Should You Register Your Cell Phone With donotcall.gov?

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Should You Register Your Cell Phone With donotcall.gov?

From Urban Legends website (http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/cell411.asp):

CLAIM:

A directory of cell phone numbers will soon be published for all consumers to have access to. This will open the doors for solicitors to call you on your cell phones, using up the precious minutes that we pay lots of money for. The Federal Trade Commission has set up a "do not call" list. It is called a cell phone registry. To be included on the "do not call" list, you must call from the number you wish to register.

The number is 1-888-382-1222 or you can go to their website at www.donotcall.gov.

REALITY:   As the use of cellular telephone technology has grown tremendously in the last several years, many consumers have given up maintaining traditional land-line phone service entirely. They prefer the convenient portability of cell phones, as well as the privacy: So far, cell phone numbers have generally been excluded from printed phone directories and directory assistance services, and protections have been put in place to restrict telemarketing calls to cell phones.

Soon, however, some of the privacy that cell phones provide may be eroded. Six national wireless companies (AllTel, AT&T Wireless, Cingular, Nextel, Sprint PCS, and T-Mobile) have banded together and hired Qsent, Inc. to produce a Wireless 411 service. Their goal is to pool their listings to create a comprehensive directory of cell phone customer names and phone numbers that would be made available to directory assistance providers. (In most places, telephone users can call directory assistance at 411 [for local numbers] or by dialing an area code plus 555-1212 [for out-of-area numbers] and, by providing enough information to identify an individual phone customer [usually a full name and city of residence], obtain that customer's phone number.

Many cell phone customers are opposed to the proposed Wireless 411 service for a number of reasons:

• They prefer the privacy of knowing that their cell phone numbers are available only to those to whom they provide them. They don't want other people being able to obtain their cell phone numbers without their consent or knowledge.
• They are concerned that their cell phone numbers will be sold to telemarketers (or other groups that might make undesirable use of those numbers).
• They see one of the goals of the Wireless 411 service as a ploy to spread cell phone numbers to wider circles of friends and acquaintances, who will then place calls to cell phones and thereby force cell customers to pay for additional wireless minutes.

The wireless companies behind the proposed Wireless 411 service contend that their service will be beneficial to cellular customers and that they have addressed those customers' major concerns:

• The service would save money for the estimated five million customers who use only cellular phones and currently pay to have their cell phone numbers listed in phone directories.
• The Wireless 411 service would be strictly "opt-in" ? that is, wireless customers will be included in the directory only if they specifically request to be added. The phone numbers of wireless customers who do nothing will not be included, those who choose to be listed can have their numbers removed from the directory if they change their minds, and there is no charge for requesting to be included or choosing not to be included.
• The Wireless 411 information will not be included in printed phone directories, distributed in other printed form, made available via the Internet, or sold to telemarketers. It will be made available only to operator service centers performing the 411 directory assistance service.

Nonetheless, many consumers don't trust the Wireless 411 consortium to uphold their promises, and although Qsent and its clients plan to make the Wireless 411 service available sometime in 2005, its implementation in that time frame is far from certain, as the wireless companies are still fighting proposed legislation which seeks to regulate wireless phone directories.

So, although the gist of the message quoted at the head of this page is correct in alerting consumers to a proposed directory of cell phone numbers, it is misleading in stating that such a directory will "soon be published" (the word "published" implies making a printed directory available, which the wireless consortium maintains they will not do) and in directing readers to sign up with the The National Do Not Call Registry. The latter step will not keep wireless customer listings out of the proposed Wireless 411 database ? it will only add their phone numbers to a list of numbers off-limits to most telemarketers, a step which is premature (because the Wireless 411 directory has not yet been implemented) and largely unnecessary (because the Wireless 411 directory information is not supposed to be supplied to telemarketers, and because FCC regulations already in place block the bulk of telemarketing calls to cell phones).

Adding one's cell phone number to the National Do Not Call Registry (even if currently unnecessary) won't likely have any adverse effect, but customers should be aware of exactly what that action will or will not accomplish.

Top Tubes

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Top Tubes

Top Tubes
Which high-end television is best?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2004
http://slate.msn.com/id/2110469/fr/rss/

A widescreen, high-definition television tops America's holiday wish list this year. Too bad shopping for one is so confusing. Many gift buyers head for the store with visions of plasma screens dancing in their heads only to find another kind of flat screen, the LCD, grabbing their attention. Once they start looking around a little more, they notice an alphabet goulash of thin-screen options: DLP, D-ILA, LCoS, SXRD. What do they all mean? Which type of HDTV is best? And what about HDTV itself?is it really better than the much-cheaper EDTV?

