Gadgetory

this week on the cnet tech review get a look under the hood of Google's Chrome OS how to travel through time in your own time lapse videos top twitter trends for 2010 and a set-top smackdown in this week's prize fight it's all coming up right now hi everyone I'm Hollywood and welcome to the cnet tech review where we collect our hottest videos of the week and tell you what's good and what's bad in the world of tech and offer some unique tech wisdom in the form of the bottom line let's get started with the good last week google gave us a glimpse of what's to come in their new Chrome OS and as an added bonus those in the audience got a special google laptop the cr-48 so they could try out the OS at home or more likely back at the office here's Seth Rosenblatt with his first look at the new OS if you love chrome the browser or about to fall in love with chrome the operating system hi i'm seth rosenblatt frisina download calm and in this first look video i'll be showing you around Google's beta release of the Chrome OS there's not a whole lot new here chrome OS feels and looks almost exactly like chrome the browser the cr-48 google's demo notebook prototype of what consumers can expect in the summer of 2011 and the computer we've got here is powerful enough that the operating system wakes from sleep instantly currently Chrome OS is running the stable version 8 of the Chrome browser and that's expected to change as the browser updates extensions bookmark settings anything that you've synced in Chrome will be instantly available in Chrome OS the settings window has been expanded to accommodate the requirements of a full operating system although there doesn't seem to be a way to change the clock to 24 hours Chrome Web Apps play a big role in the Chrome OS the apps become essential quick links from your new tab window to your email your productivity suite notepad instant messaging video and voice calling and other programs that most people are used to being separate from the browser the Chrome Web Store link it gets you access to even more another nifty feature of the operating system is the logon procedure when you first open the laptop it asks for your google user name and password and then takes a photo of you with a dedicated webcam Chrome OS supports multiple accounts and has a guest account option that opens the entire OS in incognito mode Chrome's tracklist browsing option the cr-48 lap the only computer that currently ships with chrome OS comes with keys that are indelibly tied to an operating system that's also a browser the function keys have been replaced with dedicated navigation buttons back forward refresh full screen and next window controls yes you can not only open a new browser tab but a new window as well the caps lock key has been replaced by a dedicated search key that opens a new tab and puts the cursor in the location bar you can change this back to caps lock if you're really into it there are a ton of hot keys that have been mapped to this laptop and they make a huge difference hit ctrl alt and ? to see an overlay map that reveals them all including ones for taking screenshots revealing the task manager and printing right now Chrome OS is only available on the cr-48 laptop of course you can download and install Chrome OS is open-source parent chromium OS on most laptops or desktops for cnet with a first look at chrome OS i'm seth rosenblatt now lots of people were stunned by the news that google intends to get rid of the caps lock key but never fear holding down the shift key with your pinky will let all those psychos out there keep shouting in all caps thank goodness of course you may prefer the feel of a classic keyboard to some of the more modern designs you find on laptops or maybe it's just that old timey clickety clack sound that you fell in love with in either case Justin you has one just for you hi I'm just a new associate editor for cnet.com with a first look at the das keyboard model s professional keyboard but before we get into the review here's a brief history lesson on mechanical keyboards the first IBM model m keyboard was manufactured in the 1980s and quickly became cult products with typing purists that preferreds buckling spring keys as opposed to the thin laptop keys we type on today now as a result some keyboard manufacturers like das keyboard are making updated versions of the model M that bring back the same mechanical key switches and the click-clack sound hence the term mechanical keyboard the dots keyboard model s is finished in a glossy black base and the frame is made of a heavy plastic to withstand in lifetime of typing and typing on the dots keyboard is completely new if you've never used a mechanical keyboard before the secret is in the mechanized switches underneath that give the right amount of resistance and spring board action that almost makes it feel like the board is helping you type it's kind of hard to describe but the clicky sound also helps some people type faster than normal and we actually notice a slight improvement in typing speed and accuracy after using it for just two weeks on the other hand the noise may drive your co-workers and roommates crazy so das keyboard also has a silent model that's exactly the same but sounds more like a clack rather than a click again the $135 price tag may deter casual users that see it next to fifty dollar models but power typists and real nerds will find comfort and nostalgia in its performance you can read more in our full review on cnet com but that's going to do it for me I'm Justin you this is the dot keyboard model s professional mechanical keyboard and that feels pretty good to me how awesome would it be if it had a little belt it dinged whenever you got to the end of the line what not cool at all heck with you I still want that next up we have a handy how-to for all you budding experimental filmmakers out there as antoine explains time-lapse photography is a fairly simple process but it can be quite time-consuming luckily he also has some suggestions for things you can do to amuse yourself while you wait