Nuts & Volts - June 2007

■ The latest Mac Pro model
features dual quad-
core Xeon processors.
PHOTO COUR TES Y OF APPLE, INC.

with up to 33 million possible configurations of the system. But the eight-core box is said to run up to twice as fast as the G5 quad, so if you need the extra crunching power, here it is. The new model will set you back at least $3,997, plus whatever extras you choose.

without using a browser. All in all, Yahoo! is offering more than 3,400 desktop Widgets developed and submitted by independent authors from around the world. Best of all, it’s free and runs on Mac OS X, Win 2000, Win XP, and Vista.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CELESTRON.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU GOOGLE

■ The

VistaPix combines

8x magnification, fully coated lenses, and three megapixel resolution.

WIDGETS 4 AVAILABLE

If you haven’t already checked out the Widgets software available from Yahoo! ( www.yahoo.com), it may be time. If you already have, be advised that Widgets 4 is now available. Formerly named Konfabulator, it is an application platform that engages various small applications such as a weather widget (displays weather information), a digital clock, a stock ticker, and so on. It includes the new Flickr Widget, which is an extension of the Flickr photo-sharing service. It helps users to display, upload, and tag images, and you can now do drag-and-drop operations on larger groups of photos and edit their tags and other information

Back in 2003, New Jersey prosecutors charged Melanie McGuire with first degree murder, desecrating human remains, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and perjury after her husband, William McGuire, was found shot, dismembered, divided among three suitcases, and floating in the Chesapeake Bay. Although not all the evidence has been made public, data gleaned from several seized computers showed that Melanie did a Google search on “how to commit murder” 10 days before the crime. She also scanned the Web for such phrases as “ undetectable poisons,” “fatal insulin doses,” “where to purchase guns illegally,” and “how to find chloroform.” She faces 30 years to life if convicted, and hopefully some extra time for computer illiteracy.

CIRCUITS AND DEVICES BINOCULARS WITH DIGITAL CAMERA

■ The new Flickr Widget extends Yahoo!’s photo-sharing service.

Sooner or later, every male of the species admires a female a moment beyond what is totally prudent, resulting in the dreaded, “Take a

picture, buddy. It’ll last longer.” Well, now you can, and from a safe distance. Several manufacturers of binoculars are now combining them with a digital camera, so no matter what kind of a birdwatcher you may be, you can record noteworthy sightings for posterity and/or the Internet with total discretion. You can pick up a set at Wal-Mart for about $50, but be advised that this will get you resolution as poor as 0.3 megapixels, which isn’t exactly high-res. But if you are willing to shell out something closer to real money, you can get both quality optics and high digital resolution.

One example is the VistaPix 8 x 22 from Celestron, LLC (www.celestron. com). It starts out with a basic 8 x 22 system and adds a three megapixel camera with a 1.5-in flip-up color LCD screen for previewing images. The LCD offers a 6x digital zoom so you can look at details, and a removable 8x telephoto lens allows you to take close-up or high-magnification shots. In addition to still photos, you can do sound-enabled video captures, making movies of up to three minutes in length. And just for the heck of it, Celestron even threw in an FM radio with earphones. The list price of $251.95 seems pretty reasonable. Why didn’t someone think of this sooner?

NEW COLOR INSPECTION SYSTEM

PHOTO COURTESY OF NE W JERSEY OFFICE OF THE AT TORNEY GENERAL.

Banner Engineering Corp. ( www.bannerengineering. com) has introduced a pair of vision sensors that, although not particularly useful in the average home, could come in handy if you are involved in visible spectrum analysis on a commercial level in such fields as packaging, pharmaceuticals, and general