It's enough to make you go home and cuddle up with your 10-year-old Trinitron. But don't do that. Herewith, Slate's guide through the high-def maze.

How much should you spend? Count on $1,500 at the very least?for the more exotic technologies, expect to spend much more. Samsung does make a 27-inch HD model powered by an old-fashioned picture tube (more about this later) for $700. But, except in very small rooms, the picture is too small and too dim to make much of an impact.

What about EDTV? No. EDTVs (enhanced-definition televisions) may seem like a bargain, but they're a waste. High-definition has two special qualities. First, HD broadcasts are usually in widescreen; on a widescreen television, the image fills the entire screen (no horizontal black bars on the top and bottom). Second, an HD image consists of 1,080 horizontal lines (or 720 lines that get scanned twice as fast) compared with standard TV's 480 lines. More lines mean a more detailed, cohesive, and color-saturated image. An EDTV receives high-def signals, but it displays them in standard definition. You get the wide screen, but not the extraordinary detail. In fact, because the screen is bigger than an ordinary television yet displays the same number of lines, the picture can sometimes be fuzzy, craggly?just bad. (For more about HD and ED, click here.)

Plasma: Plasma televisions are everyone's dream ticket?flat, bright, and the niftiest-looking piece of furniture in the history of consumer electronics. Two-and-a-half years ago, I predicted that by now plasma's bugs would be vanquished and the prices slashed. Well, plasmas are cheaper and better, but they're not yet trouble-free or particularly cheap. Any plasma worth owning will set you back at least $5,000 retail?a really good one will cost you double that.

Plasmas have two inherent advantages and one inherent flaw. The advantages: First, they give off a staggering amount of light, so the image looks clear even in uncurtained daylight. Second, you can watch plasmas from any angle and the picture remains just as sharp?a distinct advantage if you watch television with lots of friends.

The flaw: "burn-in." If you spend a lot of time watching a channel with an on-screen logo (or a news crawl), the logo's outlines will brand a permanent shadow on that area of the screen. If you watch a lot of non-HD programs, which have square images, the vertical black bars on both sides of your widescreen will burn in, too. There are ways to minimize this risk (click here) but no way to eliminate it.

One thing to keep in mind when you're blown away by a plasma screen in an electronics store showroom is the Finding Nemo factor. HD tape loops with lots of bright lights and bold colors?nature documentaries, football games, space capsules orbiting the Earth, and especially digital cartoons like Finding Nemo?make almost any plasma TV look fabulous. Plasmas have more trouble presenting complex colors, especially in dimly lit scenes. They also have a tendency to make black look like dark gray.

The latest models are getting better at compensating for plasma's weaknesses. (For a technical explanation, click here.) At a trade show a couple months ago, I stood in front of a 43-inch Pioneer Elite PRO-920HD for 20 minutes watching a DVD of Spider-Man, a movie with lots of very dark scenes. The detail, the contrasts, the gradations of gray, and the distinctions between objects and shadows were all superb. I found nothing to complain about except the price: $10,500. (It's possible to find it now for as little as $7,000.) The 42-inch Panasonic TH-42PX25, at $5,500 (on sale at Amazon for $3,800), is impressive, too. But on most plasmas cheaper than $5,000, Finding Nemo will look great; Spider-Man and many other live-action DVDs and non-HD television shows will not.

LCD: LCD (liquid-crystal display) flat panels have one big advantage over plasmas: no burn-in. Otherwise, there's little to be said for them. Inch for inch, they're more expensive than plasmas. They make black colors look even lighter gray than plasmas. Fast-moving objects tend to look blurry and jumpy. They're also prone to the "screen-door effect"?you can sometimes see the gridlines that separate each pixel. Sony's 46-inch Qualia 005 LCD panel, due out this spring, is stunningly vivid; it makes all other LCDs, and most plasmas, look like mush. The price, though, will be about $12,000.

Rear-projection televisions: So far we've talked only about flat panels. There are also thin-screen HDTVs that are about a foot deep (and that deep only at the center of the set). RPTVs don't get half the buzz of the flat panels, but they're considerably cheaper and, in many ways, better. The most popular rear-projection sets use LCD technology that's similar to the flat-panel versions. The difference: Rather than emitting light, these televisions get their light from a projector behind the screen. Sony's 42-inch KF42-WE610 Grand Wega, which costs less than $2,500, isn't bad at all. Blacks aren't quite black and the screen door is sometimes visible, but these flaws are less pronounced than on the flat panels.

