Wacom has significantly reduced the UK prices of the Cintiq 21UX, PL-720 and PL-521 interactive pen displays, as well as the Wireless Pen Tablet. The Cintiq 21UX is now priced at £1,799.99 including VAT, the 17” PL-720 at £999.99, the 15” PL-521 £799.99, and the Wireless Pen Tablet at £149.99. All Wacom products are available from Computers Unlimited and Gem in the UK.

The HP DreamColor Display is a new color-critical computer professional display with a range of more than 1 billion colors. The result of a technology collaboration between HP and DreamWorks Animation, the DreamColor Display achieves more than 64 times the colors available on mainstream LCDs. Reds, blues and greens are visibly deeper, blacks are four times darker and whites are adjustable. “The new DreamColor display packs a list of significant advances into one amazingly powerful display, enabling an unprecedented level of color management and fidelity in our production process.” said Ed Leonard, chief technology officer, DreamWorks Animation. The HP DreamColor Display is now shipping worldwide $3,499.

Sony are developing a back-illuminated CMOS image sensor which increases sensitivity twofold and produces low noise levels. This improved performance has been achieved by illuminating the backside of the silicon substrate, in contrast to conventional CMOS image sensors based on front-illumination technology. The 5 megapixel sensor features 1.75µm square pixels, can achieve 60fps, and will be used in Sony’s consumer digital video camcorders and digital still cameras. In May OmniVision revealed an 8 megapixel sensor using the same back-illuminated technology.

TrustedReviews have reviewed the ColorMunki from X-Rite, which delivers an easy, quick and affordable solution for matching colors from display-to-print.

“The results, using an Epson R800 and a variety of papers were really impressive, producing much better colour prints, especially on third party papers, such as Ilford Gallerie, Imgaes matched the monitor version much closer, though the nature of the two viewing media - LCD and ink/paper - will never allow an absolute perfect match.”

Website: TrustedReviews - ColorMunki Photo Review

Website: Read our ColorMunki Photo Review

Microdia have launched a 64Gb compact flash card, enough capacity to store 19,000 20Mb images! Unveiled at the Australian PMA show, the 64Gb Microdia 300 Xtra Elite card offers read/Write transfer rates of up to 45MB/sec (300x rated) and is compatible with UDMA-enabled digital SLR cameras. Microdia’s 64Gb compactFlash will be available in Australia from July, but there’s no word yet on either price (presumably huge) or worldwide release dates.

Website: Microdia - 300 XTRA ELITE Cards

This year’s Digital Photo and Imaging show takes place at the Business Design Centre, Islington, London on 26th and 27th June 08. Peartree will be demonstrating the Leaf AFi camera system and Leaf Capture software, plus the Broncolor Lighting system. Leaf and Peartree experts will be on hand throughout the show to answer any questions on the Leaf and Broncolor solutions. The Digital Photo and Imaging Show is free if you register online, or it costs £12 admission at the door.

LG have introduced 3 new, 6x speed Blu-ray drives - the BE06, GBC-H20L and GBW-H20L. LG’s new line-up offers SecurDisc capabilities, providing data protection and content access control on all current optical formats, and LightScribe, which creates direct-to-disc labels. The external LG BE06 drive costs $379.95, whilst the internal LG GBW-H20L costs $279.95 and the LG GBC-H20L $199.95.

Colour Confidence are offering the complete i1 XT bundle for only £995/€1495, a saving of 45%. With i1 XT, you can do RGB & CMYK printer profiling, monitor, digital projector profiling, scanner and digital camera profiling, edit profiles, make spot colour readings and measure ambient lighting. There’s also up to 30% off the i1 Photo, Photo SG and Proof.

The new SanDisk Extreme III Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo card offers read and write speeds of 30MB per second. Available worldwide in June in 4GB and 8GB capacities, the Sandisk Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo is aimed at professional photographers and advanced amateurs who use Sony DSLR cameras. “The SanDisk Extreme III Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo continues our tradition of delivering best-in-class performance in the SanDisk Extreme product line,” said Susan Park, director of consumer product marketing for SanDisk’s performance cards. “Our customers know SanDisk Extreme cards not only deliver cutting-edge read and write speeds, but are designed for durability – even under harsh conditions.”

The new OmniBSI image sensor is turned upside down so that it collects light through the backside, optimizing light absorption and increasing image quality. Conventional front side illumination (FSI) image sensors limit the amount of light reaching the pixel. Backside illumination (BSI) reverses the arrangement of layers so that the metal and dielectric layers reside below the sensor array, providing the most direct path for light to travel into the pixel. OmniVision claim that thier 1.4 micron BSI pixel surpasses all the performance metrics of 1.4 micron, and even most 1.75 micron, FSI pixels. OmniVision is currently demonstrating an 8 MegaPixel, OmniBSI CameraChip sensor, and expects to start sampling first products before the end of June.

