If you mistook the TX200V for a fat iPhone 4/4S at first glance, be assured that you’re not the only one. But its delicate gracefulness has none of the iPhone’s fragility. The TX is Sony’s line of more rugged point-and shoots, and this 18-megapixel shooter will likely outlast your lifetime’s vacations.

The TX200V is dust-proof, water resistant to up to 16 feet (roughly 4.87 metres) and freeze-proof to -10 degrees Celsius. However, that glass faceplate probably means that it’s not drop proof, which seems like a strange compromise given that people are more likely to drop their cameras than bring it on an underwater expedition.

The iPhone-esque design is also found on the back, which is all OLED touch screen and nothing else.

Underneath the camera’s sleek exteriors are backside-illuminated CMOS sensors for better low-light shooting, a new autofocus system that can lock in on subjects in less than 0.13 seconds in good lighting and 0.25 seconds in poor lighting, and a 5x optical zoom Carl Zeiss lens (25mm to 125mm). ISO can be boosted to 12,800 if you want to risk the noise, and image stabilisation promises clearer images.

The zoom can be digitally enhanced up to 250mm using Sony’s “Clear Image Zoom” technology. It uses a “by-pixel super resolution” technology which is claimed to be better than regular digital zoom, but there’s no knowing for sure until we can see some sample images.

Given the TX200V’s hardiness, it can be a great travel companion. This use-case is made more appealing through the camera’s built-in compass and GPS functions, which allows shooters to display shooting location and direction, and even track their journey on a map.

Of course, there is the trendy feature of applying effects to your photos in-camera, including HDR, miniature, toy camera, and more.

Need video? This camera packs pretty powerful video features, such as full HD video recording at 60fps and a Dual Record feature for capturing still images while shooting video.

The TX200V will land in Singapore in March, and currently retails stateside for US$500, which is expensive enough to give pause. But the camera strikes a balance between aesthetics, functions and durability and will likely find buyers based on its looks alone.

One digital camera that might be worth reserving your spare cash for this year, is the Lytro – the unlikely offspring of a dissertation by a Stanford University researcher, and fuss-free point-and-shoot consumer photography.

Looking vaguely like a Jedi’s preferred weapon slash compact camera, the Lytro light field camera is not your typical digital camera.

A micro-lens array combined with an image sensor captures 11 million rays of light in a light field, which is defined as “the amount of light travelling in every direction through every point in space”.

The bottomline: you don’t have to worry about adjusting the focus because the camera captures so much light information, you can tweak your photo’s focus AFTER shooting the images — so every shot, in effect, becomes the money shot.

In fact, you can even let your audience/viewers adjust the photo to their liking, be it everything in super-sharp focus or picking a favourite point to have a shallow depth of field on the fly.

Amazingly, the Lytro’s bright f/2 lens aperture applies across the 8X optical zoom range.

(Alright, so it sounds like magical rainbows and unicorns, but rest assured that the Lytro has been field tested by pro photographers in the U.S. and it works).

The camera thus promises to eliminate out-of-focus shots and missed photo opportunities faster than you can say “Photoshop”. And yes, it might even replace digital cameras offering 3-D shooting capabilities.

I can’t really hype about the camera without testing it first though, but even at this point, it is an intriguing technology.

Pricing starts from US$399 (for the 8GB version good for storing 350 images), but there are a few bugbears though.

First of all, there’s the vague “Shipping in early 2012” schedule.

And then, it’ll be limited to the U.S. initially.

Finally, for the anti-Apple folks, this could be the deal breaker: The Lytro’s image editing software will — initially, at least — work on Mac OS X only.

But fear not, Windows support is forthcoming.

It’ll be fun to see if the Lytro becomes a major commercial success, or if major digital imaging companies make moves to license the technology for their own digital cameras — or even unveil their own light field-based imaging technology.

In the meantime, take a good look at the retro Lytro at https://www.lytro.com/.

