Monday, May 21, 2007

FlickrSLiDR.com - Embed Flickr Slideshows in Your Site

Have a bunch of photos that you'd like to post on your site in crisp slideshow form? If you use flickr, this is now very easy to do using the flickrSLiDR. It's a one page site meant to make embedding flickr slideshows into your site or blog as easy as possible. All that's needed is the flickr URL address of the user, photo set, or group you want to use. If you want to specify certain photos within a group, type in the specific tags from the group or user. You can also choose the size of your slideshow, as well as a couple other options. So if you have pictures from flickr you'd like to post to your site, it couldn't get easier than using flickrSLiDR. In their own words: "The next time you want to post a flickr slideshow on your website, just head over to flickrSLiDR and provide it with the URL of the flickr photostream, photoset or group that contains the pictures to put in a slideshow. For photostreams and groups, you can specify tags or a full text query to fine tune the type of pictures to be displayed in the slideshow. You can also specify the dimensions of the slideshow." Why it might be a killer: He had posted some info on how to make a slideshow from flickr before and it received over 200 comments and a lot of traffic, so obviously there is a desire by flickr users for this tool. It's really easy to use so that anyone can set up a slideshow within seconds. Some questions: Will there be more customization possibilities added for the slideshows? Will people use this site to make their slideshows, or turn to one of the many other slideshow specific sites out there that have a bit more flare?

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Apple's $1099 2GHz MacBook gets benchmarked

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If you'd been pinching your pennies waiting for Apple to unleash an update to the MacBook side of things, your wait was ended last week, but if you've been wondering just how much difference the increase from 2MB to 4MB of L2 cache (and the 0.17MHz bump, too) made, here's your sign. MacLife was able to get its hands around a $1,099 base unit, and rather than carefully coaxing into the world, it broke out the whipping stick and put this bad boy to work. The new machine was pit against the old base MacBook (at 1.83GHz) and the previous 2GHz BlackBook, and while increases in efficiency weren't exactly considerable, reviewers found them at least noticeable. The latest machine shaved seconds off here and there from iMovie exporting and Photoshopping, and while most tests showed just single digit improvements, the iPhoto test did display a 22-percent gain compared to the previous 1.83GHz MacBook. Of course, these preliminary tests aren't anything out of the ordinary, but keep an eye on the read link for more fleshed out testing (including the refreshed BlackBook) in the coming days.

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Panasonic's 12 megapixel Lumix DMC-FX100: a wide-angle, "HD video" shooter

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Oh boy, lookie lookie. Panasonic just announced their new Lumix FX top-ender, the DMC-FX100. Packing a 1/1.72-inch, 12.2 megapixel CCD, this compact shooter manages to squeeze in a 28mm wide-angle Leica DC lens with 3.6x optical zoom. The cam features VE III processing along with Panny's Mega Optical Image Stabilizer and Intelligent ISO control (up to a 6400 sensitivity) to reduce blurring. Shutter release is measured at 0.009 seconds while bursting 8 shots per second at full resolution. It even records WVGA (848 x 480) video at 30fps or 1280 x 720 at 15fps direct to SDHC/SD cards. Nice, should be a winner by the time the reviews roll around.

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Casio's 12 megapixel Exilim Zoom EX-Z1200

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Pfff, 10 megapixels is for sissies. Casio, like Panasonic earlier today, just pumped out their own 12.1 megapixel shooter, the Exilim Zoom EX-Z1200. A 1/1.7-inch CCD and 3x zoom lens will be responsible for collecting the photons while the Exilim Engine 2.0 processing attempts to make sense of it all. Casio's flagship compact also delivers CCD-shift image stabilization and range of blur-reduction technologies bent on making the most of that ISO 1600 sensivity -- if reviews of its EX-Z1000 cuz are anything to go by then that's probably not saying much. Face detection and motion analysis technologies enable the camera to lock focus onto a subject's face and then track it as the person moves. Rounding things out are a decent 2.8-inch wide LCD, SDHC card support, a lazy 3 shot per second burst mode, and H.264 video recordings at a maximum 848 x 480 resolution and just 20fps. No price listed, but it had better slide in for less than the superior spec'd DMC-FX100 if they hope to compete.

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Fujitsu's H.264 chip encodes/decodes in Full HD -- a world's first

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Fujitsu just announced a world's first H.264 chip capable of encoding/decoding 1920 x 1080 (60i/50i) video in real time. The chip features 256MB of onboard FCRAM and ultra low 750mW power draw when encoding video. That means lickity quick, MPEG-2 quality processing with only a third, or half the required storage. The ¥30,000 ($247) MB86H51 chip is available to OEMs starting July 1st after which you'll find it bunged into the latest up-scale, consumer-class video recorders.

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