Archive for August, 2008
A point and shoot doesn’t have to be a fashion statement, but like a sweet pair of shoes, they have the potential to become one. Shipping in only one color, metallic black, Sony’s T500 rocks 10 megapixels, a 3.5″ touchscreen interface, and serious video recording. How serious? Try 720P in H.264 with stereo audio.
That’s a very common and well respected codec for video clips, making your output easy to play with on popular video applications like iMovie. You also have HDMI output, allowing for an easy way to plug into your HDTVs and show off a slideshow with professional pans and wipes – and up to five minutes of your favorite song playing in the background. Best of all perhaps, is the price point. At $400, its $100 less than the luxurious Lumix LX3 and Nikon P6000 while essentially accomplishing the same goal – a slick point and shoot that can do HD video and play nice with your HDTV.
You may want Nikon P6000’s GPS, or feel more secure with the Lumix LX3’s higher resolution count, but if you’re searching for a sweet spot between essential imaging and sexy portability, the Sony T500 won’t disappoint.
Editor’s Pick for Point and Shoot.
MCCAIN SURPRISES WITH SARAH PALIN AS RUNNING MATE
Moving quickly to replace the afterglow of Obama’s crowning at Invesco Field, Senator John McCain announced his pick for VP, Governor Sarah Palin, of Alaska. In doing so, McCain went off the shortlist of Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, dark horse Joesph Lieberman and GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney. The surprise decision has pundits all over the map with their analysis.
Dee Dee Myers (former Clinton White House press secretary) suggested that Sarah Palin is a female version of Dan Quayle, the VP candidate most remembered for his inability to spell potato. Democratic consultant and pundit Paul Belagio asked “Is McCain out of his mind?” and other more sober critics have pointed out that through Governor Sarah Palin’s selection, Team McCain was ceding the experience argument.
BRIEF BACKGROUND
Governor Sarah Palin is in her first term in a far away state, although one with potentially rising significance as an energy producer. Prior to being Governor, she was the mayor of a small town called Wasilla, Alaska (pop: less than 10,000). Before politics, she described her life as one of a “typical hockey Mom”. Mr. husband is a union laborer and one of her sons has just enlisted in the U.S. Army.
NEW TO THE NATIONAL STAGE
On paper, this looks like a poor choice, and instantly Team Obama hit on its biggest drawback, that the role considered “one heartbeat away from the Presidency..” might go to someone so inexperienced. Even that she is a woman seems a bit of a stretch – an obvious play perhaps to dis-satisified Hillary Clinton supporters but one that undermine his experience argument.
After watching Governor Sarah Palin give her first speech with McCain, the decision to go “off the radar” and find a fresh new face for the Republican party, begins to make more sense.
A STRONG COMMUNICATOR
Governor Sarah Palin is a natural speaker – she didn’t flub and her words seemed her own. While she doesn’t have an excellent speaking voice, (higher tones seem to work less well for microphones) she is quite articulate and has the common sense, All-American style of a Midwesterner or, in her case, Alaskan. She hits that perfect target of independents and undecideds all over the country because she seems just like one of them. Her gratitude towards the women that led the way, including Geraldine Ferrara and Hillary Clinton, earned her strong applause. She was chosen she said, to be that final crack in the glass ceiling that Hillary Clinton talked about.
In her compliment of Senator McCain she observed that he had been to the “darkest places”, a reference to his five years as a Vietnamese prisoner of war. She referred to herself as the proud mother of a son joining the U.S. Army, as a Governor, and as Commander of the Army Reserve (of Alaska). We can expect her to continue to use such titles in shoring up her inexperience.
Not without risk, Sarah Palin’s selection does attempt to shake things up – challenging the popular notion that only Obama is for change. In fact, Governor Sarah Palin used “Reform” and “Change” interchangeably in her speech, as if it didn’t exclusively belong to the Obama brand. Even though Team Obama will spend a few news cycles on Sarah Palin’s readiness to serve, at the end of the day, the battleground has just shifted beyond experience and into who is the better change candidate.
