Father and Son Declare a Political Truce, for 60 Seconds

BOSTON â€" Carl M. Sciortino Jr., a Massachusetts state representative who is running in a special Democratic primary for the Fifth Congressional District seat, released a jovial television advertisement on Tuesday featuring a sitcom-like exchange between the candidate and his father, Carl M. Sciortino Sr., who is a Tea Party Republican.

“I’ll never forget that conversation with my dad,” the younger Mr. Sciortino, who is gay, says in the ad as he sits in a light-filled living room, “where I had to come out and tell him … ”

“Wait for this,” interrupts his father, seated in a comfortable armchair in a different, darker living room.

“… That I was a Massachusetts liberal,” the candidate says.

The eye-catching commercial is drawing new attention to Mr. Sciortino, 35, of Medford, who is one of seven Democrats running for the seat in an election that is part of a chain of events set off when John Kerry became secretary of state. (The Fifth District seat had been held for 37 years by Ed Markey, who was elected to replace Mr. Kerry in the Senate in June.)

Mr. Sciortino’s campaign manager, Matt Larson, said the campaign planned to spend “hundreds of thousands of dollars” airing the minute-long spot until the primary on Oct. 15.

The banter between father and son emphasizes Mr. Sciortino’s liberal credentials. He has worked to present himself as more progressive than the other Democrats in the race.

“He wrote the buffer zone law!” his father says in the ad, referring to a Massachusetts measure that restricts protesters from demonstrating within 35 feet of abortion clinic entrances and exits. “That’s gone all the way to the Supreme Court; I was kind of proud of that,” he adds sheepishly.

The elder Mr. Sciortino, who raised his son as a single father, is 73 and, according to election records, voted in Republican primaries in 2013, 2012 and 2010.

“He wants to go to Congress to take on the N.R.A. And the Tea Party!” he says.

His son continues, “I won’t give up on the assault weapons ban.”

“Or,” his father adds with exasperation, “universal background checks, or banning high-capacity magazines.”

Only one other candidate has released an ad: Katherine Clark, a state senator. Her 30-second commercial features her mother.

State of the Art: In Arrival of 2 iPhones, 3 Lessons

In Arrival of 2 iPhones, 3 Lessons

We can draw three lessons from the arrival of Apple’s two new iPhone models, the 5C and 5S.

The camera on the iPhone 5s can capture 10 frames a second, and a filmstrip presentation lets you choose the best one.

LESSON 1 Apple may have set its own bar for innovation too high.

Year after year, Steve Jobs used to blow our minds with products we didn’t know we wanted. Now, two years after his death, we still expect every new iPhone to clean our gutters, cook our popcorn and levitate. So when the hardware revisions are minor each year, we’re disappointed.

And sure enough, after Apple showed off its two new iPhone models last week, its stock dropped. Analysts shrugged that they contain nothing “transformative.” The blogger-haters had a field day.

The budget model, the new iPhone 5C, comes in five colors ($100 for the 16-gigabyte model with a two-year contract, $550 without). It’s essentially identical to last year’s iPhone 5, except that its back and sides are a single piece of plastic instead of metal and glass.

Actually, “plastic” isn’t quite fair. The 5C’s case is polycarbonate, lacquered like a glossy piano. Better yet, its back edges are curved for the first time since the iPhones of 2008. You can tell by touch which way it’s facing in your pocket.

It’s a terrific phone. The price is right. It will sell like hot cakes; the new iPhones go on sale Friday. But just sheathing last year’s phone in shiny plastic isn’t a stunning advance.

LESSON 2 The smartphone is mature.

The App Store filled a huge hole. Siri voice command answered a desperate need. And high-resolution Retina displays helped compensate for the tiny screen.

But today, every phone has that stuff; the big holes have been plugged. Maybe the age of annual mega-leaps is over.

The new 5S ($200 with contract, $650 without) looks exactly like last year’s thin and gorgeous iPhone 5. You can now get it with its brushed aluminum body in dark gray (with black glass accents), silver (white accents) or a surprisingly classy-looking gold (white accents).

Apple says the 5S’s chip is twice as fast as before. Nobody was exactly complaining about the iPhone’s speed before, but, sure, it’s plenty quick. Since it’s a 64-bit chip, Apple says the graphics in 3-D video games look especially smooth and detailed.

