Slick Casio EX-G1 is Slim and Smash-Proof

Casio today announced the 12.1-megapixel Exilim EX-G1, which the company says is drop-, cold-, dust-, and waterproof, as well as being the "world's slimmest shock-resistant digital camera." The new ultrathin, ultratough point-and-shoot camera will be available for $300 in December.

Casio says that the EX-G1 can withstand all sorts of extreme conditions, including: multiple falls from heights up to 7 feet, 60 minutes of use underwater at a depth of 10 feet, and temperatures as low as 14 degrees Fahrenheit.

The superslim camera is just 0.78 inch thick and weighs 5.4 ounces. It has a thick, pressure-resistant, 2.5-inch LCD and a 3X optical, nonextending zoom lens that reaches from 38mm to 114mm. The camera takes microSD and microSDHC cards only.

The EX-G1 features action-minded shooting modes. Interval shooting, for example, allows users to take pictures while they're doing "extreme" sports (skateboarding, snowboarding, and chess) by automatically snapping shots at fixed intervals. Face-recognition, several scene modes, and a standard-definition, wide-format movie mode (848-by-480 pixels at 30 frames per second in AVI format) are also in the feature mix.

Like other recent Casio point-and-shoot cameras, the EX-G1 also has an "Advanced Dynamic Photo" feature that acts like a green screen: Users can cut a moving subject out of a number of images, then overlay the subject on a separate still shot, all within the camera.

The Exilim G EX-G1 will be available in black or red, and we'll see just how tough it is once we get a test unit in.

Five Best Features in the Office 2010 Beta

Microsoft has unleashed the public beta of Microsoft Office 2010. The Office 2010 beta includes updated versions of Word, excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, SharePoint Workspace, and Communicator. You can download it right now from the Microsoft Office 2010 beta site.

Like Windows XP versus Windows Vista, a fair percentage of users never made the jump from Office 2003 to Office 2007. The Windows Vista backlash had a residual effect which led customers to adopt a 'my-current-version-works-fine-why-change-it' mentality.

Well, for those users (as well as those users who have adopted Office 2007), here are five reasons that you should download the beta and check out what Microsoft Office 2010 has to offer.

1. Ribbons. OK. I admit that the ribbon interface takes some getting used to. If you are still using Office 2003 and you are used to the standard menu options across the top of your Office application screens, prepare yourself for a little learning curve when you start using Office 2010.

That said, once you familiarize yourself with ribbons you will find it hard to go back. The ribbon interface is more intuitive and helps you operate more efficiently (after that requisite learning curve we were talking about). Ribbons existed in Office 2007, but only in certain applications. With Office 2010 Microsoft has built the ribbon interface into the entire suite.

2. Backstage View. This feature is more relevant for users of Office 2007. In Office 2007 a round Office button replaced many of the functions commonly accessed from the menu bar such as saving and printing. That button never really seemed to catch on.

In Office 2010, the button has been replaced with something that looks like one of the ribbon tabs at the top. Clicking on the tab at the far left brings up a separate screen called Backstage View. The Backstage interface displays a list of tasks in a panel on the left, but most of the screen is dedicated to displaying the options available for the selected task.

3. Paste Preview. Microsoft collected user feedback and found that very frequently users end up undoing a paste action once it is completed. Basically, the text or image pasted ends up not looking the way the user intended so they remove it and start over.

Paste Preview allows you to see what the paste will look like if you complete the action, enabling you to save some time and energy and get it right the first time. It also gives you the choice of maintaining the formatting from the source, merging the formatting, or pasting just the text with no formatting.

4. Excel Sparklines. Excel has always had a variety of charts and graphs available to visually depict data and trends. With Excel 2010, though, Microsoft has added a new feature called Sparklines, which allows you to place a mini-graph or trend line in a single cell.

The Sparklines are a cool way to quickly and simply add a visual element without having to go through the effort of inserting a graph or chart that overwhelms the worksheet.

5. Social Networking Integration. Microsoft recognizes the social networking trend by adding Outlook Social Connector to the Outlook 2010 application. Outlook Social Connector will let you see emails, status updates, shared files and photos, and more all in a single view. You will also be able to see who your mutual friends are and other information to help you maintain and extend your social network.

