Firmware version 1.01 is now available for the Casio EX-S12 ultra-compact digital camera. The update brings to you the following improvements:

Dynamic Photo:  Improved cropping accuracy when shooting a solid color background
Eye-Fi:  Improved data transfer rate for wireless communication

Website: Casio EX-S12 Firmware Update Software

ISTEGO Distribution GmbH has announced the world premiere of the Vosonic DPA4000 digital photo album. Manufactured by Taiwanese company Vosonic Technology Corporation, the DPA4000 is an external storage device boasting 4GB of memory and an 8” TFT LCD with anti-reflex coating. The Vosonic DPA4000 comes bundled with a charger, a USB and an audio cable, headphones and a genuine leather case. Owing to the latter, the Vosonic DPA4000 resembles a traditional photo album when “closed”. When “open” and powered on, the DPA4000 can show you the photos stored on it in a conventional photo album layout, but can also present them as slideshows with background music. The integrated Li-ion battery has enough capacity to power the device for about 2.5 hours straight. Availability in the EU is slated for 19 April. The price will be €249 including German VAT.

Website: ISTEGO Press Release (in German)

Data Robotics has unveiled the new DroboPro, billed as ‘the first business class storage array that manages itself’. Although the DroboPro is targeted mainly at small and medium enterprises (SMEs), it can also be useful to photographers producing a large bulk of work that has to be stored digitally. DroboPro is currently available starting at an entry price of $1299 MSRP, with multiple configurations to $3999 for a 16- terabyte rack-mountable solution.

Although it seemed that Patriarch Partners had won the auction for Polaroid, a judge has ruled that the top two bidders be given a second chance to submit improved bids. This comes after complaints by Polaroid’s creditors that the bidding had been flawed. Polaroid had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2008, and despatched the last shipment of instant film to a New Jersey-based wholesale distributor last month.

Via The Minneapolis Star Tribune

EU3C Company Ltd. announced that the company has officially been granted patents in both Japan and Taiwan on its proprietary standalone film scanning technology. EU3C has patents pending for the Standalone Film Scanner in the USA, the European Union, South Korea and China as well. EU3C’s standalone Filmscan II has been available since November 2008. It incorporates a 5 million pixel CMOS array sensor and a 2.4” TFT LCD display, and scans 35mm film at a resolution of 1800ppi, without the need to be connected to a computer.

KepMad Systems have released version 4.0.0 of their Image Buddy software. Image Buddy is a digital image layout program designed especially for use on the Mac, supporting MacOS X v10.4 and v10.5. A demo version is available free of charge, whereas a single-user licence costs $19. Click through / read on to find out about what’s new in version 4.0.0.

JOBO AG has announced the JOBO Plano series of ultra-thin digital picture frames. The new JOBO Plano 8 is the first in a series of three new digital picture frames to be introduced this year. The Plano 8 is only 25 mm thick and features an 8” high resolution (800x600 pixels) TFT-Color-LCD display. This model features USB 2.0 high speed capability and support popular memory cards such as SD, SDHC, MMC, MS and xD. Also included with this model is a wall mount kit and remote control unit, plus an AC power adapter. The kit is available now for €129,00 MSRP. Two other JOBO Plano frames, the Plano 7 and the Plano 10, will hit the shelves in May, for €99 and €179, respectively.

The Action For Brazil’s Children’s Trust is hosting the Força Da Rua exhibition at The Print Space in London from April 23 - May 12. The stars of the exhibition are 12 specially painted iconic Gibson guitars that will be auctioned off on the 29th of April to raise funds for the trust, but a selection of limited-edition photographic prints will also be on display.

liveBooks Photojournalism is a new, cost-effective, pre-designed website offering and community for photojournalists. The service promises to provide photojournalists with an opportunity to have a professional web presence at an affordable price. liveBooks Photojournalism users can choose a website look and feel that best fits their style by selecting from 78 variations of page designs. Do note however that these pre-designed websites are available to members of the partnering photojournalism organisations only. Subscription costs $44/month or $444/year. Alternatively, the sites can be purchased for a one-time fee of $1,144.

Tom Mackie Images have announced a landscape and architectural event taking place on 5th – 14th October 2009. The location is New England, “with its beautiful and quaint fishing villages, boats and the majestic lighthouses of Maine”. In addition, participants will visit visit Acadia National Park and the classic villages of Vermont with their tall white painted churches and covered bridges.