AN ATTEMPT TO GO BEYOND “CHANGE”
For a Republican party led by a very unpopular President and a candidate for President that just turned 72, it may have been a wise choice. “Change” as they say is in the air and now McCain nearly matches team Obama in balancing “new” with experience. McCain also can begin to associate his brand with being fresh, attractive and family-oriented.
THE LAST QUESTION: IDEOLOGY
After considering how Governor Palin’s selection re-pivots the race, it seems less likely that as Paul Belagio suggested, McCain is out of his mind. Dee Dee Myers in comparing Sarah Palin to Dan Quayle may have also spoken too soon. Governor Palin is an articulate, fresh pick that re-pivots the race into the last leg of the race – ideology. After the dust on Governor Palin’s inexperience, the big question will be “Who is the better candidate for change?”
Both sides will soon be claiming the reform mantle with gusto, and the choices lay less on experience and the need for change, then new liberal vs independent conservative solutions to today’s biggest problems.
With a very unpopular GOP incumbent as Party leader, it is an arena not necessarily best suited to John McCain, but one he’d rather have anyways. His best bet now is to distance himself from George Bush as much as possible. Unfortunately, given his “90%” pro-Bush track record, especially on economic issues, that’s one area voters may have a hard time ignoring.
photo: VF
These are rumored pics and specs for the Nikon D90, successor to the Nikon D80. No idea of whether the video is HD quality (at least 720) but it does spell the beginning of the DSLR moving into the realm of video, just as video cameras are slowly improving their still photo options.
Here are the rumored specs from NikonRumors.com waiting for your kvetching.
- video recording – but what quality?!
- 12.3 Mpx.
- ISO 200-3.200 plus Lo1 (100) and Hi 1 (6.400)
- 3″ 900.000 dots LCD
- 11 AF points
- AF-S DX 18-105 mm f/3,5-5,6G ED VR
- 15 elements/11 groups
According to NikonRumors, release date is on August 27th, so we’ll find out soon enough.
Bottom Line: The Nikon D90 is an update to the quality Nikon D80. We love the D80 and the D90 will be the sweetest thing next to full frame (sigh). If you’re looking for a good deal, now’s the time to go over to Amazon and pick up the D80 body for $730.
Crossing Our Fingers: We’re intrigued by the rumored video recording feature on the Nikon D90. We’re just hoping its at least 720P.
The new Nikon S710 (Sept release) is packed with features but you can hardly blame us for noticing the megapixel count first. A whopping 14.5 megapixels will make you stand out of the point and shoot crowd. At $380, we’d place this a notch below hybrid cameras such as the recently announced Nikon P6000 and the near classic Canon G-9, both of which cost $499. The Nikon S710 is expensive as a pure everyday point and shoot, but for that popular category of slim, easy-to-use cameras, it’s aiming to be nothing less than best in class. Costing $100 more than the previous Nikon S610 which features 10 megapixels, it better be.
Besides the 14.5 megapixels, the Nikon S710 also features a generous 3″ LCD display, 3.6x zoom wide-angle glass lens, a stainless steel body, various anti-shake technology, and an ISO of up to 12,800 for shooting in low light. Don’t get too excited about that crazy ISO number. First the Nikon S710 reduces the image to 3 megapixels. Secondly, well, let’s say we’re a bit skeptical. If they’re able to knock out low-noise photos at ISO 1,600 or 3,200 we’d be satisfied.
There are a number of scene modes to choose from, including Close-up, Portrait, Landscape, Backlight, Night Portrait, and Night Landscape. We also appreciate its in-camera red-eye fix and its “Face-Priority” auto focus system, which can detect and stay focused on up to 12 faces in one photo. This is a competitive category, and $380 is quite steep, but the Nikon S710 packs a wallop. We recommend the red. Due in storms in September.