As of the release of the beta there are no social network add-ins, but Microsoft promises to release them over the coming months. With the position Facebook has in social networking, and the relationship Microsoft has with Facebook, it seems safe to assume a Facebook social network add-in might be one of the first available.

There you have it--five reasons to download the Office 2010 beta and check it out. There are a number of other reasons as well, but there is only so much you can fit in one article. The integration with Microsoft Office Web Apps, as well as with other recent and upcoming release like Exchange 2010 and Office Communications Server 2010.

This is not a good year to be anti-Microsoft--Microsoft is on a roll. Bing, Internet Explorer 8, Windows 7, and now Office 2010 have all received a fair amount of praise as they have been unleashed. While other platforms like Windows Vista and Windows Mobile 6.5 have not succeeded in generating much excitement, these other software titles demonstrate that Microsoft still has the ability to develop innovative software that works.

World’s longest marine causeway to start construction by 2010?

The Qatar-Bahrain Friendship Causeway, a 40km long marine causeway featuring a 22km bridge and 18km embankments connecting the west coast of Qatar to the east coast of Bahrain, is scheduled to begin construction in 2010.

The $3 billion project was originally scheduled to begin last year in May 2008, however in a statement from Bahrain's Works Minister Fahmi al-Jowder the new deadline was announced.

"Work on the project will start in 2010 and it is expected to take four-and-a-half years to complete."

"Negotiations are still under way regarding the cost and are expected to be finalised by the end of the year, but initial estimates hover around the $3 billion mark. Bahrain and Qatar have already allocated a budget of $500m to start the project," he said.

When completed, the causeway will be the longest in the world and will also boast a 13 metre wide railroad bridge. Travel time from Qatar to Bahrain by car is expected to be reduced from four-and-a-half hours to around 30 minutes.

According to an estimate, the volume of traffic on the causeway is expected to be around 10,000 to 12,000 vehicles a day.

Construction contacts were awarded to KBR, an engineering company head-quartered in Houston, Texas, "to provide design, project and construction management services for the Qatar-Bahrain road and rail marine crossing." Other groups involved include the Qatar and Bahrain Causeway Foundation and a consortium of companies led by French construction major Vinci Construction and the German Company HOCHTIEF Construction AG and CCC and Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company.

Finland Makes Broadband a Legal Right

The Finnish government has done what no other nation has; it has made broadband Internet access a guaranteed legal right of its citizens. According to Finnish news site YLE, The Ministry of Transport and Communications says everyone in the country will be entitled to a guaranteed 1 Mbit connection by next July. This is fascinating, but it's really only half the story.

The real news is that the country considers this just a preliminary stepping stone to a 100 Mbit service guarantee by the end of 2015. According to the story, "Some variation will be allowed, if connectivity can be arranged through mobile phone networks."

Granted, Finland's population is more like a very large city than a country as big as the U.S. There are 5.3 million people residing in Finland, mostly in the south. This would place the country about 30th in the ranking of world cities by population, but it still makes it bigger than any U.S. city save New York. Which begs the question - if Finland can do this, why can't more major U.S. cities?

Sony Launches 250GB PlayStation 3 for $350

Following its recent PlayStation 3 price cut fete with a high-capacity encore, Sony announced today it'll offer a 250GB version of its slimline PS3 for $350 in North America, on sale November 3. The announcement comes as expected after leaks suggesting the model would arrive sometime in October. The new system will be otherwise identical to the existing $300 120GB model, but offer slightly more than twice as much storage space.

The North American model can't claim firsts: A 250GB slimline PlayStation 3 bundled with Naughty Dog's Uncharted 2 actually launched a few days ago in Spain.

In the press release, Sony also revealed its $300 slimline PS3 (PCW Score: 90%) had sold 1 million units worldwide in the three weeks since its launch on September 1. The announcement comes in advance of NPD Group's September video games retail sales data, which was expected later this evening, but per a last minute advisory, delayed until Monday, October 19.

"The PS3 platform is poised for a tremendous holiday season,” said Sony Computer Entertainment America's Scott A. Steinberg, vice president of product marketing. “We kicked things off early with the new price point and sleek form factor and have continued the momentum with this week’s launch of the universally acclaimed exclusive, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. The new 250GB PS3 provides consumers with another compelling hardware option and speaks to the growing consumer appetite for digital content from the PlayStation Network – particularly high-def content that showcases the power of the PS3 system.”