now most of us have seen those cool time-lapse videos that compress almost imperceptibly slow events in the short videos seemingly speeding up time before your very eyes but how are they made and more importantly could you make one on your own I'm antuan goodwin with cnet com and i'm here to show you how you'll need a few things before you get started a camera that can shoot still photos at timed intervals we're using the gopro HD hero photo editing software with a batch edit function we're using efrain view on the pc which can be found over on download.com and some sort of video software to stitch your photos together in this video we're going to using quicktime pro its cross-platform software step one you're going to want to familiarize yourself with your camera's interval photography mode now for some of you this will be as simple as selecting a mode on your camera for others it may mean taking advantage of custom hardware software or firmware the exact process for this step will vary depending on the make and model of your camera for this video we're going to be using the gopro HD hero now load up an empty SD card select the time between the shots here we have the choice between 25 10 and 30 second intervals mount your camera depress the shutter and go find something to do while the camera snaps away now you could point your camera at anything you'd like but I'm a car tech editor so I am line out of the windshield of the car on a trip from LA to San Francisco step 2 once you've got all your photos captured you'll need to treat them however after hours of shooting we have almost 5000 5 megapixel shots now that's way too big of a picture for even the nicest HDTV on the market and way too many photos to be individually resizing you'll need to find a way to betch process these photos now you could use software like Adobe Photoshop but we'll be using the free oron view software on the pc from the file menu select batch conversion rename then navigate to the folder that contains your images and add them all to the batch now you'll need to do two things under the best conversion setting heading like the advanced button in the dialog box that appears check resize and set a value for the long side of each image then click canvas size and apply a value to be cropped now what you're aiming for is an HD friendly dimension of either 1280 by 720 pixels or 1920 x 1080 pixels now the exact number that you're going to use to get there will vary depending on the image size captured by your camera so you're going to need to do a little math here we're going with a 1280 width and a 240 pixel crop for our 720p video now select the folder for your resized images click start batch and go find something else to do while your photos process step 3 once you've got all your images resized up fire quicktime pro and from the file menu select open image sequence now navigate to the folder that contains all of your resized images select the first one you'll have to select a frame rate here we chose 24 frames per second click OK and then go make yourself a cup of coffee while QuickTime stitches the image together into a video step 4 when quicktime pro is done you'll have a working preview of your time-lapse video but you'll still have to export a final file for use in other programs go to file then export to bring up the export menu now under option select size and make sure your dimensions are set to your liking now in addition to the HD sizes there are also presets for mobile devices like the iPhone so choose the one that works best for you now give your file a name and hit save you'll probably want to go grab a movie or something at this point because it's the longest part of the process and can take anywhere from several minutes to a few hours depending on your computer's processing horsepower once everything is done you'll have a completed time-lapse video that you can share with your friends on video sites like YouTube or Vimeo time-lapse photography is a great way to document natural events like the blooming of a flower or as we've done here capture an entire road trip in just a few minutes now these same steps can also be applied to stop-motion photography for those of you who want to get in touch with your inner ray harryhausen so there you have it time-lapse photography in just a few easy steps I'm antuan goodwin with cnet com okay I can't wait to try one of these and I hope you do too just promise me you won't make another video of animals decomposing or food rotting because please we get it it's gross December is often a time for reflection as we look back at the year that was ponder the important moments of the past 12 months and then write numbered lists of things and put them on websites as Natali Morris found out it's no different over at Twitter where they've compiled a list of the top twitter trends of the year take a look the Gulf oil spill fifa world cup and the movie Inception were the top three trending topics on twitter this year followed by the haitian earthquake and the infamous vuvuzela on monday twitter released its top trends of 2010 they do this every year and according to biz stone co founder of twitter the results are always surprising one of the things that strikes me about these overall trends when you look at things like you know the the world cup for is a great example i mean obviously that's going to trend it highlights the fact that twitter can it just makes the world seem that much smaller the question is how much do these twitter trends reflect what the rest of America or the rest of the world for that matter is thinking according to a recent study only eight percent of Americans who are online used Twitter yet the number of people on twitter has skyrocketed in the last two years if we look at December of 2008 we had about three million registered accounts on Twitter on the whole service and December of 2010 we now have over 175 million registered accounts and many of those were done in this past year with sixty-five percent of accounts being created outside of the united states twitter trends reflect a global