A pair of new rugged cameras are on the way from Olympus. The TG-820 and TG-620 will be available from the middle of this month, and are priced at £269.99 and £229.99 respectively.

So what do the dollars buy you?

Well, for starters, both cameras are (10m for the TG-820 and 5m for the TG-620), shockproof (2m, 1.5m), freezeproof (minus 10 degrees) and the TG-820 is even crushproof up to 100kg. Double lock mechanisms protect the battery and input ports, while a metal ring protects the lens.

Getting down to your more standard snapping specs, both cameras shoot at 12 megapixels, with a 5x wide optical zoom (28-140mm) lens powered by the Olympus TruePic VI image engine.

iHS tech, HDR backlight adjustment, 3D shooting modes and 1080p Full HD video recording are all featured too. Eye-Fi, are SDHC and SDXC memory cards are all compatible, while HDMI out is supported by both cameras too.

If you're looking for one big differentiator to help you decide between the two, the TG-820 sports the better screen with a 3-inch 1,030k dot Super Precision HyperCrystal III LCD. It's only a 460k dot one on the TG-620.

What with all the launches from Canon and Nikon over the last few days, the second week of February will have to be re-christened "Camera Week" we think. Olympus are the next to tout their latest wares, revealing this morning the Olympus OM-D Micro Four Thirds system.

With this snapper using the Micro Four Thirds compact/interchangeable set up, here the OM's heritage is really only shown through positioning and styling. You'l still be able to use OM lenses from the 35mm original SLR, but yo'll have to purchase an MF-2 OM Adapter ring to do so, priced itself at £160.

Elsewhere the camera is bang up to date though; using a 16 megapixel Live MOS sensor, the camera offers five-axis stabilisation and super-quick autofocus settings.Olympus's existing MFT range of lenses are compatible with this new kit, while the OM-D ships with a M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-50mm lens (24-100mm in 35mm terms).

The OM-D also sports a 1440k-dot electronic viewfinder for traditionalists, as well asa 3-inch adjusable touchscreen OLED display. ISO goes up to 25600,and you'll get all the usual array of scene filters, as well as Full HD video recording, that you'd expect from a high-end compact.

Due in April, theOM-D will sell for £1149.99.

After a string of delays that saw the game miss its 2011 Christmas release date, Star Wars Kinect for the Xbox 360 finally has a firm release date. Those hoping to feel the Force with their Kinect motion-sensing controllers will be able to do so from April 3rd.

Five play modes will feature in the game, described by Microsoft as:

o Space battles: As you travel the Galaxy to face an evil that threatens to undermine the fabric of the Republic, you'll engage with forces of the Empire in intense space battles

o New Galactic Dance Off mode loaded with Star Wars-themed pop tunes where those still honing their Jedi skills can take a break to battle Darth Vader on the dance floor or bust a move "Solo style."

The game itself will cost £39.99, but those looking to prove their full Star Wars fanboy status can pick up a bundle which includes and R2-D2 themed console, a C-3P0 gold controller and the game for £349.99,

Name: Otone Audio Stilo

Type: 2.1 Desktop Speaker

Specifications: Click here for full specs

Price: £69.99 from Otone Audio

Otone Audio are the latest UK-based company to throw their hats into the home audio ring. As well as a range of 5.1 systems, they're also launching a range of desktop PC speaker set ups. Today we're taking a look at their Stilo 2.1 PC speakers. Read on for our thoughts.

Comprising two satellite speakers, a subwoofer and wired remote, the Stilo speakers are a bit of a missed opportunity when it comes to design. While the cube-shaped subwoofer is simple enough to be easy on the eye (measuring 220 x 211 x 230mm and making up a substantial portion of the package's overall  3.65kg weight), the satellite speakers, measuring  253 x 65 x 106mm , look needlessly cheap. They're a desktop friendly size, and we quite like the the cut-oval shape. However, the decision to make them from a mix of gloss black plastic and a matte silver/grey is a bit of a mess. Perhaps they'll suit the tastes of others, but we'd have preferred just the gloss black, thank you very much.

The pebble-shaped wired remote, which plugs into the back of the powered subwoofer, is a little tidier, with the mix of blacks, silvers and a green LED (indicating the speakers are on) reminiscent of the Android smartphone colour scheme. A dial controls the volume levels, clicking from a low volume setting to off at the counter-clockwise extreme. There's a little bit of a sharp spike in volume level when dialling past the halfway mark though. On the back is a handy pair of ports for auxiliary line in (letting you plug an MP3 player directly into the speakers and bypassing a PC) and a headphone port too, with a standard 3.5mm jack.