Key Competitor: Sony Cybershot DSC-W300, featuring 13.6 megapixels and a rare optical viewfinder, along with its 2.7″ LCD screen. Originally priced at $349, now on sale for $319.99, the Cybershot DSC-W300 is a tempting alternative.
The new Nikon S710 (Sept release) is packed with features but you can hardly blame us for noticing the megapixel count first. A whopping 14.5 megapixels will make you stand out of the point and shoot crowd. At $380, we’d place this a notch below hybrid cameras such as the recently announced Nikon P6000 and the near classic Canon G-9, both of which cost $499. The Nikon S710 is expensive as a pure everyday point and shoot, but for that popular category of slim, easy-to-use cameras, it’s aiming to be nothing less than best in class. Costing $100 more than the previous Nikon S610 which features 10 megapixels, it better be.
Besides the 14.5 megapixels, the Nikon S710 also features a generous 3″ LCD display, 3.6x zoom wide-angle glass lens, a stainless steel body, various anti-shake technology, and an ISO of up to 12,800 for shooting in low light. Don’t get too excited about that crazy ISO number. First the Nikon S710 reduces the image to 3 megapixels. Secondly, well, let’s say we’re a bit skeptical. If they’re able to knock out low-noise photos at ISO 1,600 or 3,200 we’d be satisfied.
There are a number of scene modes to choose from, including Close-up, Portrait, Landscape, Backlight, Night Portrait, and Night Landscape. We also appreciate its in-camera red-eye fix and its “Face-Priority” auto focus system, which can detect and stay focused on up to 12 faces in one photo. This is a competitive category, and $380 is quite steep, but the Nikon S710 packs a wallop. We recommend the red. Due in storms in September.
Key Competitor: Sony Cybershot DSC-W300, featuring 13.6 megapixels and a rare optical viewfinder, along with its 2.7″ LCD screen. Originally priced at $349, now on sale for $319.99, the Cybershot DSC-W300 is a tempting alternative.
According to Democratic sources, Obama’s pick for VP is Joe Biden. Senator Biden (Delaware) has been receiving much of the recent buzz and his stock rose even further after the Russian invasion of Georgia.
His foreign policy experience and blue collar roots is expected to help Obama with so-called working class Democrats. Even so, Senator Biden has told reporters camped outside his D.C. area home that he “wasn’t the one”. Senator Obama is to officially announce his selection early Saturday morning.
photo: 2008, CNN, Joe Biden at the Democratic debates.
by Michael A. Knipp
Miley Cyrus is a tart. And every other week strategically seductive photos are “leaked” that prove it. But how did Hannah Montana’s newborn star get so gritty so fast? Blame it on The Wonderful World of Disney – it’s creating monsters, and not the loveable “Inc.” kind.
It may seem like Cyrus has lost her marbles a la Peter Pan’s Tootles, but she’s not the only one hell bent on tarnishing her carefully crafted image: Vanessa Hudgens – who plays Gabriella Montez in the multimillion-dollar franchise “High School Musical” – was caught last year with her pants down on the Internet; burgeoning action star Shia LaBeouf, once a niggling little bro on the Disney Channel’s “Even Stevens,” has a rap sheet growing faster than Pinocchio’s nose; and Lindsay Lohan, who was thrust into the limelight following the success of two Disney remakes, “The Parent Trap” and “Freaky Friday,” has been to rehab and back after numerous run-ins with the law. While it’s plausible that these sometimes-criminal activities are rites of passage for teenagers who juggle fame and fortune under the watchful eye of western civilization, believing that is boldly naïve.
This kind of desperate and attention-begging debauchery is planned and calculated, plain and simple. A cog in Disney’s well-oiled wheel, these kids – most of whom are now legal adults – were raised to serve as role models for America’s youth, coached to smile for the camera, and forced to appease adoring fans with fabricated fallacies like, “I plan to remain pure until marriage!” Whether they wanted to or not. Their means of decided departure from that decree, however, is parallel to other recent rebels who have defied Disney’s domination. Because somewhere down the line – round about when they see upwards of seven or more digits in their bank accounts – they realize that they can afford to buy back their souls from the Devil and Donald Duck.