conversation josh lowensohn editor of cnet explains people of tragedy and they love celebrities and they love lots of both so we're seeing things like the oil spill and Justin Bieber in massive quantities earlier this year there were rumors that Twitter had to buy more equipment to handle all of the tweets about Justin Bieber turns out that was not necessarily true I think we had an ongoing measurement called the beaver index which we were measuring like you know the mentions of beaver internally but we didn't actually have any separate servers and if you like that for CBS News I'm Natali Morris cnet com in San Francisco of course we here at cnet are preparing plenty of our own year-end countdowns and retrospectives will go easy on the beaver but we will have a special cnet tech review year in review coming up for you next week but that's a whole week away and we haven't even finished this show yet so hold your horses we're going to take a quick break right now but we'll be right back with more tech review right after this welcome back to the cnet tech review our weekly video digest of all things good and bad we've seen here at cnet TV continuing on in the good dr. dre hasn't put out a new album in years but somehow he seems to have plenty of time to debut a new set of headphones or earbuds every couple of months just in time for Christmas the pro edition of the monster beats are the boldest set so far hey I'm Julie Rivera and today we're going to take a look at the monster beats pro by dr.dre so far the most expensive pair of headphones from the dr dre line the first thing you'll notice it's a sheer size of these things they're big and they're heavy about an hour so of continuous use the pros eventually cost some discomfort and pinching despite the leather like padding on the crown and the earcups the large padded headband which is not so subtly emblazoned with the beats signature moniker attaches to adjustable brushed aluminum sides ending with full sized ear cups that rotates upwards for storage the build quality is solid and extremely durable I've knocked it around a bit drop it a few times and tossed it to the side once or twice and barely a scuffle nor scratch has shown up the beats pro featured input and output audio ports on each earcup allowing for some daisy chaining action looks a little dorky but it beats sharing that single earbud with your friend on the train you guys know what I'm talking about each earcup has a flip of design rotate towards the back of the head and you've got an ear available remaining focused on your DJ set while monitoring the outside environment each ear pad is also removable in case you want to swap them out for denser or lighter ones in the future the single red audio cable cord is thick and rubberized with a very tightly coiled section at the bottom to which quarter inch gold-plated adapter is tethered to the detachable cable locks into place on the bottom of each earcup and can be swapped to either side of the ear cups as well one last thing we were surprised to find that only a travel pouch was included in the packaging as opposed to a hardshell carrying case like the pros predecessors with the 450 dollar price tag we expect to have these babies protected i'm julie rivera and this was a first look at the monster he's pro by dr dre you hear that monster get that girl a hard case for those headphones she's not messing around and while you're working on that let's check out the bed earlier we saw the top five trends on Twitter this year but who needs to wait for december for a top 5 list Brian Cooley has a new one every week take that biz stone this week Brian's counting down the top five places with the worst reputations for protecting your social security number unfortunately most of them are worthless unless you're willing to hand it over top five worst entities to share your social security number with unless of course you just have too much money in which case this video just got renamed top five really cool ways to lighten up your finances I'm Brian Cooley this list was compiled by the folks at mcafee security after they analyzed reports of social security number breaches from January 09 to october 2010 using data from three major clearinghouses number five any of those medical businesses like those diabetes or invalid care supply houses you see I'm advertising on daytime TV we'll send it all to you and bill Medicare turns out there leaky ER than an off-brand adult diaper but note this ranking is not the same as for hospitals oh we're still going to get to them number for the government yeah it doesn't matter local state or federal the folks who really ought to know better are among the worst at protecting your social security number a big part of this is the huge number of systems and agencies that collect and share all that data how would they know what they're doing with it they're not that good at IT number three would be a hospital yep and in their sick come out a little less so but now broke and very possibly with your ID ripped off by some credit scammer small wonder that adverse health events are a leading cause of bankruptcy number two's ironic banks but just try not giving them your social security number no problem you can just skip having things like bank accounts credit cards mortgages direct deposit just live off the grid in fact there's a nice refrigerator box down in the alley here by cnet you can set up housekeeping there before we get to our number one lousy 'used entity at preserving your social security number know that you'll find little help in the law when you refuse to give it to that weird little dude behind the counter at the local video rental place federal law throws you to the Wolves saying your social security number shall be recorded for just about any kind of license from medical to marriage and that it can be recorded by creditors as well in fact these days its relationship to social security does all the footnote okay the number one place or entity with whom you should not share your social security number if you want it to be kept secure