The only thing you need besides Magic Lantern (and a Canon 5D MK3, which currently sells for around $2899) is of course a fast Memory Card. Here are confirmed cards that work well with RAW Video recording:

Recommended Compact Flash Cards (160MB/s read, 120MB/s write)
Transcend CompactFlash Card (CF) 1000x 16GB
Transcend CompactFlash Card (CF) 1000x 32GB
Transcend CompactFlash Card (CF) 1000x 64GB

Recommended SD Cards
SanDisk Extreme Pro 16 GB SDHC Class 10 UHS-1 Flash Memory Card 95MB/s SDSDXPA-016G-AFFP
SanDisk Extreme Pro 32 GB SDHC Class 10 UHS-1 Flash Memory Card 95MB/s SDSDXPA-032G-AFFP

While the Butterfly Labs ASIC devices operate at much less kilowatts per hashrate, they are actually still not really delivered - though there are some online offers already.

"Buy Now" price is 40.000$, so lets see how much people are willing to pay to actually get an ASIC.

Not anymore, since the Nvidia Geforce GTX Titan (GK110 chipset) is working on OSX 10.8.4 with official Nvidia drivers. There are already some awesome hackintosh case mods and builds out there.

Netkas reported the card working on April 2nd. Furthermore, there is a possible ROM-hack to get the card working on Mac Pro machines, making it the fastest video card you can possibly put into your Apple Mac Pro.

The current discussions and experiences from the hackintosh community are promising, though we might see several driver updates in the coming weeks. CUDA is supported, also OpenCL is reported working, though strangely not with all different vendor models.

If you want to stay on the bleeding edge, here are recommended cards that people reported working with hackintosh:

ASUS GeForce GTX TITAN 6GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card GTXTITAN-6GD5

EVGA GeForce GTX TITAN SuperClocked Signature 6GB GDDR5 384-Bit, Dual-Link DVI-I, DVI-D, HDMI,DP, SLI Ready Graphics Card 06G-P4-2793-KR

If you want to be on the safe side, get the EVGA GeForce GTX 680 2048MB GDDR5, DVI, DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort, 4-way SLI Ready Graphics Card Graphics Cards 02G-P4-2680-KR which is working flawlessly and costs only half of the current Titan price...

The card is said to boost GPU performance of existing Mac Pro models by up to 200%, which is especially interesting for people doing video and photography work on Apple Mac Pro machines.

The Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition is currently available for $479,00 in the US.

Exclusive to SAPPHIRE, the HD 7950 Mac Edition is based on AMD’s latest Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture. This highly acclaimed architecture delivers a significant graphics performance boost for Mac Pro users in a wide range of applications including gaming, audio or video editing and content creation. For example, gaming frame rates are increased by over 200%, general benchmark performance increased by around 30% and graphics intensive benchmarks increased by as much as 300% compared with the NV 8800GT commonly used in these machines (SAPPHIRE internal data).

The SAPPHIRE HD 7950 Mac Edition is equipped with 3GB of the latest GDDR5 memory, and its Dual Asynchronous Compute Engines (ACE) deliver up to 2.87 TFLOPS Single Precision compute power. It provides hardware support for Open GL 4.2 and Open CL 1.2 as well as AMD HD3D technology and APP acceleration.

While this is not so big news for Hackintosh owners, it is for people that have to work on an original Apple Mac Pro from 2010. For Hackintosh still the EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Classified, 4GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort is the fastest card to get, featuring a chip clock of 1111MHz, shader clock of 1006MHz and RAM clock of 1502MHz.

So we clearly have a winner here, which works perfectly together with the Atomos Ninja (available for $649.00) and also the Black Magic Hyperdeck Shuttle (available for $327.75)

With the current hype around the Black Magic Cinema Camera, this one might be a gadget to ease the waiting - since i already own a D800E, i ordered the Nikon D5200 as a second camera for filming only. The APS-C sensor of the camera offers a good and affordable solution to double the available optics (crop mode of ca. 2x). I might get additional wide angle lenses to cover 48mm and 70mm with the D5200.

Here is some other update news of the recent ML update by Apple: About the OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.3 Update, which also contains various security fixes:

New Kexts:
ATI7000Controller.kext
AMDRadeonX4000GLDriver.bundle
nVida kexts (ver. 8.10.18 304.10.65a13) included.

As of March 24, 2013, the AMD Radeon HD 7970, 7950, 7870, 7770, and 7750 have been confirmed to work "out of the box" (without the need for additional drivers), while the AMD Radeon HD 7850 only works with specially edited kext files.

The fastest AMD Radeon (that is confirmed to work) is the the Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB GDDR5 DVI-I/HDMI/2x Mini-Displayport PCI-E 3.0 Graphics Card GV-R797OC-3GD

In other news: Sapphire launched Radeon 7950 based Mac Graphics Card, that is supposed to work out-of-the-box on a Mac Pro and supposedly also on Hackintosh computers.

We already reported various times about the Black Magic Cinema Camera (BMCC) on nanofunk (you can read more about it in our archives) , but officially the camera was very hard to get hands on yet. Blackmagic made lots of local press viewings and there are a bunch of demo-units out, but this is big news. We just ordered an EF-Mount version. Be fast though - the demand is very high on this camera. As EOSHD pointed out: the Blackmagic Cinema Camera can be seen as disruptive technology, since it might be a game changer in terms of production-workflow speed (SSD recorder included), picture quality and especially since it comes with the color correction suite "Davinci", which makes it perfect for independent filmers.

For people in Europe: there is only one Black Magic Cinema camera in Berlin, ready to pick up, all the other offers are international orders.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5, X79 (quad PC3-10667U DDR3)
CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2690, 8x 2.90GHz, Sockel-2011, boxed
RAM: Kingston HyperX Beast DIMM XMP Kit 64GB PC3-17066U CL11-12-11 (DDR3-2133)
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Classified, 4GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DP (1111MHz)
CASE: Fractal Design Define R4 Titanium Grey Computer Case

We bought original Apple peripherals, such as the Magic Mouse and an Apple Keyboard. If you care about Apple Replica Items you might want to read our previous article: Save Money with replica Apple Hardware: the good and the bad.

The system has a Geekbench score of approx. 30.000, so it is perfect for doing media and encoding work (Adobe Premiere, Pro Tools, Final Cut Pro, etc.).

* 129 EUR for the upgrade to Ableton Live 9 Standard
* 169 EUR for the upgrade to Ableton Live Suite 9
* 618 EUR for the Upgrade to Ableton Live Suite 9 including the new Push Controller

Ableton Live 9 features 3000+ Sounds (54 GB), 9 Instruments, 40 Effects and 'Max for Live'. Sadly there is no additional discount for people that bought a Max4Live license, which was 99 EUR back then. Push is a new controller by Ableton, which looks quite similar to the Akai APC - and actually the hardware was built by Akai for Ableton:

Push is a new instrument that solves an old problem: how to make a song from scratch. With hands-on control of melody and harmony, beats, sounds, and song structure, Push puts the fundamental elements of music making at your fingertips - and it fits in a backpack alongside your laptop.

Push has the same approach like Native Instruments' Machine hardware controller - only it features 64 pads which is significantly more. Integration with Ableton Live is perfect, we would not expect anything else. Still this device is not the all-in-one solution for your mobile studio. You will need a device with knobs and a small keyboard to make your mobile studio perfect.
Recommendation: get the Korg MicroKey as mobile Keyboard and a Kenton Killamix Mini top have some more knobs on the go. If you are brave, get the Korg MS-20 mini, which is not available yet. It features a keyboard, knobs and interface with USB-port.

Miasma [...] first caught public attention with their large-scale theatrical vision “Call for Reduction! (in effigie)”, staged in summer 2012 at the former Ankerbrotfabrik in Vienna. [...] manifested as an intermedial happening with more than 70 participating artists from very diverse genres. A stunning installation provided the framework for the theatrical aspect of the performance and its realisation with various media. A number of HD cameras and the latest streaming technologies were employed to edit the images live and broadcast them online in real time. (Source: Donaufestival)

You can get more information about the show on their twitter account @miasmatotal, their facebook page or watch a trailer of their last production on youtube.

We had a short Skype interview with the group ArtisticBokeh, telling us more about the technical background and the challenge of working with extended theatre in the time of the internet and fragmented narrations. (Read the full interview inside)

Nanofunk: Thanks for taking the time for that interview. What is your background and how did you come to work with MIASMA?

ArtisticBokeh: We have a Background of New Media Arts and filming as well as visual arts (photography, graphics design) - but we are always asking ourselves how to extend and improve our artistic as well as technical practice. We are working with diverse artists in different fields and try to develop new things that were not there before.

Nanofunk: Regarding MIASMA - as far as I understood it, you are streaming a theatre piece to the net; that was there before, I am quite sure about it.

ArtisticBokeh: Maybe we have to clarify what the background of our work with MIASMA is - we do not actually only stream the show to our servers, we are developing wireless camera rigs that are completely without cables (wireless HD-SDI, power units, etc.) and also have a RAW-Video workflow where the camera footage is recorded in the best possible way for post-processing. At the same time we feed a live-studio that creates an instant cut (live-cutting) that gets broadcasted online.

Nanofunk: So much like a sports-transmission, such as in soccer or the olympic games? (laughing)

ArtisticBokeh: Well you can call it that, but there is much more to it. We had to include the cameramen in the play, since they were visible all the time, moving with the actors. This fact had to be included in the script of the play. We used 50mm lenses for the mobile camera rigs (which represent the natural viewpoint of human eyesight) and zoom-lenses that were mounted on regular TV-cameras that were on a so called "media tower" that were representing the observation-view. So we could also switch to two possible viewpoints for the narration. The actors had quite a lot to deal with, since they had to play for the camera as well as for the live audience. The media tower was hijacked by Marie Müller, (the main character of the play) during the performance.

Nanofunk: So how did the whole show work out for you and especially for the audience? Did the responses differ from people watching the film to those being actually there at the performance?

ArtisticBokeh: One funny fact was, that parts of the audience started to come to the live-cutting room, since the visual material was very exceptional. We used 2x Nikon D800E cameras with raw-HDMI to HD-SDI workflow - the cameras were operated by professionals that are both good filmers as well as photographers. The experience for people were quite different, since film is totally different from theatre. In movies, you cannot change your viewpoint, every scene is defined by the director. In a theatre play this is very different - as a viewer you can look in another direction or actually feel the room and space in another way. We are trying to develop new approaches to bring those very different ways of experiences much more closer together, with new technologies - but also by observing ourselves and constantly extending our horizon of possibilities.

Nanofunk: How are you accomplishing this? Do you guys have investors or how is the whole thing financed?

ArtisticBokeh: We (ArtisticBokeh) are part of a research project in Vienna, Austria; so we have some funding for research and a laboratory. The problem is that we need a huge technical setup, also we need cameras, new technology and constantly need to monitor new developments in the sectors of DIY-video. We are supported by etas high tech systems, which let us test and rent equipment from their huge stock. Miasma (the structure behind the plays and the performances) is partly supported by private sponsors. The first show of MIASMA at the Ankerbrotfabrik Expedithalle in Vienna, Austria (2012) was quite expensive for us, since we had to push lots of money and effort into the whole thing to get a working setup. We split the hardware expenses 50/50 with the theatre company.
We are still searching for sponsors and companies that can support us with hardware. We are quite good at reviewing gear, we had around 10 issues with the Atomos Ninja 2 recorders, so thats what we can basically offer to companies supporting us - testing their stuff in real-world situations and coming up with new ways to use their hardware.

Nanofunk: Can you tell us more about the next show at donaufestival in Austria and what we can expect there?

ArtisticBokeh: The show at donaufestival will take place on the 27.April 2013 titled "Part II: Black Sea Washing Machine (metamorphosis)". We are filming cameras supporting 12Bit RAW 2.5K video, so we have quite an upgrade of the technology; also our Nikon D800E cameras have been extended with a custom made rig, a followfocus and a better dynamic range than we had at the first play. The play is much shorter (it will be 2hours) although much more complex: there are two different audiences (outdoor, indoor) and we will mix them at a later point. Especially from a perspective of planning and scripting, this is a big challenge for us. We are basically working since end of 2012 on this, so there is much to expect.

Nanofunk: I will be there watching and taking photos ;)

ArtisticBokeh: Even if you are not physically there, you can watch the livestream on miasma.is and on the donaufestival website, although it's not the same of course.

Nanofunk: So are you planning to create a movie or why are you recording the footage?

ArtisticBokeh: We are thinking about it. But making a "classical" movie production would not fit to the ambitious nature of the project. We are currently twisting our heads around new narrations in the web, i cannot tell too much about it, since we are currently developing around that.

Nanofunk: Thanks for the interview, I will definitely continue following your project!

ArtisticBokeh: Thanks also for having us!

ArtisticBokeh is an "experimental documentation group" located in Vienna, Austria. They are working with the group MIASMA on "new theatre / film hybrids" and can be found on twitter, facebook as well as in the www on artisticbokeh.com.

There is another good reason to use NameCheap as domain registrar: they are supporting the EFF - Electronic Frontier Foundation; in their recent "Domain Moving Day" NameCheap was raising $44.311,50 to support the EFF.

If you know about other interesting services and sites supporting BitCoin, let us know. Nanofunk is moving all domains to NameCheap soon, so should you.

An unknown activist leaked 35GB of compressed data on 2011-07-21 05:20:52 via piratebay, stating:

"This archive contains 18,592 scientific publications totaling 33GiB, all from Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and which should be available to everyone at no cost, but most have previously only been made available at high prices through paywall gatekeepers like JSTOR. Limited access to the documents here is typically sold for $19 USD per article, though some of the older ones are available as cheaply as $8. Purchasing access to this collection one article at a time would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars." (source: thepiratebay)

There are currently two torrents spread via thepiratebay which actually can be seen as a distributed p2p-protest.

Another anonymous poster stated: "Aaron Swartz was was an internet activist. He believed tha information should be free. He co-authored the RSS 1.0 spec. He released about 20% of the PACER database of US Federal Court Documents. He set up a laptop in a utility closet at MIT and downloaded 35GB of the JSTOR archive. Clearly he was a great risk to society. The feds arrested him. If he had been found guilty, he could have faced up to 50 years in prison, and a $4 million dollar fine. Wrap you head around that." (source: thepiratebay)

R.I.P. Aaron Swartz - JSTOR archive 35GB
Papers from Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, fro
(original torrent)

Currently there is a big open access and open source paper spree going on via twitter. People are releasing their PDF publications free and available online via the #pdftribute hashtag. The website pdftribute.net automatically scrapes all the published tweets in that context.

There is lots of response to the death of Aaron Swartz, who released the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto in 2008. Lawrence Lessig wrote an angry letter to the M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) - and other people, such as Dana Boyd, Cory Doctorow and Tim Berners-Lee expressed their sadness and rage: after all, Swartz was facing more prison time than murderers. An international discussion has started, fueling the question on harsh prosecution of cybercrimes (see in this context: nymag.com).

Still we can hope that sad events such as this one might get people to start thinking beyond their horizon - for example actually demanding real open access!

You can follow us on Twitter @nanofunk and if you want to support us, go buy some funk records on ebay ;)

And last but not least: if you did not see our 404 Page, you should! There was a song and video composed for it by a lolcat band: the roflcats! I can has 404!

Fact 1: Apple OSX 10.5 Leopard currently sells for up to $249.99 on amazon.
Fact 2: Apple OSX 10.5 Leopard sells between $50 and $70 on ebay.

So either you have an old installation DVD lying around somewhere, then sell it (on amazon, obviously) or you could just buy from ebay and sell on amazon. I am too lazy to do it, just wanted to provide a quick heads-up.

You can create a decent Mac Mini Clone for as cheap as $311.23 - earlyadopterdemands compiled three different builds:

Recommended Cheap Build: Hackintosh Mini i3/4GB RAM/250GB HD
Recommended Mid-Range Build: Hackintosh Mini i5/8GB RAM/500GB HD
Recommended High-End Build: Hackintosh Mini i7/16GB RAM/Solid State Hybrid/Geforce 650

You can read more details at the guide page. Please let us know if you want to see guides for specific topics or have tips you want to share with us.

* DSLR Video: Panasonic GH2 and GH3 hacked
* Guide to BlackMagic Design Cinema Camera

The guides are by no means complete, they should be an initial aim to compile all the existing information to said topics - please send us feedback and links to resources or more information you want to see included. Also, if you have ideas or request for other guides, let us know.

I will keep you updated on possible ways to order the Black Magic Cinema Camera (EF as well as MFT mount), since I am also actively searching for this camera. Expect various offers on ebay and amazon (as well as on other sites) to pop up soon.

I was able to recently test the EF-Version at a local BMD-distributor store and I have to say, it is awsome. I could not test the included software bundle, but the camera handling itself was great. I will post a review video with photos and more info once I get my hands on again (which will be soon, believe me). Also, drop us an email if you have sample videos or recent information on availability!

