Author: Dan Nosowitz

At Google’s panel today at SXSW in Austin, a Gmail team member named Jonathan Perlow asked the crowd to raise their hands if they think Gmail is too slow. We love Gmail, but certainly we can sympathize with the fair percentage of those audience members who raised their hands—the problem is pretty much limited to those, like us, who are power users with hundreds of thousands of messages (most of which are junk, we’re not bragging, but still). Perlow had a response, confidently saying “We are fixing it.” He didn’t elaborate, but Google’s always improving Gmail—hopefully this means we’ll be seeing some improvements for power users soon. [TechCrunch] More »

This picture shows entrants in this year’s FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Breakaway match. Teams of ambitious high school kids build robots to compete in what’s basically the American Gladiator version of soccer. It’s pretty amazing. More »

Our game-loving sister site Kotaku reviewed the newest of that king of all RPG series, Final Fantasy, and found it, if not a blockbuster, worthwhile, and “a step in the right direction.” Read the whole review here. [Kotaku] More »

The Spiderpodium is pretty self-explanatory: It’s a gadget-stand/tripod (well, an octo-pod, technically) shaped like an arthropod. Lacking much to explain, I’m going to tell you the origins of my arachnophobia. Everyone take a seat. It’s about to get real. More »

Way to go, AT&T! It was nerve-wracking after last year’s troubles, but reports are coming in that the oft-maligned network is holding up to the stress of SXSW better than expected. More »

Rhapsody just released a little teaser video for the next version of its iPhone app (to be followed closely by its new Android app) that marks a major change for the service: You can now download songs instead of streaming. More »

The WSJ has a discussion today of the phenomenon of the iPhone-using Microsoft employee. Apparently that time Ballmer fake-stomped an iPhone is emblematic of some (barely) real anti-iPhone sentiment in Redmond. More »

This iPhone typist/possible woodpecker earns today’s Holy Shit YouTube Moment of the Day Award. I’m positive I couldn’t beat him on my Droid—hell, he’d put up a good fight against me on my laptop. More »

Want to know where you can get a glimpse of the ultra-rare total solar eclipse? This map shows exactly when and where every eclipse in the next fifteen years will be visible—and why you should move to Memphis. More »

Today’s March 14th, which everyone knows is the day high school math club members further cement their alienation by celebrating their love of math, or circles, or whatever. But today’s Sunday, so let’s everyone celebrate nerddom in the comments! [Wiki] More »

So, the iPad is finally available for pre-order, and it turns out the half of the Giz staff that bought one aren’t alone: CNN estimates Apple received about 120,000 iPad pre-orders on that first day alone. More »

Pop quiz time! Both the iPod and iPad elicited lots of grumbling from the nerd contingency (including our own resident grumbler Adam Frucci). Can you tell which critique refers to which product?

A lot of them are pretty easy, although I definitely tripped up over a few of the more vague anti-Apple attacks. How’d you all fare? [Fast Company]

Mountain climbing. Cliff jumping. Cross-country skiing. Those are the kinds of activities the XP10 would be great at capturing. But I stay in my pajamas until 4:00 PM and do not appreciate the XP10’s implicit condescension.

Who do you think you are, XP10? Just because you’re a 12MP point-and-shoot capable of withstanding 3-foot drops, 10 feet of water and 14-degree temperatures, you think you’re better than me? Well, how about that 165-shot battery life, huh? Not much endurance there. Maybe you should work out a bit, get those numbers up. One-touch tagging for Facebook and YouTube? Oh, you mean for when you’re plugged into a computer, indoors, while sitting still, just like eeeeeverybody else? That’s not very active, now is it? And that fancy-sounding 5x periscopic internal zoom—we’ll just wee how good that is when you’re released this month. Your price is okay, at $200, but just don’t start thinking you’re such hot stuff. Because I can work out, and then we’ll see. Then we’ll see, XP10 Toughcam from Fujifilm. [Fuji]

So Fujifilm unloaded about seven hundred and forty-two cameras tonight, and the point-and-shoots are pretty universally stacked for the price. Case in point: The AV100 is a 12MP shooter with 720p video capture, priced at $100.

