BBC News are running a story about another device that allows you to automatically record your day-to-day lives. Well, actually you probably won’t be able to record your life, as the SenseCam is a prototype that will never make it into production. But it will help patients at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, UK, where researchers hope that it will help patients with memory loss and improve their quality of life. For the techies amongst you, the Sensecam can store 2,000 images on a 128MB memory card and has a 132-degree ultrawide lens.

Website: BBC News - ‘Black box’ cam for total recall

Michael Reichmann has published a great article on his Luminous Landscape website which weighs up the pros and cons of digital SLRs and compact digital cameras. Essential reading if you are trying to decide between the two types of camera.

“I believe that even serious fine-art photographers and working pros will now find several digicams worth considering - something that I might not have said 12-18 months ago. And fortunately as time passes this is likely to become increasingly true. Certainly for a broad range of amateurs and enthusiasts the better digicams may indeed be all the camera that’s needed.”

Website: Digicams vs. DSLRs: The New Battle Royal

Seagate has entered the MicroDrive market with a new 1 inch hard drive for portable consumer electronics devices. The drive will come in two capacities: 2.5GB and 5GB.

“Seagate’s 1-inch drive plans make it the second major hard disk drive maker to enter this part of the market, which is currently dominated by Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Inc. (HGST) and its MicroDrive products. Other companies making such drives include Chinese start-up GS Magicstor Inc. and Colorado-based Cornice Inc.”

Website: InfoWorld - Seagate unveils new drives, 1-inch model

eFrameCentral.com Press Release 07/6/04

eFrameCentral.com Introduces New Digital Picture eFrame Just in Time for Father’s Day

Company offers a wide assortment of eFrames, ideal for Father’s Day gifts

Warwick, RI (June 7, 2004) - - eFrameCentral.com today announces the availability of a new digital picture eFrame by Pacific Digital just in time for Father’s Day. In addition to the new Pacific Digital eFrame, eFrameCentral.com is currently offering a number of its eFrames at greatly reduced prices.

eFrames are an excellent gift idea for Father’s Day, especially for anyone with a digital camera or those who enthusiastically embrace the newest gadgetry with a high-level “cool factor.” eFrames provide an amazing way for a father to display photos of his children and grandchildren.

Nikon Press Release 09/06/04

Nikon and TiVo Partner to Extend the Excitement of Digital Photography Into the Living Room

Professional Photography from Nikon’s Portfolio of Award Winning Artist’s Delivered to TiVo Series2 Subscribers With Home Network

MELVILLE, N.Y., June 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/—Nikon (http://www.nikonusa.com), the world leader in photography, today announced a partnership with TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVR), to deliver professional photography images from world-renowned artists to all TiVo(R) Series2(TM) subscribers connected to a home network.  Beginning today, TiVo Series2 subscribers can view images from Nikon’s “Legends behind the Lens” through the home media features.  The first in a series of artist’s highlighted by Nikon will be Joe McNally, the award-winning photojournalist known for his incredible versatility, technical mastery and use of creative lighting to capture interesting and engaging photographs.

Apacer Press Release 25/05/04

New Apacer Photo Steno Pro II
Tuesday 25 May 2004 - The fastest Compact Flash card in the world!

With an Access Rate of 15MB/sec the Apacer Photo Steno Pro II is the fastest Compact Flash card in the world! Recognising the ever-increasing requirements of digital photography, the Apacer Photo Steno Pro II CompactFlash Card offers an outstanding access rate up to 15MB/sec. This ranks the ?PSP-II? as No. 1 in the world.

Taking a photo and saving it as a 3264*2448 pixel 10MB file now only takes 1 second! It takes just another second to read the same file again from the Photo Steno Pro II CompactFlash card.

The Apacer Photo Steno Pro II has a capacity of up to 4GB to satisfy the high-capacity storage requirement of professional photographers. The Photo Steno Pro II will be launched on Davoom.com in June 2004.

BT Press Release 08/06/04

To get a “real” photograph from a digital camera does not necessarily mean a visit to the chemists or camera shop any more, but just a quick stop at a new photo kiosk from BT and Fujifilm.

The first “Digital Photo Kiosks” have just been installed at London Luton Airport, the Blackpool Tower, St John’s Shopping Precinct in Liverpool, the Coppergate shopping centre in York and in the Corus hotels, at Hyde Park in London and Stratford-upon-Avon.

Initially ten kiosks are planned for a six-month trial across the UK. The kiosks will be rolled out nationwide to major tourist attractions, hotels, airports and shopping centres if the trial is successful.

PCMagazine have published an interesting article that takes a broad look at the immedaite future of digital photography (found via digicamera.net).

