Daguerreotype cameras are the great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfathers of the devices we use for snapshots today. Recently the earliest—and with an expected price of 700,000 euro, the most expensive—examples of such a camera was rediscovered in a private collection.

If you've got between 200,000 euro, the auction's starting price, and 700,000 euro, the expected final price, and a weakness for old, wooden sliding-box cameras then this one's for you. It's got the signature of its name sake, Jacques Mande Daguerre, and was actually built by his brother-in-law.

This is a neat piece of shutterbug history and I truly hope that it ends up in a museum collection where it can be viewed by the public rather than disappearing into another private basement museum. [Slashgear]

Daguerreotype cameras are the great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfathers of the devices we use for snapshots today. Recently the earliest—and with an expected price of 700,000 euro, the most expensive—examples of such a camera was rediscovered in a private collection.

If you've got between 200,000 euro, the auction's starting price, and 700,000 euro, the expected final price, and a weakness for old, wooden sliding-box cameras then this one's for you. It's got the signature of its name sake, Jacques Mande Daguerre, and was actually built by his brother-in-law.

This is a neat piece of shutterbug history and I truly hope that it ends up in a museum collection where it can be viewed by the public rather than disappearing into another private basement museum. [Slashgear]

Archos' first Android tablet, the Archos 5, didn't quite live up to its promises,but a second leaked Android tablet from the French could prove more feature-some if realized, with a front-facing webcam and new 7-inch size.

Thanks to a slip-up by the UK retailer Data-Mind, we've got photos and specs of the tablet, which will apparently go on sale in March for

Archos' first Android tablet, the Archos 5, didn't quite live up to its promises,but a second leaked Android tablet from the French could prove more feature-some if realized, with a front-facing webcam and new 7-inch size.

Thanks to a slip-up by the UK retailer Data-Mind, we've got photos and specs of the tablet, which will apparently go on sale in March for

Turns out, Apple's veil of secrecy applies internally, as well. Former engineer Edward Eigerman spoke with Bloomberg News this morning about the atmosphere at the company before a major product launch—turns out, it's not all wine and roses.

Eigerman has a unique perspective on the extreme lengths Apple goes through to prevent leaks, having been fired for accidentally slipping software to a client a week early.

The upside is that only a very few people in Cupertino know what's actually going to be announced today, so they're as excited as the rest of us! The downside is that they're also likely in a debilitating paranoiac state. But, hey, you take the good with the bad, right? [Bloomberg via Cult of Mac via 9to5 Mac]

Turns out, Apple's veil of secrecy applies internally, as well. Former engineer Edward Eigerman spoke with Bloomberg News this morning about the atmosphere at the company before a major product launch—turns out, it's not all wine and roses.

Eigerman has a unique perspective on the extreme lengths Apple goes through to prevent leaks, having been fired for accidentally slipping software to a client a week early.

The upside is that only a very few people in Cupertino know what's actually going to be announced today, so they're as excited as the rest of us! The downside is that they're also likely in a debilitating paranoiac state. But, hey, you take the good with the bad, right? [Bloomberg via Cult of Mac via 9to5 Mac]

The reason Windows tablets have sucked is that they've crammed desktop interfaces onto tablets. Assumedly, the Apple tablet's magic is in the interface. So it's funny that Apple's secret tablet from over 14 years ago made the same mistake.

The Newton was still in production. But what Apple secretly pitched to select medical centers over a decade ago wasn't a Newton. It was a 10-inch-or-so tablet, running an interface that was much, much closer to the full desktop Mac OS—Mac OS 8 at the time—modified with pen input. Though pitched to the medical market, it was a general-purpose computer that was in the advanced prototype stages. It never shipped. (Much like another ancient Apple tablet.) That's the story, according to one of the few medical personnel who saw the monstrosity.

Imagine something like this, but not quite as swishy.

After this Mac OS tablet was apparently killed in the night, we wouldn't hear about another tablet until after Jobs returned, talk of Inkwell in 2000—the pen input software ultimately built into OS X—with the word of a "tablet" first emerging in 2003.

Apple's still interested in medical IT applications, actually, one place tablet PCs have actually managed to gain traction. Last year, it quietly partnered with Epic Systems, one of the major electronic medical records companies, to test software on the iPhone for accessing patient medical charts. Perhaps less than coincidentally, Apple execs have supposedly been spotted making visits with some frequency to Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in LA, to talk about a new device, and how the hospital might use it. An Apple tablet would make for one very fancy clipboard.

The reason Windows tablets have sucked is that they've crammed desktop interfaces onto tablets. Assumedly, the Apple tablet's magic is in the interface. So it's funny that Apple's secret tablet from over 14 years ago made the same mistake.

The Newton was still in production. But what Apple secretly pitched to select medical centers over a decade ago wasn't a Newton. It was a 10-inch-or-so tablet, running an interface that was much, much closer to the full desktop Mac OS—Mac OS 8 at the time—modified with pen input. Though pitched to the medical market, it was a general-purpose computer that was in the advanced prototype stages. It never shipped. (Much like another ancient Apple tablet.) That's the story, according to one of the few medical personnel who saw the monstrosity.

Imagine something like this, but not quite as swishy.

After this Mac OS tablet was apparently killed in the night, we wouldn't hear about another tablet until after Jobs returned, talk of Inkwell in 2000—the pen input software ultimately built into OS X—with the word of a "tablet" first emerging in 2003.

Apple's still interested in medical IT applications, actually, one place tablet PCs have actually managed to gain traction. Last year, it quietly partnered with Epic Systems, one of the major electronic medical records companies, to test software on the iPhone for accessing patient medical charts. Perhaps less than coincidentally, Apple execs have supposedly been spotted making visits with some frequency to Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in LA, to talk about a new device, and how the hospital might use it. An Apple tablet would make for one very fancy clipboard.

On the cusp of the Apple event, new patents have been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, showing a proximity-sensing multitouch screen amongst other features. It could be a patent for today's product announcement, or The Future.

Patently Apple dug up the goods for 13 patents, all of which have been authorized by the USPTO for Apple to use, some years after Apple first filed for them. The timing is worth considering, with the closeness to today's event either being a deliberate hype tactic for whatever's announced today, or coincidental (and for future products.)

The 13 patents include an Automatic Detection of Channel Bandwidth, Color Management System,
Apparatus and Method for Rotating the Display Orientation of a Captured image, a
Video Conferencing System, Interface for Providing Modeless Timeline Based Selection of an Audio or Video File, but none are quite as telling as the Proximity Detector for Tablets.

For the full descriptions of each patent, including diagrams, mosey on over here. [USPTO via Patently Apple via Engadget]

On the cusp of the Apple event, new patents have been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, showing a proximity-sensing multitouch screen amongst other features. It could be a patent for today's product announcement, or The Future.

Patently Apple dug up the goods for 13 patents, all of which have been authorized by the USPTO for Apple to use, some years after Apple first filed for them. The timing is worth considering, with the closeness to today's event either being a deliberate hype tactic for whatever's announced today, or coincidental (and for future products.)

The 13 patents include an Automatic Detection of Channel Bandwidth, Color Management System,
Apparatus and Method for Rotating the Display Orientation of a Captured image, a
Video Conferencing System, Interface for Providing Modeless Timeline Based Selection of an Audio or Video File, but none are quite as telling as the Proximity Detector for Tablets.

For the full descriptions of each patent, including diagrams, mosey on over here. [USPTO via Patently Apple via Engadget]