Adobe has just released the latest versions of Lightroom and Camera Raw.

Lightroom 1.3 comes with the following improvements:

   

New file formats supported in the 1.3 release are:

• Canon 1Ds Mark III
• Canon PowerShot G9
• Nikon D3
• Nikon D300
• Olympus E-3
• Olympus SP-560 UZ
• Panasonic DMC-L10

Following issues have been correct:

• Performance issue on writing XMP metadata
• Printing with the native resolution option enabled no longer sets the wrong dimension for portrait oriented images
• Bayer demosaic and luminance noise reductions algorithms
• Canon & Fuji compressed Raw formats supported.

New enhancements:   

• The import dialog now offers the option to render 1:1 previews   
• Export dialog layout has been enhanced
• Lightroom Preview Export SDK is available for developers to create and distribute Export Plug-ins.

This update also brings OS X 10.5.x compatibility with Apple’s new Leopard OS.

Windows version is here
Mac OS version is here

Camera Raw 4.3 has also been released.

Windows version update is here
Mac OS version is here
 

Tags: 2007, adobe, apple, blog, camera, camera raw, editor, ia, im, lan, LED, LG, light, lightroom, nikon, nomadcom.net, olympus, pda, photo, Photography, post processing, power, press, raw, release, resolution, review, update, upgrade, windows, wp, www, XP

Cory Doctorow wrote this Creative Commons-licensed fiction story for Radar Online magazine.

  Une version française est disponible ici

“Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him.” –Cardinal Richelieu

“We don’t know enough about you.” –Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Greg landed at San Francisco International Airport at 8 p.m., but by the time he’d made it to the front of the customs line, it was after midnight. He’d emerged from first class, brown as a nut, unshaven, and loose-limbed after a month on the beach in Cabo (scuba diving three days a week, seducing French college girls the rest of the time). When he’d left the city a month before, he’d been a stoop-shouldered, potbellied wreck. Now he was a bronze god, drawing admiring glances from the stews at the front of the cabin.

Four hours later in the customs line, he’d slid from god back to man. His slight buzz had worn off, sweat ran down the crack of his ass, and his shoulders and neck were so tense his upper back felt like a tennis racket. The batteries on his iPod had long since died, leaving him with nothing to do except eavesdrop on the middle-age couple ahead of him.

“The marvels of modern technology,” said the woman, shrugging at a nearby sign: Immigration–Powered by Google.

“I thought that didn’t start until next month?” The man was alternately wearing and holding a large sombrero.

Googling at the border. Christ. Greg had vested out of Google six months before, cashing in his options and “taking some me time"–which turned out to be less rewarding than he’d expected. What he mostly did over the five months that followed was fix his friends’ PCs, watch daytime TV, and gain 10 pounds, which he blamed on being at home instead of in the Googleplex, with its well-appointed 24-hour gym.

He should have seen it coming, of course. The U.S. government had lavished $15 billion on a program to fingerprint and photograph visitors at the border, and hadn’t caught a single terrorist. Clearly, the public sector was not equipped to Do Search Right.

The DHS officer had bags under his eyes and squinted at his screen, prodding at his keyboard with sausage fingers. No wonder it was taking four hours to get out of the god damned airport.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2007, 24, access, account, air, airport, analysis, arc, arms, art, ATT, batteries, blog, book, brown, bt, camera, card, cars, ces, columbia, communication, computer, CTU, design, digital, dress, engine, explain, Festival, fiction, find, flash, free, Fun, google, google maps, History, HP, ia, ict, identify, im, International, internet, ipod, ITU, keyboard, King, lan, laptop, launch, law, LED, LG, light, live, map, MIT, money, network, nomadcom.net, nyt, officer, online, organize, pair, personal data, pet, photo, picture, police, politics, post, power, press, privacy, project, public, raw, release, science, sco, screen, scroogled, search, security, simple, social, soviet, storm, story, suspect, technology, term, terror, theme, touch, upgrade, USA, usage, user, violation, web, webcam, wifi, wonders, world, wp, www, XP, yahoo

I went yesterday to the "Thailand Mobile Expo 07" with hope to discover some "real" new products. Instead I found the Expo 07 to be more a fair than an exhibition where you can find at least 2-3 salespersons per visitor, but no real new innovations.

