First, “Jersey Shore” star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi shed some weight. Now, she’s dumped her overly made-up face. And her fans looooove it. The Web gushed over a makeup-free pic Snooki posted on Twitter with the comment: ” No make up day and IDC ” (I don’t care).

Over on Yahoo!, a flurry of positive comments — close to 19,000 at last count — like this were typical: “She looks amazing without all the goop!” and, “She should go for the natural look, it looks much prettier!” Web searches on the pint-sized Polizzi also surged. Lookups on “snooki without makeup” increased a whopping 28,400% in one day.

Snooki herself seemed overwhelmed by the response to her make-under. She tweeted to her 4 million-plus followers, “Can I just say how amazing my fans/supporters are! You guys really know how to put a smile on my face! Love you all beyond words.”

Before and after pics certainly show a dramatic difference. The 4-foot-9-inch star, who regularly showed up to the gym in full makeup and wore her hair in a signature pouf, instead features a face that is erased of its bronzer, overly done eyes, and dark lips. The undone look shows straight hair, mascara-free eyes, glowing skin, and, gasp, a beautiful woman underneath.

Friends on Snooki’s Facebook page also agree: The star truly shines without all the makeup. A fan posted on her wall: “She is Beautiful without make up, just gorgous!”

The move to go natural is a growing trend in 2012. Makeup artists report to the New York Times: “Stiff coiffures, overdone eyes, defined lips and matte skin are out. Tousled hair, smudged eyeliner, dewy lips and luminous skin are in.” If this is Snooki’s new look (and we hope that it is) she could lead the way for a  new outlook in the new year.

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New pictures of what was know as the Sony Xperia Kumquat (ST25i) have emerged with rumours suggesting that it will make its bow at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week. The images show the device next to a Sony Xperia S, and it is now widely believed that the new, smaller handset will go by the name Sony Xperia U.

The images were posted on Hong Kong website eprice.com.hk and reveal plenty about the ST25i / Xperia U. First, that it has a 3.5-inch (presumably) touch screen, and that it will come with a removable battery, unlike its larger sibling.

Its resolution, which we’ve heard on the grapevine before, is expected to be 854 x 480 and it will sport a?1GHz dual-core processor. The camera on the back is claimed to be 5-megapixel, although, contrary to former reports, eprice says the video recording functionality will support 1080p rather than 720p.

The device pictured runs on Android 2.3.7, but there’s a belief that it could come with Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) as standard when it finally goes on sale.

Further rumours also suggest that another Sony handset, the Xperia P, will also be unveiled at MWC.

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Tags: Sony Phones MWC2012 Sony Xperia U Sony Ericsson

Sony Xperia U expected to launch at MWC… pictures leaked originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:33:00 +0000

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Sky?has released an Android version of its Sky Go?app allowing some Android smartphone owners to turn their phone in to TV. We’ve grabbed a Samsung Galaxy S II downloaded the app, and plugged in our details to check it out.

Sky Go Android?is free, the download weighs in at about 2.8MB, and should take you just seconds to download and install. On start up all you’ve got to do is add your Sky Go details and you’re in and ready to watch.

Sky allow Sky users to sign up two devices to the Sky Go service so if you’ve already got your Xbox 360 and your iPad signed in you’ll have to decide which one gets the boot so you can watch it on your phone. There isn’t a timed delay or lock involved so theoretically you could manage them daily, but you will need to go to the Sky Go website to do this – you can’t do it on the phone.

Like Sky Go for iOS, the first page you are presented with is a the channel categories (All, Entertainment, Sports, Movies, News, and Lifestlye) and these break down the relevant Sky channels into different pots.

New to the Sky Go eco system is Sky 1, Sky Living, and Sky Arts 1, and these sit alongside the Sky Sports channels, Sky movie channels, Sky News, and ESPN. You also have access to Sky Atlantic.