Lens Caps
I am buying lots of second-hand m42, MFT, Nikon F-Mount and Canon lenses, and most of them come without lens caps. Still Lens Caps, Body Caps, rear and front plates for your optics (also for Sony, Olympus, Panansonic, Leica, etc.) can be as low as $0.09 including shipping, if you know where to search for it: Lens Caps from Hong Kong with free worldwide shipping. If you are getting packs of 5 or 10, it's even cheaper. There are "branded" ones (Canon, Nikon, etc.) as well as generic ones. Make sure to select the proper diameter (52mm, 55mm, 62mm, 75mm, etc.)

Remote Controls
Wireless Remote Controls for your DSLR camera can also be a bargain: the RC-6 Remote Control For Canon EOS 5DII 7D 60D 500D 550D 600D is selling for as low as $1.41 (free shipping), while the "Nikon ML-L3 (for 1 J2, 1 V2, D40, D40x, D50, D60, D70s, D80, D90, D600, D3000, D3200, D5200, F65, F75, Coolpix P7000, P7100) already sells for $1.25 (free shipping). There are wired remote controls as well (if you prefer that), which are strangely a little more expensive. Batteries are included in all of those cheap items, I used already two different branded remote controls and cannot complain.

Gorillapad Knockoffs for $2.50
I don't know if you are familiar with the Gorilla Pod - "a bendable, flexible camera tripod that lets photographers attach their digital camera to any surface. The Gorillapod can be wrapped around a railing at a theme park, twisted onto a tree branch, looped around a baby carriage, hung from a doorknob, or perched on a rock during a hike. The possibilities are endless." There are different sizes of the Gorillapod, Knockoffs are selling for as cheap as $2.50 including worldwide shipping. I already ordered 5 of them, since they are the perfect gift for amateur and hobby photographers and filmers. Recommended!

Single or Double Axis Bubble Spirit Level Gradienter on Camera Hot Shoe
This is certainly a lot of fun (and useful): I recently dropped my Hot-Shoe Cap and wanted to order a new one (which is basically like 0.10$), but then I stumbled upon those even better replacements for my original Hot-Shoe "saver": a level gradient (water bubble leveller) for any Camera that actually has a Hot-Shoe. There are single-level ones, which actually have the same size than the original plastic, and dual-axis ones, which are a bit higher. Totally recommended and dead-cheap: they are selling for around $1 including free worldwide shipping.

Lens Adapters: Canon to MFT, Nikon to Micro Four Thirds, Canon to Panasonic, etc.
Lens Adapters can be very expensive, professional ones such as the Redrock Micro M2 Cinema Lens Adapter for Nikon Lenses goes for $199, there are also very cheap ones which are selling for around $14:
* Leica R Lens to Micro 4/3 M4/3 MFT Adapter Panasonic G2 G3 G10 GF2 GF1 GH1 GH2
* M42 Lens To Micro 4/3 MFT G2 G10 GF1 E-P2 E-P1
* Micro Four Thirds 4/3 M43 lens to Sony E NEX-5 NEX-3 NEX-C3 NEX-5N VG-10 or Olympus Adapter

All these Items are with free international shipping, even when shipping to Europe or Australia. The cheapest Lens-Adapter I could find (that I needed, there might be even cheaper ones out there) is the C mount to Micro Four-Thirds Adapter - M4/3 M43 Thin! N172 that sells for around $3. I already ordered lots of those adapters and generally I am satisfied. For professional use (and if you can afford it), the Novoflex Adapters are worth checking out. While they are much more expensive (up to $200 or more), they offer easy and fast lens changing and have perfectly adjusted focus-to-infinity.

There are of course a lot more camera and video deals out there. Let us know via email (audioreservoir_gmail) if you have any recommendations for us.

"protect against data loss in temperatures up to 1550° F for 30 minutes per ASTM E119 or being submerged to a depth of 10 feet for up to 3 days. 12 months Data Recovery Service Standard. Up to $2,500.00 towards the cost of third-party forensic data recovery, one time, for any reason including accidental deletion, hard drive failure, fires, floods, etc. Upgradeable to 3 or 5 years. Microsoft Server, Linux, Mac and PC Compatible, USB 3.0 or eSATA, and USB 2.0 Connectivity."

The ioSafe SoloPRO 1 TB is the entry-level that starts at $234.99 while the ioSafe SK3TB SOLO G3 Fireproof and Waterproof External Hard Drive 3TB sells for around $400 on amazon.

Technology Trends of 2013

gartner.com published a list of technology trends for 2013, that is a quite interesting read.

Mobile Device Battles - mobile devices will continue to rise and by 2015 80% of the handsets sold will be smartphones. With the recent release of Canonical's Ubuntu Mobile we are coming one step closer to this.

Mobile Applications and HTML5 - according to Garnter, no single client will be optimal to display all types of content. He predicts that HTML5 will gain popularity. Well, this is not so new - if you were not hiding in the basement for the last few years, you heard of (and are maybe already using) HTML5. The HTML 5 standard was recently finished by the W3C, making HTML 5.1 the next thing to wait for.

Personal Cloud - the personal cloud will replace the PC as location. What? Maybe in the USA, but in places such as Austria or Germany, the current upload rates are so poor, people might not even completely switch to webmail yet. Gartner still stays positive: "The personal cloud shifts the focus from the client device to cloud-based services delivered across devices."

Enterprise App Stores - according to the report, by 2014 many organizations will deliver mobile applications to workers through private application stores. "With enterprise app stores the role of IT shifts from that of a centralized planner to a market manager providing governance and brokerage services to users and potentially an ecosystem to support apptrepreneurs."

The Internet of Things - "The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that describes how the Internet will expand as physical items such as consumer devices and physical assets are connected to the Internet." Embedded sensors, image recognition technologies and NFC payment, just to name a few. Cellular technology is being embedded in lots of devices, not only mobile phones. Next up might be watches, televisions (Apple TV) among things you might not expect being online.

Hybrid IT and Cloud Computing -  "The internal CSB role represents a means for the IT organization to retain and build influence inside its organization and to become a value center in the face of challenging new requirements relative to increasing adoption of cloud as an approach to IT consumption."

Strategic Big Data - "Big Data is moving from a focus on individual projects to an influence on enterprises’ strategic information architecture. Dealing with data volume, variety, velocity and complexity is forcing changes to many traditional approaches. This realization is leading organizations to abandon the concept of a single enterprise data warehouse containing all information needed for decisions. Instead they are moving towards multiple systems, including content management, data warehouses, data marts and specialized file systems tied together with data services and metadata, which will become the "logical" enterprise data warehouse."

Actionable Analytics - IT leaders can afford to perform analytics for (almost) every action taken in the business - with the improved performance and lower costs of cloud-based analytic engines and Big Data repositories. Simulations are on the rise, among predictions optimizations and other analytics. Business analytics applications might see a big rise with the cloud and with Big Data.

In Memory Computing (IMC) - Certain (digital) processes can be dramatically improved from hour-long batch processes to minutes or even seconds by delivering them to end-users via cloud services. "Millions of events can be scanned in a matter of a few tens of millisecond to detect correlations and patterns pointing at emerging opportunities and threats as things happen.". Lots of in-memory-based solutions will appear over the next two years driving this approach into mainstream use.

Integrated Ecosystems - according to Gartner, the market is shifting to more integrated systems and ecosystems and away from loosely coupled heterogeneous approaches. This actually is another term for "virtualization" (or cloud computing), meaning the user will see less hardware and get more bang for the buck in return (in terms of computing cycles and processor speeds, or maximum IO performance). The new part in this context is for the business side: "In the mobile world, vendors including Apple, Google and Microsoft drive varying degrees of control across and end-to-end ecosystem extending the client through the apps.", meaning those companies will fragment the webs even more, making use of proprietary new protocols and squeeze out more money by saving their costs.

Two guest bloggers of nanofunk.com - namely dslr4video and earlyadopterdemands recently joined forces in a new studio-space that they are sharing now in Austria. They asked me to promote their current studio-closing-sale, which is intended to raise money for a prototyping lab they are setting up.

They also created a blog where their stuff is listed (nanofunk was already recommending it some time ago) - please take a look for yourself, it is located at www.consumelog.net.

dslr4video has lots of items from their previous studio that are for sale now, including various Hackintosh configurations, SLR cameras and tons of other stuff. A partial list is available on ebay.com as well as on ebay.de, though the full list on consumelog is much larger. Please contact them directly for any questions regarding the items.

A press release just reached me via email: the group ArtisticBokeh finished a project, combining a theatre play with a video/film shooting. According to the press release, the used hardware for realizing the piece (and a live stream setup for online viewers) were

* 2x Nikon D800E Cameras
* Black Magic Hyperdeck Shuttle 2
* Atomos Ninja 2
* 2 Wireless HDMI Devices: brite-View HDelight BV-1222 (USA), CM3 WHDICM3 Wireless HDMI (Europe)

Miasma – Call for Reduction was an initial prototype that combined the media/formats of theatre and film: in three days, the performance that took place in the viennese ‘Alte Ankerbrotfabrik’ was interwoven with a movie-shooting. The actual production included the DSLR-cameramen – the cameras were not hidden from the public, but rather included in the storytelling and the stage set. ‘Call for Reduction’ was not only a performative experiment, but also consisted of various experiments with new media technologies as well as new audiences and forms of reception regarding the story-complex and the fictional world of Marie Müller, the main character of the play.

In my opinion, this project perfectly shows how a creative combination of camera and computer hardware can bring new perspectives to rather "old artforms" such as theatre. According to the press release, the group will work on additional prototypes with self-developed camera rigs and settings. You can follow them on twitter and subscribe to their mailinglist directly on their website.

* Show Package Contents -> mount InstallESD.dmg
* "restore" BaseSystem.dmg to your USB drive
* System -> Installation -> Delete the link called "Packages" and then create a new folder with the same name
* Copy all the Packages to the USB Disk
* cp /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/mach_kernel /Volumes/lionUSBinstaller/.

Done!

As of May 2012, support in the Linux kernel was still buggy and being worked on. For example, hot-plugging did not work, while cold-plugging did, etc.
Considering that the new Linux kernel will only appear in Ubuntu 12.10 (October 2012), I think that's the earliest you can hope to expect partial Thunderbolt support in Ubuntu.

(via izx)

According to Anandtech the 2880 x 1800 Pixel HiDPI Display of the new MacBook Pro Retina has to deal with so much pixels, the GPU cannot deal with that amount of information anymore. This results in slow performance and a jumpy interface (scrolling and zooming is very slow). Previous models of the MacBook Pro could display between 46-60 frames per second, while the MacBook Pro Retina is only capable of displaying 18-24fps. Mac OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion should improve this a little - but still under 30fps. According to Anand, the solution will be the upcoming Haswell and Broadwell chipsets from Intel, that will be released in 2013.

To quantify exactly what I was seeing I measured frame rate while scrolling as quickly as possible through my Facebook news feed in Safari on the rMBP as well as my 2011 15-inch High Res MacBook Pro. While last year’s MBP delivered anywhere from 46 - 60 fps during this test, the rMBP hovered around 20 fps (18 - 24 fps was the typical range). Remember at 2880 x 1800 there are simply more pixels to push and more work to be done by both the CPU and the GPU. It’s even worse in those applications that have higher quality assets: the CPU now has to decode images at 4x the resolution of what it’s used to. Future CPUs will take this added workload into account, but it’ll take time to get there.

For early adopters and for posers, the new MacBook Pro Retina might be a fit. For serious people using their computers to actually get work done, it might be better to get a MacBook Pro from the previous Generation, since the price drops are significant: the Apple MacBook Air MC968LL/A 11.6-Inch currently sells for $829 new (refurbished from $789), the Apple MacBook Pro MC700LL/A 13.3-Inch sells for $1050 new ($900 refurbished).

The Apple MacBook Pro MC975LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display (NEWEST VERSION) starts at $2,089.99.

The Nikon D800E as well as the Nikon D800 are in stock on amazon marketplace, so make sure to get either model. As previously reported on nanofunk - the differences of the D800 to the D800E are minor - but both models are highly recommendable cameras. I just ordered myself a D800E, expect some in-depth experience postings here soon.

This is all due to the MBP 2012 release adding some drivers (kexts); but the 11G15 Mac OSX Lion 10.7.5 beta update also adds those drivers, so chose whatever way you want to get your 6970 up and running.

We can recommend the Radeon XFX HD 6970 2GB GPU for use with hackintosh. If you are unsure or want some customac built, there are some recommended people setting up hackintoshes in europe.

current updates so far:
Apple MacBook Pro: 3rd gen Core, Ivy Bridge CPU up to 2.7Ghz, 8GB 1600Mhz memory, and 60% faster graphics, GeForce GT 650M, 1GB, - no RETINA!
Apple MacBook Air: 3rd gen Ivy Bridge CPU, USB3, 512GB of flash storage, 8GB of memory (1600Mhz), up to 2.0ghz i7, 11" and 13" sizes, 720p camera - no RETINA!

BUT...

Apple shows off a new Notebook Line that is "Radically thin and light" - even thinner than a finger (0.71 inches), about as thin as a MacBook Air, with 4.46lbs (the lightest pro notebook Apple has ever made). The new MacBook Pro is absolutely stunning with 15.4" across, pixel density is 2880x1800. 15.4" across, pixel density is 2880x1800. - this is actually world's highest resolution notebook display!

Here are the leaked specs:

11-inch
Base Model: MD223LL/A - MBA 11.6/1.7/4/64FLASH-USA
Better: MD224LL/A - MBA 11.6/1.7/4/128FLASH-USA
High End: MD845LL/A - MBA 11.6/2.0/8/256FLASH-USA

13-inch
MD231LL/A - MBAIR 13.3/1.8/4/128FLASH-USA
MD232LL/A - MBAIR 13.3/1.8/4/256FLASH-USA
MD846LL/A - MBAIR 13.3/2.0/8/512FLASH-USA

Great stuff folks - MacBook Pro Specs leaked short before they will be actually presented on the WWDC 2012: 15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display!
This is epic, I am wondering how much people will get a new MacBook Pro soon, expect the prices of the previous models to drop dramatically: there is already a Apple MacBook Pro MD313LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop selling (new) for $934, expect prices to drop even more...

here are the leaked specs and model numbers (thanks to 9to5mac)
MC975LL/A – MBP 15.4/2.3/8GB/256GB FLASH-USA
MC976LL/A – MBP 15.4/2.6/8GB/512GB FLASH-USA
MD831LL/A – MBP 15.4/2.7/16GB/768GB FLASH-USA

In Europe (UK and Mainland), there are some sellers that actually have the Nikon D800 in stock, although for a slightly higher price than Nikon's recommended price tag, but what about the USA? I tweeted yesterday, that the Nikon D800 is available for $2750 in the US, but the stock of this particular shop seems to have been completely sold in only 3 hours. There are some people selling their factory sealed D800 cameras in the USA, so if you really want one, you have to pay the price of some few extra bucks.

But according to big resellers and to Nikon, the next batch of units will be available soon in Europe and in the USA: end of the month/beginning of next month, another big amount of preorders will be fulfilled.

"With the current 1,600 workers, the factory is producing one unit of camera per minute on a daytime shift with each unit of the D800 variant produced every four hours and the D4 variant every five hours." (source: nikonrumors)

But this is not the whole deal: according to techradar, "Some components for camera production are sourced from overseas factories including Nikon China, with around 1600 component parts required to produce both the D800 and D4."

All this hype and lots of work go into the D800, which already received the Camera GP2012 Camera of the Year and Readers Awards, and still the demand is very high.

The OCZ Vertex 3 is a very cheap and awesome piece of hardware (read the benchmarks here: OCZ Vertex 3 vs. Intel 520 SSD) but the Vertex 3 has one major problem: it features only 3 years of warranty. So what drives are currently offering more than 3 years? The OCZ Vertex 4 and the Intel 520 SSD drives, both the cutting edge of speed and durability offer 5 years of warranty.

OCZ Vertex 4 features the best 4K random performance, so this is the drive to look out for! highly recommended!

Both drives feature a 5 year warranty, which shows us that the drives are really high quality.

The Intel 520 Cherryville Solid State Drives are built with duarbility in mind: Intel has a very good reputation when it comes to Solid State Drives - nanofunk can highly recommend this SSD for Hackintosh or Apple usage!

First of all, you might want to max your RAM: read our article "Confirmed: 16GB RAM Upgrade for Unibody MacBook Pros" to see how to obtain the cheapest RAM upgrades possible. Second, you might want to consider an SSD replacement for your internal drive. Intel and OCZ are currently the best brands to look out for, you can read our article "OCZ Vertex 3 vs. Intel 520 SSD Benchmarks on OSX (Hackintosh)" for details.

The best way to mod your Apple MacBook or MacBook Pro is the Optibay still: for around $14 you can get the full shebang, including the Optibay (replica) as well as an USB casing for your optical drive, should you need it ever (i don't).

Optibay Replica for as low as $6.99

External Case for your optical drive: if you ever need it again, you can use your SuperDrive or ComboDrive via USB 2.0 on your MacBook or MacBook Pro

If you don't like the white color, the external drive is also available in black and there is even a slim version (slot-in) in silver. Don't worry about the replicas, they are not really different to the original Optibay - anyway you are mounting them inside your MacBook Pro and you won't see them any time soon.