• Samsung was presenting their Ultra Edition II series (U600, U300 and U100)
• LG came with the Prada
• Motorola was around with the Razr2 V8
• Sony Ericsson shown the new P1i & T650i
• HTC publicized the Touch and P3600i
• and Nokia with lots of different models with the N95 among them

Aside of mobile phones, they was a huge sale of different accessories such bluetooth headsets, car accessories, and all type of memory stuff such memory sticks, SD cards, MicroSD etc..

In resume, nothing different that you can already find in Bangkok IT shops and not a single word about incoming products such Apple iPhone, HTC Cavalier or Shift as per examples which is a bit pity in country where carrying the last mobile phone is still very trendy.

Let's see what next week 2nd Annual Asia IT will come with.

Tags: 2007, access, air, Annual, apple, asia, Bangkok, blog, card, Cavalier, ces, ericsson, example, exhibition, find, HP, htc, ia, im, iphone, lan, LG, memory, mobile, Mobile Communications, mobile phone, models, nokia, nomadcom.net, phone, phones, public, resume, samsung, sco, shift, sony, space, sun, Thailand, touch, trend, wp, www, XP

In Europe Sweden comes first when it is about delivering IT project on time with 44% then follow

• Switzerland 24%

• Czech Republic 20%

• Germany 19%

• Denmark 16%

• UK 11%

• Finland 8%

• Israel 8%

• France 6%

• Belgium 4%

• Italy 4%

• Netherlands 4%

• Russia 4%

• Spain 4%

Source : BBC News

Tags: 2007, 24, accountability, art, asia, BBC, blog, delay, europe, fon, HP, ia, im, IT project, IT World, lan, LG, live, Management, nomadcom.net, project, public, risk, space, study, switzerland, time delivery, uk, web, website, wp

When I saw this list on Bruno Giussani's "Blog over IP" post about Internet prices in Europe I could not resist to add some prices for Internet broadband access in Asia.

I did not add prices paid in most countries of Pacific rim but what they pay in Sweden for a monthly  broadband connection is equivalent to what they pay per minute in Kiribati or Cook islands for a noisy dial-up 14.4 kbps.   

Price comparison for consumer broadband in Europe (average monthly price per 1Mbps, from The Telegraph/MoneySupermarket):

1. Sweden GBP 0.32 (EUR 0.48)
2. France GBP 0.83 (EUR 1.23)
3. Finland GBP 1.41
4. Italy GBP 1.71
5. Norway GBP 2.05
6. Holland GBP 2.19
7. Denmark GBP 2.50 (EUR 3.7)
8. Iceland GBP 2.54
9. Germany GBP 2.64 (EUR 3.9)
10. Austria GBP 3.04
11. Belgium GBP 3.40
12. UK GBP 5.60 (EUR 8.3)
13. Portugal GBP 5.84
14. Spain GBP 6.33
15. Poland GBP 6.60
16. Ireland GBP 7.02
17. Luxembourg GBP 9.39
18. Switzerland GBP 11.03 (EUR 16.8)
19. Czech Republic GBP 12.25
20. Greece GBP 16.86
21. Hungary GBP 24.48
22. Slovakia GBP 25.48 (EUR 37.8)
23. Turkey GBP 58.82 (EUR 87.3)

Spectacular differences. Some of the them can be explained by technical reasons (fiber optic vs copper wires etc), some by the overall living costs in a given country. Most of the high prices however are tied to lack of  competition and of innovation in a specific market.

