Google Announces the Nexus 7"

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

...in other words, for programs that don't actually need it, but want it as another point of very valuable data to pin you down for their advertsing arms.

True, and that's why my GPS is always turned off

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by =X=

The GPS, I'm sure, is how Google makes it's money.

Now I see your point - advertising dollars.

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

But dual-core processors already make them fluid enough for these consumers and GPS on a 7" tablet is very awkward compared to a smartphone.

I much prefer using a 7" tablet over a phone for GPS. Much easier on the aging eyes, both for car navigation and hiking (offline maps, of course). Maybe if I had a larger phone it might make a difference...

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

...in other words, for programs that don't actually need it, but want it as another point of very valuable data to pin you down for their advertsing arms.

Google can pin you down without GPS. They could do that through triangulation from the cell phone towers if you have a smartphone, and thanks to Streetview, they have a pretty good map of just about every wi-fi network in North America if not the world. They can find the location of my wi-fi only ipod touch no matter where I log in.

The only diffence between GPS and tower or wifi locating is a matter of a few metres.

[pata]

Originally Posted by afv011

Digital zoom is a total waste of time. What it does is crop the centre of the image (so instead of 8MP you get 5, or 3 or less, depending on how much you zoom in), and then later that tiny image is extrapolated to the optical resolution of the lens (so 8MP in your sister's case) via software. Basically each pixel becomes several pixels and some algorithm tries to figure out what those other pixels are supposed to be based on the neighbouring pixels. An analogy would be to cover a photograph which a checker-board (where half the boxes are transparent, the other half opaque), and then generating the full picture from the half you can see.

The Nokia 808 PureView—Making Megapixels Zoom

Spoiler:

Originally Posted by Imaging Resource

That buzz you've been hearing isn't a swarm of early spring bees. It's the discussion about Nokia's 808 PureView smart phone, the one with a 41-Mp sensor tucked inside.

That's bigger than the 36.3-Mp snesor in the Nikon D800.

A week ago Damian Dinning, the head of imaging experience for Nokia smart devices, explained the concept in an article on the Nokia 808. He was there at the birth.

It isn't about the megapixels, he argued, explaining "the innovation and news is not the number of pixels but rather how those pixels are used."

HOW TO ZOOM

The team, Dinning said, was working on "imaging rich" phones that would include optical zoom. Mobile phone screen sizes were getting bigger and customers were demanding better image quality from their phones, factors which pushed the limits of optical zoom design.

The team nearly brought to market a device that used folded optics to zoom (like many ultracompact digicams) but scuttled the project due to the size of the camera module and its performance.

"It became clear to us that if we were ever to meet the increasing expectations and evolving market dynamics we were going to need to find a new direction in imaging," Dinning said.

As the team developed different optical zoom modules, they ran into significant problems: "performance in low light; image sharpness at both ends of the zoom range; audible noise problems; slow zooming speed and lost focus when zooming during video."

To use optical zoom, "you'd need to accept a bigger, more expensive device with poor f no., a small and noisy image sensor and lower optical resolution just to be able to zoom." Not good.

OPTICAL OUT

Then came the key discovery, inspired by the company's understanding of how to integrate large image sensors into small camera modules. The trick was to "use a sensor with somewhat higher resolution than needed at the time but output a lower resolution image than the sensor input resolution, possibly adding some upscaling/interpolation to provide a meaningful enough zoom range."

In short, they abandoned the idea of using optical zoom in favor of, well, digital zoom.

Time out.

TWO KINDS OF DIGITAL ZOOM

In the camera world we inhabit, digital zoom is not held in very high regard. But there are two variants of the concept.

In the common variant, a crop of the sensor is upsampled to the same image dimensions as a non-digital zoom image would be. If, for example, you have a 2000x3000 sensor and take a 1000x1500-pixel crop in digital zoom mode (to zoom in on the scene), the camera would interpolate that back up to 2000x3000 so it would be the same size as all your other images.

As sensors became larger, however, the upsampling became optional. In this variant of digital zoom -- often tagged Smart or Intelligent -- the crop simply isn't upsampled. So your 16-Mp camera takes 10-Mp or 5-Mp images when smart digital zoom is engaged. And that's plenty good enough for prints up to 13x19.

But in the camera world, you'll notice, all of the sensor pixels are normally used except when using digital zoom.

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

Nokia turned this approach on its head by establishing a 5-Mp image size for the 808 PureView and downsampling everything to it. A 5-Mp camera in a smart phone is still pretty cool. On a digicam, not so much.

Why would they downsample everything?

Downsampling "could create an output image with excellent low light performance, excellent optical performance as well as maintaining a low f no," Dinning explained. "Instead of trade-offs, there would be significant benefits, especially at the wide range of the zoom. As an additional benefit the file sizes would be small due to low noise whilst the level of detail would be way beyond anything seen before thanks to the pixel oversampling."