There’s also a second chip devoted to tracking motion data from the phone’s compass, gyroscope and tilt sensor. Apple says this coprocessor should save battery life when you use fitness tracking apps, because it can monitor your data all day long; the main chip, which requires six times as much power, can remain asleep.

Those are both fairly invisible changes, though.

The new camera will mean more to you. Its sensor is 15 percent bigger, and the individual light-detecting pixels are bigger. Take photos side-by-side with the iPhone 5S’s predecessor, and the difference is immediately obvious; lowlight pictures are far better on the new phone. Clearer, brighter, better color.

The 5S also has two LED flashes â€" one pure white, one amber â€" that fire simultaneously. When mixed in the right balance, their light can match the color tone of your subject (moonlight, streetlights, fluorescents, whatever). Apple says this idea is a first in both phones and cameras.

It really works. Flash photos look much, much better. No longer will your loved ones’ skin look either nuclear white or “Avatar” blue.

The 5S’s camera also offers a burst mode (10 frames a second), 3X zooming during video capture, Instagram-style photo filters and truly wowing slow-motion video. (Weirdly, filtered photos and slo-mo videos don’t survive the transfer to your computer, although you can send them by e-mail or text message.) Sample photos and videos accompany this column online.

The most heavily promoted feature is the 5S’s fingerprint sensor, which, ingeniously, is built into the Home button. You push the Home button to wake the phone, leave your finger there another half second, and boom: you’ve unlocked a phone that nobody else can unlock, without the hassle of inputting the password. (And yes, a password is a hassle; half of smartphone users never bother setting one up.)

E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com

After Navy Yard Shooting, a New Look at Gun Control

Even among those who fought hardest to pass an ill-fated gun control bill earlier this year, the political reality was undeniable: If the Newtown, Conn., massacre could not persuade Congress to pass tougher laws, a mass shooting less than a mile away from Capitol Hill was not going to either.

Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, who proposed a bill that would have strengthened background checks, seemed at a loss when asked whether the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard had changed anything.

“We don’t know,” he told reporters on Tuesday. He suggested asking some of the members of Congress who had voted against his bill.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, sponsored an assault weapons ban that managed to garner only 40 of the 60 votes needed.

“If I can find 20 people that want to change their mind, I’m ready to go,” she said, her tone acknowledging that it was extremely unlikely.

“I’m not optimistic right now,” she said. Then, asked whether the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, should bring the background check bill back up for a vote, she responded, “I’m not going to tell him he should because I don’t want another loss.”

For his part, Mr. Reid agreed that gun control could not pass the Senate right now. “We don’t have the votes,” he said. “We don’t have them now.”

Even more modest measures to address gun violence, including ones with bipartisan support that would strengthen the nation’s mental health system, seemed unlikely to go anywhere.

Mr. Reid initially appeared to be open to the idea of advancing a mental health bill but then quickly backtracked. “I would be willing to do that, anything we can do to focus attention on these senseless killings that took place,” he said.

Later, his spokesman clarified that anything short of background checks was not enough. “It has to be in the bill,” the spokesman, Adam Jentleson, said.

During the gun control debate earlier this year, he had insisted that mental health legislation was not enough to address the problem and needed to be paired with a stronger background check system.

An amendment to the gun control bill that failed in April would have expanded federal financing for mental health programs. The amendment passed by 95 to 2.

Gadgetwise: With Bose, Hear What You Want and Block the Rest

With Bose, Hear What You Want and Block the Rest

The QuietComfort 20 Acoustic Noise-Cancelling in-ear headphones from Bose.

When Bose decided to build a pair of in-ear headphones with a noise-canceling feature, it faced a quandary: how to stuff that technology into a tiny package.

So Bose wisely decided to add an in-line control module at the base of the cord for its QuietComfort 20, the in-ear option in the company’s line of noise-canceling headphones. With this design, the module does not weigh down the cord or tug at your ears; you can easily slip it into a pocket with your music player.

The noise-canceling feature works remarkably well. Two tiny microphones in each ear bud send signals to the control module, which responds instantly to counter unwanted sounds. Bose says the reaction time is less than a millisecond. The effect enriches your listening experience, making your music sound fuller and deeper. I tried the headphones on a variety of pop, rock and classical albums, and the music was consistently clean and free of distortion.

