You have never ever Seen Waves Like This Before

Photographer Rachael Talibart was raised in western Essex, on England’s southeast coastline and sometimes went sailing on her behalf daddy’s sailboat into the summer. The woman fascination with the sea proceeded whenever she became a photographer and the woman new series Sirens reflects that. Each image is termed after having a mythological-esque figure. This one is known as Niobe.

As a youngster, Talibart spent weeks each summer on her father’s sailboat, checking out the coastlines of France additionally the Netherlands. It taught her how exactly to realize the rhythms associated with the sea and also to capture images similar to this one, Poseidon Rising.

Because she ended up being always seasick, Talibart spent the majority of her sailing voyages being a youth in cockpit, staring out at the ocean, rather than within the watercraft. That translated into her work on images like Anapos.

Talibart received on her behalf understanding of the sea on her brand new photography show, Sirens. Images into the series receive mythological-esque names like, in this case, Kraken.

The images had been all shot at Newhaven Beach, in East Sussex, beginning in 2016. This image is named after Leviathan, the sea serpent of Jewish mythology.

Talibart started making weekly visits towards the beach, reaching dawn and spending hours on her back, taking photographs regarding the ocean, like this one, entitled Loki.

Talibart used telescopic lenses and an ultra-fast 1,000 frames/second shutter speed to fully capture these sculpture-like pictures. This is named Maelstrom.

Talibart shot all of the pictures in grayscale, but she switched to desaturated color whenever she noticed bursts of green during Storm Brian in 2017. This dramatic shot, Medusa, is certainly one of these photographs.

This dramatic image is called Nanook.

The show has been shortlisted for the Sony World Photography Award and can carry on event during the Sohn Fine Art Gallery in Lenox, Massachusetts in September. Talibart named this image Nyx after the personification of evening in Greek mythology.

Talibart admits to a love/hate relationship aided by the ocean admitting “part of me personally is still half-afraid regarding the ocean.” She known as this picture Oceanus following the river in Greek mythology.

Talibart drew upon the woman youth seafaring experience to help framework and time her photography. This image of the giant revolution is named Echo after a nymph in Greek mythology.

As she did in childhood, Talibart can’t assist but begin to see the shapes of ocean creatures in the waves. This is termed Sedna.

Only with a fast shutter rate can we come across waves in this manner, Talibart says. Typically they move too fast for people to understand their sculptural beauty. This 1 is termed Thetis following the character in Greek mythology.

Sony Xperia XZ2 Review: Great Camera, OK Phone

Have you ever owned a Sony phone? Statistically, the answer is probably no. Sony has dug into the U.S. market with dozens of decent phones as far back as 2002, but it’s never struck gold. Its latest flagship, the new Xperia XZ2, is a perfect example why.

The XZ2 will likely be a blip on most iPhone or Galaxy buyer’s radars because it’s just a little too expensive and hard to find. Every Sony phone has been available somewhere, but I can’t recall one of its phones that’s been available everywhere. It’s often a struggle to buy Sony’s phones in the US, and it latest Xperia (along with its two siblings) are only available unlocked on Amazon and from Best Buy. They also only work on AT&T and T-Mobile. Sprint and Verizon subscribers, you’re out of luck.

Sony

The good news is that if you do use T-Mobile or AT&T, this is a speedy, capable Android phone that you can use on either carrier freely (and travel with worldwide) since it’s not locked to any single network. The bad news is that it’s hardly your best choice.

Baby Got Back

Like nearly every Sony Xperia smartphone for the past five years (and what seems like every major smartphone in 2018), the XZ2 is a waterproof glass sandwich with smooth aluminum oozing out the sides. This year, it’s practically Double Stuf’d, too. The Gorilla Glass back bows toward the middle, making it one of the thickest high-end phones, at the waist, you can buy. It’s about 11mm, or roughly as thick as an iPhone 4, if you can remember that far back.

It’s noticeably fatter than a OnePlus 6 with a case and is nowhere near as slim as the LG G7 and Galaxy S9 this year. Sony says its design is meant to fit “perfectly in your hand,” but once you put a case on it (and you probably should), it feels like a real handful.

There doesn’t appear to be any important technological reason for the bulge, but dead center at its thickest point is Sony’s new rear fingerprint sensor, which sits lower than it does on many phones. Previous Xperia phones have had the fingerprint sensor built into the power button on the side, which was a unique solution, but worked pretty well. Now, it’s easy to accidentally place your finger an inch too high and smudge up the equally round camera instead of unlocking your phone. Sigh.

