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One of the highlights of the Canadian Winter Olympics had little to do with figure skating, slalom skiing or snowball fighting. A special edition Canon give-away to photographers covering the event was a special coffee mug in the shape of the popular 70-200mm EF lens.

The official name of the coffee mug is Canon EF Lens Collector Cup. Apparently, Canon had so many requests from eager buyers that they have now made the mug available for purchase. Still produced in very limited quantities, some photo retailers may soon stock this rather cool addition to your camera bag. Even if you don’t like coffee, there’s little argument that an extra ‘lens’ in your backpack can’t make you look more professional…

Adobe’s latest version of its Creative Suite is set to be unveiled on 12 April. CS5 will provide updates to the popular software. For Mac users, the new release will be Intel-only, Cocoa and 64-bit native.

Exactly what features the new CS5 will contain remains to be seen. For most of us, it’ll mean one thing: upgrade time…

June sees the release of a rather nice addition to the current Lego airport and City themes. Proving that some minifigs are just like their real-world counterparts and insist on special modes of transport, set #3222 provides a helicopter and stretched limousine.

Whether or not the limo will make it through the tight alleys of Lego City remains to be seen…

Set #3222 is a special edition and may not be available generally available in retail outlets.

While we’re waiting for that set to be released, we’ll settle back and enjoy our copy of The Adventures of Clutch Powers.

The DVD contains the first ever, full-length Lego movie, featuring the hero Clutch Powers. Clutch makes his way through the entire gamut of the Lego universe, from the mines to the City to finally battle the evil wizard Malloc the Malign.

Firmware 2.0.3 was scarcely available for half a day when Canon posted an update to its latest firmware release. 2.0.4 corrects an issue that can occur with audio recordings for which levels have been set manually. The easiest workaround is to leave the audio level metering on automatic, but the best fix is to visit the for the Canon website and download firmware 2.0.4.

Quite possibly the fastest set of firmware updates we’ve seen for the Canon 5D Mark II...

A native Kindle reader is finally available for the Macintosh platform, having been released late last year for Windows only. The 8MB download contains the reader application. After the installation, the reader needs to be registered for existing content to be available and purchases to be downloaded.

The interface is pretty standard: existing books are displayed in the archive or downloaded for offline reading. If any other Kindle reader or Kindle has accessed any of the books, bookmarks and progress are updated to make the reading experience seamless.

Download the reader here.

If there are two things no one should ever leave home without it’s a watch…

and a bottle opener. Then again, why not just combine the two, making sure that there’s always time for a cold one.

At a price of USD 50, the Happy Hour watch may be just the thing for that barfly in your life…

Firmware 2.0.3 for the Canon 5D Mark II is available for download from the Canon website.

The firmware update includes the following five enhancements to the movie function and a fix to the manual sensor cleaning function:

Download from this link. While you’re there, be sure to download the latest, updated user manual. It includes additional information regarding the new features:

Sunday sees the new year’s Formula 1 season in with the first race taking place in Bahrain. Here’s the complete schedule for 2010:

Fortunate Apple fans in the USA will be able to pre-order the iPad in the next few hours. Though the 3G-enable iPad will be shipped only much later, the wireless model could be in expectant mitts by 3 April. The 3G model will ship only at the end of April.

There is still no information on when the iPad will be available to markets outside of the USA, though it may be possible to purchase and import from authorized retailers soon. The iPad added to my B&H wish list was removed after Apple indicated that only authorized resellers would be able to sell the device. It’s to be expected that the initial volume of sales will occur in a market that precludes non-US residents from purchasing. Once the craziness has died down, everyone will be able to buy one – Apple is into making money, after all.

Canon delivered a pre-announcement of the anticipated firmware for the Canon EOS 5D Mark II last week. The new firmware release is to be available sometime in the next week or so and focuses primarily on extending the camera’s video shooting capabilities.

The update add will add 24fps and 25fps recording to the EOS 5D Mark II, as well as some improvements and modifications to the Live View shooting function and the histogram display.

Whilst these improvements are certainly welcome, I’m sometimes surprised by the fact that very simple, marginal additions to the existing firmware could provide a huge amount of functionality to standard shooting options. As an example, Canon DSLR cameras do not provide a built-in time lapse feature. That’s a fairly standard and simple addition, probably already existing in some shape or form inside the code of the firmware all the EOS cameras rely on. Yet, Canon seems to be unwilling to provide marginal firmware updates to add such useful features. Possibly, it’s their ability to charge for additional accessories that provide the features most photographers eventually want to utilize…

In any case, the free update to the EOS 5D Mark II firmware will be available on the Canon website soon.