[photopress:gates.jpg,full,centered] Ok, his final CES keynote speech as Chairman of Microsoft.

And another day of no real digital photographic breakthough news. Hmmm…I think people are holding out for MACWORLD AND PMA. And we’ll also be covering PhotoLA later this week. The Yin and the Yang.

What did we learn in this keynote speech though?

Major Microsoft partnering is afoot. The 2008 Olympics will be broadband in a big way this year.
Ford has already introduced Synch where you can synch your MP3 player and smartphone to your new Ford vehicle. Just say which song to play, and it will. Even from your iPod. And say the name of the person you want to call. And it will. Lots of voice recognition going on. And they claim 98% accuracy.
Social networking through MSN Live, some future looks at the Surface, the touch screen table, and a new GPS type personal…um…locator? Point it at a place, and it actually will be able to recognize landmarks as simple as a restaurant and or club and give detailed and perhaps video info on the image. OK, thats in the future.

Mr. Gates played a hysterical video about his last days at Microsoft, with roast material from a slew of heavy hitting notables.

Here is Matthew Mcconaughey training him for his new life.
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Gates ended the keynote with a Guitar Hero Challenge with one of his execs. Although Gates had a ringer come onto the stage…Slash who wailed with the opening straing of Welcome to the Jungle.
Now that’s good stuff.
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But he kept talking about Zune. Oh, well.

Right. It wasn’t all about Bill Gates today.

Sony had some product announcements, and they smiled about the industry winner Blu-Ray. the war is over and they won.

We’ll review the new products later this week as we see what they may mean to the photographer in you.

Now there was another event, filthy with tons of companies, and we found some great tools for your kit. Breakthrough stuff? Nope. But useful none the less.

Solar chargers, emergency battery chargers, bluetooth headsets (yep, tons more) digital frames (wait on those for now),large flash drives. small travel surge protected power bars, and more.

Just sifting through it all before we put out a solid list.

Yep, Las Vegas. Been here for lots of trade shows, not so much to party. Hence the length of the stay. 2 Days is probably right for fun.

This time it’s CES (Consumer Electronics Show ) The biggest and best technology, gadget, entertainment, and gear innovation show on the planet.
We’ll be concentrating on digital imaging of course, but that doesn’t mean we won’t slip in some ancillary goodies along the way.

So on day one, not a ton to report. Unfortunately.

Couple of things though – a CF card that has a locking feature similar to an SD card. Helps prevent loading in a filled card. But not UDMA. 150x speed.
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NetGear will be debuting a new Raid hard drive storage system tomorrow,which could give G-tech a run for their money.It does work on an ethernet system so all computers on the network can access the materials. Plus they have an “N” wireless module, about the size of a thumb drive.(same speed as the Airport Extreme)
More on all of that tomorrow.

Lots of practical tools such as improved, bluetooth headsets from Flamingo, faster broadband cards from Novatel for your laptop (Thank you, we could use that right now!)

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Cool iPod speaker systems, boom boxes, and cases. The one pictured above has those side speakers that fold up into a nice compact unit. Yes, iPhone compatible.

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A new safety radio on the way from Eton. Everyone should have one of these. No lie. With features such as a dynamo radio (no battery, just a crank) LED flashlight, weather band, 2 way radio capabilities, ability to charge a cell phone- yes iPhone plug is in the mix, and a sleek, ergonomic design. Should be in every location photogs gear. And every family.

Oh, and if you haven’t heard, HD DVD has kind of lost the battle to Blu-Ray. Once Warner Bros. Studios agreed to go exclusive to Blu-Ray, that format now commands 80% of the content. Maybe you’ll feel comfortable buying now. the HD DVD folks even canceled huge PR events here due to that news.

OK, so we did see a bunch of good stuff today. But as far as photographic breakthroughs? Not today. Not for us.

Tomorrow is another day.

[photopress:keppler.jpg,full,alignright] If you have ever read Pop Photo or before that, Modern Photography, you have been amused, schooled, challenged and, in general, entertained by the columns of Herbert Keppler.
His sometimes ornery but always well meaning and honest question/answer repartee, was one of the most widely read parts of the magazine. Take a look at some of his articles from the “Speaking Frankly” series.

As a wee lad growing up on Popular Photography, he was a mainstay. And he kept up with all of the changing technologies.

He will be missed.

Well, it was a rugged end of year, but we have now caught up with all of the winners from the giveaways at the end of the year. So…….here we go:

Teach Me Pro– a great collection of teaching DVD’s from Software-Cinema for the more advanced photographer – went to Armando G. of Galveston Texas
Teach Me Easy – a package with Photoshop Elements Lessons at its base was shipped to: Kevin S. of Detroit, Michigan
On the DVD movie front the winners are:
Henri Cartier-Bresson– Sonny V. of Kirkland
W.Eugene Smith – Charles L. G. of Malvern AZ
Closer – Kelly M. of Townsend, MT.
Edward Weston – Gerald K. of Jacksonville, FLA
Bridges of Madison County – Paul K./Phoenix ,AZ

Congratulations to all! And please remember to ALWAYS add a shipping address to your entry (details in the NEWSLETTER) Helps speed up the process.

And now on to this weeks giveaway:
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In conjunction with an exhibit at Aperture in NYC, we are happy to offer up Class Pictures by Dawoud Bey

From the Aperture site:
“I think what has been driving and directing my work for a long time is this idea that through making pictures of young people I can affect viewers in such a way that they too can become invested in these subjects.”

—Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey’s teenage subjects defy stereotypes of American youth during this complicated age. For Class Pictures, Bey photographed young people from all parts of the economic, racial, and ethnic spectrum in both public and private high schools in Continue Reading »

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Sorry, couldn’t help myself. Had to share it.

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And yes, we have a winner for this weeks giveaway: Congratulations to Olena S. of Toronto, Ontario, Canada will be receiving “Between Past and Future” the first weekly giveaway in our 2008 exploration of Chinese photographers.
Remember to visit the VIDEO page for some cool perspectives and interviews, RESOURCE page with useful links all pre-googled for you, and the GALLERY to take a look at some of excellent work of your fellow readers.

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