Sony has long said it would cautiously approach the tablet market while it built up its Reader e-book line, but it looks like things are picking up a little steam: CFO Nobuyuki Oneda said the company is "very interested" in the tablet market during his post-earnings report news conference. Oneda said that Sony’s "confident we have the skills to create a product," and that "Time-wise we are a little behind the iPad but it’s a space we would like to be an active

player

in." We could certainly see a Sony device about the size of the Reader Daily Edition making a splash, especially if it’s tied in with Sony’s new push at a unified online experience — and dare we hope for tablet remix of the Dash Internet Viewer (pictured above) based on the Chumby OS? Time will tell.

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It certainly took them long enough, but Olympus has finally (finally!) introduced a Micro Four Thirds camera with a price tag that’s a little closer to earth. If you’ll recall, both of the previous PENs cost upwards of $750, but the E-PL1 touts a much more reasonable MSRP of $599.99. And that doesn’t mean Olympus has been stingy on features. Nope, quite the contrary as the the minuscule body is packed with the same 12.3 megapixel image sensor as the E-30 and E-620 (check the images in the gallery to see a size comparison of the actual sensors), in-body image stabilization, continuous autofocus, a 2.7-inch rear LCD, HD movie mode, in-camera "art filters" and a bundled ED 14-42mm f3.5/5.6 zoom lens (28-84mm equivalent in 35mm cameras). Oh and don’t forget the addition of the pop-up flash which just reminds us of E.T. You won’t be able to nab a E-PL1 until next month, but hit the break for some of our hands-on impressions.

The biggest improvement to the PEN E-PL1 comes in the form of the focusing — in our short hands-on we noticed the E-PL1’s 14-42mm kit lens lens focusing faster than in the past. We took a number of speedy test shots around a conference room and all were in focus; that’s not something we’d confidently say we could do with the E-P1. Speaking of lenses, Olympus doesn’t yet have a price on its 14-150mm lens, but it was noticeably faster and quieter than the kit one. PEN E-P1 users will immediately notice that you can now record video while in other modes (on the EP-1 you had to toggle to the video mode), but the dedicated record button is in line with the shutter button. We ended up recording a 720p video rather than taking a still a few times, so it looks like you’ll have to get used to carefully angling your hands. Other than that we’re thinking this camera is going to be perfect for that person that’s scared of the big-bad DSLR; we were blown away at how easy it was to change white balance and control the depth of field in the live guide menus. We’re looking forward to putting this one through the review ringer, but in the meantime check the full release below for some more details.

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Over the last several months complaints that Panasonic’s plasma HDTVs experience sudden adverse changes in their black levels after a certain number of viewing hours have been piling up in an AVSForum thread, and now that behavior has been confirmed, though not very well explained, in a response the company sent to CNET today:

In order to achieve the optimal picture performance throughout the life of the set, Panasonic Viera plasma HDTVs incorporate an automatic control which adjusts an internal driving voltage at predetermined intervals of operational hours. As a result of this automatic voltage adjustment, background brightness will increase from its initial value … The newest Viera plasma HDTVs incorporate an improved automatic control which applies the voltage adjustments in smaller increments. This results in a more gradual change in the Black Level over time.

Especially considering many buyers purchased their televisions specifically for those deep black levels, you can see why a TV suddenly going Sammy Sosa overnight would be upsetting. One of the reigning theories in the thread indicated by poster & calibrator D-Nice has been that this is by design, but a flaw in the settings caused the large jumps (around double the brightness, as measured by several owners light meters) instead of a much more subtle change. So what now for owners or potential buyers? Without more details about what is going on and whether or not anything can be done about it, like

CNET’s

David Katzmeier, it’s hard to see how we can continue to recommend these HDTVs for purchase without knowing what they will do months or years down the line. The ball is in Panasonic’s court now, a speedy response could do a lot to assuage the concerns of current and potential owners.

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No one really uses screensavers these days. But if you grow bored with staring at a blank screen all day, there are actually some pretty cool ways to liven up your monitor. Screensavers aren’t just meant for your viewing pleasure, either. The Nintendo Screensaver not only displays up to 60 classic Nintendo games on your screen, but according to OhGizmo!, with a simple keystroke you can jump into and begin playing any of the titles, too. You can blast away baddies at ‘Contra’ or help Mario rescue Princess Peach without your boss ever knowing the difference.

However, it might not be the best idea to run this emulator while at work. To play the games, the ROMs (digital copies of the original games) must be on your system, which would be frowned upon by management. It might be safer just to let pre-captured movies from your favorite NES games play on your monitor. After all, it’s still much better than watching those flying toasters. Best of all, you won’t end up getting the boot for improperly using your company’s network connection. [From: Oh Gizmo!]

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Sprint has some of the more popular phones available these days. There is the Palm Pre, the problematic Blackberry Tour, and now you can add the Google Android HTC Hero as Sprint has confirmed it’s availability.

