshiba 55WX800U
55″ Vizio XVT3D554SV

Here are some Ted Talks on nutrition and health. I don’t fully support all of the claims within these presentations, but they are insightful and provocative.

Dean Ornish talks about simple, low-tech and low-cost ways to take advantage of the body’s natural desire to heal itself.

Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.

Speaking at the 2007 EG conference, “renegade lunch lady” Ann Cooper talks about the coming revolution in the way kids eat at school — local, sustainable, seasonal and even educational food.

In this fiery and funny talk, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what’s wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it’s putting the entire planet at risk.

We all know the arguments that being vegetarian is better for the environment and for the animals — but in a carnivorous culture, it can be hard to make the change. Graham Hill has a powerful, pragmatic suggestion: Be a weekday veg.

William Li presents a new way to think about treating cancer and other diseases: anti-angiogenesis, preventing the growth of blood vessels that feed a tumor. The crucial first (and best) step: Eating cancer-fighting foods that cut off the supply lines and beat cancer at its own game.

Below is a chart of what digital camera’s I have owned. It’ revealing in the fact that it almost took until the mid-2000s to actually get a useful somewhat cheap digital camera. My iPhone 3G’s camera can take way better shots than many of these early generation cameras.

Taken with the Nikon D5000 and Tamron 18-270mm on a tripod. Image was merged with 2 exposures and manipulated with Photoshop and iPhoto.

Happy Birthday Ella!

Link to Facebook Gallery: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=115686&id=675773015
Link to Qik video: http://qik.com/video/3088877

This site is using the premium virtual server package from GoDaddy.com. It seems to be rather slow compared to a year ago, but I don’t have any metrics to back that up. I think that their virtual load-balancing currently causes severe variability in performance. Here is some data from a recent speed test. Is this good?

Load times for http://michaelmacal.com/blog from http://WebWait.com during non-peak weekend time (Sat @ 8:45pm):

Average: 8.16s. Median: 3.97s. StdDev: 4.935s. From 30 calls.
[1] 6.78s
[2] 4.85s
[3] 7.38s
[4] 3.25s
[5] 8.66s
[6] 10.76s
[7] 6.19s
[8] 11.92s
[9] 20.14s
[10] 24.95s
[11] 10.09s
[12] 7.99s
[13] 3.38s
[14] 3.24s
[15] 7.19s
[16] 13.63s
[17] 3.52s
[18] 4.18s
[19] 3.63s
[20] 4.14s
[21] 5.41s
[22] 4.93s
[23] 14.38s
[24] 4.64s
[25] 3.01s
[26] 7.10s
[27] 3.29s
[28] 4.59s
[29] 5.28s
[30] 3.04s

Pano

Casa Mar Condos, Siesta Key, Florida on 7/3/2009 at 4:50 PM.
Nikon Coolpix S210 with Magnetic Fisheye Lens.
Click here for 360×180 Equirectangular image.
Click here to download Quicktime VR.

Taken with 8 shots horizontal, 1 up, 1 down. Had a real issue aligning bottom photo, major flaws and cleanup in Photoshop.

Pano

East Fork Cabins #6, Greer Arizona on 9/7/2009 at 4:36 PM.
Nikon Coolpix S210 with Magnetic Fisheye Lens.
Click here for 360×180 Equirectangular image.
Click here to download Quicktime VR.

Taken with 7 shots horizontal, 2 up, 2 down. Best result so far with slight cleanup in Photoshop.