Also take a look at our previous post "2011 Macbook Pro and SATA III 6Gbps, Optibay: two HD drives – setup explained". There, we recommended saving the few bucks for the external casing and getting a bluray drive instead, a recommendation i can still emphasize.

The upcoming Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera includes DaVinci Resolve, which is said to be "world's most advanced color correction software", but you can of course also grade your footage with Adobe Premiere or Apple's Final Cut Pro.

The Color Correction Handbook: Professional Techniques for Video and Cinema is a very good read for beginners and intermediate videographers that want to get the maximum out of their shoots in post-production. Highly recommended read!

The colorist working in film and video is the individual responsible for breathing life into characters, bringing a mood into a scene, and making the final product polished and professional-looking. This craft is an art form that often takes years to perfect and many trial-and-error attempts at getting it right.

A peek inside the book is available here.

The Panasonic 12-35mm GX Vario f2.8 MFT Lens will of course also work with existing Micro Four Thirds Cameras, such as the GH2 or the OM-D, and features four aspherical elements, a 25cm minimum focus distance and Panasonic’s new nano-particle coating. Also the video-optimized image stabilizer (Power OIS) is said to be better.

Expected price is EUR 1100 (approx. 1400$). The original article is in spanish but definitely worth a read (just use google translate to get the information decrypted).

Here are some other sources from the web:
* ePhotoZine: "New Panasonic Lumix G X VARIO 12-35mm f/2.8 Lens Announced"
* dpreview: Panasonic Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm F2.8 ASPH Power OIS Preview
* dcresource: Panasonic announces F2.8, 12 - 35 mm Micro Four Thirds lens (sample photos available)

Falk Lumo from LumoLabs made an interesting comparison of the D800 vs the D800e: they came to the conclusion that "the differences between the two models are less than one would expect" and "with ~100% amount sharpening, the D800E should deliver comparable results with ~0.5 pixels less sharpening radius, compared to a D800. This also means that one should not refrain from sharpening when using the D800E. Just use weaker settings".

In conclusion, the Nikon D800 and the D800E are almost the same cameras, with only a pricey difference: the Nikon D800 sells for $2999,00 while the Nikon D800E currently costs $3299,00. As Falk Lumo notes - the biggest difference is the market segment, the different Nikon models approach: while the D800 is meant for APS-C and 35mm full frame SLR crossgraders (coming from Canon, Sony, Pentax or Panasonic, etc), since those cameras already have a Bayer-AA Filter. The D800E is meant for medium format (or Leica M9) cross-graders as all those cameras have no Bayer-AA filter implemented and photographers are used to the moire that can show up on fabrics or repetitive patterns.

"The results are pretty similiar, with a bit more sarurated false colors and false color moiré in the D800E (as to be expected). But the D800 is able to show a bit of false color moiré too (a phenomenon known from the Canon 5DmkIII too)."

Please read the article for yourself on falklumo.blogspot.de (written in english), since they really did a good job in measuring the actual sharpness differences.

Recommendation from nanofunk: get the Nikon D800 - currently there is a discount price, where it sells for $2.750 in the USA.

Besides the obvious possibility of shooting more images (the battery grip can handle two extra LP-E6 battery packs or six AA Batteries with included battery magazine), the grip also offers more comfort for vertical shooting.
Canon describes the power-gain with "double-length shooting time". Also, the Canon BG-E11 Battery Grip adds operating controls such as shutter button, Main Dial, multi-controller, AF point selection button, AE lock/FE lock button, AF start button, and multi-function button.

Overall, the grip looks solid and can not only bring a longer time for shooting photos or video, it can also make the camera more solid and provide a better image stabilisation, because of the added weight of 10.93 oz (310g) without batteries.

"Samsung’s new Galaxy S3 phone has been pre-ordered by more than 100 global carriers, who expect to sell at least 9 million devices at launch." (via telegraph).

I am still deciding if i go for the Samsung Galaxy SIII Gt-i9300 or the much cheaper Samsung I9250 Galaxy Nexus, which already sells for $389.99. I am not sure if I really need the quad-core CPU and the larger screen; also the battery standby and talking time seem to be quite similar. Anyone can help me make my decision? ;)

Don't be distracted by the name: the LILLIPUT 5D-II was built for the Canon EOS 5D MKII but can be used with any camera that provides HDMI output. That includes the Canon EOS 5DMKIII (5D MK3) as well as Panasonic GH/GF/G and the Nikon D800, among other cameras such as Sony of course.

Screen size (diagonal): 7"
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Resolution (pixels) 1024x600 (native), 1920×1080 (maximum)
Pixel pitch (mm) 0.135×0.135
Viewing angle (degrees) 150º x, 130º y
Brightness (cd/m²): 250
Contrast ratio: 800:1
LCD backlight: LED
Video inputs/outputs: HDMI

The best thing about the package is the price tag:

$196 in the United States (via Amazon USA)
€320 in Europe (European Union) via Amazon Germany

Adobe CS6 Design Standard Student and Teacher Edition starts at $349 while the whole Adobe CS6 Master Edition currently costs $2599.

You can read our initial posting on Adobe CS6 - just judging from a short review, the speed increase from version 5.5 is dramatically. All the apps are significantly faster, especially Photoshop and After Effects.

here is an overview of some of the items on the blog consumelog.net:

• Hackintosh Apple Macintosh Replica Intel Core i3 2100, 64GB SSD, 8GB RAM
• Apple Hackintosh (Macintosh Replica) Mac Pro Intel Core i7 six-core (6-Core), 750GB HDD, 12GB RAM
• Apple Cinema Display 30″ inch 2560×1600 +Original Packaging
• Panasonic Lumix DMC GH2 Video/ Film SET incl. Adapters (Novoflex), Lenses, Tripod and Rode VideoMic

dslr4video and audiores told me, their main aim is to fundraise for their new video setup, including the Blackmagic Cinema Camera and the Nikon D800. Good Luck!

Their KITS offer not only the Panasonic GH2 Camera, but also 3 Lenses, high-quality Novoflex Adapter Systems and Tripods as well as other goodies such as the Rode VideoMic and Adapters to run the cameras from a power source.

Nanofunk already has the Panasonic GH2 and is totally hooked - currently the Panasonic GH2 beats the crap out of the Nikon D800 and the Canon EOS 5D MKIII when it comes to image quality in filming.

RECOMMENDED!

Samsung is also showcasing a new Music Hub service integrating both a streaming service and an iTunes Match-like scan-and-match service to provide users with access to their own music from anywhere - music "clouds" are quite common these days.

While not available on the US Amazon site yet at the time of writing, the Samsung Galaxy S3 can be already preordered on the german Amazon Website for 599€.

Samsung Galaxy S III next to the iPhone 4S (Source: Android Central)

Evoking the classic design of the original OM Series introduced 40 years ago, and transforming it for the modern age, the Olympus OM-D Series is a new and entirely unique Micro Four Thirds camera system. It combines outstanding features found in the Olympus E-System DSLR line with those of the compact Olympus PEN® Series to meet the requirements of discerning photographers who demand more performance and portability from their interchangeable-lens cameras.

Ordinary cameras have a 2-axis image stabilization system, and it is not implemented in the camera body, but in the lenses - such as the mega O.I.S. from panasonic. The really awesome part of the Olympus OMD is the built-in image stabilization in the body! Compensating and correcting 5-axes of shaking and shift, this new I.S. is the future of portable digital video: it corrects horizontal shift, vertical shift and rolling camera shake - the gyroscopic sensors in the camera detect the amount of camera shake and the IS unit automatically compensates.

Olympus OMD E-M5: combatting bodyshake for vertical, horizontal, pitch, rolling and yaw. IS compensation is effective up to a maximum of -5 EV.

[Update] Thanks to thayermc for pointing out that currently clean HDMI out is crippled. I hope this will be fixed in a future firmware.

"With the Developer Preview, you can explore Game Center, Notification Center, Documents in the Cloud, new sharing capabilities, advanced security features, and much more"

Apple Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion includes lots of features from iOS, such as Reminders, Messages and Game Center. One noted update from the previous version of the Developer Preview is a Do Not Disturb setting to Mountain Lion's Notifications Center, as outlined by 9to5mac, which allows users to block incoming alerts and banners.

Furthermore Mac OSX 10.7.4 Lion Update is around the corner: 11E53 is the current build that was seeded to developers. The previous release was numbered 11E52 - so a final public update is imminent. Apple notes that there are no known issues with this build but asks developers to focus their testing on graphics, iCal, Mail, Printing, and Time Machine.

If there are updated kexts is not known at the time of writing - it looks like we have to wait for the final release of 10.8 ML to get new graphics drivers, such as support for the 7xxx AMD Radeon GPUs with the Codenames Cedar, Caicos, Turks, Cape Verde, Pitcairn, Tahiti and New Zealand.

If we get clean HDMI, that means we could use RAW HDMI recorders such as the Black Magic Design Hyperdeck Shuttle or the Atomos Ninja 2 to record the best output image possible - but maybe the internal cranked-up codec from Magic Lantern will already do the trick, as can be seen on the Panasonic GH2 which beats the crap out of the internal codec of the 5D MKIII  by simply providing a smarter and better looking image quality on the software-side.

The soft image of the Canon 5D MKIII is a disappointment up to now, we can only hope for things to get better with a little help from the modding scene.

After all, we got a nice new cheap camera to chose from when shooting low budget video or just want to take casual fotos. While the Nikon D3200 should be superior in terms of photography compared to the Panasonic GH2, still in video the Lumix GH2 is the top of the class. We will see if there will be a firmware hack for the D3200 - it is quite possible since there is some hacking done with Nikon cameras, but it will take time for sure. Maybe we can order the D3200 to sweeten the long time of waiting for the D800 which is still only available via preorder.

pictured: DSLR Rig Shoulder Mount Pad Steady Rig Stabilization System for 7D 5D Mark II Z7 from filmcity23 (international orders)

Short answer: go for the cheap Rigs! They are quite durable and you can buy another one if it breaks.

Longer answer:
The upgradeability of the cheap rigs are limited. Furthermore the materials used are also cheap, so of course, if you are a pro-shooter you might want to get the more expensive Rigs, such as the Proaim DSLR KIT-3 or the (very expensive) Redrock DSLR Cinema Bundle. If you are beginner or intermediate, you should definitely try the cheap Rigs for a little over 100€, since they are often sufficient. Stabilizing the video output and generating good footage should be your main concern - after all the rig is not visible on your footage.

Atomos released the "Ninja 2" HDMI Recorder, following the success of the previous Atomos Ninja - featuring a much larger screen (800x480 pixels at 4.3") and support for Avid DNxHD Codecs. Furthermore the device has HDMI Output now, which means that we can mount a Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Shuttle SSD Field Recorder to it, allowing for simultaneous RAW Video and ProRes/DNxHD 220Mbit recording. (that was a joke, why would you do that?)

The Ninja is really an awesome device. Pricing is also quite moderate, $995 USD | €795 Ex.VAT | £695 Ex.VAT is the cost for a portable DSLR recording monster. Owners of the Version 1 of the Ninja will be presented with an upgrade option soon, according to Atomos.
A recent update to the AtomOS operating system allows native 24P recording, which is supported by the Nikon D800. Nikon owners are very pleased, as outlined on some example videos on Vimeo.

Here are the news in a flash:

• Online or Offline, Master or Back-up: 10-bit 4:2:2, 220Mbps, 2.5” HDD or SSD
• Any HDMI or HD-SDI source: DSLRS, Decks, Switchers, PC, Mac, iPad & iPhone
• Ready to deliver, high-capacity HDD or SSD: No more expensive memory cards!
• 800x480 screen with 170° viewing and loop play: Focus Peaking, Zebra, False Color & Blue Only Exposure
• Pristine Playback & Playout: SmartLog - Just Mark & Tag

The extra-pricing is very competitive, 25GB of extra space costs 2.49$ per month, 100GB are $4.99. For 1000GB (1TB) Google charges 50 dollars a month. Price drops at Dropbox should appear soon.

Remember: if you sign up to Dropbox with our Affiliate Link, you get 1GB of extra storage for free (a total of 3GB).

Furthermore, Samsung is currently teasing us with more information on their website www.tgeltaayehxnx.com. Official release date of the Samsung Galaxy S3 is Max 3rd, according to Samsung.

This would mean we can expect the new iPhone 5 to be much thinner than the previous iPhone 4S Model.

Black Magic Design unleashed the Black Magic Design Cinema Camera with 2.5K RAW Video in CinemaDNG (12-Bit), Avid DNxHD (10-bit) and ProRes (10-bit) support. The Camera can record on SSD drives internally and features a touchscreen with 5" and 800 x 480 resolution. But that's not all: it has Thunderbolt connection, so getting that recorded data out fast is not an issue.

The camera has a dynamic range of 13 stops (!) and supports EF (Canon) and ZF (Zeiss) lenses. Only disappointment seems to be audio support: one integrated mono mic, 2x 1/4" jacks for balanced analog audio (why no XLR?).

Oh, and wait - that's not all - for the suggested price of $3000 they also give you DaVinci Resolve, which is said to be "world's most advanced color correction software", as well as BlackMagic Media Express (Capture Software) and Blackmagic UltraScope software for waveform monitoring from the camera’s Thunderbolt port.

If that isn't something!

Golan Levin and his former ­student Shawn Sims released a set of digital blueprints that a 3-D printer can use to create more than 45 plastic objects, each of which provides the missing interface between pieces from toy construction sets. They call it the Free Universal Construction Kit. The tens of thousands of consumers who now own devices such as MakerBot’s $1,100 Thing-O-Matic can download those files and immediately print a plastic piece that connects their Lego bricks to their Fischertechnik girders, their Krinkles to their Duplos, or half a dozen other formerly incompatible sets of modular plastic blocks, sticks and gears. (via forbes)

Here is a link to the poster, and here is uck on thingiverse.

New MacBook Pros as well as new Mac Pros are on the horizon, including the possibility of the upcoming iPhone 5. Personally, I would favor a new Mac Pro line the most - giving us updated GPU drivers (kexts) as well as more hardware support. Let's see what the day brings.

[Update 2012-04-11 9:35 CET] Site is back online and NOTHING NEW. Apple really teases us too much these days. As if there were nothing to update. Still waiting for decent GPU support on the outdated Mac Pros.

First of all, we have to be clear that those devices are already full blown computer/console replacements, for their CPU speed and GPU power. But what about the only things I personally care about: a high resolution screen and long battery life?

Here is a specs roundup:

HTC One X	LG Optimus 4X HD	Samsung Galaxy Nexus I9250
HTC One X - people call it the King of Android mobiles. Quad Core and fastest phone out there, best screen evar. Only a bit pricey.	LG Optimus 4X HD: LG's new superphone. Not really out yet, but specs look promising.	Samsung Galaxy Nexus I9250: a cheap bargain for what it offers. No SD-card slot though.
please treat the benchmarks with some grain of salt: they reflect individual seettings of individual people and should just give a brief overview of what the phones are capable of.
Quadrant benchmark: 4,907	Quadrant benchmark: 4,512	Quadrant benchmark: 2140
AnTuTu benchmark: 11542	AnTuTu benchmark: 11,147	AnTuTu benchmark: 6,149
CPU: 4x 1.5GHz Cortex-A9 (nVidia Tegra 3) • GPU: GeForce ULP (nVidia Tegra 3) • RAM: 1024MB • 1280x720	CPU: 4x 1.5GHz (nVidia Tegra 3) • GPU: GeForce ULP (nVidia Tegra 3) • RAM: 1024MB • True HD IPS 1280x720	CPU: 2x 1.2GHz Cortex-A9 (TI OMAP 4460) • GPU: PowerVR SGX540 • RAM: 1024MB • 1280x720 Super AMOLED

Conclusion

* if you are on a budget, go for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. It currently sells for $450 new, which is a bargain for what it offers.

* if you care about the best screen, go and get the HTC One X. For a price of $650 it is not exactly cheap, but the 4.7 Inch 720p HD Screen (1280 x 720) is really mind blowing. Going into details - the HTC One X screen has not such a good black level as the Samsung Galaxy S2, although wins when it comes to realistic color representation.

(image via soyacincau.com)

On the horizon
If you have time, maybe you want to wait for the Samsung Galaxy S3, which is said to come with a 4.6-inch Super AMOLED Plus full HD screen and 1,280×720-pixel resolution. Rumors suggest that the S3 might come with an edge-to-edge display and a much larger chassis. Samsung might launch the S3 as its first phone with a 3D screen and a peculiar S-shaped bend in the 4.6-inch screen. The S3 can also receive a revamped light and scratch-resistant ceramic encasing. The processor could be a quad-core ARM A9-based Exynos 4212 chipset, clocked at 1.8GHz with 2GB RAM.

The 13" MBP still goes for around $1,115.00, the 15" Quad Core i7 15-inch version is still at $1,679.88. Prices for the upcoming models are obviously not known yet.