Often better still are rear-projection TVs that use DLP (digital light processing) technology. Samsung's 50-inch HLP-5063W, retailing for $3,500 and often discounted, is an excellent buy. Blacks are black, colors are natural, contrasts are subtle. Another great thing about the DLP sets is that there's no wear or deterioration. Spend a couple hundred dollars for a new bulb every few years, and it's like you've got a brand new television. DLP's main drawback is that it uses a "color wheel" to project the full color spectrum. In scenes with fast movement, you can sometimes see a "rainbow effect" (colors blurring into one another). Some people are bothered by this; others barely notice it.

The most promising thin-screen rear-projection sets use still-newer technologies based on LCoS (liquid-crystal-on-silicon) chips. JVC has a variation called D-ILA (Direct-Drive Image Light Amplification); Sony's is called SXRD (Silicon X-tal [Crystal] Reflective Display). The principle here is similar to DLP, except the pixels are packed more densely. Since there's less space between pixels, light gets absorbed more efficiently, which creates a richer and more seamless image?no screen doors or rainbows. And, like the DLPs, they never wear out.

JVC's D-ILA?the 52-inch HD-52Z575 and 61-inch HD-61Z575, which retail for $4,500 and $5,500 respectively?are both startling. Among new-tech TVs, they're surpassed only by Sony's 70-inch (!) Qualia 006 SXRD. At $10,000, the Qualia 006 (you might also see it called the XBR1000) might seem a bit pricey, but given its size and quality, it really isn't. (Smaller, and presumably cheaper, models should be out in a year or so.)

The blacks aren't quite as black as those of very good DLPs, and the image gets a bit dim if you watch from way to the side (though less so than with other rear-projection televisions). But once those problems get fixed, LCoS, D-ILA, and SXRD could render plasma obsolete. (For more on DLP and LCoS technology, click here.)

Really big screens: If you need a picture that's 6-feet to 10-feet wide, or even larger, then you need a front projector. Front projectors beam light onto a screen that can either be pulled down from the ceiling or set up and taken away. Most of these projectors are fairly compact?some of the LCD and DLP models could fit in your palm?and they can all be hung from a ceiling, attached to a back wall, or set up on a table. Sony makes a very good high-def LCD projector for $3,000. Samsung's superb DLP projector?one of the best high-end televisions of any sort?costs $12,000. JVC's D-ILA projector costs about $13,000, and Sony's SXRD model costs as much as $30,000. Good screens cost from $500 on up.

The drawback of all front projectors is that you have to use them in the dark. Outside light interferes with the projector's lamp, making the image look faded. This may soon change. Sony has developed a black screen equipped with a filter that reflects the projector's light and disperses light from windows and room lamps. (For a photograph of the effect, click here.) Sony hasn't set a release date or a price for its black screen, but it might transform the entire marketplace. You could watch movies or high-def broadcasts on a very big screen in a normal living room, with the lights on, and not have a television taking up any space at all.

The old picture tube: Don't forget about the cathode-ray picture tube?for color fidelity, contrasts, detail, and black blacks, the stalwart old tube still beats the newfangled microchips. Cathode-ray-tube front projectors are extremely expensive (over $25,000) and hard to set up. CRT rear projectors are enormous and clunky. CRT "direct-view" televisions (a high-def version of the kind of set you've had for decades) can't put out enough light to sustain a widescreen image larger than 34 inches diagonally. However, if you have lots of space, Sony and Toshiba sell rear-projection CRT sets with huge screens?51 inches and more?for $1,500 to $2,000 or so. If a 34-inch direct-view TV is big enough, Sony's direct-view XBR910 (also $1,500-$2,000), is a gem?maybe the best TV on the market.

One last suggestion: Whatever kind of HDTV you buy, spend another $300 to get it calibrated properly. The settings from the factory?for color, contrast, and so forth?are almost always wrong. You can do some tweaking yourself using a test DVD. But for the fine points, you need a specialist?preferably one certified by the Imaging Science Foundation. Otherwise, it's like buying a Steinway without bothering to get it tuned.

