Archive for the ‘Digital camera’ Category
Nikon has issued a statement clarifying its policy regarding free upgrades for some users who purchased Capture NX in the month before Capture NX version 2 launched.
Capture NX Version 2 was announced on June 3rd, 2008, and a 60 day trial is available for download at http://www.capturenx.com/.
Tex of Nikon’s Statement:
Retail customers who purchase Capture NX Version 1 from a Nikon Inc. authorized reseller, (Nikon product number 25338) from May 1, 2008 through December 31, 2008 will be entitled to receive a FREE Capture NX 2 Upgrade directly from Nikon. Customers simply need to call Nikon at 800-Nikon-UX with their product key and provide a copy of their proof of purchase to receive a Capture NX 2 key code free of charge.
Customers who received a copy of Capture NX with their D3 or D300 are not eligible for the no-charge upgrade but still qualify for the discounted upgrade edition at an MSRP of $109.95.
Sony Electronics is helping more children smile through its support of the worldwide children’s medical charity Operation Smile.
Sony is commencing a retail promotion for Sony Cyber-shot® cameras featuring Smile ShutterTM technology at Sony Style® Stores, Sonystyle.com, and other participating retailers for the month of August.
Through this effort, the company will make a $100,000 donation to the organization. The funds will be used to provide free physical examinations and reconstructive surgeries for children suffering from cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities.
Sony is also donating Cyber-shot digital cameras to help Operation Smile volunteers capture smiles at more than 30 mission sites around the world. Equipped with Sony’s distinctive Smile Shutter technology, the cameras automatically capture a smile when the feature is activated, without having to press the shutter button. The result is snapshots with natural-looking smiles and expressions.
“It’s a precious moment when child a child comes out of surgery with a new smile, so you don’t want to miss it and you want to get it right,” said Mike Fasulo, Chief Marketing Officer and Corporate Social Responsibility Officer at Sony Electronics. “Sony is in the business of preserving precious
memories like these with our industry-leading digital imaging products and we are a proud supporter of Operation Smile.”
“We are so grateful to Sony Electronics for this significant financial support and commitment to our cause,” said Dr. Bill Magee, Operation Smile Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder. “With this relationship, Sony is not only helping Operation Smile provide new smiles to children born with facial deformities, but with their donation of cameras, they are also helping us capture images of these priceless moments during our medical missions.”
The retail promotion begins on August 1 nationwide.
Nikon has announced a memory upgrade for its flagship D3 DSLR. The service, which is already available, will increase the continuous shooting buffer from 16 to 36 shots for those people shooting 14-bit lossless NEF raw files. In most filetype/compression permutations, users can expect to see around a doubling of shooting buffer. Owners wishing to upgrade are advised to contact their local service center. The price will be £300+VAT in the UK, and $500+tax in the USA.
Sanyo held an event Wednesday for the Japanese launch of the Xacti HD800, a major upgrade to last year’s HD700. It still shoots 720p widescreen video in H.264 but has a much improved eight-megapixel CMOS sensor that picks up 70 percent more visual data, improving the perceived sharpness at the same resolution. Color accuracy has also been stepped up, while the HD800 is the first Xacti camera of any kind to have 3D noise reduction that cleans the image in real time.
The new 5X zoom Xacti also has face detection with live tracking and shoots video in scenes as dark as three lux. Still photos are shot at full sensor resolution. Regardless of the mode, Sanyo promises an improved method for offloading and publishing video taken from the Xacti either through USB or the SDHC card and gives users a direct full-resolution preview through an HDMI video output.
An initial launch will see black, gold, and pink versions of the camera ship on August 22nd for the equivalent of $463. Sanyo hasn’t announced release dates outside of Japan but has published its news in English and typically sells Americanized versions of its Xacti cameras.
Let’s face it, it really sucks when you are out with your mobile phone, iPod or other electronic device and you run out of juice. If your device charges with mini USB, your days of running out of power could be over thanks to Duracell’s new PowerSource Mini. The device comes in two versions with one designed to power iPods and the other for Blackberry devices. Both have a mini USB connector as well.
The PowerSource Mini uses an internal rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack and has a pivoting mini USB arm for connecting to electronic devices. Duracell says that a second USB port allows you to charge an additional device at the same time. Duracell also ships an AC adapter and DC charger that each has a USB port with the PowerSource Mini. I would rather have something like the IOGear Rescue Charger personally that uses AA batteries. Then I can keep charging as long as I can get my hands on fresh batteries.
New version features Adobe Lightroom support, YouTube export and teleprompter
MUNICH, Germany — Boinx Software has introduced FotoMagico 2.5, its award-winning photo presentation tool for professional photographers. Recently honored with the Apple Design Award (ADA) 2008 “Best Mac OS X Leopard Graphics and Media Application Runner-up”, the new 2.5 version of FotoMagico now features support for Adobe Lightroom libraries, a teleprompter that shows notes for every slide on a presenter’s display and a new export option for uploading slideshow videos directly to YouTube.
“We want to thank thousands of users who take part on our public beta program and gave feedback to make FotoMagico even better,” says Oliver Breidenbach, co?founder of Boinx Software. “We are dedicated to making FotoMagico the premier slidehows tool on the Mac, two Apple Design Awards are proof that we are on the right track.”
“With FotoMagico 2.5, keeping your audience at the edge of their seats with a great show is now as easy for Adobe Lightroom users as it was for Aperture and iPhoto users before”, says Peter Baumgartner, lead-developer and “father” of FotoMagico. “The teleprompter enables a Steve Jobs-like performance for everybody and sharing shows with a global audience was never easier than with the new YouTube export option.”