The write speed of the new LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive has been doubled to 4x. Other improvements include an updated aluminum alloy case and software suite. The LaCie d2 Blu-ray drive records, rewrites and reads 25 gigabytes (GB) or 50GB BD-R (recordable) and BD-RE (rewritable), as well as DVD±RW DL and CD±RW. The LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drives are available now at the suggested retail price of $649.99 / £469 excl VAT.

WD’s My Passport Studio portable hard drives are now available for Mac users. My Passport Studio portable drives are offered in capacities of 320 GB and 250 GB, feature FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 interfaces, and include a soft drawstring carrying bag for protection. “We designed the My Passport Studio portable drives to work seamlessly with Apple’s Time Machine, making this drive an ideal storage solution for creative pros on-the-go who require high performance storage to back up and carry their massive amounts of digital content,” said Jim Welsh, vice president and general manager of WD’s branded products and consumer electronics groups. The My Passport Studio portable drive with 250 GB capacity is $159.99 and 320 GB is $219.99.

Shuttertalk have reviewed the Asus Eee PC review, a 7 inch laptop that weighs less than 1kg and costs just £220 / $400.

“Image editing is where it starts to get tricky though. These days 800 x 480 pixels of resolution is hardly sufficient, and it shows. The two floating tool panels of The GIMP take up almost all of the screen real estate, and the image window has to be moved on top of the tool panels to be used. In the UFRAW plugin, certain elements of the page (such as the action buttons) do not fit on-screen and the window has to be dragged around to view them. In Picasa’s edit mode even, the “image tray” is obscured by the actions panel on the left.”

Website: Shuttertalk - Asus Eee PC Review

The OWC Mercury On-The-Go portable hard drive is now available in a capacity of 500Gb for just $329. OWC Mercury On-The-Go portable drives are compatible with virtually all computers with an available FireWire or USB port, including all Macs and PCs. Fully bus powered with no additional external power required, each Mercury On-The-Go Drive features backup software - Prosoft DataRescue III for OS X and NovaStor NovaBackup for Windows. OWC Mercury On-The-Go Drives are immediately available and priced starting at $95.99.

The Transcend StoreJet 35 Ultra is a new actively cooled eSATA external hard drive. The StoreJet 35 Ultra offers transfer speeds of 3.0Gb/s via its eSATA interface, or 480Mb/s via USB 2.0. It features an active cooling system that includes an extra-quiet 80mm high-flow fan to keep its internal drive running cool and stable. The StoreJet 35 Ultra is now available with either a pre-installed 500GB SATA hard drive, or without a drive.

Kodak has won the 18th Annual EDN Innovation Award in the Sensor Category for the Truesense Color Filter Pattern. This groundbreaking new technology allows for the development of digital capture devices that take better pictures under low light or reduce motion blur when photographing moving subjects. Truesense advances an existing KodakTechnology, the Bayer pattern based color filter, that has become a standard in digital imaging. “This recognition of the KODAK TRUESENSE Color Filter Pattern acknowledges our continuing advances in digital imaging technology, for both CMOS and CCD products.” said Herb Erhardt, CIS Business Manager, Image Sensor Solutions, Eastman Kodak Company.

Peartree are offering photographers the chance to upgrade their DSLR systems to the brand new Leaf AFi camera. The Leaf AFi is a new 6 x 6 medium-format digital camera for professional photographers. Leaf will pay £5,000 for your Nikon, Canon or Kodak DSLR and two lenses when choosing the AFi 7, or £3000 for an AFi 5. This promotion is running for a limited period only. See www.peartreephoto.com for full terms and conditions.

Imaging Resource have reviewed the Spyder3 from Datacolor, a new monitor calibration device aimed at photographers needing the most accurate colour for digital editing.

“I’ve always trusted a Spyder to calibrate my main monitors. And at first I was resistant to employing yet another Spyder. Things were fine, why screw them up? But the Spyder3 is a significant improvement over its predecessors. There are the technical improvements like its increased light sensitivity, not to mention the unique seven detector color engine it shares only with the Spyder2. But the improvements I most appreciate are the user ones like the more flexible USB cord, the smaller colorimeter (which is easier to place on an LCD) and the faster and more efficient software.”

Website: Imaging Resource - Spyder3 Review

LaCie have introduced a 500Gb version of the portable Rugged Hard Disk, which features a scratch-resistant aluminum shell and shock-resistant rubber bumper. Using an Hitachi Travelstar 5K500, 2.5-inch internal hard disk, the 500GB Rugged Hard Disk is bus-powered by either USB or FireWire and available in either USB 2.0 or a USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 version. The LaCie Rugged 500GB version is available now for $299.99 in the USA. UK prices are £189 for the USB 2.0 version and £229 for the triple-interface version.

Jobo have released a firmware update for the Photo Display PDJ701 digital picture frame series. The update installs the folder structure function and allows you to arrange up to 10,000 images into individual folders for more organized slideshow presentations.