Time Mag has this interview, the first place I've heard of the Virgin Oceanic project. From the sounds of it, they're still thinking about the subs themselves.

What hasn't been explored at all is the depths of the oceans. So we're in the process of building something called Virgin Aquatic, which is going to be submarines to go 35,000 feet underwater. The oceans need exploring - we know nothing about what's going on under 25,000 feet. I have an island called Necker Island and 15 miles from there is the deepest place in the whole of the Atlantic, the Puerto Rican Trench. It's quite likely that we'll set up a scientific and exploration center on Necker to send out expeditions to explore that trench and other trenches in the world.

The technical challenge is finding materials that can withstand the pressure at 35,000 feet. It's almost easier to build a spaceship to go into space than to build a vessel that can withstand the pressures at 35,000 feet. But we think we can do it.

Peter Ha susses more details from him at the eight minute mark in this video:

In the video, Branson says that building space ships and subs are on par in terms of difficulty of hull designs that can resist great pressure. He also says that before the ultra deep dive vehicles are created, they'll start with light craft that can travel in the 1000 to 10000 foot range. And the goal, like Virgin Galactic, is both scientific and passenger, commercial.

[Time, Techland]

Ok, maybe there's no ka-boom because there's no sound, but just looking at this video makes me imagine all that water wooshing by as everything begins to shake. Simply stunning. [Physorg]

Many attribute the technical difficulties involved with communicating under large bodies of water as being one of the major reasons why our knowledge of the depths is so limited. Neptune will change all that using a 497-mile ring of fiber-optic cable sitting off the coast of Canada. The ring has five nodes that will stream data from hundreds of undersea devices directly to the internet. Wally, the robot pictured above, is an example of one of those devices. He just happens to be the world's first internet-operated deep-sea crawler.

"It's revolutionary in that it brings two new components into the ocean environment, which are power and high-bandwidth Internet," says Project Director Chris Barnes, from the project's offices at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. "We're really on the verge of wiring the oceans."

Outside of the scientific community, I'm willing to bet that the military would be interested in this kind of technology as well. Check out Scientific American for a full gallery of images. [Scientific American via PopSci]

I'm not man enough to dive into freezing waters to document the lives of animals that could rip off my head without a second thought, but I'm sure glad that YouTube exists so I can sit here in my underwear and enjoy the experience vicariously.

The Price:

$379

The Waterproofing and Toughness:

It's rated to 10 meters, or 33 feet, without a case, making it just as pressure resistant as the Powershot D10. And there's a 30 meter case, optional, for deeper excursions, too, which the Canon doesn't have. It is the only periscoping internal zoom lens with a mechanized metal cover. Like the Pentax W80 and Canon Powershot D10, it can operate at down to 14 degrees F, making it ideal for winter sports. It's shock rated to a drop of 6.6 feet and crushproof to 220 pounds. It's heavy and almost completely metal. The screen and lens are coated with a water resistant substance, keeping droplets from getting in the way of clean shots. It's a monster. All it needs is a damn turret and you could send it into a warzone.

The Pictures:

Now for the slightly sad part. Relative to other test shots by other waterproof cameras, the photos were, well, middling and grainy. I don't believe that picture quality is necessarily a main concern on waterproof cameras—water quality is a bigger determination here—but as an above water camera, there are better choices. I did find the multiple underwater modes for surf/snow on the ground (pumps exposure), the high speed and landscape under the sea, and video modes to be a nice touch. The camera is also dual stabilized using optical and high ISO to reduce shakes. The biggest problem I had was the focus lag which caused plenty of missed action shots. That was a negative thing for me in an otherwise great user experience. Oh, there's a beauty mode, which combines face detection with softening algorithms on camera—there's a cool animation with sparkles that it plays while it renders—that take wrinkles and shadows out of faces. Kind of works!

The Video-ooh No:

What the shit: The 640x480 pixel video looked kind of jittery at times and was washed out all the time and—the worst part—limited to 10 second clips. This, for me, is somewhat of a deal breaker. When you're outside, motion shots are a given. I need better video on this camera!

Quirks:

Yes, it uses XD cards, and a variation of ye old mini and micro USB, so I had to hunt for some gear to transfer shots.

The Bottom Line:

As tough as it gets, but photos are a little underwhelming and video fall way short. I'm definitely conflicted here.

The toughest point and shoot in the world.