Frequent readers of this Blog know that I am a Mac user, running several Apple and Hackintosh systems (since 2001). Over the years Apple lost the hardware race and currently the only technology unique to Apple machines is Intel Lightspeed (aka Thunderbolt). Apple moved away from the professional market and is targeting mostly consumers, which also reflects in the supported hardware. Furthermore the future of the Mac Pro line remains unclear, since Apple might drop the line completely (it might face the same fate as the XSERVE line).

Here are my thoughts on why Windows 7 and Windows 8 might be a better choice for media producers and enthusiasts

* Current graphic cards are not supported on Mac OS X
Although there is some serious efforts by netkas in getting AMD 6950 and 6970 GPUs to work with Mac OSX, there are no currently known configurations that will work with Hackintoshes. The 6950/70 will work with patched KEXTs on Mac Pro Systems, but wtf? We have already the AMD Radeon 7970 Graphic Cards available for a decent price, so why should we bother with Apple being too late to the party? Unless there is a new Mac Pro with 79xx GPU coming out, we won't see any kexts soon.

* No SLI or Crossfire support and no dual-GPU support on Apple!
Mac OSX does not support SLI or crossfire - hell it does not even support multi-GPU cards such as the AMD Radeon 6990. Dual GPU-cards such as the ATI Radeon HD5970 only run with one GPU disabled on OSX. This is a serious limitation if you are creating media content such as 3D or video.

* Professional SSD-Cards don't run on Mac-based systems
Fast PCI-E cards, such as the OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 Max IOPS 480GB, PCIe 2.0 x4 (1900 MBPs read/ 1700 MBPs write) or the OCZ Z-Drive R4 R Series (up to 2800 MBPs read/write speeds) are not supported on Mac OSX. The OCZ Revodrive X2 was reported usable with several Hackintosh configurations, but it is not that easy to set up, since some kext-magic is needed.

* Only limited hardware support on OSX, Sandy Bridge-E only with some hackery
Apple Mac OSX supports only very few hardware components, so mostly we have to get parts that are intended for a Mac Pro. There are ways to get to use the Sandy Bridge-E chipsets with Hackintosh (see the nanofunk post: Sandy Bridge-E Intel 2011 Socket confirmed working with Hackintosh), but still it's not easy as pie.

* Adobe Suite runs faster on Windows
Mostly because of all the issues described above, logically the Adobe Suite will run faster on Windows based machines. If Apple can not catch up with the demands of the pro-users and the enthusiasts, it might lose the professional sector after all - so Windows 8 could become the system-of-choice for serious media professionals again.

The Flashback Trojan for Apple's Mac OSX already infected over 600.000 Machines, according to @hexminer on twitter. There is an existing Java Security Update from Apple, all users should update immediately.

Apple is too slow in releasing security fixes - the last known security holes in Mac OSX Java took Apple over 6 months to fix.

F-Secure shows how to secure your Mac by disabling Java. Lion does not come with Java by default, although most of the times it is installed afterwards (running Java applets or Java applications, the Systems asks to install the Java package).

The Flashback Trojan hides as Adobe Flash Player, so the most secure thing to do is to remove Java and Flash from your system. Adobe Flash still does not completely work with Mac OSX Lion, bugs that were reported by Nanofunk over 6 months ago are still open.

Gizmodo posted a simple way how to test if you are infected:

Run the following command in Terminal:

defaults read /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info LSEnvironment
Take note of the value, DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES

The expected output should be:
"The domain/default pair of (/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info, LSEnvironment) does not exist"

Then, run this command:
defaults read ~/.MacOSX/environment DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES

"The domain/default pair of (/Users/joe/.MacOSX/environment, DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES) does not exist"

"does not exist" means you've got a healthy rig. If there is any other message, keep following F-Secure's instructions to vanquish the intruder.

Nikon D800
24 X 35.9mm sensor hosting 36.3 mega pixels
Sensor is 861.6mm squared
Pixel Pitch is 4.88 microns

Nikon D800 in DX shooting mode
16 X 24 sensor hosting 15.4 mega pixels
Sensor used is 384mm squared
Pixel Pitch is 4.88 microns

The Nikon D800 has the largest pixels when compared to the Nikon D7000, the Canon 7D, the Olympus EP-3 and the Olympus OM-D E-M5. According to a commenter on said topic, the Canon 5D MkIII (22.3 Mpx) with it’s full sensor gives a close measure to that size of pixel. Knowing that the full sensor size is 36 x 24 mm and the ratio is 3:2, [...] a calculation gives a pixel pitch approx 6.22 micron.

The Nikon D800 can be pre-ordered for $2999,00 - the Canon EOS 5D MKIII already ships for $3499,00. Nikon D800 second hand price currently rises and is already more than pre-ordering a brand new Camera: current bids go as high as $3.800,00.

I mainly use Dropbox for Backups and Syncing my data between devices - the Dropbox application/client is available for almost all platforms. We can recommend using the free service as long as possible, since Google plans a new service that will be a strong competitor: the Google Drive Service (GDRIVE) could force Dropbox to lower prices drastically.

The drive shows lots of potential, especially in random 4K writes, where it even outperforms Intel's 520 Cherryville SSD. Anandtech notes "OCZ has finally delivered much of what we've wanted in an SSD: low write amplification and very good random/sequential write performance. It could use a more aggressive real-time garbage collection algorithm but running an OS with TRIM, that's mostly picking nits." Is the Indilinx Everest 2 Chipset finally challenging the throne of the dominating Sandforce Chipset? I would definitely say: yes.

[Update] the drives are already available and are actually quite cheap! The 128GB variant is $139.99, the 256GB version sells for $277.00 and the 512GB edition sells for $639.99.

Foxconn is supposedly searching for 18.000 workers to support the production of the upcoming iPhone 5, to be released in June 2012. Although Kotaku commented "the interview was conducted from a distance, and it doesn't look like the recruiter knew he was on camera and his reply is hardly rock solid." - it still might be a valid assumption, since Apple released almost all iPhones in summer, with the iPhone 4S being the only exception (release in autumn). Insiders are discussing a possible higher resolution display and "real" LTE support (e.g. Europe) as new features. Since the release of the iPhone 4S was not long ago, design changes of the upcoming iPhone 5 are most likely, to make a stronger distinction between the 4S and the upcoming Version 5 of the smartphone from Apple.

The tool to test read/write speeds: AJA System Test is a free download from AJA. The Software is available for Mac and Windows, the Tests performed were on a 10.7.2 Z68 Chipset Hackintosh System (Intel Chipset).

OCZ Vertex 3, Firmware v2.15 240 GB (SATA 6GBPS)

Intel 520 Cherryville 240 GB SATA6GBPS

Google presented an awesome new product: Google Maps for 8-bit NES.

Thanks a lot roflcats.net for the awesome contribution!

Nanofunk reported on this on Jul 28, 2011 and again on Dec 22, 2011. Furthermore the issue was reported in the Adobe Bug Tracker and reproduced by many other users.

It is 8 months after we reported to the Adobe Forums and there was not even a single response from Adobe yet. I will start to boycott Flash Player from now on (currently removing it from my system). Here is a link to the Uninstall Flash Player Howto. Bye Bye, Adobe.

The only thing that keeps me from the D800 still is the size of RAW photos: 24 fotos fit on a 4GB card in RAW mode. Still, the level of detail and the overall picture quality is stunning. Hoping to get hands on one myself quite soon.

The question is, why would somebody sell his brand new D800 for $1,918.47? If somebody is ordering it, please report back if everything went smoothly.

I am a big fan of the Panasonic GH2, but since the Canon EOS 5D MKIII and the Nikon D800 were released to the public, I am thinking of switching gear. Currently, there is a fight between the D800 and the 5D3, but the Panasonic GH2 seems to still beat the crap out of Canon. Did Canon finally lose the DSLR wars?

The Panasonic GH2 is a bargain on amazon US:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2 16.05 MP Live MOS Interchangeable Lens Camera with 3-inch Free-Angle Touch Screen LCD and 14-42mm Hybrid Lens - Black ($899)

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2 16.05 MP Live MOS Interchangeable Lens Camera with 3-Inch Free-Angle Touch Screen LCD (Black Body Only) ($849)

If you are into second-hand gear, you can get your hands on the Panasonic GH2 starting at $400. Go and get one, while they are still cheap ;)

Canon can still turn the wheel around, by releasing a firmware upgrade. Currently, the EOS 5D MK3 has very poor video quality - only the reduced rolling shutter and moire are worth an upgrade - although the price of the Canon is far too high. I totally have to agree with EOSHD on this one.

Commodore USA, the company that was founded in 2010 to revive the Amiga Brand, just unveiled their latest gadget: the AMIGA MINI. It actually looks like an early Mac Mini - with a faster CPU and more plugs, as well as some extras. Configurations start at $345 (Intel i3) up to $2990 for a 600Gb Solid State Drive, 16GB Ram and a Core i7-2700K 3.5Ghz (3.9Ghz Turbo).

The new Amiga comes with Commodore OS Vision pre-installed plus 2 restore discs. Commodore OS Vision is a 64-bit Linux distribution, based on Linux Mint, created for Commodore enthusiasts purchasing Commodore USA hardware, such as Commodore 64, VIC series and the upcoming high-performance line of Amiga computers. These are essentially restore disks for pre-installed Commodore systems. Commodore OS Vision uses the classic GNOME 2 interface and features extensive Compiz/Emerald desktop effects. It includes dozens of games of all genres (FPS, Racing, Retro etc), the Firefox and Chromium web browsers, LibreOffice, Scribus, GIMP, Blender, OpenShot and Cinellera, advanced software development tools and languages, sound editing through Ardour and Audacity, and music composition programs such as the Linux MultiMedia Studio. It has a classic Commodore slant with a selection of applications reminiscent of their classic Amiga counterparts. (information via distrowatch.com)

The new Commodore AMIGA mini case is ultra small and is made of 100% all aluminum housing, finished by sandblasting and anodic oxidation. It also includes a slot load Blu-Ray drive and internal space for two 2.5" hard drives. It measures 7.5 inches square, with a height of only 3 inches. There is no end to its placement possibilities.

further reading:
* Commodore USA: introducing the new AMIGA mini
* hot hardware: Commodore Amiga Mini PC Surfaces: Mighty Powerful SFF Box
* time.com: There’s a New Amiga, and I’m a Trifle Melancholy About It
* cnet: Amiga Mini wants to relive Commodore glory days

The film on DVD is highly recommended by nanofunk!

The film spans 8 decades of Joseph Weizenbaum's life. It provides a stage for his humorous narrative depicting a World of Yesterday while reflecting on the dawn of the computer age. It follows 84-year-old Weizenbaum on some of his numerous public lessons, effortlessly entertaining overcrowded lecture halls. (via amazon.com)

The war on the DSLR front continues to evolve between the Nikon D800 and the Canon EOS 5D MKIII. The current state of information is as follows:

Canon 5D MKIII
The Canon 5D MKIII performs better in low-light and high ISO. Sadly it has no clean HDMI out, which is a real bummer. The internal codec is at 90Mbps 4:2:0, which is not much. The available video samples look good, although it could be even better with clean HDMI output - but who is to bring clean HDMI to the 5d3? There are two possible ways:

a) Magic Lantern could bring clean HDMI output to the Canon 5D MK3, if it can be hacked, which is not clear as of now. Also, it will take some time, expect at least 6months to see any usable development (if at all).

b) Canon could release a firmware update to provide clean HDMI out. We could try and contact canon to tell them, that we demand clean HDMI out. Of course, it remains totally unclear if they will ever release such an update.

Although, the Canon 5D MK3 seems to have better Video capabilities, clean detail and no moire (or at least almost no moire) - which would not be fixed by HDMI out anyway. If there is the chance to crank up the codec to 180Mbit (with a hack by Vitaly Kiselev or Magic Lantern) we would see a definite winner in the battle.

Nikon D800/D800E
The Nikon D800 performs quite well on paper, but in reality the Canon 5D MK3 performs better in low-light and high ISO. First samples of clean HDMI output and RAW Video (Apple ProRes) with the Nikon D800 are online - and they look great. Keep in mind that the Nikon D800 provides 8bit output (not 10bit), and the first RAW Video results are better than the internal codec Canon 5D MK3 Videos. Bundled with the Atomos Samurai and the Atomos h2s connect the Nikon D800 brings you high resolution 800×480 LCD (with focus peaking and zebras via latest firmware) plus 4:2:2 video. This is clearly the best setup we have as of today, maybe only topped by a D4+Samurai (c.f. mike kobal's results with the d800).

Still, the current discussion is about comparing apples to oranges, at least from watching actual results and comparing them:

Comparing photo/stills performance (via canonrumors forum)
1. At ISO100, the Nikon D800 has noticeably superior images out of the camera, due primarily to greater detail and dynamic range.
2. At ISO6400, the Canon 5DIII has noticeably superior images out of the camera, due primarily to significantly less noise.

bobatkins notes: The bottom line is that neither the D800 nor the EOS 5D MkIII sensor is "better". They are different. The Nikon sensor should have higher resolution which will be desirable for those making very large prints or who need to significantly crop their images. On the other hand the EOS 5D MkIII sensor will produce images with lower noise and higher dynamic range in lower light conditions where the use of higher ISO settings are desirable. For smaller prints at lower ISO settings (which is where most amateur photographers will be working most of the time), the sensor pixel count and noise characteristics won't matter.

Comparing video performace
Fact: Video doesn't need a high resolution sensor, it is all about the crop modes and sensor scaling, as outlined by eoshd, when we just look at the surface of the Nikon D800 vs Canon 5D MK3 debate.
BUT (as discussed on dvinfo) the Nikon D4 could be the real deal, beating both the D800 and the 5D3: It would seem to me that as a micro-budget filmmaker without access to as much lighting as one would like - the fatter pixels of the d4 would provide better low light shooting outside at night, dimly lit night interiors etc. When moving about with only a china ball and a c-stand I think I would want the sensor of the d4 on my side to maximize the lack of additional equipment. So while it seems like the d800 is better suited because of the price tag - my thoughts are that the d4 with one more crop setting than the d800 [fewer lenses], and better low light, and wireless control [small crew] that it is the d4 that will actually be the indie-filmmakers choice.

There is no clear winner to the war, and Canon could still turn around and release a firmware update that provides HDMI out. Further, the actual results of the D4 vs D800 have to be compared to crown the king of DSLR video.

In the meanwhile, it might be also worth to invest in a Canon 5D MKII still, since it is selling quite cheap those days (selling for $2,199.00 new) and can be used with RAW Video (HDMI) output with Magic Lantern Unified soon.

Mountain Lion is said to run on the following machines:

Mac (mid 2007 or later)
MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, 2.4/2.2 GHz), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later)
MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)
Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)
Xserve (Early 2009)

Here is the full NDA information of Apple OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2
(thanks to TheVerge for posting this

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE

OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2 Seed Note

OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2 is prerelease software. Do not use this prerelease software in a commercial operating environment or with important data. You should back up all of your data before installing this software and regularly back up data while using the software. You will not be able to upgrade from the OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview to the final release.

If an installation of OS X Developer Preview 2 fails, try using Disk Utility from a Recovery HD to repair the disk.