Sony says over 600 million pieces of content have been downloaded from the PlayStation Network as of September and points to upcoming exclusive game downloads like PixelJunk Shooter, Gravity Crash, and Hustle Kings as indications its expanding the Store's lineup in anticipation of the holidays.

The PlayStation Network's video delivery service, which Sony says offers 2,300 movies (one-third in high-def format) as well as 13,300 television episodes, will add recently released movies like Star Trek, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and Bruno.

My take: It's about time someone offered more than 120 measly gigabytes to handle our ballooning multimedia libraries. Now if Microsoft follows suit with a beefier Xbox 360 (and gets on board with the do-it-yourself thing, something Sony's supported from the get-go) we'll have a right and proper holiday competition to cheer along.

Notepad++ Builds on Notepad With Geeky Features

Notepad++ (free) starts with the basic text editing provided by the Windows Notepad program, and adds a slew of features to help programmers and scripters.

The tabbed display, which allows for viewing and editing multiple files within one program window, may look similar to the bare-bones Windows program on first glance. But you'll quickly find many options not available in Notepad, starting with line numbers and current line highlights, and progressing on through features available via drop-down menus and a chock-full toolbar.

For example, Notepad++ allows for creating macros to speed up repetitive typing tasks. You'll also find a wide range of "TextFX" affects for converting regular text to hexadecimal or deleting blank lines, inserting file and directory names and paths, or other programmer-type functions. Still more options allow for quickly switching between different text encodings such as ANSI or UTF-8, and plenty of additional abilities also cater to the coder crowd.

Notepad++ is shared via the GNU GPL v2 license. Its source code is available.

Google Editions Embraces Universal E-book Format

Google will launch an e-book store called Google Editions with a "don't be evil" twist. Unlike Google's biggest competitors, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, which rely heavily on restrictive DRM, Google's store will not be device-specific--allowing for e-books purchased through Google Editions to be read on the far greater number of e-book readers that will flood the market in 2010.

Google's e-books will be accessible through any Web-enabled computer, e-reader, or mobile phone instead of a dedicated device. This will allow content to be unchained from expensive devices such as Amazon's Kindle e-book reader. However, as democratizing as this sounds, it's still unclear how many people are ready to curl up with a Google Editions title on their laptop or smartphone, instead of the traditional paper format.

Google Editions: The Basics

The new e-book store will launch sometime during the first half of 2010, and will have about 500,000 titles at launch. Under Google's payment scheme, publishers will receive about 63 percent of the gross sales, and Google will keep the remaining 37 percent.

Google also hopes to offer Editions titles through other online book retailers. In this scenario, online retailers would get 55 percent of revenues minus a small fee paid to Google, and publishers would get 45 percent. Google may also create deals to sell Google Editions books directly through a book publisher's Web site, but no details have been announced for how that scenario would work, according to Read Write Web.

Google Editions as Web Apps?

Google's e-books would reportedly be indexed and searchable like many books are now through Google's Book Search, according to Reuters. Unlike titles offered through e-readers, Google Editions books would not have to be accessed through a dedicated reader or special application.

Instead, any device with a Web browser will be able to access a Google Editions book. After you purchase and access your online book for the first time, it will be cached in your browser making the book available when you're offline.

To me this sounds like Google wants to turn the e-book, or more accurately the e-reader, into a Web App. Considering Google's push with its yet-to-be-unveiled Chrome OS and the Chrome browser, turning books into Web Apps isn't a particularly surprising move.

But Is Google Editions a Game-Changer?

Whenever Google gets involved with any new business, the immediate assumption is that the company will be able to reshape the market. From the sounds of it, Google's plans may do just that, since it will make reading and accessing e-books nearly universal on almost any device that can get to the Web. However, Google is not the first company to deliver e-books to your PC. Companies like Buy Ebook and eBooks.com already do this, and the online social publishing site, Scribd started selling e-books earlier this year.

Google's use of the Web browser as an e-reader may make it slightly easier to access an e-book than these other retailers since Google will essentially shun the ePub and PDF formats. But one hurdle Google can't overcome is the fact that you'll be reading your book on a computer screen. And so far, reading e-books on a PC has not caught on.

Sony Develops 360-degree 3D Display

Sony will later this week unveil a prototype 3D display that can be seen through 360 degrees without the need to wear special glasses.