“What we haven’t yet seen in still cameras, and what I expect to see emerge in both the pro and semipro environments, is the 3-CCD still camera. This would immediately triple the resolution of the camera (depending on how you calculate resolution). With today’s CCDs a 6MP camera is really only delivering about 2MP to 3MP resolution, because the CCD itself has color filters for RGB with one red pixel next to one blue pixel, surrounded by two green pixels. It takes four pixels to make one point of color. Only Foveon goes about this differently. A 3-CCD camera would deliver a much more defined and colorful image.”

Website: PCMagazine - What’s Next for Digital Photography?

Express Digital Press Release 08/06/04

EXPRESS DIGITAL PRESENTS EXPRESS DIGITAL DAYS 2004—40 Event Summer Tour Demonstrates The Importance Of Software In A Digital Workflow
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Englewood, CO - June 8, 2004 - Express Digital, the leading provider of digital imaging software, e-commerce and lab solutions to professional photography businesses, announced today that it is kicking off the Summer of 2004 with an educational and promotional event demonstrating the power of a complete digital workflow using Express Digital software.? Participation in Express Digital Days -  Summer Tour is free and includes live demonstrations of complete digital workflows powered by Express Digital software.? In addition, Express Digital customers will be on hand to describe how they are using the software to successfully grow their photography businesses.
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Express Digital Days will take place at authorized dealer locations all across North America on June 23rd, July 21st and August 25th.  Express Digital representatives will be on hand at each event to demonstrate the power of software as an integral part of the digital workflow, in addition to handing out free t-shirts and registering participants to win one of three digital backpacks from Lightware.

An online article by the UK-based Independent newspaper attempts to cut through the jargon that surrounds digital cameras and show how to buy the right camera for you.

“If you go wild, then it is easy to spend far too much on equipment that probably exceeds your needs. And digital camera technology is not quite at the same level as the old-fashioned “SLR” (single lens reflex) systems that we’re used to with film. Quality is still variable; swapable lenses such as wide-angle and “macro” (close-up) are still the province of the top-end systems costing ?1,000 or more. But it is perfectly easy to get a camera that will serve all your amateur needs - and possibly have a few tricks to surprise you - for about ?200.”

Website: Independent.co.uk - The digital camera revolution need not snap your nerve

Pretec MMC 4.0 USB Card Reader The First and Fastest in the World Taipei, Taiwan, June 1, 2004 ? Pretec Electronics Corp., the 2nd company in the world offering CompactFlash memory card (CF) card since 1995, is demonstrating the world?s first USB card reader supporting MMC 4.0 4-bit mode, which can possibly reach the access speed of up to 26MB/s, the highest speed flash memory card reader in the world today, at COMPUTEX TAIPEI Pretec Booth Hall 4, # 101A here at World Trade Center.

Supporting most popular flash memory cards in the market such as CF I, CF II (or 1? HDD), Smart Media, MMC, MMC 4.0 (4-bit mode), SD, MS, MS-Pro, etc., Pretec USB card reader is the most versatile card reader today. When MMC 4.0 8-bit mode is supported by Q4/2004, Pretec USB card reader can possibly reach a whopping speed of 52MB/s, close to the maximum speed of USB 2.0 specification. Pretec MMC 4.0 USB card reader is sampling now, with mass production scheduled by next month.

Sigma Press Release 28/05/04

Sigma introduce digital SLR battery charger kit - 28 May 2004  

Sigma have announced a D00006 Battery Charger SD kit that consists of two rechargeable CR-V3 type Lithium-Ion batteries BP-11 and a charger BC-11. CR-V3 type Li-ion Rechargeable battery BP-11 is exclusive to the SD9 and SD10 digital SLR cameras.

It takes about 120-minutes to fully charge a battery with the dedicated Battery Charger BC-11. This Sigma Battery Charger SD will be sold as a kit that consists of a charger (BC-11), and two pieces of Lithium-Ion batteries (BP-11).

Are 8 megapixels just not enough for you? Then you may be interested in the 500 megapixel Dark Energy Camera, available now at your local friendly camera store. Or maybe not :-)

“Fermilab is part of a collaboration proposing an ambitious new experiment to measure the properties of dark energy. If approved, the Dark Energy Survey would measure the history of the expansion rate of the universe more precisely than ever before, using the largest camera ever built with Charge Coupled Devices (CCD). The 500 megapixel Dark Energy Camera would be placed on an existing 4-meter telescope located in north-central Chile at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory’s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.”

Thanks to Sanj for the link.

Website: FermiLab - Time Exposure

Sandisk Press Release 24/05/04

SANDISK SHIPS SD CARD THAT COMBINES 256MB FLASH MEMORY AND WI-FI COMMUNICATIONS

New SanDisk Combination SD Card Works With Variety of Windows Pocket-PC-Based Handheld Devices

NEW YORK, NY, May 24, 2004 - SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) announced today the availability of the SanDisk 256 megabyte (MB) + Wi-Fi SD Combination card, the world’s first card to include both memory and WLAN (802.11b) communications in a single SD card. The new card is compatible with handheld devices that feature an SDIO-enabled slot and use Microsoft Pocket PC 2002, Pocket PC 2003 or Windows Mobile 2003 operating environments.

