The Daily Thing

J.D Power and Associates has released a new customer satisfaction survey of digital SLR users with some surprising results. Nikon not only captured the top spot with a whopping 822 out of a possible 1000 points but was seconded by Sony, a relatively new arrival in the DSLR market.

Nikon tops SLR customer satisfaction survey | Underexposed - CNET News.com: “‘It dominates in digital SLRs,’ Steve Kirkeby, executive director of telecomunciations and technology, said in an interview.

Sony scored 793. At 788, third place went to Canon–the top seller of digital cameras in general and of SLRs specifically–followed closely by Pentax at 787 and Olympus at 783. The survey didn’t rank Panasonic, another new entrant, or Samsung, which today sells Pentax SLRs under its own brand.

SLR cameras, expensive but high-performance models, are at the center of a fiercely competitive and increasingly crowded marketplace. Canon is the top seller worldwide, with Nikon in second place.

The scale is weighted to favor the factors customers find more important, so image quality has a bigger influence on overall score than camera style, for example. And customer satisfaction has an import influence over future purchases: 36 percent of camera buyers ask for others’ recommendations, so happy camera users are good advertising.

‘Satisfaction leads to intention to recommend,’ Kirkeby said. ‘Intention to recommend–word of mouth–is something sought by camera buyers.’”

Tags: Photography by admin
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Nikon yesterday released the all new D300, a pro-sumer model aimed at the intermediate level shooter.

The new camera boasts a 12.3 effective megapixel CMOS sensor with a new 51 point autofocus system and large 3″ screen for reviewing your images.

Nikon: “The ultimate blend of image quality, quick response and go-anywhere mobility. A new 12.3 effective-megapixel DX-format CMOS image sensor, Nikon’s original EXPEED digital image processing concept, Scene Recognition System and the new Picture Control System advance all aspects of system performance. Setting the standards for the next-generation, the D300 achieves the best overall system balance of any DX-format D-SLR.”

Even though it boasts impressive speed, unless the price point is REALLY enticing I’m going to upgrade to last years D80. An impressive intermediate level camera that offers the best of consumer and professional options. It may not have the d300’s 3″ lcd but, I’ve never been one for chimping.

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Two years ago a virtual plague unintentionally spread across the popular MMORPG World of Warcraft now researchers want to study the dynamics of the virtual plague to see if it can help scientists model and predict the spread of real world diseases.

Ars Technica: “There were a number of features in the virtual outbreak that actually mimicked the spread of and response to real-world epidemics. A key feature was that the disease could be carried by the game’s ‘pets,’ the virtual equivalent of domesticated animals; this behavior is shared by SARS and avian flu, among other diseases. The game’s teleportation acted like air travel in allowing the disease to rapidly go ‘global.’ The humans controlling the players also mimicked the behavior of real populations during historical epidemics. As the populations of cities were wiped out by the disease, surviving players began avoiding them, and any large groups of players became scarce in the surrounding countryside.

It took only six months for the first academic analysis of the outbreak to appear in the journal Epidemiology. The article highlighted the advantages of the WoW incident, comparing it favorably to existing computer models that ‘are limited in their potential to account for changes in human behaviors during epidemics.’ At the same time, it recognized that virtual characters might not accurately track all normal human behaviors.

On balance, the analysis in Epidemiology felt that virtual worlds might provide a useful supplement to traditional models of disease spread, and suggested working with game programmers to test a variety of disease conditions. ‘Multiplayer online role-playing games may even be useful as a testing ground for hypotheses about infectious disease dissemination,’ the author said, ‘Game programmers could allow characters to be inflicted by various infectious diseases, some of which may not be visible to the player, and track the dissemination patterns of the disease in specific subpopulations.’ It looks like something of the sort is in the works. A report from the Agence France-Presse indicates that Nina Fefferman, a researcher from Tufts University, is currently negotiating with Blizzard about running epidemiological tests in WoW.”

