The ViewDock Gen2 is a mini PC that combines Ryzen-powered performance with a built-in display, wireless charging, and a full I/O in a compact vertical design.
Category: Computing, Consumer Tech, Technology
Tags: Kickstarter, Mini-PC, Interface, Display, All-in-one, Dock
Elon Musk has previously promised the arrival of fully autonomous Teslas and ultrafast Hyperloop transport – both of which are yet to materialize. For his next trick, the galaxy's richest earthling plans to build an enormous chip manufacturing plant that will positively dwarf every other such facility on the planet.
Category: AI and Humanoids, Technology
Tags: Tesla, SpaceX, Elon Musk, Artificial Intelligence, Chips, Manufacturing
The last of Christie’s four auctions of the Jim Irsay Collection has closed, setting 28 new world record prices, most notably the largest memorabilia auction in history (US$94.5 million), the first two guitars to sell for more than $10 million (here and here), the world’s most expensive trumpet, the world’s most expensive saxophone, the world’s most expensive drum kit (twice), the world's most expensive music concert poster and a near miss on the world’s most expensive piano. In total, the sale included nine of the top 21 guitars ever sold at auction.
Category: Collectibles, Technology
This off-grid cabin-style tiny house is seriously small, with a floorspace of just 20 sq m (215 sq ft). However, despite its compact dimensions, it has been expertly designed to provide everything needed for a short stay.
Category: Tiny Houses, Outdoors
Tags: Building and Construction, Tiny Footprint, Micro-House, House, Home
Mad-as-a-hatter British inventor Colin Furze recently set out to create a real-life version of the hoverboard from Back to the Future II. Technically, he failed. But what he built along the way has its own considerable merit: a double-deck skateboard where the top platform floats above the lower one through the repulsive force of neodymium magnets.
Category: Urban Transport, Transport
Tags: Skateboard, Hoverboard, Experimental, Magnetism, YouTube, DIY, Suspension
Resembling something more like green grapes with thicker and darker skin, the kiwiberry may be one of the healthiest and most underrated fruits around. It's also ancient, dating back more than 20 million years. But until the last century or so, they weren't even considered a valuable fruit – instead, their ornamental vines and flowers were the selling point.
Category: History, Technology
Tags: Crops, Plants, Commercial, Discovered, Market, Historic, World Trade
The first shop you encounter at the entrance of the camera shop mall. From the street entrance, you might assume this was it, until you turned around and saw the escalator up to another floor.
iPhone 17 Pro Max | F1.8 | 1/129 sec | ISO 64
Photo: Mathew Anderson
Cameras and our photography give us a way to share a timeless window into someone else's world.
This is why I take every opportunity I can get to travel around the world, bring my camera(s) with me, and find someone or something that deserves that timeless capture. In that spirit, this week I visited family in China and brought my new iPhone 17 Pro Max and a very capable OM-1 Mark II with a versatile 12-100mm lens. I have been to China several times over the years, and I would like to share with you some of those experiences through my photography.
As DPReview is all about digital photography, it made sense to hunt down some actual camera stores. I arrived in Hong Kong, the perfect place to find one, and began my search in a dense and bustling central shopping district called Mong Kok.
Just outside the camera store mall, as you look toward the first visible intersection.
iPhone 17 Pro Max | F1.8 | 1/1812 sec | ISO 100
Photo: Mathew Anderson
Another general view of the area outside the camera store mall. The mall entrance is kitty corner across the street.
iPhone 17 Pro Max | F1.8 | 1/1812 sec | ISO 100
Photo: Mathew Anderson
The closest analogy we have in the United States is in select parts of downtown New York and, to a lesser extent, in Chicago, complete with labyrinthine subway networks (though they're much cleaner and more modern in most Asian cities, from my experience). Take a stroll around SoHo in New York, increase the density further by 2-3x or so in storefronts, rearrange it a bit haphazardly with crowded alleyways of street vendors and random staircases leading to unknown places, and you have what I am about to show you today.