The app does of course allow you to see the channel listings, and more information about the show you want to watch. Once you’ve decided, simply press the play button to begin. As with the iOS version of the app for iPad and iPhone, the stream starts instantly with the quality improving or decreasing depending on your bandwidth. In our play on our standard Wi-Fi connection (there is no 3G streaming support) the picture quality is perfect within a matter of seconds.

However disappointingly here you can’t pause or skip back in the stream like your Apple touting Sky Go using friends can. For the time being, it is live streaming on, and that’s unlikely to change according to Sky who have told Pocket-lint that:

“We’ve been able to develop a pause and scrollback feature?on Sky Go?thanks to iOS platform functionality, which unfortunately?does not exist on the Android platform. We are looking into adding?it for?future releases but cannot?currently?confirm a date for this.”

There is also no Anytime+ support at the moment although Sky has confirmed to Pocket-lint that it does plan to add that for Android users later in the year.

In use and the app is really simple to use and really enjoyable to use as well if you are planning on watching that Sky movie away from your TV.

We are surprised that there is no pause functionality and by the lack of Anytime+ support even though the iPad and iPhone version already has them. Still beggars can’t be choosers and an Android app is better than no Android app right?

The good news is, is that Sky are aware of the limitations and have told us they are already working to fix them.

In the meantime you get an app that will be great for those moments where you really just fancy curling up in bed to finish watching the movie you’ve got stuck into. Just don’t expect the app to do much more beyond that for the time being.?

Tags: Home Cinema Sky Android apps Apps Sky Go Video on demand Video

Sky Go for Android video, pictures and hands-on originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:31:00 +0000

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This is absolutely one of the best websites we’ve ever seen. Click on this any other day of the year and you’ll get one answer. Click on it today and you’ll get a completely different one.

Obviously, we won’t spoil it and tell you what those answers are, but can we suggest you stock up on some lemons and sugar before you visit: isitpancakeday.com.

Unless you’re here tomorrow, if you get our meaning.

Of course, there’s an argument that somewhere, in the quantum universe, it’s always Pancake Day.

So with that in mind, here’s the Pocket-Lint guide to perfect pancakes.

To make 8 pancakes, you’ll need:

• 125g plain flour
• 250ml milk
• 1 egg
• a pinch of salt
• 1 small frying pan
• cooking oil (you can use any oil) or butter for frying
• elbow grease (for whisking)

Here’s how you do it:

In a large bowl, mix the flour and?salt?and make a ‘well’ in the middle. Add the egg and gradually whisk in the milk to make a smooth?batter. Heat up your pan, add a teaspoon of oil or butter and add a ladleful of the batter – just?enough to coat the bottom of the pan. Tilt the pan, so the batter covers it evenly. Fry for a minute or two until golden brown. Flip your pancake? – this is where you might come unstuck (or not, as the case may be). Cook for?half a?minute longer and serve with your choice of filling. Just not savoury. That’s wrong.

Flipping marvellous.

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WEBSITE OF THE DAY: Is It Pancake Day? originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 21 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

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The Academy Awards are less than five days away and we’re counting down with a look back at some winning moments. Halle Berry‘s touching speech was a highlight, as was Reese Witherspoon‘s shining moment - and we’ve rounded them all up. Click through to see the award worthy photos, and don’t forget to fill out your 2012 Oscar ballot for a chance to win an iPad 2!

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The Olympus OM-D is a new line of Micro Four Thirds cameras, pitched above the current Pen line. The E-M5 is the first model in this new range, which Olympus is pushing out with the tagline “the beginning of something new”.

But how new is it? Importantly, how distinct does this new OM-D camera feel from the existing, and cheaper, Pen models? Is Olympus bringing enough to these new models to justify the price and should you be exciting about getting one? We spent the day with a pre-release model to get a thorough preview of what it offers.

Design

The original Micro Four Thirds Pen camera, the E-P1, brought retro camera design back into the mainstream in 2009. Whilst the Pen line of cameras has divided, offering smaller and more modern models, the new OM-D sticks to the looks of the original OM models.

