With all the high technology present in even today’s consumer cameras, its not uncommon to hear complaints from stodgy old photographers that all the skill once required to take quality photos has been replaced by automated whozits and battery-powered thingamajigs. My answer to this is to simply pull up any one of the millions of crappy snapshots posted to Flickr every day, but they still have a point. The barrier to creating truly high quality photographs has certainly been lowered with the emergence of cheap, high quality cameras, but that only goes so far. I have a pretty advanced DSLR, and I know I can’t rely on it totally for light metering, focus, or exposure settings. The best way to ensure that all your shots turn out fantastic is to play by the age-old rules of photography– 12 of which are presented for your perusal by Popular Photography.

It seems that ever since Nick Negroponte and his MIT posse announced their plans to build a super-cheap super-awesome laptop for developing nations, every First World techie has been itching to get their hands on one. But how does one go about selling a product that was only ever meant to be given away? In a move sure to warm hearts and empty wallets, $399 will get a geek a green machine of their very own, and send one to an underprivileged kid on the other side of the world.

The promotion will only be available for a limited time starting November 12, after which one can assume you’ll still be able to buy the things, but you won’t be doing anything for your third-world counterpart. [via]

In the day’s after its announcement at Macworld and before its run through the FCC test gauntlet, there was a lot of speculation that the final feature-set would include the much coveted GPS feature present on many other devices. Alas, this did not come to be, and the iPhone seemed relegated to being a dumb terminal into which users were forced to manually input their location.

Seemingly out of nowhere, an app called Navizon has shown up in Installer.app, which although it doesn’t magically add a GPS chip to your device, is able to triangulate your location pretty damn well using cell towers. It’s not fast, and it might crash your phone, but its a start, and a damn good one at that.

Western Digital today gave a nice facelift to their “MyBook” line of external hard drives. The thinner and sleeker MyBooks will still pack a USB 2.0 port but will add the much faster eSATA plug on select models. Expect the usual complement of backup software bundled with the drives, which are available now. Pricing goes from $129.99 to $379.99 with capacities reaching 1TB.

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Brando is back at it again with their fun but useless USB devices. The USB Greenhouse has a special growth light to stimulate plants and monitors moisture to remind you when to water.

To get you started they even include Marigold seeds, and artificial soil. Can’t think of a better mix, technology and water! Available for $43.00.

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I’ve been meaning to pick up a pair of good earbuds for at least the past two years, but I’ve never really been able to justify the expense when my hacked iPhone earbuds are “good enough.” I gotta say though, today’s Amazon special on the Shure E2c’s has me reaching for my wallet. Normally going for a full Benjamin, you can snap them up today for a cool 40 bucks. Anyone have a pair of these? Worth buying, or should I keep holding out for a better deal? [via]

Now this is a little deceiving. Dane-Elec is selling a “No Limit Memory USB Drive” is rather clever in how it determines “No Limit”. What they do is give you a 1GB or 2GB capacity USB memory stick loaded with special software to let you access 1 GB of online storage space to add to your drives capacity. Now a maximum of 3GB doesn’t seem limitless to me – but it is a clever concept none the less.

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Hey Halo fans, GearLive managed to get their hands on a XBox 360 Halo edition a weeee bit early and put pictures of its unboxing online. I must say it looks like a spiffy mod.

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The ongoing battle to use one’s iPhone as one pleases keeps on going. The people strike, then Apple responds. Then the people take another swing.
Not only is there a a free Sim unlock today, but even the ringtones have been freed today.
You all know about the updated iTunes to 7.4.1 doesn’t allow you to add your own ringtones, till now.

Rogue Amoeba have released a free little app that allows you to import custom ringtones into the latest version of iTunes with very little effort.
Sweet!

Hackers – 2, Apple – 0

Anyone foresee iTunes 7.4.2 being released later this week?

[via]

There seems to be something about toasters that makes industrial designers go crazy. I can’t count the number of beautiful, innovate, and usually totally impractical concepts for new toasters I’ve seen in the past few months, and here’s another to add to the pile.

Every family had to deal with the issue of communicating important notes between people of hectic and different schedules. Mom is off to work early, but the kids don’t wake up till noon. Hubby heads out early to play golf while the Mrs sleeps in. Sure, sticky notes and phone messages might work, but where’s the fun in that. Why not jot down a note on the top of your toaster, only to have it be burned into the toast of whoever comes to breakfast next.

While the technology behind the concept (designed by Sasha Tseng) is vague at best, I’d guess it uses metallic ink similar to those drawing boards for toddlers. Run a current through the drawing board, and the heat is concentrated wherever the ink is, creating a darker toast in the pattern of your choice. In any case, some pretty cool technology for a product that will unfortunately never see the light of day. [via]