Adobe Lightroom Support
FotoMagico 2.5 now supports the iMedia Browser framework. With the integrated iMedia Browser users can now seamlessly access GarageBand songs, iLife sound effects and their media libraries not only from iTunes, iPhoto and Aperture (Pro version) but also from other software including Adobe Lightroom (Pro version).
Teleprompter
With the new teleprompter of FotoMagico 2.5 Pro users can show their photos on one display and read their notes for every slide on another. Nicely animated, they get a preview showing which pictures come next and can even jump back and forth to every slide in the storyboard with just a click of the mouse.
YouTube Export
The Sharing Assistant feature adds a new export option, allowing to upload photo presentation videos directly to YouTube to reach a global audience. Video encoding for YouTube can be accelerated with the powerful Turbo.264 video encoder hardware from Elgato.
Availability & Pricing
FotoMagico 2.5 is available immediately for download from http://www.boinx.com/download. A built-in assistant will guide users through the process of aquiring the proper license. The update to FotoMagico 2.5 is free of charge to current FotoMagico 2.x license owners at their current license levels. FotoMagico 2.5 Express is available for $49 and FotoMagico 2.5 Pro is available for $129 via Kagi. For all purchase options see http://boinx.com/fotomagico/buy. Commercial multi-user license discounts are available upon request.
It’s summer, and Lancerlink is selling two new waterproof products.
The LAQA3 DAP features 1GB of memory and provides a frequency response of 20Hz-20,000Hz. You can listen to music while surfing, but you’ll have to pay around 115€!
The ViviCam6200w digital camera features a 6Mpix CCD sensor, a 4x digital zoom, 16MB of flash memory, SD card Slot, and 2.0″ LCD Screen. It can be used to a depth of 10m, but costs around 350€!
The DelFly Micro is the world’s smallest camera-equipped aircraft. It has a 4-inch wingspan and weighs just over 3 grams. Resembling a dragonfly this tiny craft carries a tiny camera that transmits live video of what it sees. Apparently it is intended to be merely the forerunner of much smaller aerial drones to come. Developed by a four-man research team from the Delft University of Technology, the DelfFly Micro was presented it to a media audience recently. Here are some specs: - The craft is made of PET film (used for the wings), balsa wood and carbon. - DelFly Micro is powered by a tiny lithium polymer battery that weighs just 1 gram and generates 30 milliampere hours of power; giving flight time of 3 minutes. - Together with its associated transmitter, the DelFly Micro’s video camera weighs only about 0.4 grams. - Although the DelFly Micro can’t fly backwards like the DelFly II that preceded it, the tiny MAV reaches a respectable top speed of 5 meters (16.5 feet) per second.
DelFly Micro builders are planning for subsequent DelFly generations. The Micro was completed about a year into a four-year program to create the DelFly Nano, a MAV that is intended to weigh just 1 gram and to have just a 2-inch wingspan. Its wings will need to flap much more often than the DelFly Micro to keep it flying.
The DelFly Micro is the world’s smallest camera-equipped aircraft. It has a 4-inch wingspan and weighs just over 3 grams. Resembling a dragonfly this tiny craft carries a tiny camera that transmits live video of what it sees. Apparently it is intended to be merely the forerunner of much smaller aerial drones to come. Developed by a four-man research team from the Delft University of Technology, the DelfFly Micro was presented it to a media audience recently. Here are some specs: - The craft is made of PET film (used for the wings), balsa wood and carbon. - DelFly Micro is powered by a tiny lithium polymer battery that weighs just 1 gram and generates 30 milliampere hours of power; giving flight time of 3 minutes. - Together with its associated transmitter, the DelFly Micro’s video camera weighs only about 0.4 grams. - Although the DelFly Micro can’t fly backwards like the DelFly II that preceded it, the tiny MAV reaches a respectable top speed of 5 meters (16.5 feet) per second.
DelFly Micro builders are planning for subsequent DelFly generations. The Micro was completed about a year into a four-year program to create the DelFly Nano, a MAV that is intended to weigh just 1 gram and to have just a 2-inch wingspan. Its wings will need to flap much more often than the DelFly Micro to keep it flying.
SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) had introduced the SanDisk® SD™ WORM card, a Write Once Read Many (WORM) digital memory card intended for professional uses such as police investigations, court testimony, electronic voting and other applications where data files must be protected from alteration or deletion.
Analog recording media such as film and audio tape are rapidly becoming obsolete, driving demand for a solution suitable for today’s digital devices. But conventional rewritable memory cards do not meet legal requirements to prevent data tampering.
Digital data written to SanDisk SD WORM cards is effectively locked as soon as it is recorded; there is no physical way to alter or delete individual recorded files. Yet viewing the data is simple, because the cards are readable in any standard SD slot attached to a computer or other SD-compatible device.
SanDisk SD WORM cards also offer 100-year archive life1, when kept under appropriate storage conditions.
Applications for the SanDisk SD WORM card include:
- Police photography and witness/suspect interviews, where courts require proof that photos and audio recordings are genuine.
- Court proceedings, such as trials and depositions.
- Electronic voting, where recorded votes must be tamper-proof.
- Cash registers which record transactions for tax collection purposes.
- Event recorders, such as security cameras and “black box” flight-data recorders.
- Medical devices which retain individual patient treatment data.
- Personal digital assistants (PDAs) and similar devices used by physicians and other health-care professionals to track patient interactions.