All photo gears are now packed and I wonder if digital cameras Sony Alpha SLR will be up to the challenge of Southern Africa climatic conditions. I’m mostly worried about dust and sand (Kalahari, Etosha, Namib desert) more that about humidity (Okawango delta).

We carry with us the following material:

• 3 Sony Alpha DSLR cameras (A700, A350 and A100)
• 1 Sigma Zoom 50-500mm f/4-6.3
  
• 1 Sony 70-200 f/2.8 HSS
• 1 Sony 16-80mm f/3.5-4.5
• 1 Sony 35mm f/1.4 HSS
• 1 Sigma 30 f/1.4

and plenty of accessories such tripod, batteries, memory cards, cleaning material, charger, bean bag, etc… (not sure yet how I’ll pack my clothes in the suitcase which is already invaded by cables and boxes).

More to come…

Passengers will no longer be able to pack loose lithium batteries in checked luggage beginning January 1, 2008 as new federal safety rules take effect. The new regulation, designed to reduce the risk of lithium battery fires, will continue to allow lithium batteries in checked baggage if they are installed in electronic devices, or in carry-on baggage if stored in plastic bags.

Common consumer electronics such as travel cameras, cell phones, and most laptop computers are still allowed in carry-on and checked luggage.  However, the rule limits individuals to bringing only two extended-life spare rechargeable lithium batteries, such as laptop and professional audio/video/camera equipment lithium batteries in carry-on baggage

The following quantity limits apply to both your spare and installed batteries. The limits are expressed in grams of “equivalent lithium content.” 8 grams of equivalent lithium content is approximately 100 watt-hours. 25 grams is approximately 300 watt-hours:

• Under the new rules, you can bring batteries with up to 8-gram equivalent lithium content. All lithium ion batteries in cell phones are below 8 gram equivalent lithium content. Nearly all laptop computers also are below this quantity threshold.

• You can also bring up to two spare batteries with an aggregate equivalent lithium content of up to 25 grams, in addition to any batteries that fall below the 8-gram threshold. Examples of two types of lithium ion batteries with equivalent lithium content over 8 grams but below 25 are shown below.
• For a lithium metal battery, whether installed in a device or carried as a spare, the limit on lithium content is 2 grams of lithium metal per battery.
• Almost all consumer-type lithium metal batteries are below 2 grams of lithium metal. But if you are unsure, contact the manufacturer!

Indeed this regulation will first be applicable on US registered aircrafts but as usual we may see this new regulation applicable on all International flights. 

Usually all electrical devices, including batteries, are subject to safety certification so either their are considered to be safe or manufacturer has to review quality and safety of its products. 

I really wonder on which basis these new rules are made from. Did anyone saw any incident statistics, reports etc.. (apart Sony made laptop batteries) or is it just one additional constraints air travel passengers will have to deal with.

After lighters and matches in 06, liquids in 07, 08 will add batteries to the restriction list.

All details are here as well as the complete list of items with air travel restrictions

76% of 1200 American consumers who participated to Digital Life America – Holiday 2007 Edition survey have included at least one digital lifestyle product on their wish list.

1. flat screen high definition TV set – 35% (men 37% – women 33%)
2. laptop (windows) – 20% (21% – 19%)
3. digital camera – 17% (16% – 18%)
4. desktop PC – 14% (13% – 15%)
5. GPS navigation unit for the car – 10% (11% – 10%)
6. cell phone – 10% (9% – 12%)
7. digital video camera – 9% (8% – 11%)
8. Nintendo Wii – 9% (8% – 9%)
9. Sony PS3 – 7%
10. Blu-ray or HD-DVD player – 6%

First Apple product (laptop) is on rank 11 (9 among women) buzz maker iPhone is 15. Survey participants clearly prefers laptop to desktop computers.

Unfortunately the survey doesn't reveal details about the type of cell phone ("simple" ones or smartphone) and I'm surprised to not ear anything about MP3 players nor PDA. Not trendy anymore or everybody already has one ?

What your wish list would be made of ?

source: Solutions Research Group. 

Adobe has released its latest version of Lightroom with embedded version of Camera Raw 4.2.

Among others, following RAW formats are now supported:

• Canon EOS 40D
• Fuji FinePix IS-1
• Olympus EVOLT E-510
• Panasonic DMC-FZ18
• Pentax K100D Super
• Sony Alpha 700

For these using computer with non-English operating system or Regional Settings there is a simple trick to make sure that Lightroom appears in English:

1. Open your Lightroom installation folder (e.g C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.2) in Windows Explorer.
2. Create a folder named e.g "Disable languages"
3. Open the Resources folder and move all unused language folders (e.g "fr", "de", "jp") into your newly created "Disable Languages"
4. Et Voilà!

The Sony A700 DSLR microsite was briefly available on Sony UK website earlier this week. Yesterday, Sony officially announced the A-700 in a press release.

