Headworx

In two weeks, at PMA show , Sigma is to release the SD-14 , the third version of a Foveon X3-based digital camera. Foveon has been around for a number of years, failing to capture meaningful market, despite the superior sensor technology they offered. Let us have a look at it from several angles. X3 is a digital camera sensor technology. Its layered concept resembles the way old photo film works and is very much in line with what most people expect from a camera sensor. X3 captures all colors in every pixel. Isn't it obvious, you'd ask? Well, what most consumers do not realize is 99% of digital cameras are black-and-white. Yes, that is true, with the exception of Foveon/X3 based (only Sigma cameras...). What you probably do not realize is your state of the art 10-megapixel Canon/Nikon/Sony/You-name-it is a black and white camera. At least its sensor is black and white. They capture colors using color filters. In front of every pixel is a filter - red, green or blue. So some of...

This week the debates on DRMs continued. I really like the recent piece by Wired explaining by example what DRM brings to the table. Looks like we are not happy with the restrictions on the use of content we purchase. Once we buy a song or a book (in electronic form), we expect to "own it" rather than just "having a right to use it". Think about cars. You buy a car and you do not expect anybody restricting you what to do with it. When I think about cars recently, I come to the conclusion the idea of selling cars is still from the old ages of vinyl records and paperback books. There is a huge potential for the entire car industry, once it moves from the current "buy to own it" model to the modern DRM-like "buy to have a right to use it" model. And actually these days buying a car could actually resemble buying a license. I think a standard licence for a car "personal edition" should cover driving one person within the city limits, no...

DRM is dead. Finally somebody has admitted that. Actually it was Steve Jobs himself, in his open letter . What is it all about? Well it all started with the advent of writable CDs in 1990's. Before you could buy music only on CDs. And of course you could copy it to an analog cassette tape. While the music studios were not happy about that, the disadvantage was simple: your copy was an analog one, with much worse quality and it could not be used with much success as a master to make another copy, as the quality kept on degrading. Then we got CD burners allowing us to make exact digital copies of audio CDs (I use a CD burner myself to make copies of records for listening in my car). The music studios were upset by that fact, as they feared their earnings would drop as people will start burning and distributing music without paying the royalties. Well... at that time they probably did not see the MP3 and Internet revolution. Their problem at that time was nothing compared to what the...

After ten months I am still very happy with the Pandora personalized music service. Most of the time I use the Squeezebox to stream Pandora radio at home. But treating the Pandora like radio does not stop me from listening to CDs. This is a funny story, as I do not play a CD more than once after I buy it. The first thing I do after unboxing a CD is ripping it to a harddrive. It may or may not be legal, I do not care. By all means it fits my sense of fair use. I buy the CD, but actually I do not want a CD, I want the music that is recorded on this CD. And I put the music on my harddrive for convenience. Sync to the iPod, play on a notebook and play on my home stereo. But if you like shuffling music like I do (this has a lot in common with shuffling moods...), and if you are as lazy as I am, you must admit taking a CD from a shelf, putting it on a tray is far too complicated. So this is the primary reason why I rip my CDs. Having them on a computer is having them all in one place and ...