Architecture Requirements
The OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview supports the following Macs:
• iMac (Mid 2007 or later)
• MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later)
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
• Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)

Known Issues
• Installing OS X 10.8 over 10.7.2 or earlier with FileVault turned on may fail
• Upgrades over Lion Server will offer to migrate data again in Setup Assistant even though an in place migration has already succeeded.
• Entering your Apple ID in the Setup Assistant does not sign into iCloud
• Migration does not migrate RADIUS configurations
• Creating an iCloud account using a non-me.com address in the Setup Assistant requires verification before it can be used in Mail, Contacts, and Calendars.
• Some Apple menu items such as Restart may not work when a sandboxed app is in the foreground
• Twitter accounts added in Developer Preview 1 will need to be re-added after installing Developer Preview 2
• The first time an unsigned or unidentified app is launched when "Mac App Store" or "Mac App Store and identified developers" is selected in the Security & Privacy pref pane, the exception mechanism may fail. Subsequent attempts to run the application with an exception will work as expected.
• iTunes no longer syncs Notes
• Notes shared via Messages may not include note content
• After quitting and reopening Messages, the message window is blank. Continuing a conversation will bring the data back.
• TextEdit may hang after enabling Documents & Data in iCloud preferences
• Screen Sharing in Messages does not work
• Screen Sharing sometimes fails when no users are logged in
• Mail's photo browser cannot access the iPhoto library
• VoiceOver cannot access the Notification Center on some machines
• Documents stored in iCloud cannot be renamed in the open panel by setting an insertion point and typing. The document can be renamed only by overwriting the entire name.
• Back to My Mac doesn't work for the first 5 minutes after rebooting
• Find My Mac is not enabled if checked in Setup Assistant iCloud setup
• To enable Find My Mac, turn on Find My Mac in iCloud preferences and then close and reopen the preference panel.
• DVD Player may not launch after inserting a DVD on some systems
• Some Nvidia GPUs limit the resolution on an external HD display to 1280x800
• Some AppleScript applets may not run when Gatekeeper is set to Mac App Store or Mac App Store and identified developers
• Selecting Open PDF from the Print Dialog displays the message "Error while printing"
• Network scanning does not work in Developer Preview 2
• The system may hang after several hours when an external drive is connected
• After entering your redemption code, the Mac App Store may not show download progress on the Purchases tab. Quitting and re-launching the Mac App Store will show download progress as expected.
•
Game Center
• In this seed, Game Center applications may only access the Sandbox environment. In the Sandbox environment:
◦ Game & Friend Recommendations are not supported
◦ Friends can view games in common but not friends' other games
◦ Photos are not supported
◦ Email addresses are not verified during sandbox account creation, allowing multiple test accounts to be created
◦ Out-of-network friend requests are not supported
◦ Game matchmaking versioning restrictions are more relaxed
• If you've never set up a Game Center Sandbox account, you will need to create one. You may continue to use a previously set up Sandbox account. Note that when using Setup Assistant to create a GameCenter account, the account will be created in the Sandbox environment.
• To use Game Center in your game on OS X:
◦ You must include the "com.apple.developer.game-center" entitlement in your Xcode project.
◦ The app must be signed, in order for the entitlement to take effect.
◦ You must install a provisioning profile that enables Game Center for your app.
• Code signing, entitlements, and provisioning profiles are all described in detail in Tools Workflow Guide for Mac.
• Multiplayer gaming with Game Center between iOS and OS X is not available in this seed.
• In the Game Center app, game detail information such as game provider, pricing, etc. is not displayed.
• In the Game Center app, search is not functional
• The local peer-to-peer GameKit API (GKSession, GKPeerPickerController, and related classes) is not supported
• APIs related to in-game UI (GKAchievementPanel, GKLeaderboardPanel, etc) have changed
◦ The new API is not compatible with the previous seed
◦ Games in development must be updated and recompiled

Bug Reporting
This build is being provided to you for testing and development purposes. Should you encounter any problems, please submit a bug report using the online Bug Reporter at <http://bugreporter.apple.com/>. Please make sure to include "10.8 (12A154q)" in the bug title and description. This information will ensure that your bug is processed quickly.

When submitting a bug report, please make sure to include a Summary, Steps to Reproduce, Actual Results, Expected Results, the System Profile Report, and any other relevant information that is necessary to process the report.

IMPORTANT: Engineering requires additional information for crashing bugs, kernel panics, and hangs.

Crashing Bugs: Crash logs are required for crashing bugs. Crash logs can be located in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter and /Library/Logs/CrashReporter

Kernel Panics: Backtraces, which contain vital information for investigating kernel panics, are required for kernel panic issues. Backtraces can be saved to NVRAM on restart/shutdown, then copied to a panic log file on restart. This log file will be located at /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReportsThe
Hangs: When an application is hung, a sample should be provided. This can be done using the Activity Monitor (/Applications/Utilities/). To generate a sample using this utility, click on the hung application's name, then from the View menu select "Sample Process".

For complete instructions on submitting bug reports, please visit the Bug Reporting page at <http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter/>.

Thank you for your support.
Apple World wide Developer Relations

Auto-Submission of Diagnostic and Usage Data
By default, OS X 10.8 Developer Preview builds automatically send anonymous diagnostic and usage data back to Apple. This includes information about crashes, freezes, kernel panics, and information about how you use Apple and third-party software, hardware, and services. This information is used to help Apple improve the quality and performance of its products and services. If necessary, this setting can be disabled in the Privacy tab in the Security & Privacy preference pane.

Legal Notices
The pre-release software identified above is Apple Confidential Information and your use of such software is subject to your Registered Apple Developer Agreement and Mac Developer Program License Agreement. Distributing such pre-release software to anyone other than another Registered Apple Developer who is working for the same entity as you is considered a violation of your agreement with Apple and is damaging to both Apple and those who develop for the Apple platform. We sincerely appreciate your efforts to keep this pre-release software Confidential.
You agree that you will not export or reexport any of the software or Confidential Information received from Apple (a) into (or to a national or resident of) any U.S. embargoed countries (currently, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, or Syria) without first obtaining proper authorization from the U.S. Government; or (b) to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department's list of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Department of Commerce Denied Person's List or Entity List. You also agree that you will not use said software for any purposes where prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missile, chemical or biological weapons.

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE)

Also downloadable: Canon EOS 5D Mark III Pocket Guide

Included Apps in the Software Bundle

VMware Fusion 4
VMware Fusion 4 is the easiest, fastest and most reliable way to run Windows applications and other operating systems on a Mac without rebooting.

DriveGenius 3
Drive Genius 3 is the industry's leading disk utility and the best way to optimize your drive's performance.

PDFpen 5
PDFPen 5 is a PDF toolkit that lets you add text, images and signatures to PDFs -- and much more.

ForkLift 2.5
ForkLift 2.5 is arguably the most versatile utility ever made for the Mac. Originally conceived as a robust FTP client for file transfers, ForkLift has evolved to the point that it can be used as full-blown Finder replacement.

Typinator 5
boosts your typing productivity by automatically inserting frequently used text, graphics, and more

DesktopShelves 2
will organize your chaotic Desktop in no time

Snapheal
new photo retouching tool that's easy enough for beginners to use

Boom
convenient volume booster and system-wide equalizer that lets you boost the volume of your Mac and your music files

Phone to Mac
Phone to Mac transfers files from your iPhone, iPod or iPad to your Mac with ease.

Star Wars TFU (Game)
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed invites you back into the Star Wars universe for another high-energy, intergalactic adventure.

Worms Special Edition
Worms Special Edition is a modern reprise of the classic comic strategy game.

The mupromo bundle sells for $49.99 and is delivered digitally via download. Payment is done via paypal.

98X6AC5GQV8R

A new eBook on amazon describes in detail how to build and configure your hackintosh: Think Different: How to Build Your Own Hackintosh. Another book, the Ultimate Guide: Making Hackintosh sells for $4, but actually features almost the same content.

Here is direct link to "LOOK INSIDE" where some of the book contents can be read for free.

Want to try out the Mac operating system, but don't want to purchase Apple hardware? Check out "Think Different: How to Build Your Own Hackintosh", the latest guide from MakeUseOf. By author Stefan Neagu, this guide outlines what you need to do in order to build a Hackintosh. Whether you want to try using a computer you already have or buy a pre-built computer for the job, this guide shows you the way.

What’s New
NEW Firefox can now migrate your bookmarks, history, and cookies from Google Chrome
NEW With Sync enabled, add-ons can now be synchronized across your computers
NEW The CSS text-size-adjust property is now supported
CHANGED Redesigned media controls for HTML5 video
HTML5 The outerHTML property is now supported on HTML elements
HTML5 View source syntax highlighting now uses the HTML5 parser (see bug 482921)
DEVELOPER The Style Editor for CSS editing is now available to web developers
DEVELOPER Web developers can now visualize a web page in 3D using the Page Inspector 3D View
DEVELOPER SPDY protocol support for faster page loads is now testable
DEVELOPER XMLHttpRequest now supports HTML parsing
DEVELOPER Files can now be stored in IndexedDB (see bug 661877)
DEVELOPER Websockets has now been unprefixed
FIXED Various security fixes
FIXED Firefox notifications may not work properly with Growl 1.3 or later (691662)

Known Issues
UNRESOLVED If you try to start Firefox using a locked profile, it will crash (see 573369)
UNRESOLVED For some users, scrolling in the main GMail window will be slower than usual (see 579260)
UNRESOLVED Some synaptic touch pads are unable to vertical scroll (see 622410)
UNRESOLVED OS X: WebGL performance may be degraded on some hardware (see 713305)

Unresolved on v11 Resolved in v12
UNRESOLVED Windows: The use of Microsoft’s System Restore functionality shortly after updating Firefox may prevent future updates (see 730285)

Sony unveiled the Sony Alpha SLT-A57K 16.1 MP Exmor DSLR HD Video Camera with a CMOS Sensor, Translucent Mirror Technology, 3D Sweep Panorama and 18-55mm Zoom Lens. The midrange d-SLR features a 16-megapixel, APS-C-sized sensor and is positioned to compete with Canon's EOS Rebel T3i and the Nikon's D5100. It can be pre-ordered on amazon already, for a price of $699.

Sony has announced the SLT-A57, a replacement for the original A55 fixed-mirror, electronic viewfinder DSLR. The A57 still features a 16MP sensor and LCD viewfinder but incorporates them into essentially the same body as the more expensive A65. Use of the latest Bionz processor means the A57 offers a wider-than-ever selection of photographic features and image processing modes. There's also an optional HVL-LE1 video-lighting LED panel.

Key Specifications:

16.1MP CMOS sensor
Latest Bionz processor
Larger, FM500H battery (same as A65 and A77)
ISO 100-16000
Auto ISO 100-3200
1,440,000 dot LCD electronic viewfinder
920,000 dot bottom-hinged rear LCD
10 frame per second continuous shooting mode with AF (12fps at 8.4MP crop)
Picture Effects processing options
Clear View Zoom up-sizing digital zoom
Peaking manual focus guide overlay
1080p AVCHD 2.0 movies at 60 or 24 fps (50 or 25 in Europe)

Sadly, neither the Atomos Ninja 10-Bit Uncompressed to Apple ProRes Field Recorder nor the Black Magic HyperDeck Shuttle Raw Video HDMI Recorder supports 50frames and 60frames in Full-HD (1080p), so we are limited to the internal recordings on the camera. The Sony Alpha SLT-A57 supports AVCHD 2, so the video output should be decent. We are looking forward to example videos and will keep you posted on updates.

Current deals:
* Nikon D4 16.2 MP CMOS FX Digital SLR (Body Only) pre-order at amazon.com for $5.999
* Nikon D4 product page on ebay.com

Today MultiBeast was updated to version 4.3 for Lion. We've added a new Combo OpenCL Enabler, which when combined with Chimera 1.8 will enable full QE/CI and OpenCL for all NVIDIA GeForce 4xx and 5xx graphics cards. Two more big additions are the flAked SpeedStepper for UEFI power management fixes, and maolj's Atheros ethernet driver. The latest version of MultiBeast is now available at tonymacx86.com/downloads.

Full changelog inside.

What's new in MultiBeast 4.3...

Thanks in advance, and enjoy! If you have Bug Reports or Feature Requests, please let us know in the MultiBeast section of the forum.

Please post your experiences below.

* Macbook Pro Early 2011 (13", 15", 17")
* Macbook Pro Late 2011 (13", 15", 17")

Corsair RAM SO-DIMM DDR3 16GB / 1333Mhz [2x8GB] KIT CL9 Apple
EUR 123,13 in Europe, $116.98 in the USA.

Theoretically, other RAM Modules with the same specs should work as well, but I can definitely suggest and confirm the Corsair Modules to work, as they show "Mac Memory" on the German Amazon page and reviewers are reporting successful installs.

Please tell us in the comments section if other RAM modules worked for you. 16GB is currently the largest supported Memory Upgrade for the Unibody Macbook Pro. OWC still sells the same KIT for $239.99.

Canon 5D3 Video Sample with EF Lenses

Canon 5D Mark III first sample short movie, Canon 5D MK III, 50mm f1.4

Canon EOS 5D Mark III 720P SHOTS (NO COLOR CORRECTION)

The Opteka SteadyVid PRO Video Stabilizer System looks very promising and also got some recent reviews (see the unboxing video below). For a steadycam tool it it very cheap - especially when filming with the Panasonic GH2 or soon hopefully the D800 or 5D3 this will be my tool of choice: just ordered myself one. Here is the Opteka SteadyVid Pro on Amazon.com.

The Opteka SteadyVid PROis a video stabilizing system designed to reduce shake and stabilize video on cameras and camcorders weighing up to 5 lbs (2.26kg). The SteadyVid PRO features aluminum construction, adjustable mounting plate, comfort grip handle, super-smooth gimbal, sprit level and includes 2 removable weights in addition to the main counterweight.

Key Features
* Supports up to 5 lbs (2.26kg)
* Adjustable mounting plate for on the fly precise balancing
* Comfort grip handle
* Super smooth gimbal for accurate motion
* Spirit Level
* Includes 2 add-on weights in addition to the main counterweight

Lots of photographers are still using old film cameras. Tough times, since Kodak slide films are not sold anymore. Kodak dropped and already removed all slide films from their stores.
Eastman Kodak Co has recently agreed to sell its online photo services business to Shutterfly Inc for $23.8 million.

There are still ways though to get Kodak analogue slide films on ebay:

* Kodak Ektachrome E100G 35mm Slide Film
* Kodak Elite Chrome Extra Color 35mm Slide Film
* Kodak Ektachrome E100VS 35mm Slide Film

If anyone knows of additional sources on where to get 35mm Slide Film in the web, please add your comments below.

Why would anyone switch lenses and go down the Nikon Road when the new Canon EOS 5D looks so promising? Well, it has one small but serious flaw: it does not support clean HDMI (uncompressed HDMI) output.

This small fact means, that external HDMI recorders (see the RAW VIDEO comparison on nanofunk) such as the Black Magic Hyperdeck Shuttle or the Atomos Ninja will not work with the Canon EOS 5D MK3. Still, if the camera gets hacked by the Magic Lantern Project, or a firmware update gets released by Canon, the situation could change. After all, the 5D3 is a very capable camera, and in some points even superior to the Nikon D800.

What are the new features of the Canon 5D MKIII for filmers/videographers?
The new 5D3 produces 90mbit h264 files out-of-the box. This is a significant improvement over the previous 5D2. Also, the negative rolling shutter effect is reduced by half, as outlined by a japanese blog. ISO performance is almost clean at ISO 3200, and much improved at 6400 and 12,800. Aliasing and moire are reduced. There is less false detail and the codec improved a lot.

improvements roundup (via eoshd)
* 91Mbit high bit rate video support
* possible "movie crop mode" (similar to the Panasonic GH2 Extra-Tele Video Mode)
* Audio controls and on screen meters
* Clean ISO 12,800 and full resolution JPEGs

EOS 5D Mark III ISO 12800 MOVIE

EOS 5D Mark III ISO 12800 MOVIE from SAIKA on Vimeo.

Please add your comments below. It looks like with that specs, we might not even need the 5D MKIII to be hacked, as it performs quite well out-of-the-box. Still the Nikon D800 is a worthy competitor and we have to wait for both cameras to be delivered, so we can crown the future king of DSLR Video. Until then, why not get both cameras? :)

After years of waiting it finally happened: Canon will present the 5D MKIII in the upcoming days. Canonrumors reported, the camera will be announced Friday, March 2, 2012.

The Camera will be 22megapixels qnd feature an improved auto focus system with 61 points AF. 5D mark 3 also will have 100% viewfinder coverage, slightly larger LCD screen and dual CF/SD card slot. This camera is targeted for professionals or enthusiasts who want a lighter and more affordable cameras.

SPECS
22mp
61pt AF
100% VF
3.2″ LCD
Dual CF/SD Card Slots
Price: Around $3500 USD

The release of the Canon 5D MKIII might bring down the price of the Canon EOS 5D MKII which is still at 2399$ in the US and EUR 1.756,42 in Europe. I will post more information as it becomes available.

On March 1st, Google will implement its new, unified privacy policy, which will affect data Google has collected on you prior to March 1st as well as data it collects on you in the future. Until now, your Google Web History (your Google searches and sites visited) was cordoned off from Google's other products. This protection was especially important because search data can reveal particularly sensitive information about you, including facts about your location, interests, age, sexual orientation, religion, health concerns, and more. If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your Web History and stop your Web History from being recorded in the future.

[...]
Note that disabling Web History in your Google account will not prevent Google from gathering and storing this information and using it for internal purposes. It also does not change the fact that any information gathered and stored by Google could be sought by law enforcement.

If you have several Google accounts, you will need to do this for each of them. (Text: EFF)

Besides running hackintosh on Intel Sandy Bridge-E, there are more good news from the front:

Chimera, the bootloader that powers standard PC hardware to boot up Mac OS X, received an update allowing it to support OS X Mountain Lion. To obtain OS X Mountain Lion you need an Apple Developer Account that'll cost you $99 per year, but of course your might already know where to find Mac OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion by yourself.

Today MacMan updated Chimera to version 1.8. For Mac OS X developers, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion support has been added. This version will be included in the next MultiBeast release. (via tonymacx86)

According to various sources, the long awaited successor to the Canon 5D MKII (MK2) will be announced in the next days. Canonrumors reports an "announcement on February 27 or 28, 2012 (depending where you are on earth)".

Specs:
* 22mp
* 61pt AF
* 100% VF
* 3.2″ LCD
* Dual CF/SD Card Slots
* Price: Around $3500 USD

The picture below was taken by Stephen Oachs when he spotted a Japanese photographer field testing the mystery camera in Kenya: the photographer explained he was taking a new 200-400mm lens with a built-in teleconverter for a test-drive, but the camera body also looked unfamiliar. Design changes seem to be:

- No popup flash
- Joystick on the battery grip
- Screen appears wider (although it could be distortion)
- New button layouts
- New Scroll wheel

The full-frame 5D3 is expected to be GPS enabled and feature eye control auto focus. A sensor resolution in the 22 megapixel range along with shooting at 6.9 frames per second and 61 auto focus points have also been reported. Canon recently replaced both the 1D Mark IV and 1Ds Mark III models with the EOS-1D X digital SLR.

