Last week, at a media session playing with Canon’s latest range of new cameras, I casually glanced up from the screen of the new 50D DSLR and asked them, “So, when are we going to see the new 5D?” Their response was unsurprising: “No comment”. However they did follow that by hinting its imminent arrival: “There’s always something around the corner”.
To throw fuel on the rumour fire that’s growing every day we get closer to Photokina, tipster Norman tells us that he has been informed by Canon Australia and authorised Canon reseller Digital Camera Warehouse that Canon has discontinued the 5D Mk.
Our first day at IFA 2008 is done, and without doubt, the overall winner so far–apart from Miss IFA and her jewels–has been the new Sony ZX1 9.9mm-thin LCD TV, which was absolutely beautiful, followed by the Philips Essence. However, there have been plenty of other things that you can check out here:
The Dad’s Cab Meter is a fake taxi fare counter for parental chauffeurs, made so they can guilt/embarrass their ingrate children into doing chores for them. The meter incrementally increases the pretend fare and comes with a stack of fare receipts that have chores the kids can do as payment (har har har). It’s kinda like those redonkulous moments on The Cosby Show where the entire family would participate in a role-play with some sort of real-world moral to it, except not anywhere as funny. Dad’s Cab is US$18, but in the grand scheme of things, mortifying your children is priceless. [Gizoo via Coolest Gadgets via Dvice]
newVideoPlayer("/philipsboothtour_gizmodo.flv", 506, 423,""); In addition to their new TVs and AV systems, Philips had a ton of small new gadgets and appliances at IFA 2008 today: new Streamium 160GB micro Hi-Fi systems, the CinemaOne all-in-one home theatre unit, the new version of the Wake-Up Light alarm clock, a cool home messaging system bar, a beer draft machine, a barrage of grooming things, food processors, and the new Senseo Latte Select, which does perfect latte macchiatos in seconds. I’ll get an espresso instead, because I was getting quite sleepy right there.
In a presentation made at Nvidia’s NVISION show this week, Adam and Jamie unveiled a 2100 barrel paintball gun and—in an instant—painted a pretty convincing (if not slightly drippy) Mona Lisa. In typical MythBusters fashion, the incredibly elaborate experiment was only tenuously linked to their hypothesis. The presentation was intended to represent the difference in operation between single and multicore processors, referring to current gen CPUs versus GPUs, respectively.
This modern house in Spain has a complex and industrial-looking mini golf course on its roof. [Archdaily] galleryPost('minigolfhouse', 6, '');
And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder: One of the four beasts saying: “Come and see.” And I saw. And behold, there was the other Jesus, the Bible character, calling me from a big screen saying “Jesus is the Reason for The–V-Sign this program-and will be shu-whaaa?” Clearly, Jesus is good with all this saving Humanity and making water into wine tricks, but I’m afraid he’s no match for Windows errors. [Fail]
We are in the midst of a sink design Renaissance folks—crazy new designs seem to pop up all the time. The latest comes to us via Graff in a form that bears more than a passing resemblance to a samurai sword. Plus, the faucet itself is about a metre tall, so I wouldn’t be surprised if visitors to your bathroom linger a bit admiring this masterpiece of plumbing. You even have the option of wall mounting the handles depending on which style you prefer. [Graff via HDF]
The biggest fear for any mobile road warrior out there using a wireless internet connection from one of the Telcos is that if you exceed your data quota for a month, your next bill will probably come packaged with a taser so you can shock yourself out of the wallet-sickening stupor.
The good news is that iPrimus yesterday broke trend with the rest of the mobile broadband providing networks by offering services that shape your data speeds rather than charge you excess, something ADSL has been offering for years.
The designers at Volkswagen brought out the big guns for an upcoming recreational vehicle show in Düsseldorf, Germany by crossing one of their small commercial Caddy vans with a sailboat. While the Caddy Topos Sail design is not capable of travelling on water, it does feature a sailboat style deck on the roof that can be modified for relaxation and sunbathing. It even features a wooden ladder built into the glass to grant easy access to the roof. I suppose that it is clever in a stupid sort of way, but no matter how you feel about the quirky design, it is only a concept.
