Gillian Shaw
Sun
COOLPIX S1000pj, Nikon
Palm Pre, Palm
SmartSwipe personal credit card reader
1. COOLPIX S1000pj, Nikon
The world’s first compact camera to boast a built-in projector, the S100pj brings new meaning to sharing your photos. Snap a shot and instantly project it on any flat surface, creating your own projector show with individual photos, slideshows and video clips. Instead of having your subjects peering over your shoulder to see what they look like in the tiny display screen on the camera, Nikon’s ground-breaking addition to the point-and-shoot world lets you project your photos up to 102 cm (40 inches) in size. It comes with a projector stand and a remote control that can be used to run the projector and release the shutter. The brightness is rated up to 10 lumens, with a throw distance of 26 cm to two metres for images 13 cm (five inches) to 102 cm. With 12.1 megapixels and five-times zoom, the camera has other features typical of the point-and-shoot lineup including Nikon image stabilization. www.nikon-coolpix.com.
2. Palm Pre, Palm, $200 with a three-year contract with Bell, $600 with no contract
Palm fans who have been waiting for the Pre to arrive in Canada can order one now through Bell or one of its resellers in anticipation of the smartphone’s release Aug. 27. Bell first announced last May that it would be the exclusive carrier of the new Palm Pre in Canada, and since then the company said tens of thousands of Canadians have already signed up on its website for more information about the new device. The Palm Pre, Palm’s new webOS operating system, a touch screen and slide-out QUERTY keyboard. Palm’s answer to the iPhone, most notable is the operating system that aggregates content to make it easy to juggle e-mail accounts, text, personal and business calendars, and social networking tools like Facebook and others. www.bellmobility.ca.
3. SmartSwipe personal credit card reader, NetSecure Technologies, $100
The SmartSwipe safeguards your credit card information even if your computer has been compromised by a virus or other data-stealing hack. This little device encrypts your information before it gets to your computer so even if there is some malicious program lurking in your computer ready to steal financial data, it won’t get any satisfaction with this. You swipe the card just like you’re at a merchant, also saving you the trouble of typing in all those numbers every time you buy something online. Check out a demo video at www.smartswipe.ca.
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