is by far a college or university apparently such institutions are new to concepts like restricted database access good network security even shredders and yet I wonder how many of them also offer courses in data security well that's it for this top five sleep well for more like it check out top five cnet com I'm Brian Cooley see you next time so I guess if you really want to be safe you should keep all your money in a mattress forget about going to college and never get sick sounds fair to me maybe there's some good news waiting for us in the bottom line if you've decided you're ready to dive into streaming video on your TV your two best choices are the roku XDS and the Apple TV given that they're both priced at $99 you can't really rely on price to help you decide but you can depend on brian Tong to judge a fair price fight and this week the two set-top boxes go head-to-head what's up price by fans i'm brian Tong and we've got a battle for streaming box supremacy it's a prize fide throw down showdown between the roku XDS and the Apple TV our judges for this fight our senior editor John bad to the bone Falcone senior editor David Garneau and yours truly all night long we'll take all three judges blind scores and average them out to the nearest tenth each round the final prize fights or will be an average of all rounds using the same decimal system let's get this party started round 1 is design both of these boxes are small and black and you really won't notice them next year TV set the roku XDS is simple and clean but it's fabric tag belongs on a t-shirt more than it does on a set-top box Apple stays true to tradition and can even make a streaming box sexy it's the smallest component you'll have it's about fifty percent smaller than the XDS and it's remote is just as sleek Apple TV starts a fight with a perfect five and Roku gets a four next round is interface and navigation the roku XDS has a simple interface that's very utilitarian it won't wow you visually but it gets the job done it's also easy to customize by adding channels for your favorite content and the remote doesn't get in the way the Apple TV interface is clean and elegant just like you'd expect animations are smooth and its interface feels polished you won't get any real customization here but it's remote is simple and easy to use the big a gets another perfect five and the roku gets a 3.7 dr. averaging two rounds Apple leads by over a full point but it's still too early to get excited round three is speakers with the media box you want options and the roku XDS connects to any TV with HDMI up to 1080p component video and composites there's also USB port for potentially streaming content off a connected thumb stick or hard drive in the future plus you're getting dual band 802 11 N and an ethernet port for connectivity now the apple TV is pretty limited here it brings HDMI at only 720p and that's it it won't connect to any non HD television sets networking options include Wi-Fi and ethernet but it's pretty slim pickings roasting strikes back with a perfect five of its own and Apple gets a 3 next round is content with media streaming boxes content is king Netflix is the flagship service on both boxes but you know us we're hungry for more now the Roku shines with over 100 channels of content like amazon video on demand blue plus pandora for music discovery and streaming music from the cloud with mp3 tunes plus there's on-demand sports for Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League and none of these services are currently available on Apple TV now beyond Netflix apples box has access to content from itunes but key shows like house fringe or modern family aren't even available at the moment it can stream itunes from pcs on your local network and you can watch youtube you can use airplay to view content from iOS devices on the big screen but not all media content can be viewed like videos plane in Safari or movies you recorded on your iPhone it's a killer innovation but it's still not fully baked The Rose who gets another 5 with its myriad content solutions and the Apple TV gets a 3 after averaging four rounds Roku has taken the lead by four tenths of a point this one is so close and the final round that decides it all is value for $99 the roku XDS brings the best video and audio streaming services on the web with every connectivity option you can think of the apple TV is also 99 bucks and if you live in an apple dominated ecosystem you'll feel right at home with iTunes integration but you'll be missing out on a whole lot of content in the final round Roku gets another perfect 5 and Apple gets a 4 so let's average out all five rounds and in a battle where the big a dominated from the start the roku XDS came back with three perfect rounds taking this faceoff 4.5 24 and is your prize fight winner both of these streaming boxes will continue to mature with new features and content but the decision really comes down to your desire to stay in the Apple world or experience all the services that Roku has to offer i'm brian Tong thanks for watching we'll catch you guys next time for another prize fight what the bottom line this week Roku like a hurricane all right unless you're totally committed to an apple centric lifestyle you really can't go wrong with the Roku for all your streaming needs and I'm sure our corporate parents at CBS will forgive Brian's promotion of ABC's Modern Family especially since we know their writers are fans of our site oh I apologize for breaking world's worst per month did you bought stupid excuse me but the experts at cnet.com rated it the best remote they gave it three and a half mice Wow I have an idea let's invite the gang from cnet over and your old buddies from cheerleading and we have a nerd party I give that five mice I mean stars all right that's it for this episode but come back next week when we'll have a very special year-end edition of the show our cnet tech review year in review and until then there are tons of great videos available every day at cnet TV com I'll see you next time and thank you for watching you