Stories about: Zi

Wouldn't you like to have your very own gofer dedicated to doing all the menial tasks you hate? That's a big part of the appeal of the iPhone 4S: Siri, the voice-driven virtual assistant, turns anyone with a couple hundred bucks into a CEO attended by a full-time lackey. But can you get the same kind of slavish devotion from an Android phone?

Google will offer a Google+ app for the iPad and iPod Touch "soon," a company product manager said today.

In a stunning example of the left hand of government not knowing what the right hand is doing, a representative from the U.S. Department of Justice reminded a Senate subcommittee today that his agency wants to require wireless carriers to keep records of users' location and web sites they access on their smartphones.

When Cisco recently discontinued the Flip pocket camera products it left many fans of the pocket-sized device disappointed. While numerous users are happy to shoot video with smartphones, Flips were valuable because they were easy to carry, shot high-definition video and could be stabilized via a tripod mount. Although Cisco's exiting that market, there are still other handheld digital video cameras from Kodak, Creative, Sanyo and Sony have similar features and could be contenders to ultimately replace the Flip. These handheld video cameras have USB arms that plug into laptops for recharging, and software to easily upload videos to websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Picasa.

There I was at the San Francisco Giants game the other evening, when my buddy decided to do something a bit silly -- but memorable -- and handed me his little Flip camera. I'm not going to share the YouTube link, but the video is pretty good, considering the lighting was weird and it was a very chaotic environment. There's no way that I would have done nearly as well with my iPhone.

The Flip MinoHD 8GB is a flash memory-based pocket camcorder aimed at bloggers and casual videographers. Highlights include 720p recording, image stabilisation, a HDMI port and inbuilt editing software.

Panasonic unveiled a slew of new Lumix cameras just last week, but the company wasn't quite done with its winter camera and camcorder announcements.

It may be thin and light--even for a pocket camcorder--but the ultraslim Toshiba Camileo S20 packs more features into its frame than any high-definition pocket camcorder we've tested to date.

With ever-improving sensors, on-board editing tools, and wireless sharing features, smartphones are a popular option for capturing video on the go. But not all smartphone camcorders are created equal: In my head-to-head tests, I found that certain phones handled motion more skillfully than others, some performed better in dim lighting while others floundered, and some produced noticeable pixelation in my test shoots.

Cisco finally announced the newest member of its Flip family, the Flip Slide HD. This newest Flip camcorder sports a three-inch resistive touchscreen for viewing your home flicks as well as 720p video, and 16GB of storage for recording up to four hours of video.