Life2go.net Get a life ...to go.

It is like a digital SLR camera but tiny. You'we got the same big 24x16mm sensor that catches a lot of light and can create photos with a short depth-of-field. And you'we got the interchangeable lenses. But you don't have the bulk.

My first SLR was a Nikon F90 (N90 for those of you who haven't gone metric yet) and I'we bought a fair amount of lenses and stuff over the years. I was about to upgrade my Nikon DSLR - an aging D70s - when I realized most of my stuff was outdated. I have always felt locked in by my original choice and now I had a great opportunity to switch.

After some research I came to the conclusion that a mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses made sens. And since I wanted the biggest sensor size possible, the brand new Sony NEX-5N looked like the best option.

It does everything a big, black DSLR does - except draw attention. But it does fit in the pocket of your jacket. It's great.

But I do kind of miss the "attention" part.

Two media players' remotes; on the left for an Apple TV and on the right for an Xtreamer SideWinder 2.

Although both players do very much the same thing, the difference in usability is enormous and well illustrated by the difference between the two remote controls.

In all fairness, the Xtreamer has more features but some are simply needed to make up for other shortcomings such as dedicated buttons for adjusting subtitles that are out of sync.

When comparing Apple and Xtreamer - two extremes when it comes to usability - it becomes very clear that Apple's "secret" is simplicity and nothing else.

I have sometimes heard claims that Apple's products are popular because they have nice graphics and eye candy. That argument does not stand up to scrutiny. The Xtreamer GUI is stuffed with eye candy - probably in a failed attempt at improving the user experience - and in comparison the Apple TV looks very spartan and the lack of eye candy is striking.

The Apple TV is simply uncomplicated.

Nokia should drop both Symbian and MeeGo and instead adopt Windows Phone and Android. But with a twist.

Symbian has been outdated for years and MeeGo is going to be like trying to mix two operating systems together: a huge mess. Nokia should have bought Palm before HP did and used WebOS but they missed that boat. I am sure Nokia has tried hard to write a new, purpose built operating system from scratch but obviously they have failed.

Some 20 years ago Apple tried very hard to update their MacOS operating system when it was outdated and they failed again and again. Only at the verge of bankruptcy did they decide to buy an existing operating system from an outside company and use that. They bought NeXT and that is now know as OS X and iOS. Not a bad move. Taking a ready made OS eliminates so many risks related to software projects like not knowing when it will be ready, how expensive it will be and will it even work.

There are only two alternatives for Nokia: Android and Windows Phone.

Nokia can not and should not simply move to Android like their competitors. Nokia has avoided Android because they would loose control of the important part: the ecosystem surrounding the phones. Nokia would simply be a maker of cheap hardware and forced to sell at razor thin margins to compete with all the other companies also selling phones with the same Android OS. HTC, Samsung and the other Android makers are selling a lot of phones but at such thin margins that it almost makes no sense.

And that is exactly why Nokia should adopt Android - but only for a few handsets and under a different brand. Nokia could bring out their old brand Mobira and start manufacturing a few phone models under the Mobira brand with Android. They should make it clear that Mobira is part of Nokia (Mobira by Nokia) but still keep enough distance between the brands not to make Nokia Actual seem like an Android company.

Nokia should use their current position as the worlds largets handset maker to mass produce these Mobira Android phones as prices that would eat away those already thin margins of other Android makers. Nokia would make Android handsets simply to keep up their own volumes and ruin the party for all other Android makers. This would force HTC, Samsung and all other Android makers to lose market shares.

Nokia Actual should make an exclusive deal with Microsoft to use Windows Phone 7 in Nokia's phones. An exclusive deal should be possible because Microsoft must be desperate with such a small market share and teaming up with Nokia would easily tenfold Windows Phone's market share. This way, Nokia would have their own OS and ecosystem that no other handset maker would share and Nokia could keep far higher profit margins than any Android phone manufacturer.

There is one problem, however: Windows Phone 7 only runs on high-end phones and Nokia sells a lot of cheaper phones that do not meet the hardware requirements for WP7. Microsoft could make a "light" version for Nokias low-end phones and sell 75 million such phones in a year making it worth the trouble. Alternatively Nokia could simply drop the low-end market that brings in little profit and focus on the high-end market only.

