OK, so I ordered some more backup tapes, and inevitably the parcel that 
arrived contains a big glossy flying for all the other stuff I could be 
buying.

So I flick through it and go "hmm, that's interesting. You can buy an 



down in price."

Some of the items are more amusing. For example, if you look at any LCD, 
one of the main specs they will quote at you is the viewing angle. 
Because, unlike other display technologies, LCDs typically have a 
pitiful viewing angle. So manufacturers have sunk millions into R&D to 
find ways to increase the viewing angle.

Ah, but what's this I see? A "privacy filter"? Yes, it's a small piece 
of plastic which is transparent only when viewed from certain 
directions. In other words, you stick it to your screen to reduce the 
viewing angle. WTF, people!? :-D



Then we find products which are just mystifying. Specifically, there's a 
video camera that caught my eye. Several very strange things are going 
on here.

First of all, it's supposedly a video camera, and yet it costs less than 

This is highly suspicious.



quality was laughable.

And that's where it starts to get stranger. This camera manages to claim 
that it shoots full-HD 1080p video. But if you scroll past the big shiny 
newsprint and look at the technical specifications, you discover that it 
has a piffling 7mm lens.

Quite why anybody would pay for an expensive 2MP photosensor and then 
stick it behind a crappy 7mm lens I have no idea. The only possible 
justification I can think of is "so that we can scream 'full HD' all 
over the box".

Damn, some poor sap is going to buy this thing and be mighty 
disappointed with the image quality...

The other puzzling thing is that the device fits in the palm of your 
hand. (From the price and the lens size, we already know what kind of a 
product this is, i.e., an expensive novelty item.) It says it records to 
flash RAM, but surely full HD is going to fill that within minutes.

The product spec also claims it stores video as H.264, which surprises 
me. I was under the impression that this requires some pretty serious 
computer power (most especially for encoding).

Oh, and it's purple. WTF?

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