Once the 5D MKIII or the 5D X is announced, we can expect it to show up at amazon.com so we can post preorders. The same can be seen with the Nikon D800, which can be preordered on amazon germany and amazon UK.

Other sources:
* Digiphoto
* Cinema 5D

Ok here is the solution for all you people that suffer from the current bug since the last Steam.app Update on Apple Mac OSX. Solution: Download an older version of Steam.app and replace Steam in your Applications folder of OSX until a new patch has been released from Valve.

SteamStartup(0xf,0x0xbfffec4c) failed with error 1: Failed create pipe:0

This is generally a good (temporary) solution for various Steam issues on Mac OSX, if you need to get your TF2 or Portal fix. Just use an older version of steam.app.
Download the old version of steam.app hosted by nanofunk.net to access your games! (currently all "source" games are affected such as TF2, Portal2, CS, Left4Dead)

Just had this error after updating Steam.app on Mac OSX Lion 10.7.2, and I am not the only one: it's all over the internet - see the results on google (past 24hrs).

SteamStartup(0xf,0x0xbfffec4c) failed with error 1: Failed create pipe:0

As there were no reports on successfully solving the issues, I tried to solve it by myself.
Although, no luck yet. I will post updates to this issue, once it has been solved. In the meanwhile go Steam Support and paste the following (thanks to acidking)

[UPDATE] SOLVED! just download the mirrored older Steam.app and you are ready to go until Valve fixes this!

Dear Steam,
Ever since your update on the 23rd of Feb, and I can't play any Valve games through Steam on my Mac. I keep getting this error:
Error: SteamStartup() failed: SteamStartup (0xf, 0x0xbfffecac) failed with error 1: Failed create pipe: 0

Many are reporting the same issue on the forums. Please check it out ASAP.
Link to update in question: http://store.steampowered.com/news/7392/

Thank you.

Games affected: Team Fortress 2, Portal (2), Counter Strike.
Please post your comments and issues to this topic below.

The Cayman GPU works fine with the kexts from OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion, as reported by netkas. This means, the AMD Radeon 6970 and AMD Radeon 6950 work with Hackintosh - making the 6970 the fastest card currently supported by Hackintosh systems. Netkas further posted a patched x3000.kext that will solve the existing problems. Can't wait to try this out myself. Will post updates here.

[Update 2012-3-11] netkas writes about Geforce gtx580 support out of the box. The netkas forum thread 6950 working NATIVELY in 10.8 !!! is currently 18 pages long and there are people getting it to run, some people are still having issues. The 6950 and 6970 running natively with the Mac Pro, as reported in the macrumors forums.

Meet FUSEOSX (FUSE for OS X), the successor to MacFuse.

FUSE for OS X allows you to extend OS X's native file handling capabilities via third-party file systems. OSXFUSE is a successor to MacFUSE, which has been used as a software building block by dozens of products, but is no longer being maintained.

As a user, installing the "FUSE for OS X" software package will let you use any third-party file system written atop "FUSE for OS X" or MacFUSE, if you choose to install the MacFUSE compatibility layer. As a developer, you can use the OSXFUSE SDK to write numerous types of new file systems as regular user space programs.

The most used extensions are SSHFS and NTFS-3G for Mac OS X, but there are lots of them out there.

Features
As a user, installing the OSXFUSE software package will let you use any third-party file system written atop OSXFUSE or MacFUSE, if you choose to install the MacFUSE compatibility layer.

As a developer, you can use the OSXFUSE SDK to write numerous types of new file systems as regular user space programs. The content of these file systems can come from anywhere: from the local disk, from across the network, from memory, or any other combination of sources. Writing a file system using OSXFUSE is orders of magnitude easier and quicker than the traditional approach of writing in-kernel file systems. Since OSXFUSE file systems are regular applications (as opposed to kernel extensions), you have just as much flexibility and choice in programming tools, debuggers, and libraries as you have if you were developing standard OS X applications.

How It Works
In more technical terms, OSXFUSE implements a mechanism that makes it possible to implement a fully functional file system in a user-space program on OS X. It provides multiple APIs, one of which is a superset of the FUSE API (file system in user space) that originated on Linux. Therefore, many existing FUSE file systems become readily usable on OS X.

The OSXFUSE software consists of a kernel extension and various user space libraries and tools. It comes with C-based and Objective-C-based SDKs. If you prefer another language (say, Python or Java), you should be able to create file systems in those languages after you install the relevant language bindings yourself.

The repository filesystems contains source code for several exciting and useful file systems for you to browse, compile, and build upon, such as sshfs, procfs, AccessibilityFS, GrabFS, LoopbackFS, SpotlightFS, and YouTubeFS.

Why choose OSXFUSE?

OSXFUSE is a successor to MacFUSE, which has been unmaintained since 2009. It shares most of its source code with MacFUSE.
OSXFUSE features a compatibility mode for file systems that have been built for MacFUSE. It can be a drop-in replacement for MacFUSE.
OSXFUSE supports Mac OS X 10.5 and later (Intel and PowerPC architecture). It is fully compatible with 64 bit kernels and OS X 10.7.
OSXFUSE is open source and under active development.

Chrome is breathlessly decimating Firefox’s userbase at a breakneck rate. It took Firefox more than four years to prise 20% of the market from Internet Explorer; Chrome did it in almost half that, and is fast approaching 30% in just over three years. Internet Explorer’s graph is a little harder to interpret, but it looks like it might have finally turned the corner and stopped hemorrhaging market share.

The question is, if a better (and this means smaller memory footprint) firefox will surface soon. If not, the userbase might shrink further. The "only" actual advantage from firefox over Safari, IE and Chrome is: it is not run by an evil company. Google, Apple and Microsoft are out there, wanting your data (cf. the EFF talking about disabling google web search history before google's new privacy policy takes effect).

Firefox will survive, but it has to reposition itself to be seen as the "rebel" once again. After all, Mozilla Firefox it is the only browser that is not run by a commercially driven entity. The Mozilla Foundation is "a non-profit organization that promotes openness, innovation and participation on the Internet.". Users should value that fact.

I just confirmed this and got some 5GB of free permanent extra space on my dropbox account: using the Experimental Forum Build and being part of the beta test concerning the new foto/video upload feature. The beta client is available for mac, windows and linux.

What's new?

The "Dropbox Camera Import" feature automatically uploads your photo and video content, when plugging in a SD-card or connecting your smartphone. The autostart of the Dropbox importer did actually not work when I tried on Linux and Mac OSX 10.4. On Windows, you'll need to have Autoplay enabled to get the automatic uploader working.

During this beta period, we are also offering additional free space to test automatic uploading of photos and videos. For every 500MB of photos and videos automatically uploaded, you'll receive another 500MB space bonus, up to 5GB total. The Dropbox space you earn is permanent. You can use it for the life of your account.

[Update 2012-2-22] the latest version of the Experimental Forum Build is 1.3.17 that fixes a lot of bugs and issues. I updated the links accordingly. If you are getting started with Dropbox, use this referral link to get 250MB of extra free space on signup.

Many of us are waiting for an update to the Sandy Bridge (E) Chipset to the upcoming Intel Ivy Bridge (along with the release of new Apple Hardware), that would allow running the new Intel Chipset with Hackintoshed customac systems.

But what about Sandy Bridge-E?
Ivy Bridge will be Quad-Core. If you want more threads and cores, go for SB-E. Sandy Bridge-E as well as Ivy Bridge will have PCIe 3.0. SB-E has 40 PCIe lanes (compared to 16 lanes in Sandy Bridge) as well as 1600MHz memory speed (quad-channel memory) which should be around 33% faster in theory.

There are confirmed builds that can run Mac OSX 10.7 (Lion) as well as 10.6 (Snow Leopard) with the Intel Sandy Bridge-E (SB-E) X79 Chipset. Integrated Graphics are not supported, but who needs them anyway, since the AMD 6990 GPU or the upcoming 7990
Here is a list of the confirmed mainboards:

Asus P9X79 Deluxe (user: vonmolk)
$370 in the US, €299 in Europe

Pro: good build quality (compared to other versions of that board)
Cons: none. The Asus Rampage IV has even better build quality.

Gigabyte GA-X79-UD7 (user: machacks)
€297 in Europe, ??? in the USA

Pro: Awesome board! (nanofunk recommendation). Gigabyte has a longer history of hackintosh-capable boards, so get one of those.
Cons: none, really. Overclocking features could be better.

ASUS RAMPAGE IV EXTREME - LGA2011 - X79 - 8x DIMM - PCIe 3.0 Motherboards Hackintosh chimera

* ASUS Rampage IV Extreme (user: nfsking2)
$415 in the US, €369 in Europe

Pro: awesome build quality, extreme overclocking support.
Cons: expensive.

The MSI X79 Big Bang XPower II is suspected to work as well (once it becomes available). Theoretically, most of the X79 boards should work, we just have to wait and see what early birds (early adopters) are coming up with. Keep up the great work, ppl! (and don't forget to share your experiences in the comments below)

The new ATI Graphics Cards from the 7970 series are super-fast, while being single GPU systems (the upcoming 7990 will be a dual-GPU 6GB Graphics Card). Besides being quite "cheap" (around 500€ in Europe, $589 in the US, they are said to be supported in OSX soon (see also a discovery by netkas) - until then, there is a current way how to use them (although not accelerated) with chimera. Props go to Shrapnl from the tonymac86 forum:

I was able to force my 7970 into a higher res (still unaccelerated of course) via the org.chameleon.boot.plist with the following:

<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>2560x1440x32</string></pre>

Of course, you can overclock the 7900 Series just fine. There are "Waterblocks" from Aquacomputer for the 7900 series, as outlined by Geeks3D.

Of course, the GPU runs quite fast without overclocking, still you could go faster. Below: Shamino has overclocked a Radeon HD 7970 under LN2 with the following clock speeds: 1650MHz for the GPU and 1800MHz real speed (7200MHz effective) for the memory. (Source: geeks3d)

[Update] the best way to cool your AMD Radeon 7970 is the Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme 7970 which will cool down your GPU for additional 10degrees celsius (at least). Overclocking, here we go!

A new camera from Olympus will be released soon: the Olympus OM-D, styled after the classic OM-1 manually operated 35mm single-lens reflex camera. The Olympus advert features the words "Oh My Goodness", with the O and the M highlighted in bold. The OM-1 is a 35mm SLR film camera harking back to 1972. It's likely that the new camera would directly compete with the Fujifilm X Pro1, which was announced at CES, and also features retro styling and interchangeable lenses.

According to 43rumors, the "New Olympus OM video quality is better than on the GH2!" - but what does that mean exactly? First of all, Olympus is said to have reduced the "jello effect" as well as improved the dynamic range of the sensor. The question remains, what's the new sensor that could achieve such specs?

Here is a roundup of the rumored specs:

Olympus OM-1n with 50 mm / f 1.8 lens. Body weight 510 g only Author: Jmak, Source: Wikipedia

Rumours suggest that the OM-D will be presented on February 8th, during the CP+ photography show, taking place in Japan (home of Olympus).

Still, the Panasonic GH2 is a good choice for film makers and photographers alike (starting at $650 in the US and €695 in Europe), since it is currently cheap and has the same mount as the upcoming OM-D. If the OM-D firmware can be hacked remains unclear - it is a fact though, that hacking will take its time, since the Panasonic GF3 hack is also not even done yet.

Thanks to photography bay I just read about the upcoming Rode VideoMic HD (not availale yet). It sounds like a dream come true: the technology used is from the Rode NTG-3 (even the NTG-2 kicks ass and is highly recommended), furthermore it has a wind and shock-protection as well as integrated SD-card recording (!).

There’s no way to know just how much of NTG-3 tehnology is going to show up inside this new VideoMic HD; however, if it’s anywhere close to the quality and isolation that it delivers, we could be in for a real treat.

* Integrated digital recorder (microSDHC)
* RF-bias, true condenser shotgun microphone (based on RØDE NTG3 technology)
* Line and Mic (mixer) inputs (with ‘plug-in’ power)
* High level headphone amplifier for monitoring
* Three-level High Pass Filter (0, 75Hz, 150Hz)
* Integrated Blimp wind protection and shock mounting
* Multi mode outputs (Dual mono/split 0db and -10db for auto safety/dual mono + 20dB)
* High frequency ‘boost’ switch for increased intelligibility at distance miking
* Utra-lightweight metal casing
* Quick release mounting system

1920x1080 Full HD (comparable to 2K)

Dell UltraSharp U2711 27-inch.

For the penny saver: you could use a Full-HD LCD Television (LED) with HDMI to monitor your edits. You can get them starting at $600 via Amazon US (starting at around 500€ in Europe). Since you might produce for TV or youtube anyway, this might be the best way to go, since it is also a cheap solution.

If you need to have a higher resolution (~2.5K 2560 x 1440) the Dell UltraSharp U2711 27-inch might be the Monitor you are searching for.

3K Footage (e.g. from the RED Scarlet-X)

IBM T221 22-inch QUXGA-W LCD Monitor

There is a 22.2" LCD Monitor with the resolution of 3480 x 2400 pixels - the Viewsonic VP2290B-2 22.2" and it's twin: the IBM T221. That's 9.2 Megapixels (!). The Viewsonic VP2290B-2 is available as Refurbished for $3.500 on Amazon, the IBM T221 is available used for $1.675.

You might still be lucky and get a bargain via eBay, though:

a) $1500 (€1.140) IBM T221 IPS, including a LFH-60 to DL-DVI Adapter

b) $600 for a Viewsonic VP2290b (!) with free shipping. Plus there are some more of that IBM monitors available from that seller.

4K Footage (e.g. from RED Scarlet, RED Epic, Arri Alexa, etc.)

Sony VW1000ES 4K Projector for $28.000. You might get second hand 4K Projectors starting at $2.000 already.

The EIZO DuraVision FDH3601 with a 4096 x 2160 resolution (2160p) sells for around 36.000$. You might be cheaper off with a 4K Beamer (Projector).

While the Sony VW1000ES 4K Beamer sells for around 28.000USD, the Christie Mirage S+4K 3D DLP Projector with 5000 Lumen sells used for $5,980.00 on Amazon. Still, the question is if you care about a second hand beamer: if you own 4K production equipment, you most likely have the moolah to get yourself a brand spanking new 4K projector as well.

5K Footage and above, up to 8K (e.g. from 5K RED Epic or 2x RED Epic)
If you want to go all way up to next-level 8K, you can get the recently announced 85 inch 8K Monitor. Make sure to already start saving some bucks, though.

Strangely, the trend of the past years seems to be in decreasing the pixel resolution on the displays (since there are mostly mobile screens deployed). We can expect a pixel bump in 2012 though, since the upcoming iPad 3 (and it is said also MacBook Air and MacBook Pro) will most possibly have Retina Screens with 2880x1800 pixel resolution (source: ArsTechnica).

Recommended Reading: make sure to read "The Truth About 2K, 4K and The Future of Pixels" for some background information on pixels and sensors.

Meet the new 5D Mark II Magic Lantern Unified from Andrew Reid on Vimeo.

here is out only wanted feature:

* more work on HDMI output for the 5DMKII so it is fully usable with the Atomos Ninja

You can support the development by sending them a small donation: http://goo.gl/gvD8Q. Here is the original sendout from the magic lantern user group:

Following the small, but positive feedback from this thread [ http://bit.ly/ml-unified-5D2 ], I'm glad to announce the next long-term direction of Magic Lantern: merging the AJ 5.x firmware with the unified one currently running on smaller cameras.
I need your help. As explained in the previous post, a good port (one suitable for paid jobs) requires me having a camera for testing. On 550D/60D ports, crashes are almost non-existent, audio meters are calibrated, HDMI monitors are fully usable and so on. So, if you like this idea, you may help me buy a 5D2 by:

- a small donation (you don't need a PayPal account for this): http://goo.gl/gvD8Q
- or by spreading the word, since right now there are not many users familiar with both ML versions

Feature-wise: I'd like to ask the users who have tried both AJ and Unified ML (especially those using both versions in a regular fashion) to comment on this. Main question: what's the best of both worlds? What do you like better in AJ 5.x and what do you like better in Unified? Big thanks to all ML community for making it possible!
Alex

canonrumors puts a date on a possible announcement of the long awaited Canon 5D MK III (MK3): announced around the end of March or early April 2012, "availability will probably happen before the summer begins in 2012. No specs were given at this time. This is a very solid [CR2]. The NAB show is April 14-19 in Las Vegas.".