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To be more precise, high-definition refers to an image with either 1,080 horizontal lines scanned in an "interlaced" fashion (the scanner goes up and down, hitting the even lines one way, the odd lines the other way) or 720 horizontal lines that are scanned "progressively" (all the lines get hit up and down). These methods are designated 1080i and 720p. By comparison, analog television is scanned at 480i, and non-HD digital television is scanned at 480p. (DVDs get scanned at 480i by a standard DVD player and at 480p by one with a progressive-scanning feature. You need a digital TV for the latter to make any difference.) EDTV's resolution is 480p. On an EDTV, high-def broadcasts will look as good as DVDs, but standard-def programs may look quite bad. DVDs will look good, though not as good as on an HDTV. (HDTVs have internal "scalers" that convert all images to HD images. Converted HD is not nearly as good as the real thing, but it is an improvement.) To check if a TV is HD or ED, look at the technical specifications. Under "resolution," you'll find the number of vertical pixels and horizontal pixels (for example, 840x480 or 1020x768). If the smaller number is lower than 720, you're looking at an EDTV. If it's higher than 720, it's HDTV. Some companies are starting to produce televisions that scan at 1080p?this is the beginning of ultra-high definition.

With more and more television broadcasts in high-definition and HD-DVDs hitting the market sometime soon, it's shortsighted to spend thousands of dollars on an EDTV that will be obsolete within just a few years. Still, if you yearn for a plasma but can't afford HDTV, the Panasonic TH-42PD25, which lists for $2,995 but can be had for as little as $2,200, probably offers the best ED picture.

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Panasonic has issued a white paper that claims to rebut the "myths" about plasma. (An industry friend gave it to me; I haven't found it online.) It recommends three steps to minimize the risk of burn-in. First, turn down the "contrast" to 50 percent. (This is a good idea anyway; most factory pre-sets have the contrast way too high anyway.) Second, don't watch anything but widescreen programs (or DVDs) for the first 100 hours. Third, don't spend more than 15 percent of your viewing hours watching non-widescreen programs for the first 1,000 hours. This seems excessive (1,000 hours of viewing would probably take a year or so), but it gives you an idea of the high probability that your screen will get burned.

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Plasma technology is pretty amazing. Embedded between two large sheets of glass is an array of electrodes, phosphors (some green, some red, some blue), and millions of tiny gas cells. When the set is turned on, electrodes zap the gas cells, creating a burst of ultraviolet light that's flooded by the phosphors to create the proper mix of colors. This intense ultraviolet light gives plasma displays their incredible brightness. Just because they're really bright doesn't mean that colors always look great. Early plasmas had only eight-bit displays, meaning that for each of the three primary colors there were only 2⁸, or 256, shades between light and dark?not very many. As a result, those televisions were dismal at showing dimly lit scenes: Dark browns, purples, and greens were indistinguishable. Newer plasmas look better because many of them feature 10-bit displays (1,024 shades); 12-bit models (4,096 shades) are on the way. As a result, colors look more varied and natural than before. Incidentally, liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) tend to look worse than plasmas because they typically have just eight-bit resolution.

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Digital light processing (DLP) uses millions of tiny mirrors to reflect light onto a microchip. The chip then processes these millions of reflections into a coherent image. The "rainbow effect" happens because all of this processing is handled by a single microchip, which rapidly switches the primary color from red to blue to green. Three-chip DLPs solve the problem, but they're still very new and very expensive.

Liquid-crystal displays (LCD) work by projecting light through crystal molecules that, to varying degrees, pass or block the light's path to each pixel. LCD screens use three microchips, so there's no rainbow effect. Light does leak through and between the pixels, though, causing the "screen-door effect."

LCoS (liquid-crystal-on-silicon) technology is similar to DLP, except that the light gets split not by millions of mirrors but by a prism and a solid-state filter. The light is then recombined into a coherent image by a three-chip processor. Compared with DLP, there's less space between them, meaning they absorb light more efficiently. Thus, no screen doors or rainbows.
Fred Kaplan, Slate's "War Stories" columnist, also writes about home theater for The Perfect Vision and other publications.

Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2110469/

Bilingual Searching

TIP OF THE DAY

Bilingual Searching

Bilingual Searching

Check out Babelplex, a new meta bilingual search engine. The engine takes your English query, and runs a dual Google query in one of 11 languages. The results are then displayed side by side on the screen.
Source: Inter-alia

Photo Story 3

TIP OF THE DAY

Photo Story 3

 

Photo Story 3 Review
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/photostory3.asp     

Originally envisioned as part of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (see my review), and the successor to the most exciting application in Plus! Digital Media Edition (see my review), Microsoft Photo Story 3 was instead realigned as a standalone application that all Windows XP users will be able to download for free. And bravo to that decision, because Photo Story 3 is, arguably, the greatest tool ever made for digital photography enthusiasts. In this review, I'll examine the new features in Photo Story 3 and discuss how much it's improved since the Plus! Photo Story and Plus! Photo Story 2 days. But let me cut the chase right now: If you use Windows XP, you need to download Photo Story 3 immediately. It's that good.

History of Photo Story

In December 2002, Microsoft announced the first version of Plus! Digital Media Edition. It then released the product on January 7, 2003. The release was notable for a number of reasons. First, Plus! DME was the first paid Microsoft product to be distributed online. Second, it was launched as part of Microsoft's "Corona" wave, which included Windows Media Player 9 Series and the accompanying 9 Series audio and video codecs. And finally, Plus! DME included one of the most impressive photo slideshow applications ever made, Plus! Photo Story.

 
 
Coincidentally, Apple Computer announced iMovie 3.0 for Mac on January 7, 2003 as well. That product included a highly-publicized feature called "the Ken Burns effect" which provided iMovie with Plus! Photo Story-style animations and slideshows. Curiously, given Apple's digital media strengths, however, iMovie 3.0 and the Ken Burns effect were harder to use and delivered poorer results than did Photo Story. I find it odd to this day that, while Microsoft announced its product first and delivered a more elegant solution and simpler solution, Apple is still given credit for "innovating" with animated photo slideshows.

In any event, Photo Story continued as a largely unheralded but excellent tool throughout 2003, though the company sold over 1 million copies of the $20 package in its first five months of availability. On October 14, 2003, Microsoft released the Plus! DME Update (see my review), a free upgrade to Plus! DME that included new Plus! Dancers and, most notably, a major update to Plus! Photo Story dubbed Plus! Photo Story 2. This version added support for projects, so you could go back and re-edit photo stories after making them, and it could create Video CDs (VCDs) of your photo stories

What both versions of Photo Story had in common was the basic way in which they work: You import a succession of photos to be turned into an animated slideshow, arrange and edit them in a timeline, add narration, music, motion animation and transitions, and then save and share the finished product.

In April 2004, I was told that Microsoft was working on a new version of Photo Story, Photo Story 3, that was to have originally shipped with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. However, development lagged somewhat, and the resulting change ultimately benefited all XP users: Now, Photo Story 3 is available as a free download for all Windows XP users (see below for details).

New features in Photo Story 3

While the basic functionality of Photo Story is unchanged, Photo Story 3 is a much more full-featured product, with a surprising number of improvements over previous versions. And in typical Microsoft fashion, the look and feel of Photo Story 3 is both updated and simplified (Figure). Like Plus! Photo Story 2, Photo Story 3 lets you import photos from your hard drive, removable media like CD-ROM, and from MSN Groups, though most people will obviously simply use locally stored files only.

Obvious improvements

Once you've imported your photos, you'll see a number of major improvements in this release (Figure). First, you can edit photos you've imported, which we'll discuss in the next section, using a set of action buttons under the monitor window. Second, you can remove the black borders in photos (especially those that are portrait oriented). And finally, you can save your project at this early stage of the Photo Story wizard. Previously, you had to wait until you added narration, titles, and music before you could save your project. This is going to be particularly handy for people making large photo stories, as Photo Story 3 now supports up to 300 photos per story.

Photo editing

While you should arguably be touching up your digital photos from outside Photo Story 3, many people don't own any photo editing applications, so Microsoft made it possible to perform basic photo editing tasks using the action buttons under the monitor window. The following edits are possible:

Correct color levels. You can toggle the display of each image between the original version and one that is color-corrected. When the photo is color-corrected, the Correct Color Levels button remains selected (Figure).

Correct red eye. Unlike some photo editing solutions that force you to manually select the areas of a photo which you'd like to correct for the common "red eye" effect, Photo Story just includes a simple toggle button that automatically seeks out red eye and corrects it (Figure). In my tests, this functionality appears to work well. Like Correct Color Levels, Correct Red Eye is a toggle action that can be on or off.

Rotating. Usinng the Rotate Counterclockwise and Rotate Clockwise buttons, you can rotate uncorrected photos directly from within Photo Story.