If IBM researchers get their way, remembering passwords will soon be a thing of the past. Big Blue has recently published a video of what it thinks will become reality by 2016, such as mind reading and generating electricity from human activities, among other predictions:

Generate your own electricity
Anything that moves generates kinetic energy, which can be converted to electricity. We can tap this energy from running water, or the rotating wheels of a bicycle to power our homes and offices. IBM scientists in Ireland are already looking at ways to understand and minimise the environmental impact of converting ocean wave energy into electricity.

Biometrics
Your biological make-up could be used more extensively to authenticate access to secured systems and safeguard your identity. According to IBM, biometric data such as retina scans and voice can be combined through software to build your unique DNA-based password. The same biodata could also be used to authenticate ATM transactions, eliminating the use of magnetic strip cards, which are prone to card skimming as we’ve found out this week.

Mind reading
Mind reading has been wishful thinking among science fiction fans for decades. But their wish may soon come true. Within five years, we’ll begin to see the applications of mind reading technology. Doctors could use it to test brain patterns, assist with rehabilitation of patients and understand brain disorders such as autism. IBM researchers are now figuring out ways to link our brains to devices so you can just call someone on a smartphone by thinking about it. In the further future, you could also type on a computer by thinking about the words to say!

No more digital divide
The digital divide will cease to exist in a global society where the wealth of economies is determined by the level of access to information. In five years, the gap between information haves and have-nots will be eliminated, thanks to the adoption of mobile technology. Eighty percent of the global population of seven billion will have a mobile device, IBM predicts. It’ll be cheaper to own a cellphone than open a bank account or buy a laptop. And because of this, rural communities are able to achieve much more than before, such as checking weather reports on their cellphones to determine the best time to fertilise their crops.

Death to junk mail
Too often, we’re flooded with irrelevant information including junk mail. In five years, spam e-mail will become personal notes. Through analytics technology, computers will be able to filter data that’s important and relevant, and bring you information that you would have asked for. Imagine your phone knowing that your favourite band is coming to town and putting tickets on hold for you to purchase.

Do IBM’s predictions sound too far fetched to you? Let us know in the comments.

Nikon’s new flagship professional-grade DSLR, the D4, is an impressive camera on paper: the US$6,000 shooter packs a faster Expeed-3 processor, a full-frame 16.2-megapixel CMOS sensor, and supports an incredible range of sensitivity from ISO 50 to 204,800.

It also features a new 51-point autofocus system that is compatible with all Nikon lenses even with a teleconverter in tow, and a 91,000-pixel RGB metering sensor, which lets the D4 more accurately recognise the scene you’re trying to shoot through colour and brightness. This blows the previous D3S’s 1,005-pixel meter completely out of the water.

Unveiled here in Singapore last Friday, the D4 is also the first DSLR camera to use the new XQD memory card standard, the successor to CompactFlash. XQD cards can write files at up to 125MB/s, which is the perfect complement for the D4’s ability to shoot still images at 11fps at full resolution.

But what about actual shooting performance? I might be able to wrap my head around the specs, but photography is a whole different ball game.

You’ll be glad to hear, then, that pro photographer Joe McNally was one of the first lucky folks in the world to play with the D4, and he had nothing but praise for it. In fact, some of the sample images which Nikon showed off at the D4’s launch were photographed by him.

On his blog, McNally cites a number of things he is impressed with, including “fine detail and forgiveness in the shadows” and “intuitively good exposure and autofocus”. On the new video features, McNally went all out and wrote: “It’s a game changer.”

Indeed, video performance is highly improved from its predecessor the D3S, and the D4 capable of 1080p30, 1080p24, 720p60 and 720p50 HD video recording. There’s also a handy 3.5-mm audio jack for videographers to review audio on the fly.

To add on to the excitement, Nikon also unveiled the WT-5A wireless transmitter, which turns the D4 into something like a hotspot for mobile devices such as your smartphone. Once connected, you’ll be able to view photos from the D4 on your smartphone’s Web browser as they are captured, no special equipment or additional apps needed.

This has the potential to change how professional photographers do their work. For example, a journalist who attends an important press event can snap whatever photos he need with his D4, which can then be wirelessly transmitted to his iPad and subsequently emailed to his editor to be published, all in less than 15 minutes.

If you want to get your hands on this drool-worthy camera, it will be available from end-February. Local pricing is not yet available, but it will likely be in the same range as its pricing in the United States.