The Canon EOS 7D Mark 2, northlight-images amongst other blogs report, "will be one of the big items Canon shows at Photokina 2012 in Cologne, Germany". Reports about the camera being APS-C are rumored, even though there is some info out there about it being APS-H. (dpreview, canonrumors)

Currently, the Canon EOS 5D MK II sells starting at $1,980.00 on Amazon US and EUR 1.679,95 on Amazon Germany. The Canon EOS 7D starts at $1,298.49 (Amazon US) and  EUR 1.229,95 (Amazon Germany). Since there were recent price drops, it is unclear if the prices will further slide down, once a new product will be introduced. Our recommendation is to get a Camera now, if you really need it, possibly refurbished. The second hand value will still be high, so it's currently a good time to buy, although new models might be around the corner.

Here is a roundup of the best deals:

Amazon Germany
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2EG-K 577,58€
HP LaserJet P4014N 456,61€
Kindle Keyboard, eReader, Wi-Fi, 15 cm (6") 109,90€

Amazon UK
Nikon D7000 Body Only for £783.08
Apple iPod touch 32GB for £130.58

Amazon US
Canon EOS Rebel T3 12.2 MP CMOS Digital SLR with 18-55mm IS II Lens for $417,05
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2 with 14-42mm Hybrid Lens $832.35
Apple MacBook Air MC969LL/A 11.6-Inch Laptop (NEWEST VERSION) for $990,92
Apple MacBook Air MC506LL/A 11.6-Inch Laptop (OLD VERSION) for $753.69

I am still going through all the offers and I will make myself some late christmas presents ;) happy shopping to you all!

Magic Lantern Unified looks promising: High Dynamic Range VIDEO for Canon cameras:

============== UPDATE ================
available for download now!
magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Release_2011Dec22
======================================
Demonstration of the new and free High Dynamic Range VIDEO feature for control over ultra contrast situations.

Discussion, workflow, RAW footage, FAQ:
vimeo.com/groups/74140/forumthread:250295

Magic Lantern is a custom firmware add-on for Canon dSLR cameras. It is not a hack, or a modified firmware, but it runs alongside Canon's own firmware, booting from the card every time you turn the camera on. The only modification to the original firmware is the ability to boot software from the card.

magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Unified

HDR Video: what does it mean? It does not output pre-processed HDR video from the camera, rather it blends the alternative high ISO / low ISO frames together in post (see this discussion thread at Vimeo). There is of course a difference if you use two Canon 5D MKII for generating a HDR movie (as this guy did) compared to this "hack", although the development of Magic Lantern continues to impress!

Keep on rocking! We can't await clean HDMI output for the 5DMKII to use it with the Atomos Ninja (if this hack is possible at all...)

Intel and Apple originally partnered on the new technology which has become standard across Apple's MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini, and iMac. Digitimes reports that the cost of Thunderbolt technology is expected to drop in the second half of 2012, allowing more widespread adoption. While this sure is great for Windows users, that also means Thunderbolt will be available for hackintosh users!

While Apple does offer Thunderbolt across most of its product line, the first Thunderbolt products have been limited to relatively high end devices, such as the Blackmagic Ultrastudio 3D, the Magma Expressbox 3T or the Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID. More widespread adoption should help drive adoption by accessory makers that will benefit both Mac and PC users that use the Thunderbolt technology.

Thunderbolt is not competing against USB3 (Intel said they see both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt as complementary technologies) - furthermore there will be USB3 support for Apple devices, since there will be breakout boxes that offer USB3 connectivity.

Minicraft is an 8-bit game written in Java (playable in the Browser or via a downloadable version) where resources and materials have to be collected to craft and create something new. Persson told, the higher aim of the game is to kill the only other creature with "consciousness" to be alone forever.

Since the Mozilla Foundation got 300 Million US$ per year from Google to implement Google's search engine as the default one, two new releases of the Firefox Browser have been presented: Firefox 10 (stable) and Firefox 11 Aurora (Version 11). The mobile Android version of the Android implementation gets a new, native UI. That makes the browser faster and it needs less memory besides other improvements and fixes. Firefox Aurora and Beta can be downloaded from Future of Firefox.

Here is a list of all the changes:

NEW Firefox can now migrate your bookmarks, history, and cookies from Google Chrome
NEW The CSS text-size-adjust property is now supported
CHANGED Windows: An OS security dialog should no longer come up when updating
HTML5 View source syntax highlighting now uses the HTML5 parser (see bug 482921)
HTML5 The outerHTML property is now supported on HTML elements
DEVELOPER The Style Editor for CSS editing is now available to web developers
DEVELOPER Web developers can now visualize a web page in 3D using Tilt
DEVELOPER SPDY protocol support for faster page loads is now testable
DEVELOPER XMLHttpRequest now supports HTML parsing
DEVELOPER Files can now be stored in IndexedDB (see bug 661877)
DEVELOPER Websockets has now been unprefixed
FIXED Redesigned media controls for HTML5 video
FIXED Firefox notifications may not work properly with Growl 1.3 or later (see 691662)

Known Issues:

UNRESOLVED Some synaptic touch pads are unable to vertical scroll (see 622410)
UNRESOLVED For some users, scrolling in the main GMail window will be slower than usual (see 579260)
UNRESOLVED If you try to start Firefox using a locked profile, it will crash (see 573369)
UNRESOLVED This version of Firefox will not work on Macintosh hardware with Power PC CPUs (see 587799)
UNRESOLVED Under certain conditions, scrolling and text input may be jerky (see 711900)

According to the report, workers at several iPad component suppliers as well as manufacturing partner Foxconn will have limited time off during the usual Lunar New Year holiday. The Lunar New Year holiday itself falls on January 23rd next year, with workers generally receiving a number of other days off from work around that date.

Sources have been reporting a variety of rumored dates for an iPad 3 introduction, with some claiming a debut in the March-April timeframe while others have pointed to a February launch being in the works.

Apple last year launched new MacBook Pro models on Jobs' birthday, although that unusual Thursday introduction was likely a convenient coincidence driven by the debut taking place during the Presidents Day holiday week.

[original via macrumors.com]

#1: Give awesome games and help charity: The Humble Indie Bundle #4 includes these Games (even with Steam coupons to import the games to your Steam account): Super Meat Boy, Shank, Jamestown, Bit.Trip Runner, NightSky, Cave Story+, Gratuitous Space Battles,
Crayon Physics Deluxe, Cogs, VVVVVV, Hammerfight, And Yet It Moves.

#2: Give some digital stuff, such as Kindle eBooks, or Steam Gifts to gamers.
You would need to know for sure, if the person already got that present, though. There's nothing worse than getting digital content twice.

#3: Order something online and print out the picture of it.
I know, this is cheesy, but after all you can all blame it to the parcel service: "The shipping time was more than a month!". Make sure, if your item is from ebay, that the real purchase date can not be found out.

To all Nanofunk readers: merry christmas! Hope you have nice and relaxing days.

With Mac OSX Lion 10.7.0, a message was repeatedly showing up in the Console.app, so the logfiles would grow in size - sometimes around 100 MB per minute. This is especially bad for SSD owners. While the issue was reported over 6 Months ago, and Flash Player 11 solved the amount of errors in the console, still the message appears and slows down OSX 10.7 systems.

At least the release of Adobe's Flash Player 11 solved the system freezes - but the Log message still is filling the kernel.log, so any debugging or search for errors is quite hard with that amount of data to read through.

If you are experiencing the same issues, please write your concerns to the Adobe Forums in the existing thread and alternatively also in the Apple Discussion Thread.

Nanofunk reported about this issue in july 2011, and we got over 60.000 unique visits to this post - so this is not a rare case, this is a serious bug with Adobe Flash and Adobe Air. We will post any updates to the situation to this blog, make sure to bookmark our feed.

See also:
* macrumors forum about kernel: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero
* nanofunk: Mac OSX Lion 10.7 System Freezes: kernel: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero (console message)

[Update] I posted to the Adobe Bugbase with a bug description. Hope they will respond now.

Currently, with the announcement of the Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000 4000GB, SATA 6Gb/s (0F14681) and the 4TB Deskstar 5K4000 as well as the 4TB Seagate Barracuda XT 7200RPM a total of 24TB could be reached when modding the Promise Pegasus just replacing the 2TB drives it comes with.

Tomshardware even reported on 5TB HDDs arriving in January 2012, so a modification to fit 30TB into the Promise Pegasus would be possible theoretically.

While all the drives are not available at the current time of writing of this article, please do consult the Promise Support if you are planning to do modifications or already did! Judging from the current feedback on modifications, updating the Promise Pegasus before an official answer or statement from Promise Technology is NOT RECOMMENDED!

Please send emails to Promise directly and ask them to react on the current limitations. I already did so - still waiting for response.

The Uninstaller
This handy little app is a free un-packer, replacing Archive Utility that comes with Mac OSX. The Uninstaller does not only support .sit and .zip files, but also .rar, .7z and many other archive formats. This app is essential when working with archives and downloads.

mPlayerX
A replacement for Quicktime and also for VLC. It has a nicer interface than VLC and supports the same file types (codecs) that quicktime does not: .h264, DivX, XVid, MVK, etc. mPlayerX recently became my favorite Media Player.

Sparrow
An awesome Mail.app replacement with great interface and actually improving the mail reading-experience: Sparrow has many features, such as perfect GMail integration, multiple accounts, avatar syncing from facebook, and many more. Recommended!

Wunderlist
The best To-Do application out there. Best of all: Wunderlist is not only free, but it also synchronizes automatically via the web and your ToDo-Lists are available via web-interface as well as on any operating system (iOs, Android, Windows, etc.)

CleanMyMac
Best way to keep your Mac de-cluttered at all times: Clean My Mac from MacPaw deletes cache files as well as leftovers (junk from previously installed apps, etc.), Language files and so on. A perfect tool to keep the OS snappy at all times.

VoodooPad
VoodooPad (former VoodooPad Pro) is an awesome offline desktop Wiki. I am using VoodooPad to store and interlink my ideas, texts and written content. It can hold RTF data: text as well as files from your hard disk can be directly linked. Images can be embedded or referenced. Highly recommended!

XCODE
Apple Xcode is a free download via the appstore. It is not only needed for creating iOS and Mac OS Applications, but also to compile unix applications and to get other developer applications, such as Quartz Composer installed on your system.

Apple is selling Mac OSX on a Thumb Drive, but you can save some bucks and roll your own as simple as this:

1. Preparation: USB Stick
Insert an USB Stick that is big enough to fit the whole Mac OSX Lion installer. I can recommend the SanDisk Cruzer Blade 8GB, which you can get for less than $5.

2. Mac OSX Lion 10.7
get Mac OSX Lion from the App Store and download it.

3. Extracting the Install Data
Right click (option-click) on the just downloaded file and select "Show Package Contents". Get the file Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg and copy it to your Desktop.

4. Disk Utility
Open "Disk Utility" and drag InstallESD.dmg from the desktop to the left sidebar. Select the attached USB from left side and click on “Partition” tab. Select "1 Partion" and from choose “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” as partition type. Click on “Option” at the bottom, select “GUID Partition Table” and press OK -> Apply.
After formatting is done, select "Restore" and choose the USB Drive as destination and InstallESD.dmg as source. Click on "Restore" to have your Mac OSX Lion Boot drive created.

Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: FindNextLeafNode: Error from hfs_swap_BTNode (node 9852)
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs_swap_HFSPlusBTInternalNode: catalog key #54 too big
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: Runtime corruption detected on SSD, fsck will be forced on next mount.
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: FindNextLeafNode: Error from hfs_swap_BTNode (node 10370)
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs_swap_HFSPlusBTInternalNode: catalog record #22 keyLength=32 expected=65568
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: node=10965 fileID=4 volume=SSD device=/dev/disk0s2
Nov 28 18:30:43 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: Runtime corruption detected on SSD, fsck will be forced on next mount.
Nov 28 18:30:43 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: FindNextLeafNode: Error from hfs_swap_BTNode (node 14503)
Nov 28 18:30:43 mbp kernel[0]: hfs_swap_BTNode: record #55 invalid offset (0x9B46)

It was getting slower and slower, reporting tons of errors in the Console.app. Then, it did not reboot anymore. Even in an external USB drive enclosure the drive did not mount anymore. Contacting OCZ about this issue, they sent me an RMA number right away and told me they will replace the drive. Does this mean our data is not safe in SSD? What can we learn from this?

First of all, it is a myth that SSDs are more reliable than hard drives. Secondly, they are not even fully supported on OSX yet (see Should I use Trim Enabler on Lion for the OCZ Vertex 3? No!) - at least if you install the drives yourself (which is also what I would suggest, since Apple does not offer any decent SATA 6GBPs drives yet).

So where is the proof, you ask?

Proof #1: The Hot/Crazy Solid State Drive Scale (via Coding Horror)

Super Talent 32 GB SSD, failed after 137 days
OCZ Vertex 1 250 GB SSD, failed after 512 days
G.Skill 64 GB SSD, failed after 251 days
G.Skill 64 GB SSD, failed after 276 days
Crucial 64 GB SSD, failed after 350 days
OCZ Agility 60 GB SSD, failed after 72 days
Intel X25-M 80 GB SSD, failed after 15 days
Intel X25-M 80 GB SSD, failed after 206 days

As a commenter put it: "Average life of SSD = 227.375 days (based on Wills' data)" - which is also what I can confirm.

SOLUTION: Backup early, backup often. Don't rely on the SSD and make two local backups plus one backup in the cloud.

Proof #2: long-term study of SSD failure rates (via Tomshardware)

SOLUTION: Buy drives that come with a very long warranty. Be prepared to let your drive replace for several times.

I am still waiting for my replacement OCZ Vertex and I will benchmark how fast it will die again. Since OCZ told me, it can take up to three weeks for my replacement to arrive, I bought myself a Seagate ST750LX003 750 GB SATA 600, Momentus XT, 8 GB SLC - it's a hybrid 750GB HDD with an 8GB SLC cache. The drive shifts data that is used often in the 8GB SLC SSD space automatically. While the SSD part of this hybrid drive can also fail, the data won't be lost and it will suffer just some minor speed loss (if it fails, since SLC is said to be more reliable than MLC chips). While this disk is now my main startup disk, i will go back to using the OCZ Vertex 3 again, once the replacement arrives. I just need to backup regularly - the speed gain is really worth the trouble.

The early 2011 MacBook Pro is Apple's masterpiece, no doubt: besides the overheating problems that many of us reported (but which seem to be solved as of now). Core i7 MPBs are super-fast with a Geekbench score of over 10.000 points for the i7 quad-core version - this was and still is an awesome performance for a notebook.

If you are planning on buying a new MacBook Pro 15", keep in mind that newer does not necessarily mean better: the early 2011 MacBook Pro is currently the best deal you can get ($1,549.99 for a new, $1,499.99 for refurbished MC721LL/A 15.4-Inch quad Core on Amazon) especially since they fixed all the flaws people reported about. I was complaining about issues a lot, but after Apple replaced the two notebooks we had, the run smootly ever since.

So a clear winner for buying a new MacBook Pro in 2011/2012 is the Apple MacBook Pro MC721LL/A 15.4-Inch early 2011 model that performs better in most of the situations compared to the late 2011 version (review and benchmarks by anandtech).

It has not been verified yet, but there are some leaked details, which are of course just rumors:

- 4-inch screen
- Aluminum back
- Capacitive home button
- "Flatter" form factor
- Much faster than current hardware, but poor battery life
- 10-megapixel rear camera
- Siri prototype known as "Assistant", which had been the rumored name for the feature until its introduction

There are quite some good deals on the Apple iPhone 4S on ebay, an introduction of the iPhone 5 would let the price of the "older" models drop significantly (talking about the Osborne Effect)

Affected Models: Macbook Pro models 8,1, 8,2, and 8,3. These include both MacBook Pro (Early 2011) and Macbook Pro (Late 2011).

This update resolves an issue where a MacBook Pro being used with a power adapter may unexpectedly shut down under heavy workload if the battery charge level is near empty.
Your computer's power cord must be connected and plugged into a working power source, or your battery must be at least 25% charged.
When your computer restarts a gray screen will appear with a status bar to indicate the progress of the update.
Your computer's fans will run at full speed during the update but will return to normal speed once the update completes.
Do not disturb or shut off the power on your computer during this update.

The MacBook Pro SMC Firmware Update 1.5 can be downloaded from Apple's support website.

Canon also announced a real 4k Camera to be available somewhere in the next year. So 2012 could become the real year of DSLR Video.