Advanced editing. If you click the Edit button, a new window appears, giving you access to a new range of functionality. There are three tabs here. In the first tab, Rotate and Crop, you can rotate photos or crop them using a handy cropping rectangle that retains the landscape aspect ratio needed to display the picture without black borders (Figure).

The Auto Fix tab lets you correct contrast, color levels, and red eye (Figure). It's unclear why only two of these three options are available from the main wizard window, but there you go.

In the third tab, Add Effect, you can apply various effects to each picture. We'll look at these effects in the next section.

Adding effects

In the Add Effect tab of the Edit Pictures window, you can add a number of effects to the current picture, or to all of the pictures in your story. The following effects are available:

Black and White. This applies a grayscale effect to the photo (Figure).

Chalk and Charcoal. This applies an artistic grayscale effect to the photo (Figure).

Colored Pencil. This applies a colored pencil effect to the photo, with a bit too much emphasis on the edges (Figure).

Diffuse Glow. This applies a halo-like effect to the photo, washing out and blurring much of it (Figure).

Negative. This reverses the colors in the photo, creating a negative of the original image (Figure).

Outline, Black. This creates a blackened edge-heavy version of the photo (Figure).

Outline, Grey. Similar to the previous event, but with a much lighter color cast (Figure).

Sepia. This applies an old-fashioned sepia tone effect to the photo (Figure).

Washout. This washes out the photo (Figure).

Water Color. This applies a nice colorized effect, though I've never seen a watercolor painting this detailed (Figure).

While most of these effects appear to have been lifted directly from Windows Movie Maker 2 (see my review), few of them are particularly interesting, and you can't combine effects. I could see some people being interested in the black and white, sepia, washout, and water color effects, however.

Removing the borders: Auto crop functionality

Back in the Import and arrange your pictures stage of the Photo Story 3 wizard, there is an option titled Remove black borders that can help you automatically crop any portrait-oriented pictures so that they are landscape-oriented and zoomed-in on the most important part of the picture. When you click this option, Photo Story examines all of the pictures in your story and then displays the Removing Black Borders window (Figure), where you can step through each portrait-oriented photo and pick an appropriate crop. Once you're done editing, you'll be returned to the Import and arrange your pictures stage of the wizard.

So why would you want to do this? Depending on your tastes, the black bands that surround vertical photos might be considered visually unappealing, and this option helps you get rid of them. Having made numerous photo stories in the past, I'm happy to see this addition.

Captions and titles

In the next phase of the wizard, you can add title text to your photo story. This option has changed in dramatic ways when compared to the previous version, which let you add a separate title page, with an optional (non-animated) background image, forcing you to really think ahead if you were going to use this option. Instead of making the title page a completely separate entity from the rest of the story, Photo Story 3 simply adds the title text over the beginning of your story (Figure), much as you would add a title to a movie in Windows Movie Maker.

Unlike Plus! Photo Story 2, Photo Story 3 includes just a title text block, and not a description block, though it uses the same text formatting options. You can also add an effect to the photo over which the title will display, which is a nice touch, using the Effect drop-down box. This is one of the few times when the Effects feature in Photo Story 3 actually makes sense: By blurring the initial photo somewhat, you can bring more attention to the title text.

Also, you can add captions to any photo in the story. Typically, the title text is considered the caption that appears over the initial photo, while any other text is simply a caption.

New narration capabilities

In the next phase of the wizard, you can add narration to and customize the motion of your photo story. In previous versions, the narration phase came before the adding of titles, and it's unclear why the order changed in this version. It's also unclear why the customization of each photo's animation effects is combined with narration. Anyway.

Like most other Photo Story features, Narration has changed somewhat (Figure). You can add narration to the entire story, stepping through the photos by clicking on each in succession as you talk, or just apply narration to specific photos, which is nice. Photo Story also provides a place to add reminder text for each photo so you can remember what it is you want to say during the narration.

New motion animation and transition features

In previous Photo Story versions, you could customize the panning and zooming effects through an Advanced Options window that appeared early in the wizard. Typically, you would just leave Photo Story to its own devices, since the automatically generated animations were well done. In Photo Story 3, you can customize both the panning and zooming effects for each photo, as well as the transitions between each photo. You do this using the new Customize Motion window (Figure), which provides per-picture configuration of both of these options.

In the Transition tab of this window, you can select between 48 (yes, 48) Windows Movie Maker-like transitions (Figure). You can also manually change the duration of each photo display and transition if you'd like.