"Hidden among the storefronts shown above is one of the largest camera 'malls' in all of China."This arrangement is at its peak in Hong Kong's central business districts. Hidden among the storefronts shown above is one of the largest camera 'malls' in all of China. I was actually fooled by the first store I came across on the main level. I walked up, and admit, I was a bit disappointed, saying to myself, "This is it? My community is not going to be very impressed." I then heard a baby cry behind me. I turned my head, and there was a non-assuming escalator up to what felt like some sort of attic storage space.
It was no attic storage space.
An escalator leading up to the second floor of the camera store mall. You can see some of the shops to the right.
iPhone 17 Pro Max | F1.8 | 1/100 sec | ISO 250
Photo: Mathew Anderson
What's interesting about China (and many eastern Asian cities) is that stores aren't spread out and megalithic like your typical United States suburban Walmart or Target. Parking spaces are at a premium, if they exist at all, and storefronts are often obscured by other storefronts. You may even need to go through someone else's store to get to an entirely separate small shop in the back. It's not at all clear where you entered from, and more often than not, it's an obscure exit somewhere else that you leave from.
Since space is at a premium, shops must compete for attention and ease of access on every single level. What you see in the photos below was replicated across multiple interconnected coordinators on five different levels (possibly more, as I didn't have time to explore it all, and of course, the path up to the next level is somewhere else entirely).
The camera store mall had a labyrinthine, hall-like nature. Here is one such hallway with a shop sign indicating an entrance to the left.
iPhone 17 Pro Max | F1.8 | 1/555 sec | ISO 100
Photo: Mathew Anderson
One of the more interesting hallway displays to promote the associated camera store.
iPhone 17 Pro Max | F1.8 | 1/100 sec | ISO 64
Photo: Mathew Anderson
Nearly every modern camera brand, and then some, were present, with the notable exception of OM System. I walked into the next shop and asked the clerk if they had any OM-1's around. He looked up, his eyes widening for a brief moment as he realized I wasn't his typical customer, and asked me in quite fluent English, "Would you care for a Leica or Kodak?", as he had no OMs. I got him to eventually point me down a corridor that led to more shops (and more corridors), but no OM cameras in sight.
"Especially in places like this camera mall, they will bargain down to the bottom of the barrel if it means your business."Business competition is fierce in China. There are many boba tea shops, hair stylists, and taxi drivers (I paid just $0.53 USD for a 10-minute trip across town in a mainland city a few days after this trip to Hong Kong). They don't want to send you to the next shop that sells nearly the same equipment as their own. Especially in places like this camera mall, they will bargain down to the bottom of the barrel if it means your business.
A camera store in the mall.
iPhone 17 Pro Max | F1.8 | 1/235 sec | ISO 80
Photo: Mathew Anderson
A camera store in the mall.
iPhone 17 Pro Max | F1.8 | 1/100 sec | ISO 125
Photo: Mathew Anderson
A camera store in the mall.
iPhone 7 Pro Max | F1.8 | 1/121 sec | ISO 64
Photo: Mathew Anderson
I nearly ended up buying a Fujifilm X100VI, which was in abundance at several shops. Not only is it a compact camera, perfect for my immediate needs, but it's simply gorgeous. (The OM-1 Mark II and 12-100mm lens is an amazing camera, but it's somewhat bulky for my fast-and-furious travels). I love how Fujifilm has built a sleek, metallic retro design and would love to own one just for the sake of it. I'm in the area for the next few days, so I suppose there's still time to change my mind...
I hope you enjoyed this brief glimpse into the Chinese camera store scene, and would love to know what you think of the experience in the comments below.
Sample galleryThis widget is not optimized for RSS feed readers. Click here to open it in a new browser window / tab.The US Navy has tapped Anduril's Dive-XL autonomous submarine for its Combat Autonomous Maritime Platform (CAMP) project, which aims at rapidly develop a fleet of underwater motherships capable of deploying smaller autonomous vehicles and torpedoes.