There are few other audio connectivity options on the subwoofer though beyond the 3.5mm line-in jack, so if you're looking for a more complicated set up with a high-end sound card, these probably aren't the speakers for you.

For everyone else though, they'll perform very nicely. Using a space-age sounding patented Vortex Drive system, they'll pump out 40W (2 x 10 + 20W) of power, easily reaching room-filling levels. 2 x 2" high-sensitivity twin drivers sit in the satellite speakers, and while a little lacking at the treble end, were otherwise warm and clear. We did experience a little rattling in the subwoofer cabinet at maximum volume levels and with the subwoofer itself turned to its maximum bass setting, but we're fairly sure that was down to a slightly loose fixture in our individual sample, and nothing that should worry any prospective buyers.


Verdict:

The Otone Audio Stilo 2.1 desktop speakers sound, for the most part, great, especially for the £69.99 asking price. You may need to scale the mid-levels back a little in your EQ settings, but our love of the odd spiky guitar shred and rattle of gunfire from Call of Duty wont likely line up with everyone's tastes. They're solid sonic performers either way. It's a shame then that the satellite speakers themselves looks so underwhelming. Sat on a retailer's shelf next to the sci-fi stylings of Harman Kardon's Soundsticks, it's unlikely the Otone Audio Stilo set will get a second look, which does the audio quality they're capable of something of a disservice.

HTC's much-rumoured Ville Android smartphone has had its cover blown, with a detailed look at its specification sheet heading online ahead of its grand unveiling at Mobile World Congress 2012.

Chinese blog ePrice have been made privvy to the details with a zippy 1.5GHz dual-core processor headlining the tech on board.

1GB RAM also looks set to feature, alongside a 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display, 8MP camera with full HD recording, 3MP front-facing camera and the now-standard Beats Audio on the HTC handset.

Android's latest version, Ice Cream Sandwich is onboard, with HTC's latest Sense re-skinning (4.0) also loaded on here.

In terms of physical size, it's fairly slim too at around am 8mm thickness, and shares a similar look to the Desire S.

We'll hopefully be able to give full confirmation on the specs later this month, when the MWC show kicks off.

Microsoft have teamed up with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) to develop a new child-safe version of their IE9 browser to launch alongside Safe Internet Day 2012.

The special broswer has one-click access to the CEOP.police.uk and thinkuknow.co.uk sites, with IE9/Windows 7 integration allowing fro Jump Lists that let parents more easily set the browser to only give access to content that is age-appropriate for their children.

"At Microsoft we always want to provide our customers with the tools to enjoy the web safely and securely," said Gabby Hegerty, Internet Explorer lead in the UK.

"The internet has become a central part of everyday life for adults and children, from learning and communicating to working and playing online. As the leading browser provider, it is important we make the appropriate safety information available and build in features to our software which provide families with peace of mind online."

Peter Davies, CEOP Chief Executive concurred: "We have been happy to work with Microsoft to ensure that IE9 users can access advice and guidance in a way that is quick and easy. We welcome this approach and continue to work with service providers so that help and advice is available whenever it is needed."

The kid-friendly browser is available to download now for free. Click here to grab it.

Got butter fingers? Like swimming up mountains? Then check out the new ruggedised camera from Canon, the PowerShot D20.

Built around a "a robust and sporty body", it's waterproof down to 10m, shockproof, freezeproof and dustproof, with a 12.1-megapixel CMOS sensor, backed by the DIGIC 4 processor.

Zoom is of the 5x optical variety, with 1080p video recording on board and the same Movie Digest feature seen in some of the A -Series cameras, making a mini movie from the four seconds prior to each photo taken.

A 3-inch 460k dot PureColor II screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio sits on the back, while the actual lens itself is a 28mm wide angle. As well as a series of silly filter effects, the D20 also comes with GPS photo tagging.

Due in May, expect to pay about £349.

Today's camera onslaught continues with not one, not two, but six new entry-level compacts from Canon. Their PowerShot A Series range just expanded considerably, with the Canon PowerShot A810, the Canon PowerShot A1300, the Canon PowerShot A2300, the Canon PowerShot A2400 IS, the Canon PowerShot A3400 IS and the Canon PowerShot A4000 IS all soon up for grabs.

First, what they all have in common; each has the DIGIC 4 processing engine(rather than the slightly more impressive DIGIC 5), and each has a 16MP sensor. Video recording is of the 720p HD variety, and all have 28mm wide angle lenses with at least 5x optical zoom and 2.7-inch LCD preview screens.

Top of the pile is the A4000, which ramps up the optical zoom to 8x, and the preview screen to a full 3 inches.