Even with the noise-canceling feature turned on, a small amount of sound still slips in, typically the voices of other people, but this is common with noise-canceling headphones. The noise can be reduced by readjusting the ear buds to create more of a seal in the ear. Several soft, comfortable ear tips, which include stabilizers that help secure the tips, are included.

The headphones come with a cloth carrying pouch and a mini-USB cable for charging. Bose says the battery in the control module lasts about 16 hours on a full charge.

The headphones still work when the control module is turned off or the battery runs out. Bose calls this the “aware” mode, because more outside sound gets in, allowing you to be more aware of your surroundings. This means you can chat with the barista at your favorite coffee shop without removing your headphones. It also helps when walking around the streets of New York; ignorance is bliss, but not if you get hit by a taxi.

The in-line remote control in the yoke of the cord includes a microphone for phone calls; a clip allows you to fasten the cord to a collar or lapel. A second model, the Bose QC20i, has an in-line remote intended for Apple iOS devices.

All these features don’t come cheap; the QuietComfort 20 headphones cost $300. But you would be hard-pressed to find better noise-canceling technology.

Gadgetwise: Justin Case Offers More Than a Play on Words

Justin Case Offers More Than a Play on Words

The Justin Power Case for the iPad from Innovative Technology.

When considering backup power for mobile devices, consumers typically have two choices: a portable battery that can charge multiple devices or a charging case, which is more convenient but usually works with only a single device.

Innovative Technology, a maker of gadget accessories, thinks consumers should have both. The company’s Justin Power Case, which is designed for the iPad, has a built-in battery that can charge the iPad and other gadgets, including iOS, Android and BlackBerry devices, at the same time.

The company says the rechargeable battery in the Justin case can charge an iPad twice or an iPhone seven times on a single charge. That high-capacity battery makes the case ideal for travelers and others who use their devices for long periods.

Charging is a little slow, however. It took me a few hours to fully charge my iPad, a bit longer than the process takes with a wall charger. Four tiny LEDs inside the cover let you know how much charge the case has left.

The synthetic leather exterior of the Justin case is not particularly handsome, but it’s durable and offers good protection and a nice grip. The iPad slides easily into the case through an interior opening near the hinge, and a magnetic flap keeps it securely in place. An integrated kickstand can be used to prop up the iPad in portrait mode.

The trade-off, however, is that the case is bulky, doubling the thickness of the iPad, even with the “ultra-slim” model. And the case does not activate iPad’s automatic shut-off when the cover is closed.

The Justin case comes with a micro-USB cord and a wall adapter for charging, but not a cord with a 30-pin connector to attach to the iPad, which would have helped immensely. Still, at $70, the Justin case provides a long-lasting power backup at a decent price.

Gadgetwise: Playing Around With a Toy Camera

Playing Around With a Toy Camera

Toy cameras aren’t just for children There is a thriving art movement built on the out-of-focus, distorted, inaccurately colored photos that come from toy cameras.

The Bonzart Lit is a toy camera, but that doesn't limit the artistic possibilities.

The Bonzart Lit digital camera has a rudimentary filter menu, which can make your photos color, black and white, sepia or negative.

Nevertheless, your first reaction to the Bonzart Lit digital camera, which measures less than 3 inches by 2 inches, and is only half an inch thick, will probably be along the lines of, “How cute!”

But the tiny toy can take some very artistic photographs.

For one thing, it has a fuller menu of options than you’d expect from a camera this size. Resolution can be set at up to 2,048 by 1,536 pixels â€" the same resolution as an Apple iPad 3 Retina screen. You can also set light metering to measure the center of the picture, the whole scene or a small spot in the middle, just as you would on serious digital single lens reflex cameras. And you can even set white balance for daylight, cloudy conditions, fluorescent or tungsten light.

You can also adjust exposure, and the camera has a rudimentary filter menu, which can make your photos color, black and white, sepia or negative â€" or even in tints of red, green or blue.

That leaves a lot of room for creativity, but it would be a mistake to call the camera sophisticated. It essentially has a pinhole lens, fixed focus and a very slow shutter speed. That means that lots of your photos are going to be a little soft (although it does have a screw mount for a tripod, to help steady the camera). The color is quite muted. And you get a natural vignette effect, a kind of darkening around the edges that draws your eye to the center.

