DXG-125V HIGH DEFINITION VIDEO CAMERA

By K.C.Bishoppe

Small, portable high definition video cameras are all the rage now. It's amazing what the average person, armed with a video camera, can accomplish.

But the problem with video cameras, outdoor elements and rugged activities is pretty much the same as the problem with cameras, weather and sports. Both are somewhat fragile and don't react well to wet, cold. knocks and bumps.

Now we've located an amazing little camcorder that's perfect for outdoors. About the same size as a candy bar, the DXG-125V 720p High Definition camcorder is waterproof, heatproof and basically all-weather and all terrain.

With a rugged rubber hand grip, the unit is protected against bumps and drops Its bright red color makes it easy to locate if you drop it in the snow or elsewhere since it stands out.

It also records movies and still images to internal Flash or SD card. The unit has a two-inch screen, an HDMI output, a MP3 player and a compass.

Video and stills are fairly good in well lit areas, but results are not as good in darker areas. Performance overall, for the price of $139, is pretty good, especially if you're in a rainy, snowy or particularly hot arid area where regular devices suffer from the elements.

WI-FI IS LEAPING AHEAD

By D.E.Levine

The acceptance of the IEEE 802.11n wireless standard will accelerate major changes in Wi-Fi performance over the next 3 to 5 years.

Performance will jump to 300 bps and 150 Mps throughput and that will result in more use of Wi-Fi in both the personal and business sectors.

The 802.11n standard makes it possible for a range of high data rates that can be adapted to different functions and devices. More of the standard's optional performance features will appear in radio chips which can then be used to make RF signals more resilient and reliable.

Wi-Fi is being embedded in new devices, sensors, tracking tags and systems, medical monitoring equipment, consumer electronics et al. Using the 802.11w standard, messages from attackers can be disregarded instead of obeyed. Security policies in Wei-Fi networks are associated with a user not a port.

There will be more flexibility in querying providers, finding out if a user can use a particular provider and then securely joining that provider's network. A user's cellular subscriber identity will travel with them, enabling the user to make use of various Wi-Fi services.

Client and access points will cooperate in new and interesting ways once intelligence via new Wi-Fi management standard protocols. The 802.11k radio resource management standard will facilitate connecting to the best access point when moving away from the access point to which you're already connected. A Wi-Fi radio in any personal devices could link directly with other client devices instead of establishing a point-to-point link,

While nothing will happen immediately, development of new ways of connectivity are under development and will be developed and introduced over the next few years.

SAMSUNG DUALVIEW TL225 DIGITAL CAMERA

By M.S.Welles

The price is a bit steep at $350 but the concept is new and innovative. You've probably had some instance when you needed to take a picture of yourself so you held your digital camera facing you and clicked the button to snap a photo.

The thing about this method is when you look at the photo it generally isn't exactly what you want and you wind up retaking the photo several time.

Samsung's DualView TL225 takes the effort and the mistakes out of taking your picture. A sleek black body with a hint of one of four colors around its edge, the camera is a 12.4 megapixel camera.

The distinctive feature is that this camera has two viewfinders. The main LCD screen on the back is 3.5 inches and is a touchscreen as well.

It has a digital zoom of 5x and an optical zoom of 4.6x. The second screen, in the front, is 1.5 inches and has a lower resolution than the other screen. However, the screen is more than enough for a self portrait and can be turned off by tapping it.

The 1.5 inch screen turns on automatically when the camera is in one of three modes: self Portrai, Self Timer or Children. When the camera is in Children mode the screen displays an animated clown designed to make children smile.

The camera has fantastic resolution quality, with a very usable display regardless of lighting. On drawback is that the camera writes to microSDHC cards and users cannot use older SD or SDHC cards.

CIA BUILDING ON A CLOUD

By M.S.Welles

One of the U.S. government's most secretive agencies, the CIA, is pinning its hopes to a cloud and adopting cloud computing in a big way.

Spokesmen for the agency say that they feel cloud computing makes IT environments more flexible and secure when kept within a firewall.

The agency has had widespread virtualization for years. Virtualization abstracts the operating system and software from the hardware, and is an excellent basis for building a cloud environment.

The CIA also uses thin clients and Web-based applications which reduces the necessity of securing individual workstations.

With the CIA cloud's use of standards-based technology, complexity is reduced and patches are deployed faster.

Since everything in a cloud environment is built on common processes, there is a consistent approach to doing things.

GEOFENCING FEATURE ADDED BY ABSOLUTE

By D.E.Levine

Geofencing capabilities that enable IT managers to incorporate the physical location of a device into their IT Asset Management strategy have been added to Computrace products by Absolute Software Corp.

End user are alerted when a laptop or mobile device goes beyond a certain perimeter defined on a web-based map.

After the alert, the manager can take appropriate action like deleting data from the device, in order to protect both the device and the data.

SOCIAL NETWORKS POSE THREATS

By K.C.Bishoppe

It's true that social networking is growing rapidly and more and more companies are using social network to increase their business.

However, with social networks come a variety of threats that could be potentially damaging to the good name of the brand.

Numerous instances of impersonation have taken place and social media cybersquatting is approximately where domain site cybersquatting was ten years ago.

When people use variations on brand names to open social networking accounts it's generally because they hope companies will pay them for the accounts.

But while domains have a central authority (ICANN), social netoworking sites don't have any central authority. There is also a lack of procedures and processes for reclaiming brand names from cybersquatters.

In the meantime cybersquatters, spammers and pirates have cost brand name companies millions of dollars in losses, much of which goes unnoticed unless the company is actively monitoring for such problems.

CIRCUITS RUN OFF TREE POWER

By K.C.Bishoppe

Trees contain enough power to run a custom circuit. This fact was recently proven by researchers at the University of Washington.

Although the power in trees isn't expected to replace solar power, it's anticipated it could power tree sensors dedicated to detecting environmental conditions or forest fires.

The researchers found that big-leaf maples generate a steady voltage up to a few hundred millivolts. By developing a boost converter capable of storing low incoming voltage and generating stronger voltage of 1.1 V.

Although the researchers haven't established where the voltage in trees comes from, there appears to be some signaling in trees similar to that in the human body, but at a slower speed.