Rogers has been coasting for a long time with their antiquated PVR’s. They were old when they were introduced and have continued to lag behind in features and functionality in the past years. Finally, they have begun to offer a new PVR with more modern features that have been found in Tivo’s, Sling’s, Apple TV’s and other PVR’s for years. The Cisco 8600 is the new PVR that is available.

Notable features include:

• 1080p resolution
• Use a single PVR for the entire house, watch PVR shows on any TV
• Compatible with DLNA for sharing music/movies on a PC
• Ethernet connection for home networking

Look for Rogers to take advantage of some of the advanced features to offer much more interactivity to your television. Bell already offers controlling your PVR over the Internet.

This category has been dominated by one camera for the past few years, the Panasonic Lumix LX3. Within the past few months, the Canon S90 and Samsung TL500 both try to steal market share away from the Lumix. All cameras are compact with fast, bright lenses – feature starting aperature sizes of f1.8 or f2.0. However, all the lenses have a different focal length. The incumbant LUMIX with a 24-60mm (f1.8-2.8), the Canon with 28-105mm (f2.0-4.9) and Samsung with a very wide 24-72mm (f1.8-2.4).

I plotted these on a graph to compare the type of coverage at each focal length It becomes quickly apparent that the Samsung offers the brightest lens at all focal lengths (lower f-stop is brighter). Canon offers the most zoom and the 3 year old LUMIX soldiering on.

If the Samsung does use the same sensor as the S90 as rumored, pairing it with such a bright, wide lens will really be fun to use. The Samsung will definitely be able to capture the most light in dark situations. The Canon will provide the most zoom. Once the Samsung hits the streets look for many sites to do comparisons of the low-light performance of both cameras.

The Canon S90 has been on my list of compact cameras for quite some time, however I wanted to wait for PMA to start to see if there were some announcements from Panasonic updating the LX3 (the camera Canon wanted to beat). Surprisingly, Samsung came out with it’s own LX3 killer, and quite possibly beating the S90 at the same time. The sensor specs are remarkably similar to the S90, 10 MP in a 1.7-inch CCD and 640×480 (not HD) video recording. The camera apes the “control ring dial” that Canon uses, and tops them with a much better lens, 24-72mm and f1.8-2.4. Canon’s S90 has a 28-105mm at f2.0-4.9. The LX3, the oldest camera in this segment, has 24-60mm at F2.0-2.8.

If the Samsung does use the same sensor as the Canon, with it’s better lens it’s hard to beat. Let’s see what Panasonic comes up with.

LG just launched a new line of televisions at CES today. The Infinia line are all LED backlight and feature local-dimming (a must for all LED TV’s). The top end LE9500 has 240 local dimming segments while the LE7500 and LE5500 have 16.

Pricing is not yet available.

This is probably the ultimate TV right now. Arguably better than Sony’s XBR8 which also featured LED backlighting with local dimming. Remember, not all LED backlights are created equal, and the XBR8 and Samsung’s 8500 have the local dimming feature for the blackest blacks on LCD. The full review is at AVGuide.

Too bad this set didn’t come in 50″ or 52″. 55″ is a bit too big for my living room.

This is a straight link to an article on Digital Photography School. I can’t summarize the article good enough – you’ll have to read the full article – it’s worth it.

Many of the techniques involve “breaking the rules” which I like. Don’t be afraid to experiment – especially now that you shoot digital. Noone is limited to taking 24 shots and waiting for the lab to see the results. Take lots of photos!

Much like the DSLR guide earlier, Gizmodo published an article stating the best point and shoot cameras. Given that I love Canon’s new S90 and the thin Sony, I tend to agree with their recommendations:

• Best for lowlight: Canon S90
• Best value: Samsung HZ15W
• Best video: Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7
• Best small size: Sony TX1
• Best weatherproof: Pentax Optio W80

With the strong Canadian dollar, it’s very tempting to buy camera equipment from the USA. However, there’s a big disadvantage when it comes to Nikon by doing so. Nikon does not honor warranties from equipment bought outside Canada. You would have to get it serviced in the USA. A summary of the different warranty programs is on this site.

Gizmodo listed these quotes from 2007 before the launch of the iPhone. Most of them from Apple’s competitors, and how they predicted the iPhone was doomed. Were they honestly surprised by Apple’s success, or were they posturing because they knew that it would dramatically change their business?

Go to the full article to see a video of Steve Ballmer laughing at the iPhone.

John C. Dvorak

Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone… What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a ‘reference design’ and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures… Otherwise I’d advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you’ll see.

Jon Rubinstein, Palm CEO

Is there a toaster that also knows how to brew coffee? There is no such combined device, because it would not make anything better than an individual toaster or coffee machine. It works the same way with the iPod, the digital camera or mobile phone: it is important to have specialized devices.

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.

Ed Colligan, ex-Palm CEO

We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.

Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia Chief Strategist

The development of mobile phones will be similar in PCs. Even with the Mac, Apple has attracted much attention at first, but they have still remained a niche manufacturer. That will be in mobile phones as well.

Gizmodo just published a buying guide for DSLR’s. They recommended four different cameras in four different price points. They were brand-agnostic, picking the best camera regardless of whether you were in the Nikon Camp or Canon Camp (sorry Olympus and Sony).

I agree with all their picks, the Nikon D3000, Canon T1i, Nikon D90 and Canon 7D do beat out their peers in their respective price points.