Claudia B?hr, Olympus Europe senior product manager, told us that using the OM name came about partly because once the new camera had been designed, the similarity to the OM-4 was undeniable. Unfortunately for those with old glass, it has nothing to do with the existing OM lenses and is only an adoption of the name.

But at the same time, this is every inch a mini SLR by design. It’s conventional (but retro) looking, running up against the likes of Panasonic’s?ageing?GH2, or the Sony NEX-7. The inclusion of the viewfinder is a first for an Olympus Micro Four Thirds camera and one of the points of distinction from existing Pen models.

The construction makes plenty of use of magnesium alloy, so this diminutive camera is solid and there is a nice feel to the buttons and controls. There is enough grip too, with a lip for your fingers at the front and a rubber ramp on the back to keep your thumb in place.

The controls are relatively conventional in their layout, although you have both a wide selection of buttons and a full touchscreen too. There are two control dials, one surrounding the shutter button and a second on the rear of the top plate.?These controls can be used in tandem to change settings easily, aperture and shutter for example, with the front dial changing exposure compensation by default in most shooting modes.

Housing the electronic viewfinder on top of the camera is a box that looks as though it contains a pentaprism like a true SLR. It doesn’t, of course, but it does give you a hotshoe on the top for mounting accessories. There is no built-in flash, which we feel could be something of an oversight, as this camera offers pretty much everything in one package – except for that elusive flash.

A touch too small

But cramming all these things together on a compact body that’s still small enough to slip into a handbag or large jacket pocket leads to one of the problems that the E-M5 exhibits. The viewfinder is great, but accessing all the controls whilst using the viewfinder is a little more tricky.

On a conventional DSLR this is second nature: you can keep the camera against your face while making adjustments. On the E-M5 this is more difficult because of the close positioning of the controls on the back to your cheeks and the top dial to your eye socket.

If you are using the viewfinder in manual mode and need to move both dials while keeping a check on the exposure meter display, you’ll find you have your thumb in your face as you click through the changes. Of course, you can make these changes using the live view on the display, but we still think it’s a little too tight for those who are going to be using the viewfinder a lot.

However, we much prefer the viewfinder to previous accessory viewfinders on Olympus MFT cameras, as it feels more substantial and complete, and more comfortable to use (with the caveat that changing settings can be a pain). The technology here is the same as the VF-2, so you get a nice sharp 1440k-dot viewfinder with 100 per cent field of view. Changes appear in real time through the viewfinder and you can also view all the menus through it, should you be so inclined.?

The hardware?

Sitting beneath the skin of the new OM-D is a 16-megapixel sensor. It’s a new sensor for Olympus and with this not being final firmware, we can’t judge the quality just yet, but the test shots we’ve taken have produced some great results.?

We’re impressed by the 5-axis image stabilisation that comes with it, however. Having sensor shift stabilisation means that you get the benefits no matter what lens you strap on the front. We tested the E-M5 with Olympus’ new M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-50mm, more on which later.

We found the image stabilisation to be very effective, especially in video. Because we shot the sample footage on a pre-release camera using beta software, we’re not able to show you this footage, but you’ll have to take our word for it when we say it looks nice and smooth, with shake removed from walking to give a much more pleasing result.

The variangle 3-inch OLED display on the rear isn’t as versatile as those that offer a side-swivel arrangement, but it does make it easy to take high and low angle shots, without straining to see the screen. It’s a nice bright screen too, although it attracts fingerprints easily, especially when you start using it as a control mechanism.?

Olympus has designed the screen to control everything. Not only can you make menu selections, but you can also touch to focus or touch to capture. It’s very sensitive and we found that when touch to capture was selected we took a lot of accidental shots. The shutter button is rather sensitive too and doesn’t need much of a press to get it rattling off shots, so during the day we spent with the camera we got a lot of shots of our feet.

The M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-50mm lens

As mentioned, we tested the new OM-D with a new lens. The ED 12-50mm offers manual and powered zoom. The powered zoom (operated by the same zoom ring on the barrel of the lens as manual zoom) is smooth and quiet and we found that it worked really well for video. A manual focus ring then sits on the end of the lens, activated when you select manual focus in the camera, although we found it to be rather indistinct – better for setting up static shots than manual focus pulls in live video.