The winners of the 152nd Print Exhibition Awards have been named. The Royal Photographic Society’s International Print Exhibition is the longest standing exhibition of its kind in the world, having been staged almost every year since the founding of The Society in 1853. This year’s theme was ‘New Horizons’, and almost 2,000 prints were submitted from over 500 photographers worldwide. The Gold Award winner is Michael Birt for his print titled ‘Lindsay Duncan’. The Silver Awards have been given to Bill Jackson and Toby Pier. The Bronze Awards go to Max Catterall, Amanda Bollini and David Maitland. Yoshikazu Hayashi from Japan has won the Allen & Overy Award, for his print titled ‘Construction Site’. The relatively new Under 25 Award went to 23-year-old Sean Lamoureux from the USA, for his work ‘MO1:Persistent Jury’.

Photo: David Maitland, “Who Eats Who?”

FotoMaps 2.0 has just been announced. FotoMaps is a photo gallery built with flash and XML that lets you put your photos on a map. Use of the software requires no knowledge of Flash or coding. “Anyone can make a FotoMap and anyone can view it,” says FotoMaps creator Benek Lisefski. Version 2.0 is a free download. Read on to find out about all the new features this update has to offer..

The Royal Photographic Society is organising a series of events centred around the theme of staged photography and manipulation. Entitled “The Real Thing? - Staging, Manipulation and Photographic Truth”, the series endeavours “to explore the enduring relevance of staged photography and the consequences of its myths, metaphors, facts and fictions”. To accompany The Real Thing, a competition in which participants are asked to create a modern version of O G Rejlander’s Two Ways of Life by digitally combining and altering images, has also been announced. (The original was printed from 32 separate negatives, combined in the darkroom to make one extraordinary image.) You have until 30 April to enter a print in this competition.

Website: Royal Photographic Society Visual Literacy Conference & Events 2009

According to In-Stat, continued uptake of cameras in mobile phones and notebook PCs is driving growth in the area-array image sensor market. Research shows that camera phones accounted for nearly 81% of sensor shipments in the world and that CMOS imagers massively outweighed CCDs in 2008. However, the latter statement does not apply to dedicated digital still cameras - CMOS sensors are not forecast to surpass CCDs until 2013 in this segment. The main sensor makers include Aptina, MagnaChip, OmniVision Technologies, Sharp, Sony, and Panasonic.

SLIK has unveiled the SLIK PRO 340 BH tripod and the SBH-200DQ dual-level ball head. This compact tripod has 4 legs sections to collapse down to just over 20 inches. Padded leg wraps make the tripod more comfortable to carry. The PRO 340 BH has a gearless centre column that unscrews into two pieces converting the top piece into a short column. This feature combined with the adjustable leg angle locks allows the tripod to be lowered to 10 inches for very low angle or macro photography in the field. The removable SBH-200DQ ball head has two built-in bubble levels to help you ensure the camera is perfectly level. The SLIK PRO 340 BH tripod with the SBH-200DQ ball head has a suggested list price of $239.95.

Pentax offers an instant rebate programme on select digital cameras. The models involved include the Pentax Optio E70, Optio P70 and Optio W60 compacts, and the Pentax K2000 DSLR bundled with a DA L 18-55mm kit lens and an AF200FG flash. The rebate programme is valid in the US between 3 - 11 April.

Two Pilots has released a new version of Exif Pilot for viewing, editing, and creating the EXIF and IPTC data. Exif Pilot is a piece of software designed for EXIF and IPTC data analysis and comparing the parameters for a number of images. In View mode, supported file formats are the following: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, DNG, NEF, CRW, JP2, PSD and RAW files (including CR2, MRW, ARW PEF, SR2, ORF, and RAF types). In Edit mode, Exif Pilot support these file formats: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, DNG, NEF, PEF, CRW, and JP2. The Exif Pilot Pro, a version that supports batch editing, is priced at $39.95. A trial version is available free of charge.

AKVIS Software, which turns 5 this May, has organised a birthday raffle and a Creative Contest. Everyone who enters the raffle at the raffle page before May 29, 2009 will receive a coupon for 15% off of an AKVIS software title of their choice. The 15 % coupon code will be valid till July 1, 2009. The coupon will work for purchasing any AKVIS program (any licence type), but not for software bundles. The prizes of the Creative Contest are an autographed copy of the book The Art of Digital Photo Painting by Marilyn Sholin (pictured) and a licence key for any AKVIS program.

Canon has announced that it has produced over 10 million consumer DSLRs since the launch of the Canon EOS Digital Rebel / 300D in 2003. The increasing volume of consumer-orientated DSLR models on the market has also driven an increase in the volume of lens sales. Canon’s EF lens portfolio is allegedly the world’s most extensive range of DSLR lenses, with over 60 models and 40 million sales worldwide.