Exhibit A: Britney Spears.
A cast member of the early ’90s revival of “The Mickey Mouse Club,” cleverly titled “The New Mickey Mouse Club,” Spears began her midriff-baring descent down Magic Mountain by sheepishly demanding – in full-on arousal-worthy Catholic schoolgirl regalia – that someone (or something) hit her “one more time.” She has since married twice, divorced, popped out an equal amount of children, attacked a car with an umbrella, shaved her head in public, et cetera, et cetera.
Poisoned apple notwithstanding, Snow White herself would have had an aneurysm if Spears were, at the time, still employed by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner and his League of Extraordinary Madmen.
Then there’s Justin Timberlake, Spears’ “Club” cast mate, who rose to fame as the curly-haired cutie of N’SYNC. Preferring the express lane to Spears’ sluggish coming out, Timberlake reinvented himself as pop music’s reigning badass in one fell swoop. Instantly following the nanosecond it took to expose Janet Jackson’s right breast during the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, Timberlake became the envy of every red-blooded American male who had previously refused to accept the native Tennessean as anything but a momma’s-boy balladeer – which is exactly what he wanted.
Just don’t expect him to admit it. There are some things – as any PR mouthpiece will confirm – that are better left unsaid.
What sets Spears and Timberlake apart from Cyrus, Hudgens, LaBeouf, and Lohan, though, is that despite their connection to Disney, the venerated media conglomerate did little to contribute to their individual successes and subsequent “image restructuring”; the once-inseparable bed buddies had escaped the bewitching effects of business with Walt & Co. years prior to flouting all reasonable logic.
Given this context though, and considering the questionable stability of Disney’s more contemporary products relative to their lengthy relationship with the kiddie corruptor, it’s easy to understand how the “Disneyfication” of this new breed is actually a death grip in disguise. It’s likely that most aspects of their lives are (or were, in some cases) nefariously structured by their bosses, from what they wear, to what they say, to where they go, with stern warnings not to stray too far outside long-established, briar-filled boundaries.
What’s happening here is a tale that’s becoming, ironically enough, as old as time: The House of Mouse attracts new talent via cheese – the kind that features dead presidents – turns said talent into the biggest names in entertainment, and rules over them with Maleficent-like authority. The personas that are created are simply that – personas, goody-two-shoes incarnations of true selves that eventually want breathing room, that yearn to escape an entrapping chokehold that offers mercy only when stories of exposed private parts or DUIs grace every gossip rag from here to Never Land.
Meanwhile, in the midst of these self-destructive, dignity-compromising meltdowns, Disney is steadfastly prepping its next commercial experiment for their demise-foreshadowing debut.
Demi Lavato, anyone?
photo: Albert L. Ortega
Michael A. Knipp is an NYC-based freelance writer and the founder of Line/Byline Communications. He can be reached at michael.knipp@gmail.com.
by Lucia Novara
Many names have been bandied about in the nationwide discussion of who will be chosen as Obama’s running mate. Sometimes known as the “Candidate’s Bridesmaid”, the running mate is a crucial part of a candidate’s electability.
Some people are still rooting for Hillary Clinton as Vice President, but while it seems like a great option to have the best of both worlds, anyone who remembers the venom of that initial campaign knows it’s not bloody likely.
It would be like having post-World War II Germany and France deciding to get a timeshare in the Hampton’s together for four to eight years.
So who should join Obama on his quest for the White House? I think I’ve got four solid options.
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger
As a man of many contradictions, Arnold brings a diversified platform to Obama’s campaign. He’s Republican but strong on environmentalism. He’s married to a Kennedy, but doesn’t drink. There’s a kind of balance there than can only help the Obama 2008 camp. And every time they board Airforce One, Arnie can crack Obama up by shouting, “Get to the chopper!” Sure there may be some sort of Constitutional do-dad that prevents a foreign-born person from being President or Vice President, but if The Simpsons Movie can overcome that irrelevant detail, so can I. Besides, the Vice Presidenator has too nice of a ring to it.