Category: Military, Engineering, Technology
Tags: Anduril, Submarine, Autonomous, US Navy
Storm chasing, a branch of photography that requires tenacity and perseverance in order to capture lightning strikes, was something I gave all of 20 minutes to before losing interest.
Category: Photography, Consumer Tech, Technology
Tags: Kickstarter, Lightning, Weather
Raising a family in a tiny house typically means you'll be making some serious compromises on privacy and space. The Starling tackles these challenges with a flexible layout that squeezes in three sleeping areas and a multipurpose living area.
Category: Tiny Houses, Outdoors
Tags: Building and Construction, Tiny Footprint, Micro-House, House, Home
This one’s big. Honda has just announced that it's pulling the plug on one of its most aspirational projects: the 0 series electric vehicles (EV). But the 0 SUV and saloon are not the only ones down the chute; the Acura RSX has also been dropped from the Japanese carmaker’s plans.
Category: Automotive, Transport
Tags: Honda, Electric Vehicles, Acura, Toyota, Ford, Hyundai, Kia
Ever looked at a project that seemed so out there and fantastical you thought, "That will never materialize beyond pretty computer renderings on my touchscreen?" We do so multiple times on any given week, but some such projects actually do make it to the real world. The nimble, high-speed Super Sub creator U-Boat Worx calls the fastest, most advanced private sub ever built arrives as the latest. Not only has this impressive subaquatic projectile made it to production, it's officially on its way to the first buyer, giving a fortunate fractional-percenter what's sure to be an addictive, highly immersive new hobby.
Tags: U-Boat Worx, Submarine, Luxury
Do you know that feeling of coming home exhausted after a long day at work, and the last thing you want to do is neatly fold your clothes? So instead, they just pile up on a chair. And even though a lot of people might be embarrassed to admit it, let’s be honest: most of us do this. And actually, it might not be as bad a habit as it seems at first.
Category: Around The Home, Consumer Tech, Technology
Tags: Kickstarter, Laundry, Chair, Furniture, Clothing, Inventors
The Sony World Photography Awards competition has been attracting immensely talented creatives from across the globe since 2008, and this year's national and regional winners are no exception.
Category: Photography, Consumer Tech, Technology
Nvidia's DLSS is a clutch of machine learning-powered image rendering technologies that come in handy for boosting the frame rate in your games and improving lighting and image quality. They use the processing power of graphics cards to make this happen on your computer.
Category: Games, Consumer Tech, Technology
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, NVIDIA, Graphics, Real-time rendering, Gaming
Laser weapons have become super portable. Defense and security company NUBURU's Lyocon subsidiary has adapted industrial laser technology to create an anti-drone laser weapon small and light enough to fit on an infantry rifle.
Category: Military, Engineering, Technology
Tags: drones, Laser weapon, Guns, Rifle, Drone security
CP+ 2026 is in the rearview, but there are still aspects of the crew's experience there to talk about. Mitchell and Abby discuss their first time getting to experience some aspects of the photo culture at the show and in Japan, and go deeper on what it was like to shop at one of the biggest camera stores out there. Plus, Abby reveals whether she eventually went back and got the other film camera she had her eye on. (Spoiler: not exactly, but... well, you'll see.)
We're still hard at work on writing up the interviews we carried out with manufacturers at the show, so keep an eye out for those over the coming weeks. If you want to catch up on the rest of our show coverage, check out our show page.
It took nature millions of years to create intelligent, adaptive species. Researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois are using AI to evolve robots in minutes. The result is a robot that is agile, highly adaptive, and technically indestructible.
Category: Robotics, Engineering, Technology
Tags: Northwestern University, Artificial Intelligence, adaptive
A team of former Tesla engineers is working on a specialized fitness tracker that's focused on helping you build muscle at the gym.
Category: Wearables, Consumer Tech, Technology
The automotive world is in a constant state of change. Electrification is the new norm, with most advancements typically focused on new EVs. But every now and then, a new project pops up that completely disregards the norms … and what if it could have 18 cylinders? Even better!
Category: Automotive, Transport
Tags: Hypercar, Coachbuilt, Italy, Engine Technologies, Crazy
