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If there’s one thing in your house that you thought they’d never computerize, would it be a tap? Well, the guys at iHome have decided that a touchscreen tap with face recognition is the future in household gadgetry. I have to admit, this is pretty cool. The SmartFaucet recognises your face and then remembers exactly what water temperature and pressure you like. And if you get bored while you soak? Just use SmartFaucet to catch up on a few emails or find out how your calendar’s shaping up for the weekend.

[Electricpig]

Reevoo is pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Reevoo Consumer Choice Awards! The winning products were found from over half a million reviews written by confirmed purchasers up to 1st April 2009. There were some surprise winners including the £16 Tesco Value MC-907 Hi-Fi which amazed everyone to take gold in the Hi-Fi category.

Big winners included Sony, who were awarded gold and silver in the television category, and TomTom with a clean sweep in the sat nav category. Nikon took the prize for best digital camera and Canon won gold in the camcorder category.  UK-based vacuum cleaner manufacturer Numatic won an impressive silver award for its Hetty vacuum cleaner.

Apple were gold winners the laptop category, but only managed a bronze in the MP3 and iPod category. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the iPhone failed to make the top three in the mobile phone category, with Nokia winning gold and bronze and Samsung taking silver.

For the full details, check out www.reevoo.com/awards or check out the table below.

Winners:

Value for money awards:

How annoying is changing phones and having to get all your contacts onto your new handset? Moving all your contacts onto your phone memory or SIM, taking phones apart, swapping SIMS (if your new handset’s not locked), yadda yadda. It’s got a lot quicker with the use of software and a computer but don’t you just wish it could be instant? Well now, thanks to this little gadget, it is. The Instant Cell Phone Backup just plugs into your old phone and at the touch of a button, all your contacts are stored, ready to be loaded onto your new handset.

Then just plug it into your new handset, use the aforementioned magic button and you’re done. In the words of Aleksandr the meerkat “simples”.

Pick one up for £34.00/$49.95

Yesterday we looked at choosing your location when taking photos of people, today we’re going to look at how to work with the people themselves to get the best out of your camera.

The Subject:

This is the hard part - Trying to get your subject to relax, look natural and, if they’re a tiny tearaway, getting them to put down the Tonka truck, stop splashing in the paddling pool or pretending they’re the neighbourhood’s local Jedi.

Children:
As I mentioned earlier, taking the photo in surroundings that match your subject is very important. If your grandchild is playing on the swings photograph him playing there. If they’re camera shy make a game of it and try to distract them. For example don’t tell them you are trying to take a photo of them, tell them you are trying to take a photo of the person that can swing the highest on the swings. That way you’re guaranteed a memorable action shot.

Adults:
Adults are easier because they don’t have so much of a desire to run rampant but they’re also harder because they are likely to be more conscious of being photographed.
I find it is definitely best to know your subject beforehand so that you can help them relax by talking to them about their interests. If it’s a relative this should be easy.
Start with a simple setup, place a chair perpendicular to your camera and then have your subject sit in the chair and turn their head, not their body, towards the camera. Clear and simple instructions like this will help your subject feel confident and not concerned about what they should be doing.

Take a few photos like this and explain the procedure is mainly to help you set up and check the lighting. At this stage you should tell them it doesn’t matter how they pose and you will end up with a good starting photo. Use your LCD screen and show them. The good start will help them relax.

From here on it’s up to you and your subject. Posing someone and at the same time helping them look natural is extremely hard. The best results will come naturally from a relaxed subject and a relaxed you! Whatever you do, don’t ’sneak’ shots. Your subject will likely be horrified you took a photo when they weren’t ready. As the shoot develops you’ll find the subject more relaxed and willing to mess around in front of the camera anyway, resulting in a more genuine end product.

Group Photos:
There are simple rules when taking group photos, and my suggestion, unless it’s a serious affair, is to break most of them.
Have the shortest people stand behind the tallest and then get them to try and be seen by jostling for a front spot.

Encourage people to go back to their school class portrait days and you’re guaranteed a great shot that you could look at all day, hunting for the rude gestures and tongue waggling in the crowd!

Make people jump! Jumping is great for a group photo, not least because you can use your digital camera to show the crowd who jumped last and encourage some competition for the next shot.

Tomorrow part 3 of  ‘Taking Photographs Guide: The Portrait’ will focus on setting up your camera.

Portraits are always important, whether they’re serious, professional records or just that close up holiday snap, they always serve to capture a memory. Sometimes the moment itself is enough to make the portrait powerful but those moments can equally be missed if you’re not fully prepared. This week’s guide is designed to help you make the most of those moments, be they impromptu or posed.

The first part of the portrait tutorial will focus on what to keep in mind when choosing a location.