Sony

Sony’s power button and volume toggle are both on the right side with equally odd (though very Sony) placement. It took a couple days to get used to the unique arrangement, but eventually my brain adapted. The phone has a nice fingerprint resistant coating on it, but it’s also rather slippery to hold. Because only the middle of the phone touches a surface when you set it down, the XZ2 is prone to diving off the arms of couches as well.

The speakers on the Xperia XZ2 are decent and don’t distort as much as some smartphones, though Sony’s weird new “Dynamic Vibration” feature that vibrates the phone to add immersion to songs is a ridiculous gimmick. You’ll also want to invest in some Bluetooth headphones because there is no 3.5mm audio jack. Sony includes a USB-C headphone adapter, but who wants to fiddle around with dongles every day?

No Notch-sense

I didn’t think I’d see a notchless high-end phone this year, but surprisingly, the XZ2 has a standard 5.7-inch LCD screen. It’s a bit taller than some, but there is no cutout up top. Instead, it’s a pleasant, familiar rectangle with a little space on the top and bottom. It looks untrendy, but works wonderfully. The LCD only packs a 1080p pixel resolution, but much like the OnePlus 6, those pixels look stellar.

Since it runs Google’s new Android Oreo operating system, the menus also look modern. Sony has mostly abandoned a lot of its custom interface designs, and that’s good news for us, and will hopefully enable this Xperia to get more frequent security and feature updates.

Like a high-tech Twinkie, the inside of the plump Xperia is filled with a cutting-edge Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor (they don’t come faster this year), 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal file storage—upgradeable if you take advantage of the included MicroSD slot. The battery capacity is pretty standard at 3,180mAh, and makes it through a day just fine, but you’ll need to charge it at bedtime every night. Sony has included battery health features that smartly charge the device slowly to avoid battery degradation, and the emergency power saving modes work quite well, though I still wish these were unnecessary.

Kickass Camera

Sony knows how to make a good camera, and was evident from the second I started snapping pics. The single 19-megapixel rear camera has a built-in manual mode for photo nuts, and its auto mode is stellar, especially with close-up shots. I put the camera head-to-head against the iPhone X and OnePlus 6. The XZ2 didn’t win all the time, but it did give both cameras a run for their money in different lighting conditions.

Sony’s camera is fast and especially good at registering details like leaves or the bricks in buildings in outdoor shots, and doesn’t crush shadows too badly. Close-up shots of flowers and even a metal fence, looked incredibly vibrant and natural in sunlight and other lighting conditions.

The camera did sometimes blow out the beautiful blue sky in favor of adding color to plants and other objects in a shot, but not to a detrimental degree. At night it was the only camera that was able to register brightly lit buildings and the beautiful dark blue night sky without fudging up one or the other.

The 5-megapixel selfie cam really should pack a few more megapixels in 2018, but takes decent shots, as well. Video looked pretty stable and you can record 4K/30p with 10-bit HDR color if you wish.

Sony didn’t include a second rear camera for zooming or portrait shots, but I can’t say I missed it much.

Skip the Venti—Try the Tall Instead

Put all the pieces together and you have a powerful, if somewhat pudgy, 5.7-inch waterproof Android phone with passable battery life, and a killer camera.

You’ll love this phone if someone gifts it to you. If you’re putting your own dollars down though, the fantastic camera doesn’t quite level the playing field against the similarly powerful Galaxy S9, LG G7 ThinQ, or (much cheaper) OnePlus 6, which all come with bonuses that the $800 standard Xperia XZ2 just doesn’t have.

If you’re still reading, I suggest you check out Sony’s nearly-identical Xperia XZ2 Compact (also available on Amazon and Best Buy). I haven’t had the chance to fully test the Compact first-hand, but it packs the same internals inside a smaller 5.3-inch frame with a plastic back. If you’re still clinging to an old iPhone SE, or if every Android phone feels too big for your hands, the $650 Compact is one-of-a-kind.

Which is also to say that the standard Xperia XZ2 fails make a compelling case for itself. While it’s a good phone, in a year when there are so many great Android handsets to pick from, Sony’s options will likely leave it sitting on the sidelines for yet another season.