New music features

While previous versions of Photo Story allowed you to add music to your stories, this version expands on that capability by letting you apply music per-picture if desired (Figure). It also lets you create your own music using a unique feature that dynamically generates a soundtrack based on a selection of genre types, styles, bands, moods, tempo, and intensity. It then customizes that music to match its length to the length of the track of photo story to which it is applied (Figure).

I've been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the automatically generated music, though I still prefer to add music from favorite groups. Still, I suspect many people will be quite happy with the automatically generated soundtracks, mostly because they are timed exactly to the length of your photo story.

Improved saving and sharing capabilities

When the Save your story phase of the Photo Story 3 wizard appears (Figure), you're provided with a set of options that is both far more extensive than what was provided in previous versions and more inline with what we've come to expect from tools like Windows Movie Maker. Now, you can choose between a set of pre-chosen settings, like "Save your story for playback on your computer," "Send the story in an email message," and so on. Or, you can click the Settings button and select from a wide range of profiles (Figure), all way from 1024 x 768 (for computers) down to 160 x 120 (for smartphones). In the previous version, Plus! Photo Story 2, you had only two options for video quality (640 x 480 and 320 x 240), though you could download other higher-resolution profiles from the Web.

What's nice about the plain English settings list--what Microsoft calls Activities--is that anyone can understand them. Want to save the movie in a format that will play natively on a Portable Media Center? Simply choose the activity named "Save your story for playback on a Portable Media Center." Nice.

And while this may be tangential to specific new features in Photo Story 3, it's also worth noting that people who buy into the whole Microsoft "Digital Entertainment Anywhere" mantra can display their professional-looking photo stories in a variety of places: On their PCs, on TVs with a Media Center PC or Media Center Extender, or outside the home with a Portable Media Center, Pocket PC, or Windows-Powered Smartphone. It's kind of amazing what the possibilities are these days.

Problems with Photo Story 3

Though Photo Story 3 is a wonderful tool, it's not perfect. While I applaud the additional functionality in this version, the sheer number of options makes it a bit too complex, especially for a wizard-based application. Some options--like narration and motion customization--are inexplicably linked to the same phase of the wizard, while others--like effects and rotation--are available in two separate locations in the UI. What it all adds up to is a nicely thought-out product that is, in some ways, not optimally designed. This is a problem for any software interface, of course: Any time you pile features on top of a simple interface, things get more complex. But I suppose it's a fair tradeoff when you consider how much extra you get. I just hope it doesn't scare off new users. People familiar with previous versions will be thrilled.

Also, because Photo Story 3 was originally intended to be included only with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Microsoft has stripped away the ability to burn VCDs directly from the Photo Story interface. That's because you can burn DVDs and VCDs directly from within Media Center. But for other users of XP, sorry, but you're out of luck. You'll need to find your own disc-burning solution.

Another small issue is that, while Photo Story 3 is provided free to all users of Windows XP (any version), you won't be able to download or install the application unless you've activated the OS. This isn't a problem with Photo Story 3, per se, but rather a problem with Microsoft's wider strategy of limiting any site downloads from Microsoft.com to non-activated copies of Windows XP. Clearly, the company is attempting to prevent piracy, and obviously, giving Photo Story 3 away free as an additional benefit for using XP is nice. But as with any other software-based copy protection scheme, this block will no doubt bite legitimate XP users down the road, and that could turn into an ugly PR problem for the software giant. I don't think blocking downloads--let alone free software installs--is a valid approach to piracy at all. In fact, I think it's idiotic.

Availability

Photo Story 3 will ship Wednesday, October 27, 2004 as a free download for all users of Windows XP. Look for it at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp.

Conclusions

Photo Story 3 is an almost perfect tool for digital photography enthusiasts and a must-have utility for anyone who enjoys their own digital photographs. The effects generated by this application are both stunning and compelling, and very similar to the photo slideshow capabilities that Media Center users enjoy. However, by making Photo Story 3 available for free to all users of Windows XP, Microsoft has both elevated the status of the XP platform and given all XP users a wonderful "thank you" present. If you're an XP user, you simply must download Photo Story 3 today and get busy creating your own stories. If you're not an XP user, then what are you waiting for? Photo Story 3 is just one of many excellent reasons to move to this most capable of digital media platforms.

--Paul Thurrott
October 27, 2004

VIOLIGHT

TIP OF THE DAY

VIOLIGHT


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