The interesting thing about the lens is the control. The zoom ring on the barrel is also a switch. Slide it forwards and it will move to powered zoom, pull it back and it turns into manual. It’s a neat way of avoiding a chunky switch, although we did on occasion find ourselves jumping the lens out of powered zoom and into manual by twisting too hard.?

This is a macro lens too. There is an additional button on the barrel, and holding this down will let you engage macro mode with another slide of the zoom ring. It’s a neat all-in-one solution, although we can’t help wishing that the macro focus just worked anyway, without having to engage a separate specific mode.

Features galore

Controlling the Olympus OM-D E-M5 can take place, as we’ve mentioned, through the screen or through the various buttons and dials. The shooting mode dial is nicely placed on the left-shoulder of the camera and we much prefer this arrangement to the menu-based offering of the Sony NEX line.?

But, just as you’ll find on other cameras of this ilk, there are more settings than you probably know what to do with. Not only do you have the usual run of manual controls, and nice extras like horizontal and vertical level indicators, but you also get 9fps shooting and ISOs up to 25600.

On top of those types of features that you’d expect on a mid-range enthusiast DSLR, you then get all the digital magic that compact system cameras have become known for. So you get a full range of Art Filters, easy access to shadow and highlight levels whilst shooting and all sitting on a very fast autofocus system.

There are some clever new additions to this model too. Livebulb is a highlight for us as it takes some of the guesswork out of long exposures. As the name suggests, it is effectively bulb shooting, but with a live view on the display at the back. Where you’d normally be sitting next to a dark screen, waiting for what you’d guess was the right moment to close the shutter, Livebulb will show you. It’s great fun.?

Another new feature is called echo, which is like a ghost trace you can toggle in video. It is very clever, letting you add an effect to a moving subject. It’s seamless and so simple to use that it should be a popular feature.?

But with all these features comes all the controls that go with them and there is a mine of menus to root through to find every detail. If you are familiar with Olympus’ Pen cameras then much of the menu will be familiar and getting around isn’t too hard, but on more than one occasion, we found ourselves diving off into some feature or another and then returning to take a shot, only to find the aspect was still 1:1 or we’d left the levels all out of kilter. At times, the struggle might be undoing some of the changes you make so you can return to normal shooting.

We got about 400 shots from our first battery (which is good going) but bear in mind that this was a pre-production model and not with the final firmware. We found the writing speed to the SD card was rather slow, especially when using some of the more sophisticated features, but Olympus tells us that this will be dependant on the card used and the firmware, so it’s something we’ll have to look at when we get the camera in for a full review.

Verdict:

We leave the Olympus OM-D E-M5 feeling a little overwhelmed. There is so much on offer in this mini DSLR-alike body that it puts many “proper” cameras to shame. But at the same time, there is plenty here to confuse. As a camera designed to appeal to the more advanced photographer, but not foregoing any of the automated fun features, it’s easy to get distracted.?

But that said, once the dust of novelty settles, there are some really useful features here. Livebulb really appeals to us, the image stabilisation looks great and being able to tweak the levels for an instant result has provided us with plenty of fun.?

Of course, during our day with the first Olympus OM-D we haven’t had the chance to judge the quality properly to determine whether this camera truly sets itself apart from its Pen siblings, or from its Lumix cousins.?And can the asking price of ?1129.99 be realistic? Will it give the Sony NEX-7 a run for it’s money? Would you buy the OM-D over a Nikon D7000? Such questions will have to wait until we get a retail camera for a full review.

Until then, the new OM-D certainly looks to offer plenty to get excited about.

Read more:?Olympus OM-D: Five hot features of the E-M5

Tags: Cameras Compact system cameras Olympus Olympus OM-D Olympus E-M5 First look Micro Four Thirds

First Look: Olympus OM-D E-M5 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:37:00 +0000

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