Video sucks

Photos a bit soft


[Olympus, Gizmodo]

Summermodo is a chance for Giz to get outside and test our gear where it belongs.

Sure, the standard def video was serviceable, but when cheaper point and shoots do the same or HD video, a purpose built camcorder has no excuse for not blowing them out of the water for cheaper. And it's only waterproof to 6 feet. Miserable! Also, the camera liked to focus on the water droplets on its lens like a cross-eyed idiot. Unlike the very presentable Lumix DMC-TS1 from the same company, please avoid this piece of defunct technology. One nice thing: It comes with a floating strap. But, again, if you buy this, you are dumb. [Panasonic]

The fact that it exists.

Summermodo is a chance for Giz to get outside and test our gear where it belongs.

The Price:

$400

The Toughness:

It's rated to about 10 feet and for drops of 5 feet, which places it at the lower end of the spectrum of waterproofing. Well, it's not the lower end, but given the shock and dust proofing and the lens reinforcement system, I'd expect the makers of the Toughbook to best cameras like the fluffy Fuji z33 and the slimmer Pentax w80 waterproofs for depth. Again, I wouldn't call this a weakness, but if the DMC-TS1 had one, this would be it. Update: Wow, there's an external dive case for this camera which extends the depth rating to 130 feet. It's rated down to 32 degrees, which isn't quite as low as the Pentax W80, Canon Powershot D10 and Olympus Tough 8000's 14 degrees F op temps.

The Visuals:

The photos were among the best in low light, high ISO and daylight. There was a simple beach/surf macro mode which worked well enough. Colors were accurate, and I only noticed a slight distortion around the edges while zoomed out. (Many periscoping internal zoom cameras have this issue.) The lens went pretty wide at a 28mm equivalent and the zoom was almost top of the class at 128mm (only the Pentax did better). Images, overall, were second best to the Canon with its traditional lens system, but this camera doesn't have that problem of a protruding snout which makes it a lot more pocketable. The camera has optical stabilization, which is pretty kick ass. The uncovered lens caused some photos to look smudged, which is perhaps the rule, not the exception in these cameras. Shots are at 12.1MP, but you can get variations of that in 16:9 mode. (My favorite!) As usual, waterphotos are generally limited in quality by water clarity and color, so, well, above the sea shots work fine.

The TS1's video recording happens at a high res of 720p, stabilized and recordable in motion jpg or AVCHD lite, giving you more recording time and quality. It looks better than good.

The Design:

I'm into the spartan, square design. And the camera's responsive shooting, burst modes, and menus made it the easiest to use without being overly simple like the Canon D10.

Yeah, I don't know yet:

The Lumix is a fantastic all-around camera that is somewhat tough and waterproof. I'd originally gone into this review thinking it would be king, but given the shallow depth rating, I may have to wait 'til I see the new Olympus in action before I give a stronger rating. Especially at $400. At that price, the smaller, Pentax w80, rated to 16 feet with decent shots and shitty video looks like a lot better of a deal. And the super cheap and small Fuji z33 does, too. I don't know. I'm not giving up on this camera yet. Strong video playback is an important thing these days. I guess its my camera of choice and should be yours too (for now) if you don't go beyond 10 feet down and image quality and relative pocketability is a priority. Until I check out that Olympus Stylus Tough-8000 which has some really solid stats all-around and cost a bit less.

Great images

Great case design and menus

Great video at 720p

Despite the all-around toughness of the device, only waterproof to a middling (not poor) 10 feet

[DP Review, Panasonic, Giz]

Summermodo is a chance for Giz to get outside and test our gear where it belongs.

Price

$150

Waterproofness

Because it lives in its own magic bubble housing, its good for 15-feet. That's good, but not great. The Canon D10 is good for 30 feet, and most other waterproof cameras are good for this depth without a housing.

The Photos

I won't go too in depth here as the photos speak for themselves:

Barfy color, contrast and grain. It's really a video camera that can record at 1280x720 (or, 720p) at 30 frames per second in h.264. There's 4x zoom, and it starts fairly zoomed in, making me wish it had image stabilization. It has an LED for lighting videos, though. The stills were 5MP, for whatever that's worth.

The Designs

Inside of its case, you can't do much. You can't power it down and up, either, so I ended up getting a bit of moisture in the case. No biggie, since its no loss if this thing drowns. Oh, you know what else is terrible? The thing is, like many camcorder housings, permanently stuck in a flipped out screen position, so packing this thing is a chore.

