This week, we gather to dive deep into the camera annmouncements made at Photokina, discuss GoPro’s along-awaited quadcopter, and ponder about the usefulness of Nike’s upcoming self-lacing shoes. Plus, hopes and fear for new sci-fi shows including Star Trek and Westworld.
One Day Builds
Adam embarks on one of his most ambitious builds yet: fulfil…
Show And Tell
Adam recently completed a build of the royal St. Edwards cro…
Making
Viewers often ask to see Adam working in real-time, so this …
One Day Builds
Adam and Norm assemble a beautifully machined replica prop k…
One Day Builds
One of the ways Adam has been getting through lockdown has b…
Making
Adam unboxes and performs a quick test of this novel new hel…
Making
When Adam visited Weta Workshop early last year, he stopped …
One Day Builds
Adam tackles a shop shelf build that he's been putting off f…
Show And Tell
Time for a model kit build! This steampunk-inspired mechanic…
One Day Builds
Adam reveals his surprise Christmas present for his wife--a …
This is me being patient and waiting for the video to upload.
Correction first! The first CG character was the stained glass knight, as Norm mentioned. It wasn’t in “Young Indiana Jones”, but in “Young Sherlock Holmes.” Close.
soooo close!
, Norm’s suggestion is a good one, also have a look at the Panasonic LX100: https://www.dpreview.com/products/panasonic/compacts/panasonic_dmclx100
Cool to hear Norm did the mini polaroids at his wedding, I did the same thing for my 5th wedding anniversary party last year.
New Enterprise living areas.
I want to see a Star ship gymnasium!!! VR headsets doing virtual weights? 🙂
A red shirt bashing a vending machine in the games room because his chocolate bar didn’t drop. Real life in deep space!
As someone who doesn’t have a driver’s license, and has never driven a car, I am interested in the discussion on whether self-driving cars require a licensed passenger. I suspect they will, for emergency situations where they may need to take control, but perhaps that can be a simpler licensing test, formulated specifically for passengers.
Just to drive a wedge between good friends:
Get an XF mount camera, you’ll get brilliant low light and excellent interface and a sea of fast AF lenses.
Fujis mirrorless battery game is second to none and you don’t want to be the guy lugging around 8 dead batteries.
You’ll get a body, a wide to standard tele and a prime and infinite (4 maybe?) batteries for somewhere in the range of 800$. less if you go anything below an XT10.
, our hockey is all we have! Actually, we’ll trade you. You can beat us in hockey, if the Raptors or Jays can win a League.
I wonder if there’ll be any Oculus-related news next week…
Kishore: I’ve never noticed a need for image stabilization on the gopro because of the fisheye. You don’t really notice minor to moderate shaking. However on an older Contour camera I had that had a much flatter lens, the shaking was much more pronounced and noticeable
Thank you all for the excellent podcasts, i enjoy watching each and every one, and congratulations Norm on your nuptials 🙂
Today i sadly decided that even though i was looking forward to purchasing a rift, due to Luckey Palmers’ funding of the “Nimble America” organization, I cannot and will not contribute to its success as a product.
I apologize for the political statement here, but with Oculus connect around the corner, i think this is news people should be aware of.
Eeeeeeeh!
Don’t start me on the Anticythera mechanism!! It’s my favourite subject of the moment! Look on youtube for the BBC documentary about it, where they explain what they know now. In short the gears have been analysed and it appears that it calculates all lunar and solar eclipses for years to come. Plus also other dates like the Olympic games. It’s so incredible! I had to nearly pick up my jaw several time watching the documentary (the studies were done from 2006 and the results are pretty recent)
I work as a guide at the International Watch museum in Switzerland and our former director has also reconstructed one of the machines with the local team of watch makers. I wish I could try it out but it’s inside a display. But I make sure to show it in all of my guided tours.
BTW if you search youtube you’ll find that someone has made a Lego replica of it!! I so want to do that
Timestamps and show notes here:
http://pastebin.com/Rjn2j0jw
Sorry, this editor won’t let me post them directly, it just errors out.
So in regards to the whole Allo thing, I don’t recall Google ever saying that the app would be end to end encrypted, except for incognito mode. I’m not sure why people keep reporting that they’re “backing off” from encryption, when it seems like they made it very clear that encryption would be an opt-in function, because it disables the assistant, which is kind of the whole point of the app.