The skinny:

The AV100 is the lowest of the low-end, with 12MP sensor, 720p video and 3x optical zoom. It’s also the cheapest at $100, $10 cheaper than the AX200, which gives you a 5x wide-angle optical zoom for your Hamilton.

Then there’s the F700EXR, Fuji’s new 12MP touchscreen model, with one of them fancy internal 5x periscopic zoom lenses. That EXR lens gives surprisingly good low-light performance, and the 3.5-inch touchscreen lets you tag faces for Facebook, navigate menus, tap on your friend’s (or dog’s) face to focus, all that kind of stuff. It’ll run $280 this March.

Ready for more? I hope so, because we are nowhere near finished. Go grab another drink and relax a spell! The J series point and shoot is a step up from the A series I already outlined (this’ll all be on the test, you slackers). They’re too similar to explain in much detail so here’s the rub: Four cameras, priced between $130 and $250, all with metal bodies and rechargeable batteries (the A series is plasticky and AA-run). The best is the JV500, a 14MP shooter with a 10x optical zoom, 2.7-inch LCD, 720p video, and pet detection, because Fuji correctly assumes that you’ll be taking lots of pictures of your dog. The JV500 is the most expensive at $250, available in March.

Oh, you thought we were done? Sorry, friend, because this camera is pink and sassy and has a periscopic lens and altogether looks more expensive than it is. It’s got the same lens as that touchscreen F700EXR, but this F70 is only 0.7-inches thick and also features one-touch upload to Facebook or YouTube. It’ll run you $150 in February. Now everyone, take a breath. [Fuji via CNET]

Fuji just announced a quartet of megazoom (read: fixed lens) cameras in a Monday blitz, with the most impressive being this HS10. It won’t give the level of control of a DSLR, but it looks to blow away any point-and-shoot.

The 10MP HS10, pictured, is an interesting beast: It’s got a 30x manual optical zoom (24-720mm equivalent), meaning you can twist the lens like on a detachable DSLR (which does give faster and more accurate control), which is something I’ve never seen before in a fixed-lens camera. It’ll also take 1080p video, including “a new Super High Speed Movie mode” that can take slow-motion video at up to 1000fps, and it has a 7-frame burst mode at 10fps. It’s also got great low-light performance thanks to its new BSI-CMOS sensor, and takes simultaneous RAW and JPEG shots. It’ll be available in April for $500.

The other two megazooms, the S1800 and S2550HD, are pretty similar; they’re both 12MP shooters with an 18x zoom, 28mm-504mm lenses, 720p video recording and a 3-inch LCD. The differences: The S1800 has automatic picture rotation and tracking autofocus, while the S2550HD has a miniHDMI-out port. The S1800 will cost $230 and the S2550HD $250 when they’re released this March.

Finally, there’s also a “compact megazoom” in the family, the F80EXR. It’s got a 27mm-equivalent, 10x optical wide-angle zoom lens, improved low-light and flash, and, um, pet face detection. Yeah, it can recognize the faces of dogs and cats. It’ll be available in April for $300. [Fuji]

CanonRumors hears that the sequel to the T1i, to be named the T2i, will be announced next week, packing a redesigned case, selectable FPS for video and a better LCD. Try to control your budget-minded excitement.

The full list of proposed changes:

• New LCD (Even Higher Resolution)
• Selectable FPS (Video)
• New build quality and shape for a Rebel
• No articulating screen
• New battery LP-E8
• New battery grip

That’s definitely all good news, especially since the T1i is one of our favorite entry-level DSLRs—well, except the lack of articulated screen (which is kind of “meh” news—does anybody actually care about that?). Only odd thing is the name, which doesn’t really fit with Canon’s typical naming structure: The T1i was actually the sequel to the XSi, which in turn was the sequel to the XTi, so “T2i” is possible but not necessarily likely. Anyway, we should see sometime next week when this thing is supposed to launch. [CanonRumors via Crunchgear, image from Crunchgear]

If you’re like me, you looked at this picture and the name “Three-Pendulum Rotary Harmonograph” and felt confused and a little bit threatened. But fear not! Turns out it’s one of those fun spirograph-like things you see at science museums.

