Combing through hundreds of blog posts and news articles daily, Dirk Klingner, our technology-trend watcher, sifts through the noise to bring you the tech news most important to consumers. If you have a tip on a story you want to share, leave a comment below.

Stephen Colbert: Blippy Is More Exciting Than Going Through Old Receipts (TechCrunch)

…Tonight, the controversial social credit card data aggregator was featured on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report. As you might imagine, host Stephen Colbert ripped into the service’s ability to show everyday purchases at places such as Wendy’s.

New Way to Flit From Store to Store (Wall Street Journal)

…This week, I shopped online with Flit.com, a free Web site owned by San Francisco-area company enterONCE LLC that encourages people to shop using the same method they use at the mall: Start inside familiar stores, not in a giant bucket of products. It's designed so people will enter a search item once and receive multiple suggestions of places where the item might be sold. As shoppers "flit" off to those stores, Flit.com serves as a home base, remembering the original search so shoppers can flit back, choose different stores and shop from there again and again.

‘Hair’ Has New Way to Spread the Love (New York Times)

That most precious of Broadway marketing tools — favorable word of mouth among theatergoers — is being transformed for the Facebook generation. Starting Tuesday night a high-definition video camera, attached near the balcony rail at the Al Hirschfeld Theater, will capture the so-called dance parties at the end of the each performance of “Hair,” when cast members of the musical revival coax audience members onstage to rock out with them as the band plays “Let the Sunshine In.”

Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything (PHYSORG.com)

Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.

Oscar Meyer Brings Good Mood (Compete)

…Consumers are encouraged to go to their Good Mood Mission site to submit a “good mood” comment that starts with “it doesn’t get better than”. For each good mood submitted, the company will donate a pound of food to Feeding America, a hunger relief charity organization.

iPad Hardware Reveals Potential Slot for Camera (Mashable)

…Mission Repair, a company that fixes broken Apple products, apparently got their hands on some iPad parts. Their pictures showed off the internal frame, which curiously enough has a small hole on the top.

Lighter side: Cassette and Film Tape Portraits by Erika Iris Simmons (I New Idea Homepage)

…Simmons has tried to make portraits with other materials and finally come up with some impressive portraits made out of cassette and film tapes.

Nikon Coolpix P100
Photo: Nikon

As the number of days until the PMA camera trade show, from Feb 21-23, dwindle, camera makers continue unveiling new models. Today, Olympus introduced a new Micro Four-thirds, or SLR-like, model, while Nikon announced seven new point-and-shoots.

Olympus's 12-megapixel Pen E-PL1 expands the SLR-like line to three models. As we've reported on in the past, what differentiates these types of cameras is that they combine key SLR features—a large image sensor and interchangeable lenses—with the smaller size and weight of a point-and-shoot. As with a true SLR, you can shoot RAW files with the E-PL1. Unlike Olympus's previous Micro Four-thirds models, the E-PL1 has a built-in flash. Another interesting feature is its Live Guide feature, which lets you preview on the LCD (in real time) the effect of various camera settings in order to see how your prospective shot might look. Most important: Olympus has priced the E-PL1 more competitively than previous cameras of this type, at $600, which includes a 14-42mm zoom lens. The E-PL1 will be available in March.

Olympus Pen E-PL1
Photo: Olympus

Olympus also announced two new lenses for its micro Four-thirds cameras: a 14mm-150mm zoom lens, $600, (the 35mm film equivalent of 28mm-300mm) and a 9mm-18mm zoom lens, $700, (the 35mm film equivalent of 18mm-36mm). The former with be available in June, the latter in May.

Of the seven new Coolpix point-and-shoots Nikon just introduced, the most interesting are the longer zoom models: The 10-megapixel Coolpix P100, $400, with a 26x zoom (above); the 14-megapixel Coolpix S8000, $300, with a 10x zoom; and the 14-megapixel Coolpix S6000, $250, with a 7x zoom.

The P100 has two specialized modes that make use of compositing technology to automatically combine parts of several photos together: one mode is a High Dynamic Range (HDR) feature and the other a special Night Landscape, which combines a series of images in order to find areas of least noise for better low-light photos.

Nikon also claims the P100 has five-way image stabilization, including optical, electronic or simulated, high ISO settings, motion detection (which senses moving subjects and adjusts shutter speed and ISO settings to compensate) and a best shot selector (which shoots up to 10 shots and selects the sharpest). The P100 can also shoot 10 frames per second at full resolution.

Nikon claims the Coolpix S8000 superzoom and the S6000 subcompact are very thin for cameras with long zooms. The S8000 can shoot HD-resolution video, has a 3-inch LCD that's very sharp (921,000 dots) and advanced flash control, which Nikon says will let you create more natural-looking flash shots. Nikon also says that the S6000 is the thinnest model in its class, meaning cameras with 7x or greater optical zoom that also include wide-angle capability. Tthe S6000 has the same advanced flash control feature as the S8000 and can shoot HD resolution video.

The P100 and the S6000 will be available in March, and the S8000 in February

—Terry Sullivan