I gave in to temptation this week and bought myself a little regalo. It’s one of my weaknesses: cameras. I’ve always wanted a long-zoom camera with full manual control, and in fact my first digital camera was a Minolta Dimage 5, which had a 7x zoom but was unsatisfactory in several ways (including awkward size and shape; focusing difficulties; short battery life; bad low-light handling; too much blur when using the zoom). Still, I managed to get lots of good photos out of it.

My priorities then shifted to portability above all else, and I moved on to a really small camera with long battery life — the Canon S410. It only has a 3x zoom but takes fantastic photos.

Last year Canon came out with the S2 IS, a new series of “semi-compact” long-zoom cameras with optical image stabilization (its competitor from Sony has almost identical specs, but I wouldn’t buy a Sony still camera). The image stabilization is the key to long-zooming, and also to non-flash low-light shooting. Somehow I managed to hold off on buying this 12x beauty last year.

Canon just released the successor to this camera, the S3 IS. And that camera is my new baby (of course I’ll still use the old S410 baby when I want to be able to carry a camera in my pocket).

The zoom is incredible — I can’t believe the quality they can squeeze out of such a small CCD! Obviously an SLR would be better, quality-wise, but there’s no way I’m going to carry around a heavy SLR and a 432mm lens… The “S IS” series from Canon strikes a good balance of portability against zoom quality. And (in the tests I’ve seen, for example Sony DSC-H1 versus the S2 IS) the Canons give the sharpest zoomed pictures (tripod-mounted or hand-held) of the entire set of cameras competing in this space.

To give you an idea, here’s a quick shot I took on the way home from the store. In the full-resolution (6 megapixel) version of the bottom photo you can easily read license plates, street signs, etc.:

Looking along rue Rachel from Parc Jeanne-Mance, fully zoomed out.

Looking along rue Rachel, fully zoomed in. This image is the bit at the very centre of the top photo… and blur-free!

The Flybook is a possible winner of the small but hot category for this Christmas… I’m certainly not getting one, but I might consider it when the price for something this complete and portable drops to about half what it is now. I’m quite happy with my iBook, which costs 40% of the Flybook’s price and is, well, pretty darn good. But this new machine certainly is sexy looking and has great connectivity.

Here’s a feel-good story for a cold, grey day… Turns out computers don’t have to be all about identity theft, pornography and piracy… The gang at the MIT Media Lab have a new initiative to develop low-cost laptops ($100 or less) for children in developing countries. They’re simple and innovative machines running Linux, and will be super low-power. Ever tried those wind-up flashlights and radios? They’re fun, and that’s going to be a power option for these “OLPC” machines. They’re aiming to obtain 100 minutes of use from one minute of hand-cranking!

A key factor will be how they are used — whether computers really improve education entirely depends on how they are used, in conjunction with other forms of teaching.

So — I think this is great, but at the same time it’s important to note that, according to UNICEF’s The State of the World’s Children 2005, only 58% of people in the world have adequate sanitation (35% in the least developed countries), and 27% of children under 5 in the world are either moderately or severely underweight (36% in the least developed countries and 46% in South Asia!).

Over 1 billion children are being denied a protected/healthy upbringing (as defined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child). I’m not taking away from Negroponte and the MIT gang’s work at all — frankly I think it’s brilliant and I’d like to see more computer-industry folks looking beyond the short-term, beyond their profit margins. But…let’s not forget that children have even more essential rights than access to a laptop computer and the Internet!

We need to Make Poverty History, and fight the diseases, like HIV/AIDS, that are ravaging the poorest parts of the world. We are rich, and I feel we are obligated to help — personally giving to charity out of our own pockets, but also governmentally and corporately. And if our governments and corporations are not doing enough, we must tell them we want more done! Canada (and other industrialized countries) should fulfill their obligations by setting aside 0.7% of their GNPs for foreign aid (currently Canada, which invented the 0.7% figure in 1969’s Pearson Commission, has back-slid and gives about 0.25%). Write your MP! If you’re from another country, check your country’s report card (preliminary 2004 data here), get involved and write to your leaders.

Stephen Lewis points out that fighting HIV/AIDS is, in large part, a battle of education. So — back to the original topic — perhaps these laptop computers, bringing hope of better information access to sub-Saharan Africa (for example), could be one part of the solution? Somebody has to pay for them, though, and that’s where we all, individually and collectively, have a role to play…