720p video

Cheap, but only a few bucks less than the much nicer Fuji Waterproof. So...

External housing

Worst images of any underwater camera

Not very waterproof considering the bulky housing

[DXG]

Summermodo is a chance for Giz to get outside and test our gear where it belongs.

The Price: $329

The Waterproof-ness: Good down to 10 meters, making it suitable for light diving and heavy snorkel duty, as well as making it impervious to higher pressure of waves that may slap you and the camera around at lesser depths. The most waterproof camera without a housing, by far. And although they don't do a great job of advertising it, the camera is actually good to 14 degrees F and is shockproof to 1.22 meters, so its at least as rugged as the Pentax W80 I looked at last week.

The Images: DPreview unequivocally gives this camera their top ranks on image quality, without acknowledging the issues of bulge (later on that). We looked at it in a battle with the TS1 Lumix and John found the casing (or something) to affect color in low light shots, and the camera had problems autofocusing underwater comparatively. I only noticed that the Canon's shots were some of the best of the bunch, reaching for a touch more exposure than the others at appropriate times in its 12mp shots. The lens is a 35mm to 105mm equivalent, which is a solid range, but not the longest in the group by any means. Unlike periscoping lenses in cameras like the waterproof Lumix, Fuji and others, there's no lens distortion on the outside of the focal range. It has face detection and a mode that allows you to set the camera on a tripod and it will wait for you (an additional face) to enter the frame before shooting. There is also optical shake reduction.

The Chassis: The case design here is bulbous, and crazy and yet so appropriate under the sea (even if obscene outside of the water). That is what affords it a sort of no nonsense dive reach of 10 meters without the use of an external housing, as well as these four cornered locking joints that are mounting points for the accessory kit: essentially a bunch of tentacles and loops so you don't lose it. It's crazy, and yet, totally appropriate for mounting the camera to dive belts or around your wetsuit when in a kayak. Check it out. As you can see, those straps make it much more accessible than a camera stowed inside a jacket on a ski trip or in a bag on a canoe. But note that there's no accessory for flotation in this expensive $130 kit, as Olympus and Pentax offer as $10 accessories. No matter, you can easily fit those, or a keyring floatie from West Marine to make the most ocean friendly point and shoot even more appropriate for life at sea.

The Interface: It's neat that the buttons are all so well laid out and you can easily hit all the major controls while wearing dive gloves. Confession: The automatic scene detection knows when you're shooting people or underwater, but I never discovered how to switch it to manual.

The Video: At best, it shoots 640 by 480. And everything I shot had a nasty blue tint to it.

Verdict: Good if you're a inshore merman or mermaid, or other creature that spends the majority of its life out at shallow sea, but totally inappropriate for anything not considered an extreme or quasi extreme sport where bulge is an excusable thing when you're trying to take the sharpest shots possible of your wet exploits.

Big, simple buttons and LCD icons. Goes to 10 meters deep. Cool accessory straps available for extra cost.



Only shoots video at 640x480. Expensive. Bulges so much it won't fit into pockets. Awkward looking out of the water.

Summermodo is a chance for Giz to get outside and test our gear where it belongs.

The Price: $180...which is astoundingly cheap for a quality (although not top line) waterproof camera.

The Waterproofness: Pretty decently rated to 3 meters. No accompanying shock or coldproofing, so this guy is strickly for pool and tropical snorkeling, not for snow or deeper activity.

The Image Quality: The sample shots I took simultaneously with other waterproof cams revealed a few things, but mainly, noise at anything but great lighting conditions. And taking underwater shots near twilight, the Fuji triggered its flash before other cameras did, implying a slowness in lens setup that even the 1600 iso couldn't overcome. And like most periscope internal lens set ups the edges around photos were not razor sharp. Overall, color was undersaturated at times but photos were good in bright light as long as there wasn't too much contrast to deal with. (See: Hawaii photos) There were an abnormal number of shots ruined by lens smudges, which other cameras seemed to shrug off. (User error? Well, it happened to four z33wp users who tested this camera for me, so you be the judge.) I love the variety of photo modes for different scenarios, but the UI to switch between these modes is buried two levels down in a menu. There's face detection, and digital shake reduction, too.