On this part of the World, the gap is definitively lots wider:

1. South Korea KRW 300 (EUR 0.25)
2. Japan JPY 400 (EUR 0.51)
3. China CNY 175 (EUR 17)
4. Singapore SGD 43 (EUR 21)
5. Thailand (BKK) THB 952 (EUR 22.27)
6. Sri Lanka LKR 4500 (EUR 30)
7. Philippines PHP 1995 (EUR 32)
8. Australia AUD 53 (EUR 33.25)
9. Pakistan PKR  4800 (EUR  59)
10. Malaysia MYR 300 (EUR 65)
11. India INR 3600 (EUR 65)
12. Myanmar USD 260 (EUR 192)
13. Fiji FJD 560 (EUR 260)
14. Indonesia USD 2440 (EUR 1800)

nota: On prices above there is no details about the carrier (ADSL, Wireless Local Loop, Fiber, Wimax, etc..) nor specifications about monthly download limits which are usually ridiculous low for a xDSL subscriber (e.g 2 GB) and still applicable in most countries (particularly on the second part of the list).

Internet for everyone at an affordable price is still far from reality.

Tags: 2007, 24, access, art, asia, blog, cable, ces, connection, europe, explain, gap, HP, ia, im, internet, iso, japan, lan, LG, list, MIT, money, myanmar, nomadcom.net, paris, pet, Philippines, post, public, space, switzerland, Telecommunications, Thailand, uk, wireless, world, wp, www, XP

Bad luck for Apple, but few days after the highly publicized announcement of Apple Inc. iPhone, Cisco sues Apple Inc. for trademark infringement on using "iphone" name which are Linksys family product, available on market since 2006.

 

 

Source : engadget

 

Now what will happen with LG and their KE850 Prada phone, awarded with the "International Forum Design Product Design Award for 2007". The external look is rather similar, but it's difficult to find detailled technical specifications on the Internet.

Obviously I don't have any idea if some agreements took place between LG Electronics & Apple but the LG model really seems to be the 1st cellphone using tactile display without use of any stylus. So the similarity of the design plus the input mode made the Apple iPhone & LG KE850 very similar.

Without agreements for sure Apple Inc. will certainly be sued by LGE.

Now, the question is: do they (Apple) do it (getting sued) on purpose in order to get a maximum visibility ?

A trial, ending with a "gentlemen agreement" may not be necessarily more expensive than any advertising campaign but presence on medias (blog, news, webzine, magazine, etc.) will be lots more efficient.

Any guess ?  

Source : Mobile Portal, Engadget

 

 

 

Tags: 2007, 24, advertising, agreement, apple, award, blog, cellphone, ces, design, find, fring, HP, ia, im, International, internet, iphone, lan, LED, LG, mobile, Mobile Communications, nomadcom.net, phone, presence, public, release, satellite, sco, space, telecom, Telecommunications, touch, web, wp, www, XP

Last week I flew to Belgrade and spent few days in Novi Sad, capital of the Vojvodina province in Northern part of Serbia. Even with a busy schedule, we got the chance to visit the Petrovaradin Fortress built between 1692 and 1780.

We also passed by Karlovci where the peace treaty ending the Austro-Ottoman war (1683-1697) was signed and visited some of Fruska Gora monasteries.

All photos are on a new gallery  

 

Tags: api, art, capital, HP, ia, im, lan, LG, New pictures, nomadcom.net, pet, photo, space, Travel

and for something different than guidebooks and travel agencies recommendations ?

I have found 2-3 websites that bring things differently. The first is "Sacred Sites " with a review of most worldwide places celebrating Peace & Power.

I also found on Travelintelligence hotel review site a "Before You Die" list with lots of great ideas & destinations. National Geographic is of course still very inspiring

Tags: before you die, blog, book, ces, Great Ideas, HP, im, King, lan, LG, list, nomadcom.net, power, review, space, Travel, web, website, world, worldwide, wp, www