Yesterday, Sony announced the successors to its CyberShot DSC-H2 and DSC-H5 cameras. The new DSC-H7 and DSC-H9 both feature an 8.1 megapixel sensor, mind-blowing 15x zoom, face detection technology, shutter speeds of up to 1/4000th of second and the Bionz processing engine from Sony's Alpha DSLR lineup.The H9 one ups its little sibling by offering a larger 3 inch flip up LCD and Sony's NightShot technology for after dark photo fun. Both cameras should be available in April for $400 to $480 respectively. My fiance has the DSC-H5 and it is an incredible camera. The pictures it takes are outstanding and feature wise, it gives you almost anything you could hope for with out having to move up to a DSLR. Coincidentally the H5 was going to be my next gadget purchase, but with the H9 just around the bend, it looks like I will be holding off.

Press Release [via Gizmodo]
gadgets, cameras, Sony, DSC-H7, DSC-H9

You can't throw a CD in the blogosphere without hitting a post full of venom aimed squarely at the RIAA. They deserve it too. With their heavy handed lawsuits against children and an insatiable desire to obliterate fair use and personal privacy, there is no disputing that RIAA is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the music industry. Unfortunately, talking about the RIAA's evils is about as far as the conversation usually goes. The RIAA could care less if people just talk about how evil they are, the only way to make them listen is to grab them by their pocket books and make them listen. While no one person could ever hope to put a dent in the RIAA's cash flow, if enough people are willing to forgo buying music from RIAA members maybe, just maybe, we could get the RIAA to pay attention and realize that we are sick of their crap. I would like to join Adam Frucci from Gizmodo in asking you, my readers, to boycott the RIAA in March.

Its an addict... er, hobby shared by millions world wide, though when you ask anyone who has spent any time playing the World of Warcraft the last thing they will say is that its educational experience, much less that they learned anything about productivity from the game. But that is exactly what screenwriter John August took away from his time spent exploring Azeroth. My personal favorite gem is #7:

Remember, the game is supposed to be fun. Yes, you can spend hours pouring through the forums, finding exactly the right talent tree. Or you could wing it: explore some new lands and kill some big monsters. Obsessive planning won’t make the game more enjoyable. It will just make it more like work...

...On a bigger level, as you look back at any period of your life, you don’t remember what a solid plan you had. You remember what you did. You remember the adventures, the scrapes, the unanticipated detours that turned out to fascinating. So don’t plan your way out of an exciting life.

Even if you have never even heard of the World of Warcraft, there is something that pretty much anyone can take away from Mr. August's revelations. It is definitely worth spending a few minutes reading.

Seven Things I Learned from World of Warcraft [via WOW Insider]
productivity, tips, World of Warcraft

You may not know him by name, but you probably have at least one of his most notable invention's offspring sitting in your house. Robert Adler, an engineer at Zenith for over 60 years, is best known for his work developing the first practical television remote in 1956. Adler's remote, the Zenith Space Command, use ultrasonics to control the TV instead of the photocells that were prone to interference or the clumsy wired solutions used in previous remote control designs. One of the most incredible features of the Space Command was the fact that it did not need batteries to operate. Aside from his work on television remotes, Adler also was awarded over 180 patents during his tenure at Zenith. Succumbing to heart failure, Robert Adler passed away at the age of 93.

Man who glued TV watchers to the couch dies [via Engadget]
geeks, inventors, Robert Adler