But fret not. Here’s a list of stuff that this Goondu will be elated to find under his metaphorical tree, and hopefully, it will inspire you to find that perfect gift for your special someone.

Nikon Coolpix P7100

Canon aficionados can swear by their G12, but the Nikon P7100 comes out tops for me, due largely to its longer zoom range: 7.1x (28-200mm) on the P7100 vs. 5x (28-140mm) on the G12. It’s also got a superior LCD screen which is both bigger than the G12’s and has a higher resolution.

The P7100 also gives you very long exposures of up to 60s, an above-average battery life of up to 350 shots, lets you go as close as 2cm for macro shots, and has enough buttons and dials to make any manual photographer happy. The vari-angle LCD screen is also a handy addition.

If you already own a DSLR (especially with Nikon accessories), and are looking for a travel-friendly camera with more advanced features, then the P7100 is an excellent choice.

HTC Titan

Windows Phone 7 has come a long way since its inception, and its latest update is now a solid mobile operating system that is starting to catch the attention of many consumers (see our review). I’ve been eagerly waiting for Nokia’s entry, but the Lumia 800, while a beautiful device, failed to impress with a lot of features missing, including a front-facing camera and an NFC chip.

The king of Windows Phone is still the HTC Titan, with its massive 4.7-inch Super LCD screen (which has also been “Androidified” in the form of the HTC Sensation XL) and zippy 1.5GHz processor while maintaining excellent battery life. The 8-megapixel camera with its backside illuminated sensor and f/2.2 lens is a great upgrade, offering decent shots even in low-light conditions.

Unfortunately, it isn’t available on any of our local telcos, and it costs a pretty penny without a contract.

Xbox 360 with Kinect

I have no doubt more Kinect units will be flying off the shelves this holiday season, especially with a bevy of new games unveiled in October. This little gadget is incredibly fun to play with, whether alone or with a group of family or friends, and will be perfect for that party you’re planning. And it’s great for working off the fats earned from those holiday feasts.

Put the Kinect aside and an entire world of more hardcore games open up, from first person shooters like Gears of War 3 to role-playing games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. What more can a geek ask for?

Kobo Touch

As someone who reads a lot but hate lugging books around, an e-reader would be a perfect companion. Unfortunately, the Kindle isn’t friendly to this region: 3G doesn’t work, and buying books through Amazon requires a painful workaround.

Enter Kobo, the underdog in the e-reader world. The Kobo Touch is more expensive than the Kindle, but packs in several nicer features. The quilted back design, for one, looks fantastic. Storage can also be expanded via a microSD card slot, letting you hold up to a nice 30,000 books in a light package.

Buying books is also a much smoother experience, as Kobo is more international friendly. Most importantly, the Kobo Touch supports the ePub format – the official standard of the International Digital Publishing Forum – while the Kindle does not.

Jawbone Jambox

I reviewed the Jambox back in March, and thought it was a fantastic little speaker. It has a top-notch build, sounds significantly bigger than its size, and even handles calls with built-in noise cancelling microphones.

Unfortunately, the price is north of S$300, a little too high. But it has a great size for travel, and its microphone makes it perfect for a home office or a conference room where you can hook it up to a service like Skype.

Nintendo 3DS

The last handheld I owned was the GameBoy Advance, and many hours were spent training Pokemon to unrivalled heights. Now that the price of the 3DS has been slashed, there’s no better time to buy it.

Despite a lukewarm reception at launch and a disappointing range of titles in its early days, the platform has moved on nicely and is now a decent device. And with the PlayStation Vita first available in Japan and rolled out gradually elsewhere, the GameBoy Advance is definitely the gaming handheld to get this holiday season.

The usual sight of folks with trolleys of  flat screen TVs to printers in tow are back this weekend at Suntec City, thanks to the Comex 2011 show.

With bargain basement prices for items such as TVs – a Toshiba 42-incher for going for just S$549 – and laptops bundled with all sorts of freebies, the tech bazaar promises good deals for folks who brave the human jam at the halls in Suntec City.