Video Quality: Does a max of 640 by 480 pixel video.

Controls are WEIRD: The buttons on the back are laid out in a grid, and the control feel suffers because the buttons have dual purposes in many cases; the cross pad also coincides with functions like menu buttons, etc. And zoom buttons are labeled W and T, for wide and telephoto, which took me a moment to figure out and I continuously forgot about them. Maybe its me being dumb, but I found it slightly confusing compared to the button layouts on other cameras. But the good news is that the entire back, side from those buttons, is a 2.7 inch screen.

Shape: Man, no waterproof camera has ever slipped into my pocket so easily.

The Verdict: For Budget types and Fashionistas that splash around a little bit in the waves.

Small and pretty. Cheap, too.

Photo noise, awkward controls. With sunglasses on, maybe the photos won't look that bad.

Summermodo is a chance for Giz to get outside and test our gear where it belongs.

This second clip examines the filmmakers' arsenal of high def toys, including fake rocks developed in Hollywood labs, thermal cameras built by military contractors and air drones with a sense of humor, used to document the slaughter of 23,000 dolphins a year in a hidden cove of Taiji, Japan.

I haven't seen The Cove yet, but the movie is now playing in select cities across the country. And while it will surely be a tough film to watch, a boatload of filming ingenuity looks to have made the film a lot more watchable. [More at the Examiner]

Summermodo is a chance for Giz to get outside and test our gear where it belongs.

And scene.

Anyway, these brightly-colored tools float and accomplish several boat-related tasks—just right for Summermodo adventures you might have planned!

Knock them overboard and they're easily seen and retrieved. Pretty straightforward. The handles help the tools float because they're made of comforting foam. Bonus: The rust-resistant metal is tungsten-carbide, perfect for fighting off the corrosive effects of that salty sea air. Yar. [Amazon via Boing Boing]

The Price: $300

The Photos and Video: In sample shots on our kiteboarding trip and at the local beach, the W80 was not the best but sill surprisingly good. Compared to periscoped lens setups, the traditional internal 5x zoom lens made the 12mp shots look sharper than most other waterproof cameras. The 28mm-140mm equivalent lens was sharp edge to edge with a touch more zoom than others in the roundup. Color was good, too.

But I noticed the lens was a little too slow to capture sharp motion underwater where light is rarer than on the surface. (The first sample shot I took in dim light triggered the flash where other models didn't need one.) Colors and exposure was fine, but the grunge resisting lens and lcd were only marginally helpful in combating substances like suntan lotion, grime and surfboard wax. Video is captured at up to 720p, but it didn't look so great. Face detection locked on pretty quickly, and there are several shake reduction capabilities, including digital and movie modes.

The Design: The casing is still one of the smallest and is by far the most pocketable ruggedized model around, but its only good for drops up to 3.3 feet. Models by Lumix and Olympus are far more rugged, although more Hummer-esque, too. Pentax's various scene modes are amongst the most useful around, and there's an simple button to switch between them, but that button and menu is also the only way to easily switch between video and still mode. Quite a chore.

The camera could use a design refresh, in all honesty, and more metal. But it's also good for winter sports, rated to function down to 14 degrees. I liked Pentax's optional floating wrist strap, too.

The Waterproofness: Good down to 16 feet, up from 13 feet in the last generation. Good enough for light to medium beach duty.

The Recommendation: My favorite rugged-ish waterproof camera when size is a consideration.

Compact considering its quasi-rugged chassis.

Decent shot quality.

There are tougher cams out there that take better photos, but only slightly so in all regards.

Could use a redesign, since the W60, W40 and W20 had similar cases.

[Giz, Pentax]

Summermodo is a chance for Giz to get outside and test our gear where it belongs.

We've mentioned Schopfer's previous (and first) luxury yacht, the Oculus, but the new Infintas is far, far sexier with its "closed loop infinity symbol" design and includes a much needed upgrade in the form of an extra 50 feet of length. [Schopfer via The Cool Gadgets]

John Markoff got a ride recently, and reported the craft as being interesting, even in the plankton fog of Monterey Bay, CA.

