Canon EOS Rebel T2i
Photo: Canon

In addition to the four new PowerShot digital cameras Canon just introduced, Canon announced its latest SLR: The 18-megapixel EOS Rebel T2i.

The new model has a lot in common with the one it succeeds, the 15-megapixel T1i. It includes a 3-inch live-view LCD, uses 9 autofocus points, can capture HD-resolution video and has a 14-bit A/D converter, which Canon says will produce images with finer tonal gradations and wider color ranges.

In large part, Canon made only modest improvements to the new model: Aside from the increase in megapixels, from 15 megapixels to 18, you can now also shoot 1080 HD-resolution video at 30 fps (instead of just 20fps). The T2i's LCD has 1.04 million dots (instead of 920,000), and you can shoot photos more quickly: its burst mode has been increased from 3.4fps to 3.7fps.

The T2i includes an input jack, for attaching an external stereo mic, for improving audio during video capture. Canon has also expanded the exposure compensation range to +/- 5 EV (instead of +/- 3 EV on the T1i) for more versatility when shooting in low- or bright-light situations and for high dynamic range (HDR) shooting. The T2i will also be compatible with SDXC memory cards, which will eventually be able to store as much as 2 terabytes of data.

Available in early March, The Rebel T2i will cost around $800 body-only and $900 with a 18-55mm kit lens.

—Terry Sullivan

Today's electronics deals, courtesy of The Consumerist:

• Newegg:Powermat Sleek Charging Mat For Home or
  Office (PMM-HO100) - Cell Phone Accessories $79.99 Free Shipping
• Lenovo: Lenovo Multimedia Remote with Keyboard for $42 + free shipping
• Buy.com: Samsung CLP-315W Wireless Color Laser Printer $142 Shipped
• Dell Small Business: Dell Small Business Coupon Code STACKABLE 10% off Phones, GPS, Monitors, Accessories, Networking
• Best Buy: Acer Aspire AS5532 15.6-inch Laptop $329.99 + free pickup or $15 shipping
• Amazon: Toshiba Satellite L505D 15.6-inch Laptop $549.99 + free shipping
• Walmart : Magnavox Blu-Ray Player for $78 + $0.97 Shipping

• Dell : Sharp 42" LCD 1080p HDTV for $549 w/ Free Shipping
• NewEgg: Panasonic VIERA TC-P46G10 46-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV $956.98 shipped
• Walmart : 50% Off Select Disney DVD Movies
• Amazon: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [Blu-ray] $12

Related: "Powermat: Another wireless charger at CES 2010"; TV Ratings and buying tips; Computer Ratings and buying tips; DVD & Blu-ray player Ratings and buying tips; Printer Ratings and buying tips.

Neither Consumer Reports nor The Consumerist receive anything in
exchange for featuring these deals; the posts are intended to be purely
informational. These deals are often fleeting, with prices changing or
products becoming unavailable as the day progresses.

These posts are not an endorsement of the featured products or
the Web sites that sell them—though some of the sites may be included,
and recommended, in our Ratings of retailers for computers and other major electronics (both available to subscribers). Price shouldn't be your only criterion. Be wary of lower-priced deals that seem too good to be true, and check return policies for restocking fees and other gotchas.

For general buying advice for many of the products on sale above, check out our free Buying Guides.

My animated buddies discuss receiving Universal Sports via antenna connected to a satellite system. Cable subscribers can watch on 218 or 17-2, but an antenna is always a good back-up to have.

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.

Why if you miss Siri you’ll miss the future of the Web (Scobleizer)

…No, the real secret sauce and huge impact on the future of the web is in the back end of this thing. A few months back the engineers at Siri gave me a secret look at how they stitch the APIs into the system. They’ve built a GUI that helps them hook up the APIs from, say, a new source like Foursquare, into the language recognition engine.

FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited (Cnet)

The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years, a requirement that law enforcement believes could help it in investigations of child pornography and other serious crimes.

Foursquare Passes 1 Million Check-Ins A Week. Rate Doubled In The Past Month. (TechCrunch)

…Today, the company has some new big news to share via a tweet: they’re now doing over a million check-ins a week.

AT&T FamilyMap App Launches on App Store (AT&T)

…The AT&T FamilyMap app brings a streamlined approach to helping families stay up to speed on each other’s whereabouts by locating wireless devices within a shared family account. The app provides iPhone users with access to FamilyMap’s popular features, which until now, were only accessible through a computer.

Nearby places you might like… (Google Lat Long Blog)

…Now on Google Maps, you can get these types of suggestions automatically. Just look up a place that you know or love, and we'll provide a set of "Nearby places you might like.

Winter Olympics to demo lighting controlled by thoughts (CNN)

…A Canadian company has created what it calls the "largest thought-controlled computing installation." It's an experiment that lets visitors to the Olympics use their brainwaves to control the lights at three major landmarks in Canada, including Niagara Falls.

Lighter Side: Ashton Kutcher Pays Homage To Twitter With Tooter (TechCrunch)

…It’s up to you to decide how funny the sketch is, but it’s certainly an entertaining poke at the celeb’s love for the microblogging network and social media.

Creating and performing music and video on a computer is so 20th century. Many artists routinely do so using specialized hardware and digital music software from companies such as Native Instruments and Cakewalk.

How about doing it on something a little more current, and challenging, like, say, an iPhone 3G S? Now that's a task worth tackling…and tackle it I recently did.

Pros and Cons of iPhone apps

Some cameras and camcorders let you construct slide shows or edit what you've captured. But none let you create your own music. The iPhone (and iPod Touch) lets you do all of these, but first you need to download apps (software) from the iTunes App Store. Such apps offered a couple of advantages, I found:

• Simplicity. Most apps' user interface made it easy to use. And I didn't need to read lots of manuals, or books, the way I generally do with computer software.

• Cost. Compared to most software for PCs or Macs, which can cost hundreds of dollars, apps are cheap. The most expensive one I bought was about $20. Many years ago, I bought a $500 TASCAM four-track, analog cassette recorder, which let me create separate recorded tracks that were in sync with each other in order to create music as if I was playing with an entire live rock band. With a $5 app, I was able to create superior-sounding music.

Of course, apps also have their disadvantages:

• No multiple or background apps: On an iPhone, there's no multitasking, meaning you can only run one app at a time. In multimedia, this can pose a big problem.

• Limited features: Quite often, I found myself searching for a way to do something and finding out that the app didn't have such a feature. For example, in the video-editing app, I had to work around the problem of not being able to turn off the audio on my video clips (I'll discuss this, and how I got around it, in a future post).

• Some apps have confusing interfaces: Although most apps are pretty straightforward, some had counter-intuitive interfaces.

In my next post, I'll describe how I used music apps to create the song I wrote for this project, "Hey Ma, Look What I Can Do." (Video embedded above.)

Have you created rich content on a device like the iPhone or an Android phone? If so, share your experience below.

—Terry Sullivan