Here are some hot deals that Techgoondu sussed out yesterday while there for a quick walkthrough:

Trade in your old game console
Microsoft is taking in your old game consoles for as much as S$150, which you can offset for a spanking new Xbox 360. The 4GB Kinect version with the motion controller costs S$469, while the 250GB version costs S$649.

There’s also a really chio Gears of War 3 limited edition of the console, which costs S$640 and comes with 320GB storage plus a couple of customised controllers and the game, a composite cable and a wired headset. More details here.

Huawei’s new MediaPad
Fancy a small Android tablet with a 7-inch screen? Check out Huawei’s MediaPad, which is going for a pretty attractive S$598 at a booth that is jam-packed with gadget lovers.

The light 390-gram device comes with both 3G and Wi-Fi, has a fast 1.2GHz dual-core chip and claims to be the first to run Android 3.2. The high-resolution screen is also a delight to use, going by a quick preview we had with the tablet back in June.

Get free upgrades for your Macbook Pro
Looking for one of the best laptops around? Along with other Apple laptops, the popular MacBook Pro 15-inch is being bundled with a load of freebies for those who want the latest Core i7-powered machine.

Apple distributors nubox, Multimedia Integrated (MI) and epicentre are all throwing in free 8GB upgrades for the 15-incher, which costs S$2,488 or S$2,988 depending on the configuration. The standout one for me is the MI deal, which also comes with a free 500GB external hard disk.

LG Optimus 3D discounted
Just launched last month, the 3D-enabled phone is going for S$868 instead of S$938 at Comex. For those who are into viewing 3D images and videos on their phones, this is a gadget worth checking out. Oh, and this Android-based phone shoots 3D videos and images too, which makes it an affordable 3D camera. Check out our hands-on preview with the phone here.

Bose SoundDock gets cheaper 
The original iPod dock  is going for a sale at Comex, along with other Bose deals by distributor Atlas. The star buy here is the SoundDock Portable, which lets you dock your iPod or iPhone and play reasonably good-sounding music (given its small size) almost anywhere you go. Instead of S$749, it’s going for S$579 now.

Its bigger brother, the SoundDock 10, which produces much bigger and fuller sounds with built-in subwoofer, is going for S$1,069. That’s still expensive, I hear, but it was selling for a rather unrealistic S$1,249 previously! Read our review of the SoundDock 10 here and download the Atlas/Bose Comex brochure here.

Apparently, 40 minutes is too late by several hours.

I was far too late to score a new HP Touchpad (either the 16GB or 32GB version), because both were sold out at COMEX 2011 within minutes of the opening of the computer show, which runs from 1st to 4th September at the Suntec Convention Centre.

With limited availability of 200 devices total per day, it’s no wonder that the TouchPads were sold out. It was highly anticipated and queues had started forming way before the show started, according to our friends over at Digital Life.

Said Gin Lee on DL’s Facebook channel: “People were apparently queuing from 4am.”

The photo above does not do justice to the crowd at the HP booth. Here’s a better one.

Please note that it’s just the first hour of the first day (!) and the alleys around the booth were thronged with people. It was so packed that you could hardly move, and the emcees had to repeatedly make announcements every few minutes that the HP TouchPad is sold out.

You can certainly expect a repeat of this every single day the show is running. It’ll probably get even worse over the weekend on Saturday and Sunday. Unless you queue up in the wee hours of the morning, don’t expect to get your HP Touchpad.

On HP’s end, they can and should definitely do better crowd management. Already there are complaints on blogs and Facebook that the queue for the HP Touchpad wasn’t well managed this morning. People who queued for hours walked away empty handed.

Beyond the mania over the HP Touchpads, COMEX 2011 is the biggest IT show in Singapore ever, according to the organizers.

Every COMEX sees rivalry between the telcos, where they compete to see who can draw the biggest crowds. Typically StarHub and SingTel have the biggest booths and crowds, but this time M1 has pulled out all the stops.

M1 was particularly aggressive. I had barely come out of the turnstiles at the Esplanade MRT when I met their show staff inside the station, where I was given a pamphlet of their bargain broadband price plans, available only during COMEX 2011.