New A-700 specs are the following :  

• 12.4 megapixel CMOS sensor
• BIONZ image processor
• 11 point autofocus system
• ISO 6400
• 5fps (for 17 shots in RAW mode)
• 1/8000th shutter speed
• 3 inch LCD screen (with 921,000 pixels)
• Optional battery grip
• Wireless Flash support
• Both MemoryStick and CompactFlash cards supported
• Size: 142 x 105 x 80 mm
• Weight: 690g
• Price Tag: : 1400€ body only, 1500€ with lens 18-70mm, 2120€ with lens Zeiss 18-80 mm

3 new DT lenses will be available:

• 16-105mm F3.5-5.6
• 18-250mm F3.5-6.3
• 55-200mm f4-5.6

Availabilty : 16th of November in Japan

Sources : Photography Blog, Virus Photo.
Check the A-700 Hands-on preview on DPreview  

Additional pictures on Engadget site.
More information later this week with the official Sony launch.

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.

Agilemobile.com, a Bangkok based company, has released the final version of Agile Messenger 3 which is a "all-in-one" Instant Messaging client for mobile terminal.

Agile supports MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ Jabber & GoogleTalk can carry all type of messages (IM, Voice, Video, Photo) and is available for Nokia, Sony Ericsson (Symbian) as well as for Windows Mobile devices (Pocket PC and Smartphone running on WM2002, WM2003 or WM5).

Price is 50 USD per licence.

For corporate users 2 options are available.

1. a version of Agile Messenger that can be customized to reflect corporate identity
2. a LCS client version for that connect directly to Microsoft Live Communication Server without additional gateway.

Installation is straight forward with an *.exe package, or *cab files can be downloaded directly to the mobile terminal. 

I have made few test, and found the interface very pleasant & easy to use. File and photo transfer works fine, specially if you're connected through a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Cons:

• Could not update Twitter using GTalk IM protocol. Twitter user is seen online, but sent messages are not published on Twitter page.
• Skype support would certainly turn this application to a "must have" specially if the possibility of using SkypeOut gateway is given to contact people by phone.

While reaching the end of 7 days trial period given by Agile, I just found another multi-protocol IM tool for PDA and Smartphone which is free: Fring

A quick review of Fring will follow shortly is now published.

That's it, holidays are over and everyone is back to work… today oh surprise, lots of sites announce the soon release of lots of new ultra-mobile computers. 

Interesting enough is the wide selection of operating system proposed (Vista, Windows Mobile, Linux). I wonder which solution will emerge and if the most chosen one will be the most convenient one for frequent travelers.

What are your prognostics ? 

Sony Vaio UX

• CPU 1.3 GHz Intel Solo Core U1500
• 4.5 inch 1024×600 display
• 1 GB Ram
• 32 GB solid state disk
• Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, Firewire, CompactFlash & Memory Stick Duo slots
• Integrated 802.11 b/g
• WAN specifications unknown
• OS : Windows Vista
• Price :  3860 USD !

Source : jkOntheRun

OQO Model 02

• 1.5GHz VIA C7M ULV processor (also available with 1.2GHz)
• 60GB hard drive, shock-mounted with active drop detection (also available with 30GB)
• 1GB DDR2 SDRAM (also available with 512MB)
• Dimensions: 5.6" x 3.3" x 1.0"
• Weight: 1.0 lb
• 5 inch, 800 X 480 displayscrolling
• Embedded EV-DO WWAN (optional) for Sprint
• Integrated WiFi 802.11a/b/g
• Bluetooth® 2.0, USB 2.0
• OS : Windows Vista
• Price : from 1500 USD

Source : OQO

HTC X-7500 Athena

• CPU: Intel XScale, 624 МHz
• 5 inches, 640×480 TFT display
• 128 MB RAM 256 MB ROM
• Hard Disk: 8 GB
• Bluetooth 2.0, MiniSD slot,GPS-receiver
• Integrated cameras: main 2 Mp or 3 Mp
• WAN : GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA
• Dimensions: 133,1x97x20 mm (plus 4 mm keyboard)
• Weight: 350 g.
• O/S Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition
• Price : about 1700 USD

Source : HTC.ru 

 and there are more to follow such Nokia N800, which is apparently only equipped with 802.11 b/g 

Last night in Bangkok has been an opportunity to inaugurate my new Sony Alpha SLR camera. I spent about an hour on my balcony trying to catch some "lights of the night". Not so bad for a first timer, what do you think ? A "Storms" album has been created in the gallery

How small will be your next mobile computer ? It seems that more and more manufacturers are convinced that there is a important market for ultra mobile computers (more or less 5” screen) which position them in between Smartphones & sub-note book (10-12” screen). After Toshiba and its Libretto U100 series, OQO
 with 01+, Samsung and its Cebit 06 announcement Origami Q1, Sony stickes back after the U-series launched in 2004,  teasers announce the arrival in June 2006 of Sony Vaio UX-180P. According infos found on the Cnet blog,

The content of this shiny box is the following :

* 4.5 inch 1024×600 touchscreen
* Windows XP Professional
* 1.2GHz CPU Intel Core Solo U1400
* 512MB
* 30GB
* 802.11a/b/g
* EDGE capability (?)
* Bluetoot
* Dual cameras (1.3 facing the back, 0.3 facing front)
* Battery  3 to 7 hours
* Weight  1.2 pounds
* Biometric fingerprint scanner
* USB port, Memory stick slot, headset & microphone jacks
* 1799 US$