Gadgets

The dream of a fully high-definition existence—an admirable vision, to be sure—has long been stymied by the wait for the right equipment. Well, the right equipment is here. Arrayed on these pages is a suite of products that allow you to capture, display, record, and store visual media in eye-popping HD.

When SARS swept through Hong Kong last spring, some jittery citizens turned not just to surgical masks but also to cellphones for protection against the killer virus, dialing up a text-messaging service for the addresses of the closest contaminated buildings.

How tightly can you crop your digital photos and still get great results when you enlarge them?



We spoke with staff photographer John B. Carnett to get to the bottom of this not-so-simple question. Carnett says that it really depends on what you plan to do with the image. Great results for one person might be a grainy image, but one blown up large enough to cover a gaping hole in a bedroom wall. Others demand images that look just like the real thing.

onClick="window.open('','popup1','height=549,width=290,scrollbars=no,resize=no')"
target="popup1" class="sidebar">How he got that shot: Steve Starr

Photojournalist Steve Starr, a 1970 Pulitzer Prize winner, had been contemplating a slow transition away from traditional SLRs before ultimately deciding to simply jump off the pier and into digital photography.

» Because the physical hard drive is a conduit for a unique type of energy, it is possible for nature spirits (called vaettir) to take up residence within it.



» Do not curse, yell, smack or otherwise vent your anger on your computer. Most vaettir are extremely sensitive to emotions.



» Emotions are energy, and mixing incompatible energy fields can have bad results: culminating in the dreaded "blue screen of death."

CAMERAS

1839

In stores: the Giroux Daguerreotype, the world's first consumer camera.



1859

Wide-field: Sutton patents a panoramic camera.



1888

Kodak introduces its first consumer camera; $25 buys you 100 exposures.



1900

Kodak's Brownie brings photography to the people. A British poster advertises the camera for 5 shillings; cost in the U.S. is $1.



1912

The 35mm still camera is developed; the format soon dominates.



1959

1. Use uncompressed files. Photos shot and stored as JPEG files are small, but the data lost by this compression system limits your ability to improve sharpness and contrast, and make other improvements down the road. TIFF files are not compressed, but they can be huge, severely limiting the number of shots you can get on a storage card. One alternative: the RAW format, used by digital SLR cameras and some high-end point-and-shoot cameras. A RAW file is like an original film negative: all the source data is at your disposal.

Digital photography has come a long way from where it was just a

A few years from now, your vacation might take you to a room much like number 267 at the Hilton Garden Inn at LAX/El Segundo. As you enter, motion sensors automatically turn on the lights. You touch the biometric safe with your thumb, and the door opens to store your valuables. You flop on the bed, and its system of slats and air pockets molds to your body's weight and contours. Your remote dims the lights, opens the drapes, checks your e-mail on plasma television, and changes the digital artwork on the walls to suit your tastes.

Audio components with breakthrough technologies don't always blow away audiophiles the first time around. Often, next-gen products need to be rethought—or at least seriously tweaked—to avoid an early death. (Did you mourn the passing of the Digital Compact Cassette?

Small and light gadgets can make a journey easier, but sometimes
performance and features get squeezed out in the bargain. What we have here are tech toys for vacationing that are among the smallest and most versatile in their classes, like the tiny 3-megapixel Nikon (shown) which helps you compose even the toughest travel shots. The priorities are the same for luggage: You want innovations to ease the schlep-because it's not a real vacation if you don't buy a lot of cool stuff to cram into your suitcase for the trip home.

1. Take Windows with You

Sony's high-capacity blue laser DVD recorder, set to debut in the United States this fall, crams five times more information on a
disc than the standard red laser version does and heralds the arrival of next-generation technology. Enthusiasts eager to get their hands on that much data capacity, however, may think twice after learning that production snags boosted the DVD's price to about $3,500. But researchers at BlackLight Power in Cranbury, New
Jersey, say they have made a discovery that may help overcome technical hurdles and get reliable blue lasers to market.

As the Third Infantry Division rumbled toward Baghdad in early April, the late NBC News correspondent David Bloom crouched inside a tank recovery vehicle. His mission: Fire video footage via microwave to a $500,000 customized truck trailing a few miles behind. NBC had equipped its warmobile with a satellite dish that rotates on a gyroscope, allowing it to send video, even at 50 mph. "This is the first time anyone has ever transmitted from a vehicle at full bandwidth while moving," says Stacy Brady, vice president of NBC News field operations.

Millions of science enthusiasts currently loan their unused PC power via the Web to researchers who need it in the hunt for medical cures and scientific eurekas. Millions more will likely follow suit later this summer when Berkeley scientist David Anderson debuts an easier and cheaper way to write distributed computing software.

Listen carefully: Both DVD-A and SACD promise you-are-there sound quality. Both require new discs and players. SACD can be listened to in 2-channel stereo, or in 5.1 surround sound; DVD-A can only be listened to in 5.1 surround, but offers video clips and images you can view on your PC or TV. In 5.1 surround mode, there's not a lot of difference between the two formats to the untrained ear. The problem is that not every audiophile likes 5.1 surround sound -- some believe 2-channel is closer to what a live performance sounds like. In that case, your only option is SACD.