Unlike a spirograph, a harmonograph uses pendulums (instead of human effort—I mean, I’ll go to the gym if I’m gonna work out, know what I mean?) to create its elegant Lissajous curves.

This one uses three pendulums, which creates some pretty complex and cool-looking patterns, even better than the clear plastic spirograph I used in third grade. The project isn’t even all that hard: Looks like it takes a bit of careful balancing, but the actual construction is pretty standard woodshop kind of stuff. Pretty cool! [Karl Sims via MAKE]

Acer, in contrast to what we’d heard before, has just said that they’ll not be making a tablet to compete with the iPad, instead focusing on ultra-thin laptops. Acer sees these ultra-thins, including many that will run Google Chrome. Acer was cock-sure enough to mention that an iPad-like tablet “would not pose any technical challenges for Acer,” but that that design just doesn’t fit into their business model right now. Bet Apple’s letting out a big old “phew!” in Cupertino about that one. [Digitimes via Engadget]

An email sent to Consumerist by a Best Buy employee lays out the changes Best Buy has made in pushing their optimization service. Basically, you can’t be forced to pay for optimization—but the salesman won’t tell you that.

What starts out promising soon turns shitty. Before, Best Buy would often advertise computers at a certain price, but only offer them “optimized,” which adds $40 for a totally unnecessary process that nobody wants. Now, Best Buy changed their policy, saying that forcing someone to pay for optimization is now an offense warranting termination. Great!

But wait, don’t get too excited—the idea is that the salesman will argue, forcefully pushing optimization on you even if you say you don’t want it, because Best Buy judges the performance of its sales staff by how many of these ridiculous unnecessary add-ons they sell. So the salesman is going to do everything he can to get you to buy that optimization software. You have to know enough to keep arguing until the salesman gives up, at which point they’ll erase the $40 charge and uninstall the software. Of course, that means your brand-new laptop isn’t exactly brand-new anymore, since Best Buy has dicked around with the settings and software before you get your hands on it. The letter:

I work for Best Buy and thought you might want to know the Best Buy internal response to the recent article criticizing optimization. The items stated here were discussed on the employee Best Buy news.

To start of with, the policy [of] how many computers should undergo optimization was restated: 40% is the guideline. This should be altered as per demand. So stores offering customers only optimized models are not being properly managed. The article continued to say if demand for optimization is only 15%, then only 15% should be optimized. This is not in the store’s interest, I should note. Best Buy does not make a significant profit on computer sales (less than $50 per unit, typically), instead relying on ‘services’ such as the optimization for a major source of profits. The more optimized computers sold, the more profits.

The article stated plainly, in large, bold letters, that a customer cannot be forced to pay for optimization if they do not want it and that is all that is available. Anyone who forces a customer to pay for it is subject to, and I quote, termination. I should say they did not state to make it easy to get out of paying for optimization, the article encourages salespersons to explain why it is worth the money before not charging it. Management can waive the fee if the customer declines. Optimization software, if any was installed, should then be removed before giving the computer to the customer. Anyone forced to pay should contact the store’s management or someone higher up the ladder.

Best Buy considers optimization an important service, and believes it has great value to many customers. I, personally, believe most people can take care of such things on their own with minimal time and would never pay for it. Judging by comments posted below the article, many other employees believe so too, but just as many fervently believe that optimization is the best thing to ever happen since the wheel.

I feel I should stress that it is not a salespersons fault to push optimization and other services strongly on customers. Hours (and this pay, we are not commission) are often determined by the amount of sales made. Someone who isn’t selling any optimization will see reduced hours as compared to someone who is. Especially given this economy, many just need a job and this is all they could find, myself included. So just be polite and remember you’re giving people a job.

Optimization does just consist of booting up the computer and and putting in a disc that does some random stuff. Some GeekSquad agents may do more manually, some may not. I personally would suggest downloading free software to cleans up registry errors, broken and unused shortcuts, and defrags.

As one final note, the article initially refused to link to the Consumerists for fear of giving more hits. It was later added after complaints in the comments section stated they couldn’t respond to customers citing the Consumerist without having read the article.

Way to keep on fighting the lousy fight, Best Buy. [Consumerist]