They booked a big convention room and floor space on the second floor, obviously expecting a large crowd to turn up over the weekend. Given the pre-buzz in the social media space around their cutthroat pricing plans, I wouldn’t be surprised if M1 will be proven right.

Lastly, I passed by the Nubox booth on the 3rd floor, who had earlier sent Techgoondu a press release on their special promotion plans for Apple iMac, Macbook Air, and Macbook Pro products.

They are touting special bundles with savings in the hundreds — for example, Windows 7 Home Premium and Parallels Desktop 6 at a special price of S$249, off from the usual price of S$318
— and discounts in accessories up to 70 percent.

More interesting though, is that Nubox is doing a tie-up with Universal Music to promote UK boyband “The Wanted”. The first 200 customers who spend above S$300 at the Nubox COMEX 2011 booth will get to redeem The Wanted’s eponymous debut album at Nubox@Raffles City from 10th to 16th September.

They also get a chance to win showcase passes to see the pop group perform live in Singapore on 17th September.

Another day, another 3D phone being launched in Singapore.

Right after HTC touted its Evo 3D phone yesterday, Korean handset maker LG today showed off its Optimus 3D to reporters here, confident that its S$938 phone will make people start taking pictures and videos in 3D and view them on the screen without using any special glasses.

The  Optimus 3D is essentially a fully-spec’d out phone that has a couple of 5-meg cameras on its back that enable users to shoot both 3D images and videos. The 168-gram gizmo comes with 8GB of storage and shoots 1080p@24fps Full HD videos on 2D and 720p@30fps HD videos on 3D.

With a dual-core 1GHz Arm Cortex A9 chip and PowerVR SGX540 GPU, it also appears to pack enough muscle to handle the additional video features.

To view the videos, the Optimus 3D comes with a 3D-capable 480 x 800 pixels screen that offers a generous 4.3 inches of viewing space. From today’s brief hands-on session, we can say it’s a decent screen in terms of brightness and vibrance, which is not surprising considering LG is the number two TV maker after Korean rival Samsung. And you don’t have to wear any glasses to get a sense of the depth.

LG was at pains today to show how easy it was to share 3D content on YouTube. It also says it will be able to convert all your current 2D images and videos to 3D via a software update by Q4 this year.

UPDATE: LG has clarified that the Optimus 3D can already convert all your current 2D images and videos to 3D now. The software which will be available by Q4 will enable 2D to 3D conversion of applications which means that 3D viewing will not be limited to just games and user-created content.

Of course, you can also opt to view your videos on your 3D-enabled TV screen by plugging your phone in via its HDMI port. Note though that your TV would usually require you to wear 3D glasses.

At demos today, the 3D games and images do appear pretty lifelike and without much of the crosstalk that plagued the first 3D devices in the past two years. Today, first-person shooter games in 3D provide a much more intense in-your-face experience, as do holiday videos which become a lot more personal with 3D.

But 3D presents some interesting challenges when it comes to snapping pictures. Like most of today’s phone cameras, the Optimus LG doesn’t like to take macro shots in 3D, because they somehow screw up the idea of depth and make items sometimes take on distorted dimensions.

Also, from the pictures we were shown today, sometimes reflections do weird things as well. A reflection on a piece of glass, for example, looks like it’s trapped in 3D space in a ghostly manner when it would usually just appear like it is in real life – on a piece of glass.

Despite these little glitches, LG executives are sure 3D is the next wave. Just like cameras were once a novelty on phones, they are now an expected feature, said Arthur Huang, LG Electronics Singapore’s chief operating officer. In fact, he told reporters that 3D would be the differentiator for Android phone makers looking to better their rivals’ offerings.

Which brings us to the OS on the Optimus 3D. It’s interesting that LG is running only Android 2.2 on the phone (with an update expected by Q4 this year), when the latest Android 2.3 has been out since last year.

Would people care? The techie who is interested in 3D right now might. HTC’s Evo 3D, after all, comes with Android 2.3.

Should other smartphone users care at all about 3D? We think it’s still a niche feature right now, but it does look like phone makers are trying their darnest to make it an essential part of the standard feature list.