So far, the only difference between the old and the new Apple TV is size and price. The new Apple TV is really tiny and still has a built in power supply (!) and at 99 USD it is a very affordable device.

For now, it is only for sale in the US. Does it work in Europe? Yes, it works well with 220V and 50Hz and a European flatscreen TV.
Is there any point in using it in Europe? No, not really.

If you live in the US and have a US iTunes account or a Netflix account, then you can use the Apple TV to rent movies and TV shows. It's quick, easy and fairly cheap and the image quality is good.

If you don't live in the US and you have, say, a Finnish iTunes account, then there are no movies or any tv-shows available for rental. And in this case it is quite pointless to have an Apple TV. You may be able to circumvent the regional restrictions with a fake US iTunes account but it is cumbersome and if you are caught you might be cut off.

You can use Apples "home sharing" to stream audio and video from your own computer's iTunes library to your Apple TV but the device is just as picky as before about video formats with only certain variations of the MPEG4 video format supported.

Eventually Apple will secure the rights to distribute tv-series and movies in more and more countries but it will take years.

More interestingly and in a more immediate future, is the possibility that Apple will start making applications (apps) available for the Apple TV. It's built around the same hardware as an iPhone/iPod touch but without the touchscreen. With low price and free games and utilities the Apple TV would become a really interesting home entertainment system. Perhaps the Magic Trackpad that Apple recently started selling paired with an Apple TV would be the perfect way to to turn your TV into a giant iPad on your living room wall.

The photo above is a freehand snapshot of the evening sky taken with my cellphone camera - it's unedited, straight out of the cellphone.

Well, I did use an application called "Pro HDR" that I bought a few days ago to take the snapshot and it did some heavy lifting inside the phone to get this end result. But from my point of view, I just snapped the photo casually with a single click.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. All cameras, film and digital, suffer from a limited dynamic range. Ever tried taking a photo of a person posing in front of a window with a great view, of persons where some stand in the shade and some in direct sunlight or a scenery photo with dramatic clouds in the sky?

It probably did not turn out so well. Todays cameras simply can not take photos like that correctly.

If someone poses in front of a window you either get a photo with the persons face looking ok and the window completely white with nothing of the great view outside - or you get a photo with the great view looking good and the person standing in front of the window being a black silhouette. Cameras can not capture shades of both very dark areas and very bright areas. In this example the camera has to adjust either to the lighting condition inside to capture the face correctly or the much brighter conditions outside to capture the view outside. This is also the reason why those dramatic clouds in the sky in your scenery photos end up looking plain bright with the clouds hardly visible at all.

The "workaround" is to take at least two photos, one where the dark shades come out correctly and one where the light shades come out correctly and then you combine those two images into one. This technique is referred to as HDR. It used to be difficult, but now there are plenty of programs available for desktop computers to automate this process. In fact, now there are even programs, or apps, available for some cell phones to automate the process inside your camera phone at the very beginning of the process when you snap the photo. The result is a dramatic HDR photo coming out of the camera without you having to do anything more than just pressing the button once. The software will take the two photos in quick succession and automatically combine them into one.

All of this will be standard and mainstream in the cellphone starting September 8th when Apple will begin including this feature as a standard feature in the iPhone (iOS version 4.1).

The results will probably not be dramatic HDR photos but instead more subtle HDR photos that will look perfectly realistic and at the same time superior and far more pleasing to the eye than anything coming out of other cell phone cameras, point and shoot cameras or even high end SLR cameras. Obviously the competition will not stand by and within weeks or months every new Android and Symbian phone will come with this same feature as standard. Manufacturers of "real" cameras may look at such software processing as cheating but they can not stand by and let people become acustomed to cell phones taking far better photos than more expensive single purpose devices so not too long from now all cameras will have HDR support as standard.

In some situations HDR is of no use and will only damage the photo but in many situations automatic HDR can produce stunning pictures. And when uncle Bob starts taking stunning vacation photos with his cell phone camera, that is when you are allowed to use the word "revolutionize" to describe what has happened in the photo industry.