Each time the 21-foot long electric-powered submarine plunged, my loosely buckled five-point harness left me sliding out of my seat. Each time we started to ascend, I was pushed back into the seat by the acceleration...Unlike a conventional submarine, which uses ballast to plunge into the ocean depths, the Super Falcon "flies" through water. It is slightly buoyant, and it is the speed of its propeller that pushes it downward in the mirror image of the aerodynamic lift of a conventional winged aircraft.It can operate at depths up to 400 feet, has a top speed of six knots and can fly for five hours on a single battery charge.

Deep Flight is helmed by Graham Hawkes, a pioneer in deep sea exploration vehicles. Among other craft, Hawkes built the Deep Rover sub which was used to film Aliens of the Deep by James Cameron in 3D IMAX, the Mantis, which was filmed in the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only and the Deep Flight Challenger, a winged sub built capable of reaching 37,000 feet of depth meant for Steve Fossett to break the deep diving record in.

If you're interested, John Markoff's article has a video embedded in it of the dive and a tale of the first ocean dive in the Falcon with Perkins, where they chased Hammerheads. Below, I've included a video of the Maltese Falcon coming under the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as a video of him testing his prototype Super Falcon.

[Deep Flight, NYTimes, photo by Leslie Terzian Markoff and Yachtpals]

Here's how it rides:


The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.


I would try to explain the theory behind this one, but the shape itself is best explained by Thomas in this video by surfpulse.


The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Thomas Meyerhoffer's projects include the first rounded sky goggles, the Smith V3 and the predecessor to the iMac, the translucent emate. Thomas Meyerhoffer doesn't live too far from where I am, a few miles south of San Francisco. Maybe I'll catch him riding this strange surfboard one of these days. Interesting. [Meyerhoffer surfboards, Outside Mag Profile, SurfPulse]

The tanks are roughly 6 inches deep, cost well over a thousand dollars, have an LCD readout for temperature and claim to be "self cleaning". (I will bet the throne of Atlantis that it is not self cleaning.)

That bulky iPod color hangs tenuously from this girl's bikini. How impractical. That's not going to stay put once she runs towards you in slow motion in your mind. This particular model is from 2004, right before the shuffle was released in 2005, and years before the last and current gen's clip. How far we've come in beach-appropriate gadgets. [Snowking@Flickr]

Originally released almost two years ago, the Ocean was a great phone at the time. Its dual-sliding design was unique, and it was packed full of features that weren't widely available elsewhere, such as 3G surfing, GPS and great Gmail integration. Cut to two years later, and none of these things seem all that unique.

Today, the Ocean 2 doesn't hold up as well. It's seriously thick compared to most other phones—twice that of an iPhone—and its dual-sliding design requires a fatness that is the phone's Achilles heel. It's not worth the space when a touchscreen could replace the entire numerical pad level. A much simpler configuration would be a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a touchscreen for dialing, like on the Palm Pre. Sure, the screen is brighter and sharper than the original, but it's still not a touchscreen. Cost-cutting was clearly a key influencer in the Ocean 2's design, but that may hurt it in the end.

The Ocean 2 does, however, offer some upgrades to its predecessor. Besides the noticeably sharper and brighter screen, you also get 2GB of built-in storage, plus an SD slot for more videos and music.

There's a new optical navigation pad, which is a bigger, fancier version of the "OK" button on the original Ocean. It still acts as an OK button, but it also is touch-sensitive, allowing you to scroll around websites and through menus without any clicking required. Unfortunately, it's too small to feel very useful, and you end up accidentally scrolling when you're trying to hit OK.

There are some new software features that are nice, including Helio Connect, a way to check on your Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube accounts, as well as your RSS feeds, all in one place. It's a convenient way to get caught up without having to jump around to a half dozen websites or apps.

On the other hand, the browser is inexcusably bad. It completely destroys the rendering of most websites, and if you choose to view them as regular HTML, you'll be scrolling all over the place. It's also very slow, despite the 3G connection. It just feels like a last-generation mobile browser.

Overall, the interface is basically identical to the original, just like the design. Yes, there have been updates, but none of them feel all that substantial or consequential. This feels more like the Ocean 1.5 than the Ocean 2.

With phones such as the Palm Pre and the iPhone out there for not all that much more, you've got to wonder how many people are going to be interested in signing a two-year contract for a two-year-old phone that's merely been polished instead of being really revamped. You certainly won't feel like you've got the hottest piece of tech on the block, but it's also too expensive and bulky to be seen as a good budget phone. It's stuck in a vague middle area, a place few customers are going to want to go. [Virgin Mobile]