Availability of the SanDisk Combination SD card, with shipping planned in the next 30 days to worldwide markets, was announced at the Digital Experience media conference in New York. SanDisk’s 256MB+Wi-Fi SD card has already received a 2004 Mobility Award from MobileTraxx.

The latest Luminous Landscape article looks at creating panoramic photographs using two software programs called PanoTools and PTAssembler.

“I dream about being able to afford 22 megapixel medium format backs.  I think that it would be great to be able to capture that much detail with one click of the shutter.  Heck, I?d love to be able to afford a Canon 1Ds.  However, for most amateur photographers that type of hardware is out of reach.  But, with a little bit of practice, you can get some of the same eye popping detail using much more modest equipment.  The answer is to take multiple exposures and stitch them together using software that costs as much as a somewhat nice dinner.”

Website: Luminous Landscape - Getting Started with Digital Panoramas

Sony Japan have just announced a new 40Gb portable storage device. Called the HDPS-M1, the new device supports memory stick and compact flash card formats, has a 40Gb hard-drive and connects to a computer via USB 2. There is no LCD screen to view your images once they’re downloaded, so it operates in much the same way as my Vosonic XS-Drive. Price will be around $270 - no word yet if the HDPS-M1 will make it outside Japan or not.

Website: Sony Japan - HDPS-M1

Website: DPReview - Sony HDPS-M1

A couple of months ago at the CeBIT show in Germany, Pretec announced that they would ship a 12Gb compact flash card in the 2nd half of 2004. Today DPReview have revealed exactly how much it will cost you to own the largest memory card in the world - a mere $14,900!! I bet that must have been an interesting discussion in Pretec’s marketing department…

DPReview have also published prices for Pretec’s other new cards:

3 GB card - 166,000 YEN ($1,490)
4 GB card - 207,00 YEN ($1,860)
6 GB card - 525,000 YEN ($4,700)
12 GB card - 1,659,000 YEN ($14,900).

Original Pretec Press Release

6GB CompactFlash card pricing reduced, 12GB CF card announced by Pretec

Hannover, Germany, March 18, 2004 - Pretec Electronics Corp. (Hall 19 Booth B06), the 2nd company in the world offering CompactFlash memory card (CF) card since 1995, dropped its pricing for 6GB CF memory card, the largest capacity flash memory card in the world of any small form factors which Pretec demonstrated and started shipping since September 2003, from $7499 to $3499. Pretec also announced 12GB CF card today at CeBIT 2004, 300% larger capacity than any of it??s closest competitors in the world, priced at $9999, to be delivered
by 2nd half of 2004.

An interesting article by Reuters reports that the price of flash memory has recently been drastically cut by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Toshiba Corp, who are attempting to prevent new competitors from entering the market. This has in turn resulted in a decrease in compact flash card pricing (found via Digicamera.net).

“The average price of 512-megabit flash chips has tumbled to $9 from a $21.50 peak in October, according to www.dramexchange.com. For consumers, that has resulted in bargains such as a 512-megabyte SanDisk memory card reduced to $97.99 from $221.41 at www.buy.com.”

Website: Reuters - Flash Memory Prices Slump as Market Showdown Looms

Pixology Press Release 21/05/04

Pixology plc, (LSE:PIX) the digital photographic software expert, announces today the launch of Embedded Pixology IRISS, an automatic solution for removing the problem of red-eye instantaneously, at point of source, as the image is taken in the digital camera.

Developed six months ahead of schedule in a successful collaboration with Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI), the new product is now available on TI’s digital media processor, which manages the majority of a digital camera’s image processing once the image is captured.

Pixology and TI, the world leader in digital signal processing technology, have jointly developed a unique method of embedding Pixology IRISS onto a camera chip and have optimised it for the digital media processor. This enables Pixology’s award winning red-eye detection and correction technology to run automatically when a digital image is captured and is still in the camera.

SanDisk Corporation Press Release 24/05/04

SanDisk Introduces World’s First 6-in-1 PC Card Adapter; Easy Solution to Transfer Images, Music and Data from Flash Memory  

NEW YORK—(BUSINESS WIRE)—May 24, 2004—SanDisk Corporation (Nasdaq:SNDK) today introduced the world’s first 6-in-1 PC Card Adapter, giving notebook computer users the largest number of card formats for moving files to and from flash memory devices such as digital cameras, PDAs, MP3 players and mobile phones. The announcement was made at the Digital Experience media conference in New York.

The new adapter offers easy, plug-and-play compatibility with no software needed, and works with six different memory card formats: SD, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, xD-Picture Card, and SmartMedia. To read a card, users simply insert it into the adapter, and then slide the adapter into any computer with a PC Card slot. In this mode, the adapter works like a removable hard drive.