Next, the A3400, which lacks the longer zoom of the A4000, but matches it in preview screen size, and throws in touch screen controls too. The A3400, A4000 and the A2400 have optical image stabilising with Intelligent IS technology too.

If you're after an optical viewfinder, you need to look at the A2300 and the A1300 models. The A2300 has a recahrgeable battery, while the lower end models run on pesky AA batteries however. The A810 also loses out on the smart auto modes too.

The Canon PowerShot A4000 lands in shops first, arriving this month for £169. In March, the A2300, A2400 and A3400 will touch down, priced £119, £129 and £149 respectively, with the £89 A810 and the £109 A1300 in stores by April.

Canon have launched a pair of new super-slim long zoom compacts. The PowerShot SX260 HS and PowerShot SX240, look to be the perfect companion for travellers not looking to get too close to the action.

Both share practically the same specs.Each has a 20x optical zoom, 25mm wide-angle lens, and each has a 12.1 MP CMOS sensor powered by the DIGIC 5 HS System. Again, each uses Canon's Intelligent IS (Image Stabilisation) tech.

As well as the 20x optical zoom, you can pop a digital zoom on top too, pushing that zoom range to 39x.

3-inch PureColor II G LCD screens sit on the rear of the cameras, with Face ID facial recognition. It's a smart system that can learn up to 12 individual faces, and details about each person, tagging their names and applying age-related set ups to their snaps. For instance, a recognised baby would see the camera turn off its flash so as not to startle the baby. Both amazing and creepy, no?

Both cameras have Full HD video recording, and an interesting feature called Movie Digest, which, while not only cribbing the mighty Tech Digest's name, also records the four seconds of action prior to your photo being taken, editing them altogether at the end of the day into a mini film.

So what's the difference between the two cameras? GPS; you'll only find geo-tagging in the Canon PowerShot SX260 HS.

In shops from from March, the SX260 will cost £329 and come in four colours (silver, black, red and green), while the SX240 will be £299 and come in three; silver, black and red.

Nikon have just revealed the full frame, 36-megapixel D800 DSLR.

Carrying over much of the styling of its predecessor the D700, it offers an unprecedented amount of detail and excellent low-lighting shooting modes thanks to its whopping 36MP CMOS sensor, reaching new megapixel highs for a consumer camera.

Processing power is more of less identical to the Nikon D4, using the Expeed 3 processor, while the auto-focus module also carries over.

Full HD video modes are now onboard, with full manual controls, as well as the ability to shoot slow motion 50/60fps options in 720p, meeting the rival EOS 5D Mk II head on. You'll also get the option to shoot in different crop modes, from the native FX to DX (APS-C equivalent), as well as 5:4 and 1.2x.

Normal ISO range hits the 100-6400 marks, with options to drop to ISO 50 or push to ISO 25600.

A sturdy bit of kit, it's weatherproofed for your trip to Niagra Falls. On the rear you'll find a
3.2-inch 921k-dot LCD display with an ambient light meter, helping you pick the best settings for your surroundings. There's also a 00 per cent field of view viewfinder, which will display 51 AF points.

Battery life is good, offering 900 shots per charge. Output to HDMI with uncompressed video is supported, while other connections include USB 3.0, headphone and mic sockets. Slots for CF and SD cards are on board, and can be used in combination.

Very much a bit of kit for the budding pro then, you're looking at an asking price of £2399.99 when this launches on March 22nd.

Just in time to meet the UK's snowfall, Nokia have just announced that their Lumia 800 handset will be hitting Blighty's shores in a new white shade.

"The story of the Nokia Lumia is one of reduction and purity," says Nokia's colour and material designer Tiina Aarrasshe.

"White is the ultimate colour of reduction. It's also perfect for emphasising the black polished screen. If you stand a white Lumia 800 on a table the body almost disappears, and the black screen seems to lift up and float."

Apart from the fresh lick of paint, it's business as usual for the Lumia 800. The Windows Phone 7 device still sports a 3.7-inch, WVGA 800x480 AMOLED display, an 8MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, all powered by a 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon processor. 512MB of RAM and 16GB of storage (plus 25GB of SkyDrive storage) round off the specs.

To mark the arrival of the new smartphone shade, Nokia are also launching a new "White selection" on their Mix Radio music service, with tracks from the likes of the White Stripes and Barry White up for grabs.

Shipping in March, you can pre-order a white Nokia Lumia 800 from Phone 4U now, with contracts starting at £20.50 a month.

Name: Desaia Beat Box

Type: Bluetooth speaker

Price: RRP £54.99

Desaia may be new kids on the block when it comes to portable audio systems, but their Beat Box Bluetooth speaker shows promise to come. Does it have enough polish to warrant your attention, and your cash? Read on to find out.

