Now iTunes users and iPod owners can take away episodes of the Sopranos and Sex and the City thanks to a new deal Apple has inked with HBO. Another bunch of shows on iTunes is not such a big deal, but there is a big change under the hood. Apple has moved away from its fixed pricing model and offers the HBO titles at $1.99 and $2.99 per episode.

Rome, The Sopranos and Deadwood come in at the higher price, while The Wire, Sex and the City and Flight of the Conchords are all at the old standard $1.99 price point. Given that Apple's lack of flexibility on pricing was the reason for NBC ditching iTunes (plus the fact that NBC is jumping into bed with just about everybody else), this could mean that Battlestar Galactica might be coming back to the iTunes Store.

Product page [iTunes]

Yesterday the WiFi memory card people, Eye-Fi, announced a new SD card which we at Gadget Lab think will change the way photos are shared.

The Eye-Fi Explore brings a slot-in geotagging solution to anyone with an SD card slot in their camera, so every photo you take will be stamped with the location you were in. In addition, you can finally use a digicam without a computer. The Eye-Fi will log on to free hotspots and send your snaps out into the cloud, to end up at your photo site of choice.

We had a chat with Eye-Fi CEO Jef Holove to see how the card works and what it might mean for the future of photography.

Continue reading "Interview With Eye-Fi CEO Jef Holove" »

Dave's Adjustable Hot Sauce appeals to our capsaicin addiction and also our love of gadgetry. The collar on the neck of the bottle adjusts the balance between the two salsas within: one hot and one fiery, so you can take the burn up to eleven or dial things down for your partner's puny palette.

The only problem we foresee is that, like an all-in-one printer cartridge, one chamber will run out before the other. But at $177 per gallon, it's also forty five times cheaper than printer ink. It would also make a good stand in for Mace Pepper Spray Gel.

Product page [Dave's Gourmet via BBGadgets]

Apple has been granted a trademark for the shape of the iPod, essentially giving it exclusive rights to make a box with a screen and a wheel:

[T]he design of a portable and handheld digital electronic media device comprised of a rectangular casing displaying circular and rectangular shapes therein arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner. [emphasis added]

Who decides that last point, we have no idea, but this will mean that Apple is likely to become much more aggressive in going after the knock-off iPod designs out there. One advantage of a trademark over a patent is that it doesn't expire. However, to keep a trademark, you need to defend it, which means lots of nasty letters to manufacturers. Otherwise, the shape of the iPod could end up like the name "Hoover" (now the English for vacuum cleaner).

Ridiculous? Perhaps. But if McDonald's can register "I'm going to McDonald's" and T-Mobile can lay claim to the color pink, then a pretty arrangement of shapes seems almost sensible.

Shape of Things to Come [Wall Street Journal]

Olympus has announced its new DSLR, the ten megapixel E-520. The successor to the E-510, Olympus' new camera comes loaded with all the necessary features for today's DSLR: face-detecting focus, a biggish 2.7" LCD screen with Live View, an image stabilizer (in the body, not the lens), a sonic dust remover, Shadow Adjustment Technology (which we believe is akin to Nikon's Dynamic Lighting) and a slew of useless auto modes (32 of them, including "candlelit dinner" mode).

There is some good stuff normally reserved for higher end bodies, too. Bracketing can be applied to focus and white balance as well as exposure, there is built in wireless control for external strobes and a spot meter. The E-520 uses the Four Thirds lens standard, which brings us to Olympus' other announcement, the Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm f/4-5.6.

The specs are pretty much summed up in the name. The crop factor of the Four Thirds sensor means that the lens gives a 35mm equivalent range of 18-36 mm, which is pretty wide. The body will ship in the UK in June for £480 ($138) and the lens in September, price unknown.

Press release [Olympus]

Lens and body specs [DP Review]

Claudio Sinatti was commissioned to shoot Italian footballer Marco Materazzi for the Nike "Art of Football" exhibition. He built a special frame to hang on the player to film from all angles while he kicked the pig's bladder around.

Watching the beginning of this video is like watching the A-Team in action. A kind of wussy, intellectual A-Team, but a nut'n-bolt screwing, metal rod wielding, hardware hacking A-Team nonetheless. After ratcheting 48 cameras to the "360º Corset" though, it gets a little dull. Even the footballer Marco Materazzi looks bored, although for around $10 million a year he can afford a little grunt work now and then.

The final rig is a cross between the Matrix's Bullet Time setup and Scorsese's SnorriCam, the camera clamped to Harvey Keitel in the bar scene in Mean Streets. Imagine what you could do with all those megapixels of multi-angle video. Sadly, Sinatti didn't bother with any whirling 3D action and instead stuck the whole lot up on a wall of screens. Still, full marks for the mix of high and low tech behind the scenes. And one demerit for the tedious focus-pulling in the edit.

Project page [Claudio Sinatti]

While Apple followers feverishly