But it is those limitations that can make the images compelling.

Offered in red, black, blue, white and pink, the camera is available online for $40. But you will also need a microSD memory card, which is not included. A 2GB card can be found online for less than $10.

Gadgetwise: Headphones for Protection, Not Cranking It Up

Headphones for Protection, Not Cranking It Up

The 3M Tekk WorkTunes headphones protect eardrums from high volume noise while playing music.

Anyone who has read the warnings that come with new headphones knows that cranking music at full volume can permanently harm hearing. The 3M TEKK Protection WorkTunes headphones, however, are meant to protect your hearing, and not just from loud music.

The black and safety-yellow ear cups are the giveaway that these workplace “earmuffs” are designed to protect hearing, reducing the high volume of chain saws, vacuum cleaners and other noisy power tools.

Unlike common ear protectors, the $60 WorkTunes headset can also play music inside the ear cups while keeping excessive noise out.

The headphones have a built-in AM/FM radio and they can connect to a music player using a wire with a 3.5mm jack. They use two AA batteries.

Without any music playing, the headphones have serious 24-decibel noise reduction. The loudest trucks sounded like a whisper when I tested them while standing by a road. And when the music was playing, I couldn’t hear the trucks at all. The fit was very snug, but not uncomfortable.

The radio has a robotic voice that says which frequency you are on, so you don’t need to see a dial and can scan for stations without taking the headphones off. There is also a button that switches to your favorite stations.

When a jack is plugged in, the headphones automatically switch to play from the attached device.

The sound quality is not exactly hi-fi, but it’s not bad. I also found that even the highest volume setting wasn’t that loud. No point in saving your ears from leaf blowers only to damage them with the White Stripes.

From ‘Top Chef’ Judge to Political Player

WASHINGTON â€" Tom Colicchio â€" the head judge on the “Top Chef” television show who runs his own restaurant empire â€" will bring his talents to the nation’s capital on Tuesday.

But don’t expect a Washington restaurant from him anytime soon. Mr. Colicchio is here as a board member of Food Policy Action, which rates members of Congress based on how they vote on food policies.

The group is looking at creating its own political action committee to get involved in the 2014 Congressional races, and Mr. Colicchio is a headlining a fund-raiser on Tuesday evening at the home of Representative Chellie Pingree, Democrat of Maine, to kick off the effort.

“We want to get a little more involved in some of the races, and support those who are making the right decisions and call attention to those who aren’t,” Mr. Colicchio said.

In 2012, he said, there was barely any discussion of hunger in America.

“I think it’s time to start organizing people to start voting around these various food issues,” Mr. Colicchio said. “Then, once one person loses an election because of how they voted on these issues, and then things change.”

Food Policy Action hopes to pressure legislators on issues like animal welfare and antihunger programs, said Scott Faber, the group’s executive director. Bill Burton, a former deputy White House press secretary in the Obama administration, is a strategic adviser to the group.

“Food Policy Action represents the first time the food movement has really tried to make food political,” Mr. Faber said. “We’ll be highlighting the ways members have voted to make food less safe, to make people more hungry, and where they’ve voted against sensible food policies.”

The fund-raiser comes as the Republican-controlled House is expected to take up a food stamp bill this week.

Mr. Colicchio said that “if Congress manages to cut $20 to $40 billion” from food stamps â€" known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program â€" “there’s no way charity can make that up.”\

“All the fund-raisers in the world are not going to get back to that number,” he said. “Are we O.K. with people starving in the streets? I don’t think so.”

Mr. Colicchio estimates that during the fight over the farm bill â€" which ultimately passed, stripped of its provisions regarding food stamps and nutrition â€" he spent six days in Washington, lobbying “anyone who will listen.”

“We know there’s hunger in every Congressional district in the country,” he said. “I think more than anything, we really need to change the messaging around things like SNAP â€" the idea that it’s a handout and welfare, we really need to change that message.”

Mr. Colicchio also was an executive producer on “A Place at the Table,” a documentary that examines the problem of hunger in the United States, and he visited Washington shortly after President Obama was elected in 2008, for a inauguration dinner. It was there that Joan Nathan, an award-winning cookbook author began choking on a piece of chicken â€" and Mr. Colicchio promptly jumped up to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

“I’m not only good at getting food in, I’m good at getting food out,” he joked.