Oprah Winfrey
Has there been anything Oprah has set her mind to that she hasn’t accomplished? If she decides to run for Vice President, whoever is along for the ride is getting elected President. There are several angles Obama’s team needs to consider in this merger. Imagine the sales increase for “The Audacity of Hope” if it gets Oprah’s Book Club Recommended! Obama could also launch the NEW “O” Magazine, which will feature his picture on the cover each month, airbrushed and looking vivaciously perky. Campaign promises could include “You will love yourself in the mirror by 2012″ and “Obama/Winfrey ‘08: Make Your Relationship Last”. Bonus for the ticket- Everyone in the United States gets a Pontiac G-6 sports sedan!
Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana
Both McCain and Obama have been fighting tooth and nail to win coveted tween votes and campaign dollars. Who better as a running mate than Tween Queen Miley Cyrus? The Obama/Cyrus/Montana ticket will stand on a firm platform of clean energy, fiscal responsibility, and subsidies for the knee-socks-with-heels industry. The blond one can handle the press pieces that call for photo shoots with White House pets, while the brunette can head up the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We can also quit flirting with merging politics and tabloid stars, and do it for real when the White House holds its first press conference on the Vice President’s “nipple slip”.
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
It’s important in picking a running mate to “balance the ticket,” which means chosing someone who appeals to the demographic that the candidate is missing. Kwame may be just the thing- he’s had an extra marital affair, lied about it in court, threatened people with hired thugs, and might be connected to a stripper’s murder. While Obama may appeal to folks who want a solid economy, clean air, good schools, and peaceful foreign relations, there’s an entire demographic out there that wants a REAL politician- someone they can look down on while picking their belly buttons and eating mallow-based foodstuffs. Conservatives are worried that Obama won’t be tough enough in foreign policy. With Kwame at his side, Obama can promise to send armed-to-the-teeth Goon Squads to rogue nations in the middle of the night and Americans won’t ever have to know about it! Sigh, it could be just like those golden Reagan years all over again…
With the Democratic convention looming in the near future, we will probably soon know who will have Obama’s back in the brutal dog-fight we call election year. If the pending merger between Disney Co. and the government goes through in time, there’s no doubt it will be Mickey (Minnie learned a lesson from Hil- the country just isn’t ready yet). But whoever it is, they better have the Audacity to Smear Campaign.
Lucia Novara earned a B.A. in journalism through Michigan State Univ. She has traveled through North America, Europe, the South Pacific, Southern Asia, and has studied in Australia and Italy. She currently lives in Denver and is the Events Coordinator for the American Indian College Fund. She writes for the United Nations of Beer and HomeLink Magazine.
According to authors Paul Muolo and Mathew Padilla, the subprime mortgage mess all begins with Wall Street. Saying that Wall Streeters thought they had built a better business model, or “mousetrap” for mortgages, as Paul Muolo called in on a recent television interview, the traditional role of banks in the mortgage process gave ground to a nationwide, automated home lending system that relied on hundreds of thousands of freelance mortgage brokers who were paid on a commission by the likes of Country Wide. Wall Streeters sought to package these investments into familiar high-growth funds they could trade. A recipe for disaster.
The bottom line: To quote author Paul Muolo on News Hour, “The days of easy money are over.”
In an effort to attract customers from competitors like Amazon.com, eBay has announced that they are reducing the fee for fixed price items. The drop in price is quite dramatic, ranging from as much as $4 to the new price of just 35 cents. In another generous move, eBay is also increasing the duration time from 7 days to 30. They will be taking a higher commission to reflect their greater role, but overall, this is a gift to eBay members.
Our take: It’s a smart move. eBay needs to concentrate on their non-auction business.