Choosing your location

It may be that you’re out and about, or that you’re somewhere where you can carefully pick your scene. Either way you can still maintain a lot of control when taking a photo with just a bit of awareness.

The Eyes:

Throughout this guide my discussion will be relating to illuminating the eyes as much as possible. The eyes are the first part of the face that someone is drawn to when viewing a portrait and for that reason they are the most important aspect of a portrait photo.

When focusing, it is sensible to focus on the nearest eye to you. Having sharp focus on the eye allows the viewer to connect with the image immediately and then explore the finer details afterwards.

Lighting:

Outdoor:

The sun will feature if you’re outside and can be extremely harsh as a directional light, however, it can also serve as a great ‘fill’ light as it reflects. Look for large white walls that you could use to capture some of that light as it bounces back onto your subject. A great tip, and something currently very popular with photographers, is to use the sun as a backlight, behind your subject, and then reflect that same light onto the front of them. You can do this using the white wall I mentioned or by using a conventional reflector. Alternatively you can have some fun by making your own reflector. The fun and interesting results of photography are always unlocked by messing around and getting thoroughly involved in your work so why not get a large board, something like a dinner tray, and cover it in silver foil. Take it outside and see how you can bounce sunlight back onto your subject. Be careful in full daylight as it can be extremely bright!

The result of such a photo is that your subject has a brilliant bright rim light from the sun as well as a more diffuse, but natural, light on the face, with a lot of light bouncing around in the eyes to illuminate and reveal the iris.

• The below photo is taken at 3pm on a summer day with a reflector bouncing the sun, which is behind the subject, back onto her face.

Indoor:

If you’re inside try and work near a window. Not only do they reflect brilliantly in people’s eyes, which offers more of an interesting ’story’ behind the photo, they can also be used with curtains to great effect.

The intention when working near a window is to be able to see its reflection in your subject’s eyes so have them facing the window, or just to the side of it. If you have the window behind your subject you will get 1 of 2 things:

- A ‘blown’ background - This is where the sky goes pure white as it overexposes because your foreground is dark.
- A dark subject - This is because your camera is trying to get the best general exposure and is trying to account for the bright sky.

• The above shot was taken using just a conservatory skylight for illumination.

Again, feel free to try and reflect some of the light back at the other side of your subject. The dynamic use of light will create more interesting shadows and highlights, which reveals form and makes for a more interesting and intriguing photo.

When it’s next winter, or if you’re planning a chilly holiday, look for snow. Snow is a perfect natural reflector and provides really brilliant, clean light to a subject.

• The below photo was taken with a flash pointed directly at the snow.

Overall lighting:

Experiment with your light source. Get yourself a patient subject. It doesn’t even have to be a person. Take a series of photos with the model at different angles to your light source and see what direction best reveals the subject’s eyes and their features. In general a light source that is directly on the camera’s own plane, such as a built-in flash, will give the least interesting results. Shadows give form to features and make things much more interesting.

Tomorrow part 2 of  ‘Taking Photographs Guide: The Portrait’ will focus on how to work with your subject.

What do you do when your sense of direction is about as accurate as a Fred Goodwin’s in a financial crisis? You buy a pair of these sat nav shoes, that’s what. Now I know I’ve talked about super shoes before but these are pretty cool. Just enter the postcode in your heel and you’re away.

Get directions from the LED DNav Bubble on the front of your left shoe which will point in the direction you need to walk and beep if you’re heading the wrong way. You can also use a Bluetooth headset so that you don’t walk around sounding like that guy out of Police Academy and you will hear instructions like “bear left at the next McDonalds”.

It runs on two rechargeable AA batteries and it’s speakers are waterproof so jumping in puddles is still very much on the cards. And do you remember the robot legs we featured a couple of months ago? These would go perfectly on the end of them for completely effortless travel!

So next time someone tells you to get lost, just pull up your trouser leg, show off your shoes and walk away, content with the notion that getting lost is very much a thing of the past.

Snatch these up at Firebox for £129.95 / $187.10.

Need something to while away the days until the bank holiday? Well look no further than the Feel-Like-Love machine. It’s an interactive shopping list with a naughty twist.

Read reviews from shoppers who have found products that they absolutely Love, find out how they make them Feel and which bits they Like best. But also, what they Hate about poducts.

Get clever and find the hidden functionality and access to the secret vault of saucy reviews.

And best of all, you can embed it all on your own blog or website – even the naughty version…if you can find it. Just click “embed this” in the bottom right and copy the code to your blog or website. Here’s a sneak preview of the embedded versions…

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and now for some sauce…

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Jacqui Smith’s husband could have saved himself a whole heap of trouble. It’s not too late Richard…

**Please be warned that the saucy version does contain adult content.**