Here is the original press release from RED.COM
(via red.com/press):

RED STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD, Hollywood, Calif., November 3, 2011 – RED Digital Cinema has officially released its third industry-changing camera, the Scarlet-X. With burst modes up to 12 fps at full 5K resolution alongside 4K motion capture from 1-30 fps, the camera allows professional photographers and cinematographers to simultaneously capture motion footage and still content. Never miss a shot. Ever. Scarlet-X’s compact design, endless modularity and advanced feature set provide a future-proof solution catering to every shooter’s needs, leaving one-dimensional DSLRs and 1080p camcorders in its wake. Priced at under $10,000, Scarlet-X advances RED’s vision to democratize superlative cinema and professional photography.
Scarlet-X comes standard with a Canon EF or PL mount, which can be swapped easily using Scarlet-X’s interchangeable lens mount system. Panavision, Anamorphic, and Nikon lenses are also compatible with the camera, providing ultimate freedom when it comes to creative decision-making. The addition of HDRx reaches up to 18 stops of dynamic range, bringing digital images closer than ever to the natural perception of the human eye.
With the innate ability to capture 5K REDCODE RAW stills and true 4K motion footage, Scarlet-X produces visually lossless files that can easily be graded and finished. Combining all of the finest qualities of cinema and photography into one camera, Scarlet-X allows the customer to have the best of both worlds. Compromise nothing. Shoot everything.
“The future is dependent on those who push… not those who react,” said Jim Jannard, founder of RED Digital Cinema.
RED is now taking orders on RED.com for Scarlet-X.
Since delivering their first camera – the RED ONE – in 2007, RED Digital Cinema has jumped ahead of the pack over camera companies that had dominated the market for decades. Feature films shot with RED cameras such as the Academy Award-winning movie “The Social Network” and the more recent “Contagion” have contributed to a lineage of cinematic success. Since the 2011 introduction of DSMC (Digital Still & Motion Camera) technology, photography icons like Bruce Weber, Greg Williams and Inez + Vinoodh have used RED cameras to shoot covers and spreads for the some of the most influential fashion magazines in the world.
Follow the announcement at REDUSER.net/SCARLET.

[Update 20.11.2011] Philip Bloom posted a balanced take on the Scarlet. Worth a read.

Recommended reading on this topic: The Truth About 2K, 4K and The Future of Pixels

Canon recently unveiled its C300 cinema camera at Hollywood's Paramount Studios, in front of a huge crowd. Cameras such as the Arri Alexa and RED EPIC dominate the digital filmmaking world - the Canon C300 aims at people that are into professional DSLR Video and want to take a step further.

It will cost somewhere in the range of $20,000. It contains a Super 35mm CMOS sensor and delivers up to 4K resolution with the outfit's new "top-end" EF zoom lenses, which come in four flavors: two 14.5-60mm lenses and two 30-300mm. And the lenses keep on coming, with three EF prime lenses in 24mm, 50mm, and 85mm variations. That CMOS sensor offers 1920 x 1080 pixels for the reds and blues and 1920 x 2160 for greens.

Mobius - 1080p HQ from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

Facebook had 22 Million active users in the middle of 2007; fast forward to 2011 and the site now has 800 Million active users, with 400 million of them logging in every day. Facebook has grown exponentially, to say the least! To cope with this kind of exceptional growth and at the same time offer a reliable and cost effective service requires out of the box thinking. Typical high-end, brute force, ultra redundant software and hardware platforms (for example Oracle RAC databases running on top of a few IBM Power 795 systems) won’t do as they're too complicated, power hungry, and most importantly far too expensive for such extreme scaling. (quoting Anandtech)

"The AMD servers are mostly used as Memcached servers, as the four channels of AMD Magny-cours Opterons 6100 are capable of using 12 DIMMs per CPU, or 24 DIMMs in total. That works out to 384GB of caching memory."

It remains unclear, when or if that server hardware will be available for purchase - but it looks like there will be some cloud/datacenter providers jumping on the idea of the open compute servers, so it might be possible to rent them.

OS X Lion is the next major release of OS X, the world’s most advanced desktop operating system. It includes over 250 new features that will transform how you interact with your Mac. Built on a rock-solid UNIX foundation, OS X is engineered to take full advantage of the technologies in every new Mac. And to deliver the most intuitive and integrated computer experience. Brought to us by HOTiSO group. Mac OS X 10.7 was first shown to the public in October 2010. The presentation was understated, especially compared to the bold rhetoric that accompanied the launches of the iPhone (”Apple reinvents the phone”) and the iPad (”a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price”). Instead, Steve Jobs simply called the new operating system “a sneak peek at where we’re going with Mac OS X.”

F-Secure offers removal instructions

"The original iteration of the Flashback Trojan was a nasty little bugger, quietly shipping your Mac's details off to a remote server. This newly discovered variant is even worse.

The new version, dubbed Flashback.C, also disables the your Apple's security definition update service by wiping files necessary to run future updates. Both Snow Leopard and Lion are vulnerable, though the Trojan seems to delete itself on any system running Little Snitch. The Trojan itself comes disguised as a Flash package installer."

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***You can download the full 1080p version of this video for a more accurate presentation.

Here's a "fair" test between the iPhone 4S and the Canon 5D MK II. I made a little rig that allowed me to shoot both cameras at the same time side by side. All scenes are perfectly synced together so you can pause and scrutinize the frames! See photo of the makeshift rig in the photo area.

Exposure, shutter speed, frame rate and picture style were matched as close as possible between the two cameras. (I used the Zacuto Z-finder to help me adjust exposure for both iPhone and 5D)

This test shows that the tiny F2.4 lens and sensor on the iPhone are pretty nice. It even got a little depth of field!

I did not overlay the exact ISO and Stops 5D settings per shot. It was too much to keep track for this simple test. To be fair I matched 5D exposure to the iPhone so no "Cinestyle" / 24p here.

Here are the settings:

iPhone 4S

- AE.AF locked. That's all you have!

Canon 5D MKII

- Canon 50mm 1.4
- ISO 160 ~ 640 (varied per shot to match the iPhone)
- F 7~22 (varied per shot to match the iPhone)
- Shutter 1/60th
- Auto WB
- Standard Picture Style
- 1080p 30

(Source: vimeo.com)

Video: Tsawout Spit – Gh2 Test (driftwood 176mb gop1 hack) from mark wyatt on Vimeo.

There seems to be no day without any surprises with the Panasonic GH2. The latest hot-shit is a hack to get 176Mbps AVCHD Intra up and running on the camera. Right now there's no possibility to record in 25p but there are attempts by vitaly and others, so let's see what the future holds.

What is AVCHD Intra?
"AVCHD Intra is usually recorded to extremely expensive P2 cards on high end cameras and here it is on a consumer camera with an SD card. [...] This is a codec that uses i-frames only unlike consumer AVCHD. Every frame from the sensor is stored. Standard AVCHD is a Long-GOP compression format and works by estimating and guessing at frames in-between ‘real’ images but Intra doesn’t. [...] AVCHD Intra is very good for heavy colour grading, fast action, hand held footage and green screen VFX work. You certainly get a better result from AVCHD Intra on the GH2 than by outputting from any DSLR’s HDMI feed to a external recorder as well." (via eosHD)

How does it compare?
eosHD has a comparison on AVCHD intra 100Mbps vs 24Mbit AVCHD.

And if that's not enough: there is even a 244Mbps AVCHD Intra Hack, as outlined by Driftwood: "It's stable and with good lighting conditions can look amazing."

eosHD recommends: "AVCHD Intra at such high bitrates can be tricky to edit so I recommend transcoding it to ProRes 4-4-4 first."

Canon announced the company’s newest flagship professional DSLR today, the 18 megapixel full-frame Canon 1Dx. The 1Dx will sit atop Canon’s model line as an update to both the Canon 1Ds and the 1D Mark IV, and is expected to debut for $6800 body-only in March 2012.

The 1Dx will feature dual DIGIC 5 processors, which Canon claims offer approximately 17 times more processing power than the previous generation DIGIC 4s.

Those looking for an upgrade to the 5D Mark II for video capture may find a friend in the 1Dx, as it is capable of 1080/30p/25p/24p HD video capture, with options for 720/60p/50p as well. The image sensor has been designed with video in mind, meaning that downsampling errors and the resultant moire effect should be significantly reduced. The file system’s 4GB limit has also been worked around, with an automatic file splitting functionality enabling up to 29 minute and 59 seconds of continuous video capture.

The camera also supports two methods of SMPTE-compliant timecode embedding, Rec Run and Free Run, to ease syncing up multiple cameras in post. The 1Dx will also support both intraframe (ALL-i) and interframe (IPB) compression, to aid post-production and editing workflows, depending on need. The camera also offers manual audio level control both before and during video capture with the internal monaural mic or an external stereo microphone.

Canon's all new full-frame CMOS sensor ensures that video footage captured on the EOS-1D X will exhibit less moiré than any previous Canon model, resulting in a significant improvement in HD video quality. A desired feature for many documentary filmmakers using Canon DSLRs was to enable recording beyond the four gigabyte (GB) file capacity and the EOS-1D X is the answer. The new camera features automatic splitting of movie files when a single file exceeds 4GB. The new file splitting function allows for continuous video recording up to 29 minutes and 59 seconds across multiple 4GB files; no frames are dropped and the multiple files can be seamlessly connected in post production, providing filmmakers the recording time they want in the same convenient DSLR form factor. The camera records Full HD at 1920 x 1080 in selectable frame rates of 24p (23.976), 25p, or 30p (29.97); and 720p HD or SD video recording at either 50p or 60p (59.94). SD video can be recorded in either NTSC or PAL standards.

The Canon EOS-1D X also includes manual audio level control, adjustable both before and during movie recording, an automatic setting, or it can be turned off entirely. A wind filter is also included. Sound can be recorded either through the internal monaural microphone or via an optional external microphone through the stereo mic input.

The Canon 1Dx offers USB transfer, but will also sport a wired gigabit Ethernet port for stable wired transmission of video and still images at up to 1000BASE-T transmission speeds. That should allow not only faster transmission of files, but longer, more practical connection solutions for professionals. For on-camera storage, the 1Dx will eschew SD storage in favor of dual Compact Flash cards.

The low-light capability of the EOS-1D X is evident in its incredible ISO range and ability to photograph in extremely low-light conditions. Adjustable from ISO 100 to 51,200 within its standard range, the new model offers a low ISO 50 setting for studio and landscape photography and two high settings of 102,400 at H1 and 204,800 at H2, ideal for law enforcement, government or forensic field applications.

(via usa.canon.com)

Apple's latest hot shit, iCloud is in everyone's mouth, since it comes right with the 10.7.2 OSX Lion Update. But what does it actually bring for OSX-only users? Nada.

First of all the bad news: currently there is no way to store any files directly in iCloud. That makes Apple iCloud not a competitor for Dropbox at all. But why do they state "you can access your content on all your devices" when they actually don't mean your MacBook or Macbook Pro? Well, they currently mean "all your iOS devices". While Apple could offer such a service (Backups from your Computer to iCloud) in the near future, currently it really doesn't make any sense to use iCloud if you are not using any iOS 5 Device - and if you also care about backing up other things besides your address book and photographs, let's say your 3D-models or local databases. In this context I can totally recommend iBackup, a free tool for OSX users that need point-and-click backups. In this case, you can backup right to FTP or your Dropbox, which gives you cloud-power as well.

What happened to the GUI design guidelines of Apple? Why do we have to use western-style user interfaces - and why can't we change the looks to something uhm less contemporary?

The Panasonic GH2 turns out to be the currently best Video-DSLr out there, although it is not even a DSLR. The micro-four thirds sensor is much smaller than a full-frame sensor, but the video footage that this great camera produces is far superior to those from lets say the Canon EOS 5D MKII - no moires, no aliasing and a much better video codec: AVCHD. Besides the obvious facts, the GH2 gets hacked extensively: Vitaliy Kiselev first hacked the GH1 and after that the Panasonic GH2.

With the PTOOL firmware manipulation tool, you can get the following improvements, among many others:

- Change Video Bitrates
- Improved GOP patches.
- Improved MJPEG size patches.
- change the 30min recording restriction
- lots of other changes

Patching the firware was possible, after a GH2 Firmware update leaked.

Here is a short overview on what to do in 10 steps:

1) Get a Patch from the extensive patch repository.
2) Load the GH2 1.0E firmware
3) Check all necessary patches, Version increment must be always checked.
4) Save firmware. Just change last digit to any number you want. (e.g. GH2__V11.bin)
5) Copy firmware to root of SD card. Fully charge you battery. Do not even attempt to use AC coupler!
6) Power off your camera if it was on.
7) Power on camera. After this press (not hold) green play button.
8) You'll see hourglass and prompt to update.
9) Press down arrow and after this Menu/set.
10) Wait until upgrade will be completed.

happy modding!

Intel will bring Thunderbolt to the PC, which means you can use your devices such as the Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID or the Lacie Little Big Disk, but also products such as the black magic intensity extreme Thunderbolt video capture cards on your Windows PCs - and on your hackintosh machines as well.

During Intel’s Developer Forum, the chip maker showed off some Ultrabook prototypes running on its Haswell-based processor and sporting the high-speed Thunderbolt port. The technology was developed in collaboration with Apple and has so far remained exclusive to Macs. That may change soon as Intel teases that Thunderbolt will be heading to Windows PCs as well.

(via slashgear)

hunderbolt was originally code-named Light Peak and was installed on the update to the Mac Book Pro earlier this year. Rights to the Thunderbolt technology were originally registered under Apple, but were transferred over to Intel which is why you'll see it's name popping up a bit more. We already know Acer and Asus are planning Thunderbolt integration, but we're unsure how the port will look. Currently, the Thunderbolt port on Apple products is identical to the mini-display port, but PC users would rather it be more like USB for increased compatibility. Not to many people are aware of this, but Sony released their VAIO Z with a hybrid USB 3.0/Light Peak port, so it's kind of up in the air as to how things will shape-up.

Expected timeframe: anywhere in 2012.

Unfortunately, the optics of 4/3 and MFT (Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds) imply, that the image size projected on the sensor is smaller than any full frame or APS-C sensor so there would be a massive vignetting (a reduction of an image's brightness or saturation at the periphery compared to the image center), producing pictures as the ballon-picture on the left. A gradual decrease in light intensity towards the image periphery happens, so it actually does not make so much sense to use MFT or 4/3 lenses on systems with a larger sensor. Still it totally makes sense, to use lenses designed for 35mm or larger than four thirds on any FT/MFT system, such as the Redrock Micro LiveLens, Active Lens Mount for Canon EF Lenses. In another post, I will write a comparison on legacy lens systems and the usage on MFT/FT and EF systems.

A great bargain for m34 (Micro Four Thirds) users (Olympus, Panasonic, etc): the Fujian 35mm F1.7 CCTV TV lens +Mount for MFT m43 (Micro Four Thirds) which sells for $48,99 including free worldwide shipping. We just ordered two of them, so expect photo and video examples soon. In the meanwhile, you might want to take a look at some youtube example footage.

This CCTV Lens is a high quality lens with alloy casing. It is ideal for use in bars, shops, parking lots, houses and warehouse, etc. It gives you the widest field of view image avaialble with a C mount lens. This CCTV Camera Lens provides ultra clear vision for your camera. Incorporates advanced optical elements to ensure all-around sharpness and efficient light conductivity. Its iris can be manually adjusted according to available light levels.

Specifications Fujian 35mm F1.7 CCTV TV lens

Mount type: C mount
Focal length : 35mm
Aperture:F1.7-C
Iris/ Focus operation: manual
Angle of view: 13.8
Object distance: 30cm -infinite
Compatible with cameras including:
Panasonic: G1, GH1, GH2 GF1, G2, G10
Olympus: E-P1, EP-2, E-PL1 fits C Mount Movie Lens

C mount M4/3 Camera lens Adapter to EP1 EP2 GF1 GF2 GH1 GH2

With a C Mount Lens to Micro 4/3 Adapter you can use C Mount lenses on your MFT system. You can use this camera adapter ring in conjunction with the camera adapters to complete the connection to a digital camera supporting a filter thread.

"Steve Jobs, 1955-2011" read the simple button which appeared within minutes on Google, linking to the front page of Apple's website which itself had a picture of Jobs anouncing his death at the age of 56.

Fuji president and CEO Shigetaka Komori said they will create a mirrorless, interchangeable lens camera built around a larger sensor with ‘resolution and low noise [that] will surpass the 35mm full size sensor’. If Canon does not come up with the EOS 5D MKIII fast, people will start to switch.
(via DC.watch)

[UPDATE] Nikonrumors posted More Nikon D800 bits and pieces: 100% Viewfinder coverage, improved AF with face recognition, SD+CF dual memory card slots as well as a USB 3.0 possibility. The question remains, why not CFAST? On another post, the ISO range is said to be 100 – 6400, ISO LO @ 50 and ISO HI-2 @ 25600. We can only wait and see...

Everyone's talking about the new iPhone 4S that was announced by Apple recently. But is there more to it than improved optics? Even if not, the camera is a huge improvement over the previous model: 1080p video recording, 8 Megapixel photo sensor, f/2.4 aperture.

Behind all the updates, the most interesting is HSDPA support. In countries such as Austria or Japan, where HSDPA is widespread, this is a very welcome hardware upgrade. Still, why is there no HSPA+ support? In cities with a weak broadband coverage (everything above a few MB upstream) - such as Vienna, this is really akward. We still have to fall back to the Samsung Galaxy S2 i9100, which offers HSPA+ among other great features. So the "only" killer feature of the Apple iPhone 4S remains the greatly improved Camera - which is to question, concerning the price of such a gadget. An Amazon Search for the iPhone 4S yields no results, obviously, since the device is said to be available from mid October.

Our recommendations: wait for the iPhone 5 and get some real gear instead.

1) Get a Canon PowerShot S100 for Photo and Video
2) Get a SONIM XP5300 3G FORCE if you need a phone that actually works.