SnapperTalk

The independent, nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists has released the Spring 2005 edition of its magazine Dangerous Assignments in PDF form, which includes reports from Zimbabwe, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Chechnya and the Phillipines, amongst other articles. Recently the CPJ released its guide to reporting in dangerous situations in a new Arabic edition. The CPJ conveniently makes most of its publications available in PDF form.

Dangerous Assignments - Spring 2005 edition [PDF]
Dangerous Assignments - Back Issues

On Assignment: A Guide to Reporting in Dangerous Situations [English edition - PDF]
On Assignment: A Guide to Reporting in Dangerous Situations [New Arabic edition - PDF]

Attacks on the Press in 2004
Cases of Attacks on the Press in 2005

Conflict in Iraq - News, Resources and Information

It appears that 6 to 5000mm f1.0 zoom lens weighing 1 gram we’ve all been waiting for may be on the horizon…

Lens five times thinner than paper

Whatever your views on George Galloway, his appearance before the U.S. Senate sub-committee on investigations into the Oil-for-Food scandal on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 contained a powerful speech and was definitely one of the more entertaining pieces of television in recent years, with the New York Post summing it up tabloid-style in the headline “BRIT FRIES SENATORS IN OIL”. In case you missed it, here it is….

Galloway v the U.S. Senate opening statement transcript
Galloway v the U.S. Senate full hearing audio (mp3 download) [5.4mb]
Galloway v the U.S. Senate full hearing video (realplayer download) [12mb]

For the counter-argument, nemesis Christopher Hitchens has this article in the Weekly Standard.

The USB key, flash drive, or thumbdrive as they are sometimes called, has become one of the most ubiquitous gadgets around. No wonder - it’s versatility enables it to be used for sharing files between virtually any computer on any operating system, backing up files, transferring photos, running applications directly from the disk, booting whole operating systems… the list is endless.
With so many different models out there, manufacturers try to differentiate their product from the next by having features such as: rugged enclosures, built-in MP3 players, fingerprint recognition, capacities up to 8GB, and extra-high-speed chip memory. Most these days utilise USB 2.0, but even so there are big speed differences between them, with the best equalling that of USB 2.0 hard drives. Two recent reviews compare the different high-speed models out there….

Ars Technica USB 2.0 Flash drive roundup
Tom’s Hardware high-speed USB Flash drive comparison

There’s also an older more general review of flash drives in this c|net article

You may have already heard but legendary AP photojournalist, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and all-round great guy Horst Faas, 72, sadly fell ill whilst in Vietnam for the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war and is currently paralysed from the chest down. If you don’t know him, Newseum has interesting audio interviews with him on the subject of combat photography here. The U.S. National Press Photographers Association has an article containing a recent email from Horst in which he says he is in positive spirits and plans to continue his work on various book and exhibition projects when he returns from hospital in Bangkok to Bavaria. My thoughts and best wishes for a full recovery go out to a unique and humble man.

I was pointed to an old article in The Digital Journalist written by James Colburn summing up how photographers are portrayed in the movies and on television. It’s quite funny with revealing truths such as:

“All photographers wear khaki vests. All of the time. Photographers never put anything in the pockets of their khaki vests”

“All male photographers are babe magnets no matter how ugly, dirty, sweaty or foul-mouthed they may be. All of the women attracted to male photographers are beautiful. If something happens to “their” photographer they will leave their jobs and their families to find and rescue him”

“Every laptop has a built-in satellite phone with instant high-speed Internet access and picture transmission capabilities. These laptops have built-in C41 processing machines and ultra high-resolution film scanners. These laptops fold up to the size of a deck of cards and fit neatly into one of the pockets of the photographers’ khaki vest”

How true, how true….

Epson has announced a line of professional photo printers with a new printing-ink technology called UltraChrome K3 that uses an 8-colour inkset. Initial reports suggest these printers produce some of the best results yet from inkjet printers. The Epson Stylus Photo R2400 is the smallest, producing prints up to 13″ wide and is expected to retail for $850, and will be joined by the increasingly larger format 4800, 7800 and 9800 models. The printers have both USB 2.0 and Firewire interfaces.

Epson’s page for the Stylus Photo R2400
Luminous Landscape preview of UltraChrome K3 technology
Digital Outback Photo preview of UltraChrome K3 technology
Joseph Holmes notes on UltraChrome K3 printers
photo-i article on the Stylus Photo R2400

Inmarsat is currently conducting in-orbit tests of its recently-launched “Inmarsat-4 F1 satellite” located above the Indian Ocean (see a flash video of the launch). The Inmarsat-4 satellites herald in a new era of advanced satellite communications, with new satphone units and service availability expected in late 2005.

The new units will have capabilities far beyond today’s current offerings and would seem to combine the advantages (such as voice capability) of today’s GAN units such as the Thrane & Thrane M4, with those of R-BGANs, and offer speeds up to 432 kbps - 3 times that of existing R-BGANs.

The satellites themselves offer advanced features such as:

• IP packet-switched data services:

Up to 432 kbps data speeds
Background class - with variable data rates depending on demand
Streaming class - with guaranteed data rates

• Circuit-switched services:

Basic telephony (4kbit/s toll quality)
Data (64kbit/s ISDN)
Multimedia (64kbit/s, H.324/m)
Supplementary services (e.g. call forwarding)
Short Messaging Services (SMS)
Voicemail
Pre-pay

Satphone retailer GMPCS has lots of information on the new satphone hardware - with units being designed by Hughes, Thrane & Thrane, Addvalue and Nera. The satphones look well-designed and offer (depending on model) Ethernet, USB, 802.11 WiFi, ISDN and Bluetooth interfaces, SIM card security, data and voice capability including ISDN voice and data, and data speeds up to 432 kbps. Capabilities - and detailed specs via PDF downloads - for the new satphones are here:

Hughes HNS 9201 BGAN Satellite IP Modem Unit
Addvalue Wideye Sabre I Satellite Modem
Thrane & Thrane Explorer™ 500
Nera WorldPro 1000

Coverage will be provided by two satellites - the F1 over the Indian Ocean covering Europe, Africa and the Middle-East, and the F2 providing coverage of the Americas. Coverage in the Americas is due to commence in Q1 2006 after the launch of the second satellite. Details can be seen on this coverage map.

NOTE TO EXISTING SATPHONE USERS: The F-1 satellite goes live on May 28 2005 - This will entail a brief service outage in the IOR across all Inmarsat services (excluding RBGAN) and all Land Earth Stations of between 30 minutes and 2 hours starting at 20:00 GMT, after which service should seamlessly and automatically be restored.

If you’re looking for information on GSM roaming in different countries, the following site has a wealth of information such as:

Which countries your GSM roaming phone will work in.
Which roaming partners a network has agreements with.
What networks there are in different countries.
What services are available on different networks.
Which GSM frequencies are used in different countries.
Coverage map information for different countries.

GSM Association roaming information page