Also, I’m not really sure why people are suddenly freaking out about encrypted messaging when it comes to Google. Has Hangouts or Gmail ever been E2E encrypted? Why is it only now, with Allo, that people are talking about this.
Why is Kishore downloading and testing a product during the podcast? As a tech geek, I can understand the excitement of downloading a new Google app, especially one that is as anticipated at Allo, but maybe the beginning of the podcast is not the best time. Kishore’s complaint that the app had caused his phone to crash a number of times, that the assistant was annoying, or as Norm said “like Clippy” would have been informative if they were comments relating to an actual test of the product. Instead you sounded like any number of amateur podcasts dealing with tech not the professional “testers” you proport to be.
Tested please go to Switzerland!!!!
this sounds amazing.
made me google “depth perception of insects”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160107123956.htm
well, i can’t wait for the reactions from facebook and oculus. facebook is probably going to be boring (trying to let it blow over), but oculus have to do repair, and fast. what palmer’s douchery means in practical terms for me is that i can be even more relaxed re VR. the vive doesn’t interest me because i don’t have the space for roomscale and dislike steam. oculus already got pretty far into meh territory with getting bought by facebook, but are now deep in doodoo land. also, linux support a must, so nothing immediate anyway. that leaves psvr, for now.
other than that: i talked to a friend recently who was about to buy himself new bluetooth earbuds. apparently, that whole carrying box that also acts as a charger isn’t new at all, so you can probably have it without succumbing to apple’s to-be-extected craptastic sound.
and i’m still puzzled at the driving situation over where you guys live. it’s one thing that electric and self-driving cars might be abnormally more visible the closer you get to silicon valley, but over here (continental europe) i don’t know anyone who drives automatic. several people have recently bought new cars, too, and all of them manual.
there is another replica in Paris, and a third one that I can’t recall, it could very well be in the US as there were also American scientists involved in the project. Of course I’d be delighted if the Tested team ever came to visit here!
You can see that documentary here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZXjUqLMgxM I tend to favour BBC docus as they are often more scientific than others.
And the Lego version is here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLPVCJjTNgk I need to convince my boss to let us make one!
I didn’t intend that to be a complete review. Just initial reactions. You’ll see a more thorough follow up next week in Tested style.
So, to make sure I have this correct, some folks are swearing off of VR because Palmer backed a political opponent they don’t like? What if someone on the Tested staff gives a donation to a political cause you don’t like? Will you then swear off Tested? What if every major car company gave a donation to a political cause you don’t like? Would you stop driving cars? What if Tim Cook turns out to have secretly given money to the GOP? Does that mean no more Apple products?
It’s a curious philosophy to let someone you despise (e.g. Donald Trump) dictate what you’re able to enjoy. I don’t see that being very healthy for you in the long run.
Given the incredible hostility in Silicone Valley and the tech/nerd world against most things conservative, I will say kudos to Palmer for his courage. I’m curious to see if he’ll be able to stick it out through the impending barrage of “Oh you hateful evil bad mean horrible person we hate you and hope your business explodes and your family starves to death until you grovel before us and admit we’re the only ones that are right” he’s about to receive. I mean, when Mozilla removes its own CEO and Founder because he doesn’t agree with the popular sentiment on certain issues (how dare he have a contrary opinion), Palmer is in very real danger of getting fired from the dream he worked so hard to build. Good luck to him! Hope he’s got his résumé updated!
With all the news and strong opinions about the Air Buds, I’m wondering if you guys are able to do a comparison with a different pair of wireless earphones, specifically, the Bragi Dash. It started out as a Kickstarter project a couple of years ago, and is now a full product that is on sale on their website. Features gesture controls, it’s water resistant (you can swim with it on), has a built in music player and health tracker features. The case, is also a charging dock, and hold about 4 or 5 recharges. With the music going, it pretty much blocks all external sounds out. Though, it has a feature called “Transparency Mode” that actively pipes sounds in for when you need to be aware of your surroundings.
I love the comments about installing a 480v or 240v supply for your car. “A lot of people do it themselves, if they’re crazy”. In most of the rest of the world, 220-240v is standard household supply and here in Sweden at least, having >400V three-phase in your house is fairly normal.
I remember when we bought a house while living in the US, the house inspector took extra care to point out that there was a 240V socket for the dryer, which we had to be super careful about. He was shocked (!) to learn that 240v was normal in Europe.