Tags: From the Web, Science and Technology, Toys by admin
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Do you believe everything you read on Wikipedia? You wouldn’t if you knew who was changing what. Recently Cal Tech computation and neural-systems graduate student Virgil Griffith did a little sleuthing and uncovered some very scary data on who is editing articles on Wikipedia and what they are changing.

Griffith created a searchable database tying millions of anonymous Wikipedia edits to organizations where those edits apparently originated. By cross-referencing the edits with data on who owns the associated block of internet IP addresses he was able to ascertain who which organizations were editing articles.

One of the most interesting was Diebold who removed large swathes of articles by security professionals critical of the companies voting machine technology.

Here are some other interesting changes made to Wikipedia.

Republican Party Spins Post-Saddam Iraq
Someone at the Republican Party HQ changed the entry on the history of Iraq’s Baath Party from “US-led occupying forces” to “US-led liberating forces.”

Texas Attorney General criticizes (and redefines) use of ‘Insurgency’ in Iraq
In the talk section about the term Insurgency, someone from the Texas Attorney General office declares that “The violence being perpetrated in Iraq is not an insurgency… The mass media press refers to the terrorists as insurgents since to call them by their rightful name would be to admit that the U.S. and its allies ARE fighting the war on terrorism.”

Tulsa church edits “Origin of Species”
Creationists edit “Origin of Species” article to say it is an “arguably mostly fictional” work. They also add completely fictional claims that Darwin argued that “There are no limitations to natural selection” and “All species evolved through natural selection from a single cell that lived 3.6 billion years ago” which are not in any way, shape, or form in Darwin’s writings (any of them). So much for no bearing false witness.

Dell removes spyware accusations
They remove content which claims their PC’s come with lots of promotional and spyware-like software.

You can check out more of what’s being edited over at http://wired.reddit.com/wikidgame/ and read the full article by Wired Magazine over at Wired.com

Tags: From the Web, In the News by admin
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On the heels of one of the most popular expansion packs to any video game in history, Blizzard entertainment has started the gears rolling on their newest endeavor, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

WorldofWarcraft.com: “Blizzard Entertainment’s latest expansion to World of Warcraft – Wrath of the Lich King – adds a host of epic content to the existing game world. Players will achieve soaring levels of power, explore a vast new continent, and battle other high-level heroes to determine the fate of Azeroth. As you pit yourself against the dangers of the north, prepare to:
Features

• Master the necromantic powers of the Death Knight - World of Warcraft’s first Hero class.
• Quest to level 80, gaining potent new abilities and talents along the way.
• Learn the craft of spell augmentation with the new Inscription profession.
• Brave the harsh new continent of Northrend, the icy domain of the Lich King.
• Engage in epic siege warfare, deploying mighty siege engines to lay waste to destructible buildings in your path.
• Transform your hero’s look with new character-customization options, including new hairstyles and dances.
• Explore perilous new dungeons filled with some of the deadliest creatures — and greatest treasures — on Azeroth.”

Although it’s not as good as a true cinematic trailer, there is an offical game play trailer available over at WorldofWarcraft.com

Tags: Toys by admin
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A New York company has developed what they hope to be the next generation tattoo ink that makes the popular body embellishment removable with only 1 laster treatment instead of the current 6-7.

Discovery News: The process starts with pigments free of heavy metals and other toxins that can induce an allergic reaction or produce other health problem in some people. Clear plastic beads encapsulate the pigments, and are mixed in a solution so tattoo artists can use the pigments the same way they would use ink.

“The pigment is homogenously dispersed in the capsule to get the right color,” said the microcapsule developer, Edith Mathiowitz, a professor of medical science and engineering at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

Once the tattoo is etched into the skin, the design is permanent. But unlike conventional tattoos, a Freedom-2 tattoo can be removed with a single laser treatment.

The laser bursts open the microscopic beads so the tiny particles of dye can be absorbed and removed naturally by the body’s immune system. Regular tattoos require six or seven laser treatments to break down the various colors of ink.

Tags: From the Web, In the News by admin
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