Seakeeper’s Super Spinning System Keeps Ships Stable at Sea

The sun has burned through the early morning marine layer, and the breeze is gentle and warm enough for me to abandon my hoodie. It looks like a perfect day to head out onto the Pacific Ocean. But as soon as we exit the harbor walls at Marina Del Rey, near Los Angeles, the 29-foot sport-fishing boat starts to heave.

“We have some great waves out here today,” says Kelsey Albina, one of my guides for the day. I’m glad I haven’t had lunch yet, I think, as we thrust through waves, rolling from side to side. Then the captain taps a touchscreen on the helm. Like a movie set at lunch time, everything seems to freeze. The swaying stops. I can stand again without clutching the railing. The boat still rocks gently front to back as it crests and descends each wave, but the violence of a moment ago is gone.

I walk steadily to the back of the boat and look under a deck hatch to see the device responsible. In what would have been empty, or storage space, a white metal version of a beach ball sits suspended in a cradle. Inside that, a 500-pound, doughnut-shaped flywheel is spinning in a vacuum, clocking 8,450 revolutions every minute. This gyroscope, about the size of a large microwave, is keeping the large boat stable—a boon for sailors (like me) who don’t have their sea legs yet. This is the Seakeeper, made by the company of the same name.

Inside what looks like a beach ball, a 500-pound, donut-shaped flywheel spins in a vacuum, clocking 8,450 revolutions every minute to counteract the force of the waves.

Seakeeper Inc.

Any spinning object works as a gyroscope, moving to counteract any force that tries to change its orientation. That’s how a spinning top stays upright, even when flicked. Such freaky physics makes gyros ideal for stabilizing satellites or, in miniature, for guidance on ships and missiles, where they provide navigation systems with a steady frame of reference. The designer of the 1967 Gryo-X used one to make the narrow vehicle stand on two wheels. The Gyrowheel offered the kids of 2011 a way to ride a bike without training wheels. (You won’t find either for sale today.)

Here, Seakeeper’s gyro serves to keep things steady on the high seas. As the boat rolls left or right, the gyro swings forward and backward in that cradle. That delivers torque, or rotational force, to the port or starboard, counteracting the motion of the entire boat. (You can try an experiment for yourself—sit on a swivel chair and hold a spinning bike wheel in front of you, like these folks at the University of Texas.)

A braking mechanism uses accelerometers to monitor the gyro’s swivel speed and slows it down in especially rough seas to stop it slamming from side to side. “We synchronize the gyro with the waves so we get a nice, stable, corrective force,” says Nick Troche, Seakeeper’s manager of new product development.

A couple of black hoses pipe cold seawater through a heat exchanger to keep the bearings on the flywheel cool. The whole thing can be bolted or even glued into place in a boat made of wood, metal, or fiberglass. The Maryland-based company has sold about 6,000 units, both as retrofits to existing boats and as factory-installed options on new vessels. The flywheels come in various sizes for monohull boats (sorry, no catamarans) from 25 feet to more than 85 feet long. The unit can slot into any spare space under the floor or in a locker; it doesn’t even have to be on the centerline of the boat to work. It takes about 45 minutes to spin the flywheel up to working speed, but once it’s going, you can leave it running for days, particularly if the boat is hooked up to shore power, so it won’t drain the boat’s batteries.

Staying level might, however, drain your bank account: Seakepeer’s system costs at least $22,000, and runs up to $200,000, depending on size. But if you can afford a boat, you can likely afford this thing. Troche’s team is working to make smaller and cheaper versions for shorter boats.

Other approaches to stabilize boats have relied on a kind of active suspension, like Velodyne Marine’s Martini 1.5, designed to make high-speed boating safer, which could be crucial in search-and-rescue operations. (Its creator is Dave Hall, the guy who made the first lidar for self-driving cars.)

As I relax into enjoying the now stabilized boat ride, I wonder who Seakeeper’s customers are. For anyone who takes pride in their boating skills, it seems like cheating. But pretty much everyone who tries it likes it, says Berkeley Andrews, who manages West Coast sales for Seakeeper. “It changes the game for everyone on the boat, as far as comfort, safety, and the performance of the vessel,” he says. “Fatigue is a big thing in boating, and people make mistakes or get sick.”

Getting rid of the extra sway makes things more comfortable for even the most experienced crews, as well as newbies. As one of the latter, I can confirm boating is more fun when you’re not queasy.