Desaia's Beat Box is almost a perfect cube, barring its curved, slightly tapered edges. It stands just 80mm x 80 mm x 76mm and weighs around the 150g mark, making it an easy fit in even the most modestly sized handbags or satchels. It's not much of a looker (our review sample was a black model, though more colours are on the way), but its perforated plastic casing and glossy plastic 4-way button pad on top are simple and functional.

On the rear of the speaker you'll find a port for hooking up non-Bluetooth music devices over a standard 3.5mm audio jack, and a mini-USB port for charging the speaker.

Hooking up the Desaia Beat Box over Bluetooth is a piece of cake. Holding down the Play/Power button fires the Beat Box up, with a blue LED ring flashing around the button pad (which turns red when switching off) letting you know it is ready to pair with a Bluetooth device. It's then just a matter of using your tablet, smartphone or MP3 player's Bluetooth manager to search for the speaker and unite the two units in musical matrimony. We used the Beat Box with an iPad, HTC Desire HD and an iPhone 4S, and had no problems at all with dropped connections during lengthy play sessions.

Those musical marathons can last up to 10 hours if using the Beat Box at around half its maximum volume, which isn't at all bad given the 2-and-a-bit hours charging time needed. It's even better when you note how loud the Beat Box goes. Despite only having a 2x2 W max output, it gives the impression of going far louder at full volume, particularly when placed on a resonant surface such as desk.

Sonically, there are better performers than the Desaia Beat Box. It pushes its mid ranges too much to the fore, while treble is harsh and lacks detail. Tweaking your EQ settings on your device helps to counteract this somewhat. However, you're never going to find audiophile quality sound in a device of this nature, so its something of a moot point; you buy a Bluetooth speaker for simple, on-the-go amplification of your digital tunes, and in that regard the Desaia Beat Box fits the bill nicely.

Verdict:

While its audio quality leaves a little to be desired, the Desaia Beat Box performs well when put alongside other similarly-sized Bluetooth speakers. It's a truly portable bit of kit, offers enough battery life to provide a day's worth of tunes down the park and (while still a little too expensive in our books at £54.99) is priced competitively against rivals such as Logitech's Mini Boombox. We expect to see lots of these sitting around outside tents come the summer festival season.

Sony's PlayStation Network will be re-branded this week, going under the new umbrella of the Sony Entertainment Network.

The PSN will join all of Sony's other online offerings under this new banner as of February 8th, marking the first time the company has bunched all its online platforms together for a unified approach.

"This transition is based on Sony's goal to enhance its unique digital entertainment offering. As a series of these activities Sony started last September, PlayStation Network will be aligned with Sony Entertainment Network," said the Sony release.

"This helps us get closer to our goal of establishing a global comprehensive network platform of services across games, movies, music and more, all accessible from one convenient account."

As for changes to the actual workings of the PSN, it will be business as per usual. No significant changes will be made to how you use the Sony store to browse and purchase game and video content, barring the odd logo or title change here or there.

Sony's new president Kazuo Hirai, who takes over from outgoing boss Howard Stringer from April 1st, was incidentally the mastermind behind the new Sony Entertainment Network umbrella.

HTC have announced that they are preparing for a drop in revenues in the run up to the launch of their 2012 range of smartphones.

HTC is expecting to see revenues fall by as much as 36% in Q1 of 2012, during a period of "product transition" as prospective customers hold out for the HTC handsets set to be revealed at MWC 2012.

"Despite short-term difficulties, momentum will resume in the upcoming product cycle driven by HTC's brand strength, innovation, and design/engineering capabilities," said HTC in a press statement.

However, that slow in sales could be financially significantly damaging; losses of around £1.4 billion could be incurred while HTC rush to push out their next wave of devices.

HTC have announced that this years' range will focus on the quality of a smaller number of core devices than last years wide range of smartphones. The dual-core Ville and quad-core Edge are expected to be the stars of their Android showcase at MWC 2012 this month.

Via: Tech Crunch

Virgin Media have announced that they now offer super-fast 100Mb broadband speeds to 10 million UK homes. Originally planning to have the service available to half of the UK by the middle of the year, Virgin Media have now revealed they are well ahead of schedule and are on course to finish the roll-out by the Spring.

Virgin Media are currently pledging to double the broadband speed of all its new and existing customers by 2013, with Olympic gold medallist and world's fastest man used in the advertising campaigns to illustrate the point.

That means that those subscribed to Virgin Media's L and M services will see their speeds jump from 10Mb to 20Mb, XL customers jumping from 30Mb to 60Mb and XXL customers getting a whopping 100Mb up from their existing 50Mb service. Existing 100Mb subscribers will also see the cost of their subscription drop as a result of the nationwide upgrades.

