CATCH THE MOMENT
Anyone buying the latest digital camera from Kodak, the Easyshare DX7590, is in for a nice surprise: a new feature with a very puzzling name.
The 鈥渂urst last in last out鈥� feature lets users capture those golden moments 鈥� when a player makes or misses a vital shot or a rare bird finally pops out of its nest. The photographer focuses on the target and presses the BLILO button. The camera鈥檚 5-megapixel image chip then starts feeding pictures into a 32-megabyte RAM chip at a rate of two frames per second. When the camera has shot 30 pictures, it starts overwriting the first ones and goes on shooting new pictures indefinitely. Releasing the BLILO button saves the last four pictures onto the memory card, hopefully catching that crucial moment.
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PROTECTION FOR BULLETPROOF VESTS
Bulletproof vests save lives, but it turns out that they themselves need protecting 鈥� from the sun鈥檚 damaging rays. So Parafly of Spain has started selling vests with a built-in sunscreen.
Exposure to the corrosive cocktail of human sweat and ultraviolet gradually degrades the Kevlar fibres from which most vests are made. That limits them to just four or five years of active service says Victor Castano of the National University of Mexico, whose team developed the sunscreen technology.
The Kevlar fibres are treated with silica and aluminium oxide nanoparticles. This creates a flexible ceramic layer around the fibres that is impervious to water and absorbs UV light, says Castano. Tests suggest that bulletproof vests made from ceramic-coated fibres will last for 10 years.
FIND NEMO IN A CLAM SHELL
Warner Brothers has teamed up with CyberHome Entertainment of Fremont, California, to launch a miniature portable DVD player. The clam-shell gadget has a 6.3-centimetre colour LCD screen, stereo speakers, a 3-hour playing time, and measures just 12 by 10 by 3 centimetres.
The player uses a new generation of 8-centimetre DVDs, which hold 2.7 gigabytes instead of the 4.7 gigabytes available from a standard disc. The gadget鈥檚 small screen means footage can be compressed more heavily without loss of quality, so full-length movies can easily be pressed onto single mini-DVDs. The cost of discs will start at $10, and players at around $100.