The display, few details of which are currently available, will premiere at the Digital Contents Expo in Tokyo. The display is cylindrical so it can be viewed from all sides and is 13 centimeters in diameter. The display and its case is 27 centimeters tall.

Sony envisages the display will be used in exhibitions and public areas for advertising or to relay information or used in the home to display 3D photos and other images. However, the screen in the prototype only supports a relatively low resolution of 96 pixels by 128 pixels.

Sony is heavily promoting 3D imaging and has pledged to launch next year a LCD television that can show 3D images. The company also intends to build 3D support into its PlayStation 3 games console, Vaio laptop computers and its Blu-ray Disc players.

The Digital Contents Expo begins on Thursday and will run until Sunday at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, also known as the Miraikan, in Tokyo's Daiba district. Admission to the expo is free.

Diagram Designer Creates Attractive Flowcharts and Vector Graphics

You're doing a PowerPoint presentation and you suddenly have the need to show a flowchart or other simple vector graphics-based design. Or, you want to show a line graph using a math formula quickly and easily. Enter the free/donationware software Diagram Designer, which, through a simple drag-and-drop interface, allows you to create simple charts to your heart's content.

Diagram Designer's obvious use is in flowcharting, creating a simple diagram-based chart that lets the presentation's audience know how a process works in a visual way. Without Diagram Designer, flowcharts would need to be created by hand or with technically difficult software like Adobe's Illustrator. With Diagram Designer, it just takes a few drag-and-drops. I found Diagram Designer very user-friendly.

The nice thing about Diagram Designer's vector-based approach is that the elements of your flowchart can be any size and without losing image quality. The flowchart will be crystal-clear, especially if you save it in a lossless format such as .GIF or .PNG.

Diagram Designer also includes an equation solver and advanced graphic calculator, for those giving math or science-based presentations. Someone showing a proof in math class might get a few extra points out of it if they use Diagram Designer; the results look very professional.

Asus Debuts First USB 3.0 Motherboard

Asus debuted the world's first SuperSpeed USB 3.0 motherboard this Wednesday, branded with the highly memorable moniker of Asus Xtreme Design P7DP55DE-E Premium. Catchy, I'm sure you'll agree.

The new hybrid motherboard is based around Intel's P55 Express Chipset, which does not support the new faster USB 3.0 standard. As a workaround, Asus makes use of an unnamed third-party USB 3.0 controller to make everything play nicely. This move turns a blind eye to the recent rumours that Intel's very own USB 3.0 friendly chipsets will be delayed, potentially slowing down overall SuperSpeed adoption rates.

So this product announcement comes as a welcome offering, despite Asus' disappointing failed dabble with USB 3.0 motherboards earlier this year.

Asus' well-equipped new motherboard offers a pair of SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports, a very generous ten USB 2.0 ports, along with two PCIe x16 graphic card slots, six 3Gb per second SATA ports, two 6Gb per second SATA ports and a pair of Gigabit Ethernet ports.

Since the motherboard can take advantage of the 6GB-per-second SATA interface, ASUS claims that this new motherboard can achieve super-fast transfer speeds, with a 20GB High Definition movie file transferring in less than seventy seconds.

The Asus Xtreme Design P7DP55DE-E Premium will be available next month for $299 and will ship with Windows 7 drivers.

The Internet’s First 40 Years: Top Ten Milestones

While 40 years in a person's lifetime is a very long time, the Internet -- which turned 40 today -- is really only getting started.

Still, like just about any 40-year-old guy, the Internet has packed a lot of changes into its life so far. No birthday celebration for the Internet would be complete without giving recognition to some of the biggest milestones.

Deciding on which ones is a totally tough call, because the Internet has made such a huge impact on anyone lucky enough to access it.

But as I view things, anyway, it's important to pay tribute to the myriad technologies created over the past four decades to connect people to the Internet -- first through modems and then through wireless and cable -- as well as to let them access communications like data, radio, and TV in ways once unimaginable.

So here, in chronological order, is my rather arbitrary list of Top Ten Internet Milestones, gleaned largely from a nostalgic look back through the pages of PC World.

October 29, 1969. Leonard Kleinrock, a UCLA college professor, sends a two-letter message -- "lo" -- to a computer at Stanford Research Institute. The Internet is born.

October 13, 1994 - The -- eventually to be known as Netscape Navigator -- is released as beta code.