So by pixel binning -- as some digicams do in low light Scene modes that save smaller image sizes -- you gain some imaging chops. You can zoom. Noise is averaged out. And the file size is kept low enough to fire off to Flickr or FaceBook, etc.

There is an option to save the 41-Mp image in the 808 PureView (and zoom later in-camera), Dinning noted, but in typical use, you would be recording 5-Mp images.

41-Mp image from the 808 PureView

Dave did a little math to explain the 41-Mp sensor size. "Zoom is linear, while pixels vary as an area or the square of the magnification. So 3x zoom = 9x the number of pixels. 3x wider and 3x taller: 41/9 = 4.56, so they're actually pushing it slightly to come up with a full 5 megapixels."

Same image printed on Moab Slickrock Metallic Pearl on the Canon Pro-1

If Nokia were a camera company instead of a phone company, they would be marketing a 41-Mp camera featuring 3x smart digital zoom at a 5-Mp image size. But as a phone company, they're selling a 5-Mp smart phone with 3x zoom and great low light performance.

Nokia has posted some Nokia808 PureView images on Flickr. Several image sizes are available for each image, including the 7728x4354 original and 1024x577 downsampled image. We printed a full resolution image on 13x19 Moab Slickrok Metallic Pearl and are pretty sure nobody is going to believe it came from a smart phone.

The company has also posted a white paper on its PureView imaging technology

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

True, and that's why my GPS is always turned off

That is what you think. They can turn it on remotely.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by 5thWiggle

I much prefer using a 7" tablet over a phone for GPS. Much easier on the aging eyes, both for car navigation and hiking (offline maps, of course). Maybe if I had a larger phone it might make a difference...

Galaxy Note 5.3" or Galaxy Player 5.0"

[tompe]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Google might want it, but the consumer doesn't really need it.

Yes, I need it when I want to open google map and see were I am and hot to find my way to a pub or museum.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by tompe

Yes, I need it when I want to open google map and see were I am and hot to find my way to a pub or museum.

Use your phone

BTW, I'm glad it has these features. I'm just using the same arguments the anti-card slot crowd employs.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by tompe

Then we have the issue that people normally do not know what a file system is.

Originally Posted by tompe

I have met a lot of people that do not understand things like "create a new map and copy the file to the new map" because they do not have a correct conceptual view of files and file systems.

I guess that this is the point that doesn't make sense to me. I find the file system to be intuitive and a very basic concept.

Originally Posted by =X=

There are a lot of Ubuntu users, including myself, who will argue that Ubutnu 12 has shifted from an "Expert" interface to a "Simplified" interface.

But this was the direction Ubuntu was taking since the previous version.

[ScotiaBurrell]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Your solution is 4G and my solution is a card slot.

Mine will grow expand and still be here over the next 5 to 10 years, yours...

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by ScotiaBurrell

Mine will grow expand and still be here over the next 5 to 10 years, yours...

In the meantime, I get to enjoy my content now; instead of waiting for wifi to become universally available.

[ScotiaBurrell]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

In the meantime, I get to enjoy my content now; instead of waiting for wifi to become universally available.

I'm not enjoying my content????

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by ScotiaBurrell

I'm not enjoying my content????

I was talking about me. I have WiFi & SD to enjoy mine and you have WiFi & 4G to enjoy yours.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by pata

The Nokia 808 PureView—Making Megapixels Zoom

Doesn't change my statement. Digital zoom, when it interpolates the output to obtain a large image, is horrible. What Nokia do is crop the centre of the image, and leave it as it; as they have plenty of pixels to spare, they still get a sizeable image. It is not "digital zoom", it is simply "cropping an image", which does not degrade the quality, simply throws away part of it.

[kennyc]

From Bloomberg this morning:

Google’s Nexus 7 Tablet Crushes Kindle: Rich Jaroslovsky
By Rich Jaroslovsky - Jul 11, 2012 9:05 AM MT


It’s the most-asked question by consumers about any new tech gadget: “Should I get this now or is something better coming along soon?”

For buyers of Amazon’s Kindle Fire, we now have the answer: You should have waited.

The Nexus 7 has a front-facing camera and microphone for video calls, plus Bluetooth and GPS. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Enlarge image Nexus 7

The Nexus 7 computer tablet is Google’s first foray into selling a tablet under its own brand. It’s currently available for pre-order from Google Play. Photographer: David Paul

The Nexus 7 tablet is 7.8 inches tall and 4.7 inches wide, compact enough to slide into a jacket pocket. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Google (GOOG)’s new Nexus 7 is aimed directly at the Kindle Fire, the seven-inch color tablet that was the runaway hit of the last holiday season. The Nexus 7 obliterates every reason for buying the current Kindle, and sets a high bar for whatever Amazon comes up with to replace it.
....

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...roslovsky.html