We’ve praised the ring flash often in the past. The strobe surrounds the lens giving your subject flat, even illumination with none of the ugly dark shadows that characterize the crappy party photos we take with our compact digicams. Usually, though, a ringflash is an expensive and somewhat bulky piece of kit, and is designed for use with larger cameras. Marumi’s little ring-light uses LEDs instead of a flash tube, which has a couple of advantages. You can preview the light’s effect on the image, and batteries will last a lot longer. Digital photography means that the color of light doesn’t matter nearly as much as it did with film, but mixed lighting can still cause problems. (Read the full post about ‘LED Ring Light For Compact Digicams’…)

Panasonic isn’t giving up on plasma screens just yet. With many shifting away from plasma TVs and embracing LCD, Panasonic is going small and will bring plasma screens to the cellphone. Wait. You’re thinking that a plasma display might burn a hole in your pocket? Nope. They will be both cool and cheap. Mark Balsama spoke to the press on Tuesday and revealed a secret plot that rival’s Apple’s iphone obfuscation: For nearly a decade, Panasonic’s engineers have been secretly working on a thin, lightweight low-voltage compact plasma display. According to Balsama, not only will the screens “rival OLED displays for brightness, contrast and thinness”, they will also be cheaper. (Read the full post about ‘Panasonic Plans Plasma Screens For Cellphones’…)

Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, with 65 faculty, 127 grad students, 71 docs and 193 staffers, has a myriad of programs. This morning, we got a lightning tour of just a few, with barely minutes to savor the glory of our future machine overlords. Among the wonders I didn’t see was "Robot City," a field-testing site for robots outside of Pittsburgh. The institute has a big budget—$60m a year—but stiff requirements for who gets to spend it. Of 300 Ph.D. applicants a year, only 8 percent are taken on. Getting into a masters course at the institute is a little less intimidating — fully 20 percent of applicants are accepted. (Read the full post about ‘Snakes, Rovers and Googly Eyes: New Robot Masters Take Many Forms’…)

Do people still buy standard definition video cameras? Panasonic seems to think so. The company has announced that its pocket-sized SDR-S7 will be arriving in Japan later this month. Weighing only 182grams with its battery and SD card, the camera can record 16:9 or 4:3 video at VGA (640 x 480) resolution in MPEG-2 format. The camcorder can shoot in three video modes: XP (10 Mbps), SP (5 Mbps), and LP (2.5 Mbps). Video recordings are stored via SD cards, with up to 16GB support—allowing up to 13 hours of recorded video in LP mode.  The featherweight SDR-S7 is equipped with a 2.7-inch widescreen display, 10x optical zoom, stereo microphone, 0.6 seconds Quick Start, and USB 2.0 for fast file transferring. (Read the full post about ‘Panasonic’s lightweight SDR-S7 camcorder announced’…)

Had enough of the usual gang here on Gadget Lab? Think you can do better than the multitalented (but inescapably British) Rob Beschizza? Now’s your chance to show us what you’ve got.

We’re looking for an enthusiastic, eager, tech-savvy blogger to join the Gadget Lab team and help cover the most interesting and compelling daily tech news for Wired’s most popular blog. We’re not just shoveling press releases onto the web here, unlike some blogs we could mention. That’s why we want someone who can bring an intelligent, informed and entertaining perspective to our gadget coverage.

In return, you’ll get unparalleled exposure on Wired.com, plus the chance to test out, play with and write about all kinds of new gadgets long before your friends do.

(Read the full post about ‘Here’s Your Chance to Remake Gadget Lab in Your Image’…)

eMusic, together with the Music Intelligence Institute, presents this Music Intelligence Quiz developed by experts in the music field. It consists of 30 multiple-choice questions covering many genres and eras of music. The maximum number of points is 180, and there are 5 levels of music intelligence: Top 40 Radio Listener, Air Guitarist, Birthday Party DJ, Mix-Tape Master, and Musical Magician.

What’s great about this test is that, unlike other assessments out there, you are not obligated to provide a name or email address or register in order to see your results, although after you view your results eMusic invites you to check out some music suggestions based on your music intelligence level, but that’s fine.

(Read the full post about ‘Fun music IQ test brought to you in part by eMusic’…)

While most of us up here are busy about Web 2.0, iphone 2.0, et cetera, et cetera, the folks over there in the far east introduced a new device that, well, kind of ushers in Home Improvement 2.0. Actually, Seoul Commtech has just introduced the EZON SHS-5200, which also has the nickname Luce. It’s a lock for your door that’s like no other. It’s slim, made mostly of gas and shiny metal, and best of-all, it’s digital and has a touch-sensitive face. So this is the next generation of home security, eh? The Luce is only 2.1cm thick, and is made of special aluminum that makes it stronger than most ordinary door locks. Its face is made of tempered glass to accommodate all the touching you’re going to do with it. (Read the full post about ‘Seoul Commtech Luce, if the iPhone was a door lock’…)

Yes, it’s true. Internet telephony company Jajah is participating in the iPhone Developer Program. That means in addition to its existing web-only client, there will also be a native VoIP app for the iPhone this summer. You can expect the new client to be available via the App Store, which is launching sometime in June. If you recall, after a lot of speculation about what would and wouldn’t be allow to run on the iphone, Steve Jobs said VoIP would be permissible at the SDK roadmap event last March, but that mobile carrier networks were off limits. The exact wording from the SDK agreement is as follows: "If an Application require or will have access to the carrier network, then additionally such Application: …May not have Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) functionality." Pretty clear cut. (Read the full post about ‘Native VoIP Coming to the iPhone’…)

Colour Phasing Sphere You can have this for ?24.95 Tags: gaming, pvp, plasma, TV (Read the full post about ‘Colour Phasing Sphere’…)

Pocket Plasma - The Party in you pocket

Pocket Plasma, it’s a funky club light system you can wear on your belt. Hyper-reactive to sound, this brilliant little gizmo pulses with a weird and wonderful web of multi-coloured lightning bolts that radiate from the centre. You can either set it to ‘On’, where it will dazzle with a random network of bright neon colour light, or set it to ‘Sound’ where it will react to the slightest sound and movement sending out its coloured lightning bolts in time to music or flashing as you speak. The louder the sound the brighter the tendrils of light - it’s really quite amazing Features Mesmerising Pocket Plasma light system.

(Read the full post about ‘Pocket Plasma - The Party in you pocket’…)