November 6, 1997 - Intel ships a videoconferencing system that runs on the Internet (gasp!) as well as on ISDN phone lines (remember them?) and corporate LANs.

February 18, 1998 - The first V.90 modems, enabling Internet access at the then-whopping rate of 56 Kbps, are shipped to stores by 3Com Corp.

Sometime in September 1999 - An Internet-enabled game machine named Dreamcast debuts, pioneering a pathway that will eventually lead to Nintendo's GameCube and Sony's PS3.

June 28, 2000 - Metricom rolls out the then-blazingly fast, 128Kbps Ricochet wireless service in Atlanta and San Diego.

August 21, 2002 - Together with T-Mobile and HP, Starbucks expands WiFi access to users at 1200 coffee shops throughout the US .

Early January, 2009 - Yahoo shows off Connected TV, a platform allowing Web widgets to dock on Internet-connected HDTVs at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Early July, 2009 - Internet radio services like Pandora, Blip.fm and Last.fm are saved -- albeit temporarily -- when recording companies agree to make royalty fees more comparable to those paid by satellite TV services, for example.

October 22, 2009 - Microsoft's Internet TV, a new service for accessing Web-based streaming TV shows and movies from directly inside Media Center -- finally leaves beta as part of the launch of Windows 7.

Put Verizon's Motorola Droid to Work with Google Services

The countdown is underway to the Droid invasion. Verizon has unveiled the official specs and contract details, and pre-orders are already underway at Best Buy. By this time next week the Motorola Droid will be unleashed and we will find out if the reality can come close to the hype.

The Droid is the first device built on Android 2.0, the latest version of Google's open-source mobile operating system. Android is a capable mobile platform that offers benefits for any user, but small and medium businesses have even more to gain by embracing Android-based mobile phones like the Verizon Droid.

Building on a Google Foundation

For starters, if you are an owner or IT manager of a small to midsized business and haven't looked into Google Apps, you should. Even large enterprises like Genentech and Delta Hotels have adopted Google Apps in place of more traditional solutions like Microsoft Office and Microsoft Exchange Server.

It is relatively simple to set up Google Apps on your own domain. Google offers two different plans for Google Apps: Standard and Premium. The Standard edition is free and serves up to 50 users with up to 7Gb of storage space per user--more than adequate for many SMB's. For larger companies the Premium Edition costs $50 per year per user (but non-profit and educational institutions can get Premium Edition for free as well).

Google on the Go

Google Apps is not yet fully integrated with the Android operating system, but Google says it is working on it. However, the most critical components--e-mail and calendar--can be leveraged from the Droid right out of the box.

Business professionals on the go need to be able to keep in touch and maintain their schedules. Droid provides access to Gmail and Google Calendar as part of its core feature set, so roaming workers can send and receive e-mails, check their calendar, and schedule meetings while away from the office.

Droid also includes Google's newest free service, Google Nav. The turn-by-turn navigation service is integrated into Android. Comparable to portable GPS devices, or iPhone apps that cost $100 or more, the free tool can help roaming professionals get from point A to point B.

Small and medium businesses can also leverage Google Voice for advanced voice features. Google Voice provides call routing, simultaneous ringing of the desk and mobile phone, custom ring tones based on caller, voicemail transcription, and other features for free.

Enterprise Tools on an SMB Budget

Let's set aside all iPhone comparisons. The bottom line is that the Droid appears to be a more than capable hardware platform, built on an impressive operating system, that is capable of providing small and medium businesses with the communications and productivity tools they need while on the go.

Much of the promise and potential of what Google Apps can do and how all of the Google tools will integrate with Android is yet to be realized. But, the basic business functionality of email, calendaring, and voice can be achieved today, and the foundation is there for the combination of Droid and Android 2.0 with Google Apps to rival RIM Blackberry given time.

Google tools and services are web-based to begin with, so technically speaking any web-enabled mobile phone is capable of leveraging Google to some extent. Google also has a vested interest in having users adopt its tools and services no matter what mobile device they use, so there are tools and connectors available for other platforms as well. But, there is no need to try to fit a square peg in a round hole when the Android OS offers the potential of seamless integration with all that Google has to offer.

By embracing Google Apps and other Google tools, and adopting the Verizon Droid (or other Android-based device), small businesses can create a cost-effective alternative on par with large enterprise Blackberry or Microsoft server implementations.