Sprint will sell the HTC Hero, which has arguably been called the best Android handset available, for $180 US after a $100 mail in rebate and after signing a two year service contract.

Consumers will have two options when it comes to data plans. There is the Everything plan that includes free calls to mobile numbers or the Business Advantage message and data plan. Without a service plan, the Google phone phone will set you back $480.

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The Satio has a gorgeous widescreen (16:9) 3.5-inch touchscreen interface, with a super-sharp, auto-rotating 640×360 display. It also runs on the Symbian OS platform, which means there are tons of applications you can download and run on the handset. And if you’re into mobile photography, you’ll really love this. The Satio has an astounding 12.1-megapixel digital camera with 12x digital zoom. The camera offers face and smile recognition (I want a camera with frown recognition!), touch-screen focus capability, and a bright Xenon flash. It even can Geo-tag your photos and upload them directly to Picasa. This is definitely way more camera than you’re used to finding in a phone.

Did I happen to mention that the Satio is a full 3G phone, with support for GSM GPRS/EDGE and UMTS HSDPA networks? Plus it’s got built-in WiFi, Bluetooth and a GPS too. Yep, just like the iPhone, the Satio comes with Google Maps – connected to the phone’s A-GPS module. Oh yea, there’s also an FM Radio with RDS track information. This jack-of-all-trades can even play Java games and ships with mobile versions of Facebook and YouTube too. Sweet.

The Satio comes silver and “bordeaux” case colors, and will start to ship on October 13 in the UK. No word yet on a North American release. UK readers can order the Saito from the Sony Ericsson Store.

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When going anywhere where you’ll find a staircase next to escalators you will find that most people use the easy way where they don’t have to do much work. For this reason the Piano Stairs were trialled to see if adding a bit of fun in to a staircase could tempt more people in to using the steps.

The creators made each step play a different note on a piano so that when people walk up or down they go from the high end of the keyboard to the lower octaves or vice versa. The camera capturing people showed a 66% increase in people using the stairs once they were made a bit more fun. Check out the video below to see it in action.

Although I am sure it would work the first few times people saw the piano stairs I am sure after a couple of days people would get board and go back to their lazy usual ways.

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TomTom’s much-ballyhooed iPhone GPS app best step its game up, else it’ll get left in the dust by none other than Navigon. The lesser-known nav company today introduced the second major update for its MobileNavigator iPhone app, and the feature additions aren’t anything to scoff at. For starters, the program has become the first on-board navigation app for the iPhone to gain text-to-speech functionality, and just in case

hearing street names belted out through a robotic voice ain’t good enough for your high standards, the inclusion of iPod control should win you over. At long last, drivers can access the full range of iPod functionalities with a single click from map access, and it even recognizes the shuffle feature to keep you guessing. Finally, a location sharing function has been added to make stalking your pals that much easier; to close, Navigon has knocked $10 off the purchase price, bringing it down to a nearly-palatable $89.99 — and yes, those who already own it can download the update gratis.

[Via

HotHardware

]

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You see, the remote packs a trio of buttons: a play / pause button that can also answer calls, along with volume up and a volume down buttons. The latter two

only

work with the iPhone 3GS, so iPhone 3G users will be stuck reaching for the volume rocker on the side of their phone to adjust the output. A true bummer, indeed. We found the buttons to work perfectly well in all aspects on the 3GS, but the inability to control volume on older iPhones was really disappointing. Also of note, the built-in mic is on the rear of the remote, so it’s actually pretty far down on the cabling rops. As such, you’ll be forced to speak fairly loudly if you expect anyone to hear you, or you could manually reach down and raise the mic to your lips, in turn destroying the whole point of having the mic in a handsfree position.

Furthermore, the actual cable heading to your iPhone is surprisingly short. We get that these are designed for use with phones and portable media players, but a bundled extension line for at-home use would’ve been much appreciated. Heck, even Sony’s $35 MDR-EX71 earbuds include that. Anywho, we certainly can’t grumble too much about the Image S4i’s sound quality, but for $99, we can really only recommend these to iPhone 3GS owners who are absolutely sure they’ll take advantage of an in-line remote and microphone. Even then, the built-in mic isn’t incredibly useful due to its location and the fact that it does nothing to cancel wind noise and the like. If you’re an iPhone 3GS owner and you were already considering the $79 Image S4s, you can probably spend the extra Jackson here and not feel too bad; for everyone else, don’t waste your time on a product that’s only partially functional on your device.

Earlier this year, we had the chance to take a listen at Klipsch’s Image S4 in-ear headphones. Even earlier this year, we heard that the same company was looking to push out a set of VoiceOver-compatible ‘buds that were significantly easier to listen to than Apple’s stock alternative. That very device is the Klipsch Image S4i, which is nothing more than an Image S4 with an in-line microphone and 3-button remote. As of now, there still aren’t a smorgasbord of options for those on the hunt for a VoiceOver-friendly set of headphones that actually sound decent, so head on past the break for a mostly predictable take on the little guys shown above (and below, for that matter).

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