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Technology Stocks : Apple Tankwatch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: puborectalis who wrote (26236)	6/8/2013 3:09:30 PM
From: zax	1 Recommendation Recommended By Eric L Respond to of 32692

via wmpoweruser.com Nokia already blows all the other phones away at low light. Now Nokia is about to blow all other cameras away at stop-motion, too: In a comment on MyNokiaBlog ex-Nokian Damian Dinning, who was the head of their imaging department until last year, explains that it is all about the Xenon flash. He writes: mynokiablog.com Damian Dinning says: June 8, 2013 at 1:23 pm Hi everyone, there are so few factually correct statements in the original piece or related comments (no disrespect intended) I felt compelled to help explain. Please note, my comments are ONLY addressing the general topic of mechanical shutters – no more. Keeping it simple, the main reason for fitting mechanical shutters is for use with xenon flash. Typically CMOS sensors read light across the sensor from left to right and top to bottom. The time each pixel is ‘read’ is the effective shutter speed. This is OK in most cases and OK with LED flash as the light is effectively constant/continuous. LED flash in most cases being the equivalent of turning on a torch before the exposure and turning it off after the exposure has been made, effectively increasing the amount of light in the scene more or less for the duration of the picture. In the case of xenon, the flash fires a very short ‘pulse’ of light. This pulse can be as short as approximately 1/25,000 (hence why xenon can freeze high speed movement). With a typical CMOS sensor the time difference between the 1st pixel being ‘read’ and the last is greater than this time. The result would be some pixels would be correctly exposed whilst others would be dark or even potentially black. To overcome this, the pixels are effectively read all at the same time. But to achieve this all pixels are turned on, the shutter opens, the flash fires, the shutter closes and the pixels turned off. And that’s why typically mechanical shutters have been needed in products such as n8, n82, n808. In some cases some latest generation sensors can read all their pixels at very high speed (note: again don’t ask me to comment on speculation or rumour) allowing xenon to be used. In some cases e.g. Nikon 1 series these later generation sensors are allowing for electronic shutters which can provide potential advantages in high frame rate scenarios which mechanical shutters would not be suitable for. In some cases a hybrid approach maybe used e.g. a SE product of a few years back which featured xenon only used the mechanical shutter for flash but not other situations, which meant in that case it didn’t provide the following potential advantage…. With mechanical shutters, because the pixels are effectively read all at the same time it overcomes the motion skew effect which can typically occur with CMOS sensors due to the time difference between the first and last pixels being read. As the read time from CMOS sensors is increasing (shorter read times) this is becoming less of an issue in some cases. Mechanical shutters do require additional space, there are no space advantages to them. As for dust protection there is some theoretical advantage to them but in practice (at least in my experience) I have seen dust penetration in all cameras, there is a fundamental limit to what can be done to prevent dust penetration. Hope that clarifies things.

To: puborectalis who wrote (26236)	6/13/2013 10:32:53 PM
From: sylvester80	Respond to of 32692

4 Reasons Apple's Worse Off Than You Think By Alex Rosenberg \| CNBC – 12 hours ago finance.yahoo.com Apple's decline has been well-documented. One need only look at a stock chart, which shows that shares of Apple have lost more than a third of their value in nine months. Or one could look at the number of Google searches for "Apple," which peaked with the stock in September 2012 and have since dropped precipitously. But Max Wolff says that Apple ( AAPL) investors should look out for a variety of risk factors that haven't yet materialized. According to Wolff, chief economist and senior analyst at GreenCrest Capital, Apple faces four big risks that no one is talking about. 1. Privacy Concerns Could Disproportionately Hurt Apple Privacy concerns raised by the NSA phone records revelations could be more troubling to people using Apple products and services than those using those of other companies, Wolff said. "You pay more to be in the Apple ecosystem than in anyone else's ecosystem," Wolff said, "and people might be more upset that they're paying a lot of money and they're still getting spied on." Wolff likens it to the difference between a free concert and one that a fan pays to attend. "If I'm going to see a show in Central Park, and it's terrible, then I'm not angry at Central Park," Wolff told CNBC.com. Contrast that to paying $500 for top-notch seats and then getting moved to worse ones. "Google ( GOOG) is the free ecosystem and Facebook ( FB) is a walled garden, but at least it's free," Wolff said. "If you're paying more to be in the Apple ecosystem, and if you find out that your privacy is no more sacred than it is anywhere else, that actually is problematic." 2. Apple's Tax Issues Could Become a Problem Wolff points out that Apple has been remarkably good at dodging serious consumer ramifications from a tax policy that some consider evasive. "Every progressivey person that is upset that corporations don't pay taxes has an Apple," Wolff said. "And at the end of their email or text message about how horrible it is that companies don't pay their taxes, it says, 'By the way, this message was sent from the biggest tax cheat in American history.'" Once again, Wolff says that the especially high cost of Apple products puts the company at a heightened risk. He notes that when buying a low-priced clothing item, a consumer should not be too shocked to learn that it was made in sub-par conditions by a young worker. "If you just paid $1,400 for a suit, on the other hand, you expect that it was made by someone who's at least 8." Wolff said that while "Apple has been very good at being Teflon, and I don't see any reason to think that wouldn't continue, the tax issue is not going away." 3. Google's Chrome and Android Integration Wolff notes that Google is working to integrate its Chrome and Android platforms, and this could end up being a major concern to Apple. "If Google figures out a way to market a Chrome operating system with an Andoid tie-in, they can sell you a notebook computer which is also a tablet, and has a nice integrated operating system, for $400 or $500," Wolff said. "If they get that then they'll have a single product that is very dangerous for the Macbook Air and the iPad." Once again, Apple's luxury pricing makes it vulnerable. "Even if you think Google's product is less good, then $1,500 worth of Apple products nicely duplicates it," Wolff said. "It is $1,200 less good? For a lot of people that's not a question mark, because they don't have $1,200." Even people who might be able to afford Apple's products, though, might choose Google's cheaper choice anyway. "If a lot of what I'm going to do on these devices is Google Docs and Google Drive and Gmail, and I wouldn't have to get the free frames at Lenscrafters, I could be a dangerous new kind of hipster," Wolff said. 4. The Education Battle Wolff believes that schools are the next battleground between Apple and Google. "One of the next big fights is going to be education spending," Wolff said. "If I'm a school system, I can buying an entire classroom [of students] these Google devices, or I can buy two of them the Apple stuff." In the developing world, Google's Chromebooks are an even more exciting possibility. "If you're a classroom in the developing world, for $3,000, you can have a globally competitive Web system." Or you could get one fantastic Apple computer and a huge LED monitor, "and just stare at it." The bottom line, for Wolff? "Some of these price differentials might make some difference." - By CNBC's Alex Rosenberg . Follow him on Twitter: @CNBCAlex.