I recently travelled by train - two 5 hour trips in two days - and for the first time in 15 years, I did so without a laptop. This time, I brought only my iPad. I think I'll make this a habit.

On the train, I only do "simple" things, like browsing the web, read e-mail, listen to music and watch movies - the kind of things that the iPad is well suited for. In fact, I noticed I did more with the iPad than I previously did with my laptop; now I also played games thanks to some great game applications for the iPad such as Real Racing HD and N.O.V.A. HD. I also read the latest issue of Wired magazine and TIME magazine using their own applications. I never did that using my laptop.

And no laptop I have ever owned has been as portable as the iPad. Not only is it small and easy to carry and use compared to any laptop and even netbook but using the tiny European iPhone charger, it is an amazingly compact travel companion. The iPad's own charger is a bit bigger and charges the device faster but the iPhone charger works well too and has no problem charging the device during the night. Not that you need to charge it very often though, the built in battery really gives you close to 10 hours of actual usage.

With a laptop, you really can't use it any other way than putting it on a foldable table in front of you and when you open the lid/screen, the seat in front of you always seems to get in the way. The iPad has no such problems and you can keep it much closer to yourself and that makes the 10" screen much more useful than a similar sized screen on a netbook.

Finland was included in the second round of iPhone 4 releases on the 30th of July but there where only 55 phones available in all of Helsinki on launch day. Sonera - the iPhone operator in Finland - published a press release the day before the launch with information about where phones would be available at 7 in the morning the following day. There where 25 phones available at Sonera's own store and 10 each at three different Mac stores.
I decided to try my luck and show up outside the Sonera store at 5 in the morning as I thought standing in line for two hours was acceptable. Experience has shown that if you don't get a phone from the first batch, you may have to wait 2-4 months to get your phone. When I arrived just before 5 I was the 22nd person in the queue and the remaining three spots filled up within minutes. The person at the front of the line had waited outside the store since 6 in the evening the previous day. The two hours went by quickly and it turned out to be quite a nice social experience with some nice and friendly iPhone enthusiasts.
I have not had much time to try out the phone yet, but at least the screen, speed and camera are big improvements over my two year old iPhone 3G.

I have now been an iPhone owner for two years. The phone is sold as operator locked here in Finland, but once the one or two year contract is up, the operator will unlock your phone if you ask. I called Sonera's customer support, explained what I wanted and the customer representative at the other end told me to wait 5 minutes and then sync the phone with iTunes using a non-Sonera SIM card. I did this and iTunes told med "Congratulations, your iPhone has been unlocked."

The choice of word - congratulations - is kind of ironic. But now I have an officially unlocked iPhone 3G.

The other day I run Speedtest.net in the tram in central Helsinki using both the iPhones own Sonera 3G connection and the free WiFi connection that Helsinki Regional Transport offers in it's trams. The trams uses Digita's @450 Flash-OFMD network to get a connection to the outside world.

I ran the test several times and with 3G I got over 400 kbps downstream while the speed using @450 never exceeded 30 kbps, sometimes staying as low as 12 kbps. The upstream speed was also much better using 3G.

For the record, I salute Helsinki Regional Transport for offering free WiFi in trams and I hope they will continue to do so - even a slow connection is far better than no connection.

The problem is really the @450 network that has failed on so many accounts and the latest news is that Digita will abandon the entire network as it is a commercial failure and the Flash-OFMD technology is dying.

Originaly the Finnish government offered the old second generation cell phone frequency 450 MHz to any operator willing to use this frequency to build a "wireless national broadband network". The idear was to have affordable 1 Mbps broadband in the entire country, even the most remote villages. Building the network took longer than expected, became more expensive, the network cards stayed expensive, the connection speeds remained lower than expected and the chosen technology lost out to the competing CDMA2000 EV-DO technology (which many of Digita's competitors wanted to use).

Not that EV-DO or WiMax networks are doing that well anywhere either. We keep expecting wireless technology to be able to compete with physical cables and that is unrealistic.

I finally got my iPad - now I only have to figure out what to do with it.

Yes, it's great for surfing the web, reading books and magazines and for viewing photos and movies but what else?

Then again, perhaps that is enough.