186,000km of cable and 38,000 street cabinets are getting the upgrade treatment, with the double-speed roll-out hitting different areas at different times.

Virgin Media's announcement is a timely one. Just last Friday BT announced that they were trialling FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) technology. While it's quite some way away from being a broadband standard, FTTP offers superb 300Mb speeds.

It may not even be out in the UK until February 22nd, but the PS Vita will be getting a firmware update as soon as the 8th of February, which will see video recording and map browsing added to the system's long list of features.

The Vita (which is already in the hands of lucky Japanese gamers) appears to be using Google Maps as its mapping service. However, its functionality will be limited on the Wi-Fi only variants of the handheld gaming device, as only the 3G edition of the Vita will come with GPS hardware built in.

Video recording will be an addition to the Photos app that is already part of the Vita software.

Mac users can also breathe a sigh of relief; Sony will also be releasing a Mac version of the Vita's Content Manager application, letting Mac users shift digital content from their computers onto the handheld, a glaring compatibility issue at launch.

Those looking for a tablet designed to be tinkered with should turn their attentions away from Android and iPads, and take look at the cheap-as-chips Spark Linux-based slate.

On pre-order now €200 (£165) and expected to ship in May across Europe, it's a 7-inch tablet running an open-source OS called KDE Plasma Active UX, built on Linux foundations.

It's software is designed to let users fully play with the devices coding, letting users create their own apps, and fully unlocking all of the development features straight out of the box. No Android-style rooting needed here to get creative.

In terms of specifications, the Spark rocks an 800 x 480px screen with a 1.3 megapixel camera for video calling. Under the hood, there's a 1GHz AMLogic ARM processor with a Mali-400 GPU and 500MB of RAM. 4GB of built-in storage features, with expansion possible through the SD card slot.

"This is a unique opportunity for Free software. Finally we have a device coming to market on our terms. It has been designed by and is usable by us on our terms," said KDE developer Aaron Siego.

"We are not waiting for some big company to give us what we desire, we're going out there and making it happen together. Just as important: the proceeds will be helping fuel the efforts that make this all possible."

Via: Asiego / Tech Radar

Google have today used their search engine Doodle image to celebrate the 80th birthday of New Wave cinema pioneer François Truffaut.

Three images, each depicting a scene from one of his films, have been popped up on the site today in place of the standard Google logo.

Truffaut, born February 6th 1932, kicked off his career as a film critic on the Cahiers du cinéma and Cahiers magazine before deciding to get behind the camera himself. Kicking off with the short film Une Visite in 1955 and following on in his career with highlights such as Jules et Jim (1962) and Fahrenheit 451 (1966), Truffaut went on to win an Oscar and a BAFTA for La Nuit Américaine in 1973.

Truffaut died on 21 October 1984, aged 52 at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France.

Google are churning out Doodle's by the dozen these days; just 37 days into 2012, we've already had 25 themes adorn the search engine.

If you're anything like me, most of my cameraphone shots never end up anywhere other than on my smartphone's screen as I can't be bothered digging out the cables needed to transfer them. A new experimental build of Dropbox for Android may change all that however, as it does all the work automatically.

Dropbox Experimental Android Forum Build 2.0.9 adds a new feature to the cloud storage service that sees your mobile snaps beamed into your Dropbox folder straight after you've snapped a shot, avoiding the need for either cables or an upload manager.

The first picture you send via the new feature bags you 500MB of Dropbox space, which extends by a further 500MB for every 500MB of images you upload, up to a cap of 5GB.

The only limitation in this otherwise superb upgrade is file size; uploads are limited to no bigger than 180MB in size, meaning your HD videos will have to be quite short to get automatically sent.

As it's currently just a beta release, the app hasn't hit the Android Market yet. However, you can grab the experimental build direct from Dropbox by clicking here.

A Taiwanese PC gamer died at his computer in an Internet cafe in Taipei, but none of the 30 other people in attendance noticed his passing for nine hours.

Chen Rong-yu, 23, had settled down for a session of online multiplayer game League of Legends on Tuesday night, but was found a few hours later "rigid on a chair with his hands stretched out towards the keyboard and mouse," said local police.

Mr Chen, who had been treated for a heart condition back in September 2011, had been taken frequent naps during the session, which goes some way towards explaining why it wasn't until the following Wednesday morning that a female staff member spotted something was wrong.

Police are stating the cause of death as cardiac arrest, brought on by the cold weather, Chen's tiredness and his lack of movement.

Via: Kotaku