It’s definitely not something to seal a deal yet. But what 3D has going for it is that it doesn’t add much more cost or weight to the device for consumers, who as LG hopes, might just take to taking pictures in 3D and sharing it with friends.

Microsoft has released a new Camera Codec Pack that enables Windows Vista and Windows 7 machines to view and edit a wider range of image formats, including the RAW format popular with serious photographers. The Codec Pack is available in both 32- and 64-bit systems, and will support RAW files from more than 120 different DSLR cameras.

With this update, users will be able to view raw images in Explorer and edit them in Windows Live Photo Gallery. However, there are quite a few variations within the format itself – usually a proprietary format by the camera maker – and Microsoft is working to add support for RAW images from more cameras.

The RAW format is popular among photographers because it reproduces each and every original pixel captured without any form of compression. In comparison, the JPEG is a very lossy format that typically compresses the image up to ten times. RAW files thus allow the photographer to have greater control over the photograph’s output.

One of the chief reasons photographers usually prefer Mac systems to Windows is because of the former’s native support for the RAW format. Apple has been offering a regularly updated RAW codec pack as part of OS X since 2005. No such support was available on the Windows front, except from third-party vendors, until now.

This new codec pack will surely give users an easier time managing and organising raw image files on their PC.

Sony unveiled on June 8 two new cameras for shutterbugs out there: the NEX-C3 and the Alpha A35. Both cameras and their respective accessories will be available in Asia Pacific from July this year. June and July 2011 could shape up as two interesting months for the camera world, as both Panasonic and Olympus are also rumoured to announce new cameras.

Alrighty then, let’s see what these two new Japanese entrants have to offer!

NEX-C3 (pictured above)

Not everyone was optimistic when Sony discontinued production of the NEX-3, one of company’s iconic compact system cameras. But it seems Sony has no intention to kill off the line, but instead went back to the drawing board. The result: the NEX-C3.

The NEX-C3 features a number of improvements over its predecessor, including a 6 percent smaller footprint (handprint?) which weighs in at 225g, and 20 percent higher battery efficiency. Touting a DSLR-quality APS-C image sensor, 16-megapixels, a 3-inch tilt display, burst shooting at 5.5fps, and 720p video recording, it sure seems like a decent camera for the aspiring young photographer.

Photography terms can be intimidating to the new learner, and Sony has gone out of its way to simplify certain terms in the NEX-C3 settings. Technical terms like “aperture”, “exposure value” and “white balance” are replaced with the friendlier “background defocus”, “brightness” and “colour”.

This would undoubtedly turn some seasoned photographers off, but this camera is marketed towards point-and-shoot users looking to upgrade to something more professional.

The NEX-C3’s software has some nice features baked in, including a new “Picture Effect” setting which lets you apply various effects such as Retro Photo, Toy Camera, or Posterisation to your photos. There’s also a ‘Soft Skin’ effect that removes wrinkles and blemishes from portrait subjects.

Local pricing is not available, but the folks over at Digital Trends report that the NEX-C3 will retail for US$649 with an 18-55mm kit and US$599 with a 16mm kit.

Alpha A35

Sony also added a new DSLR to its Alpha line-up, you know, the one with the squiggly logo in front that reminds you faintly of your O Levels physics classes? The Alpha A35 has a more traditional build, and it boasts 16.2 effective megapixels and the newly-developed Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor.

The A35 sports Sony’s Translucent Mirror Technology which delivers high-speed, full-time continuous AF with stills and AVCHD movies that are detailed and low-noise. It also has an ultra-high maximum sensitivity of ISO 12800, just in case you want to shoot leopards at night or something.

Making its debut on the A35, Tele-zoom High Speed Shooting magnifies a central portion of the image area to give an effective approximately 1.4x magnification while you shoot at up to 7 fps. There’s also a rapid 5.5 fps drive mode that offers full-resolution continuous shooting with tracking AF.

Battery life is also improved; the A35 is said to be capable of getting roughly 440 shots between battery charges. It is compatible with the full range of 32 A-mount interchangeable lenses from Sony, including six Carl Zeiss lenses.

Again, the price is not available here, but Digital Trends reports that it will land in August for US$699 with an 18-mm kit, US$599 for the body.