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.

Flip Video has announced the UK launch of the Flip MinoHD, allegedly the smallest high-definition camcorder in the world. The Flip MinoHD weighs just three ounces, is small enough to fit in your pocket and records 720p video on its 4GB internal memory. A flip-out USB stick makes it easy to upload the videos captured with the Flip MinoHD to any modern computer. “The product has become one of the most successful camcorders in the U.S. and there has been substantial interest in an HD product from the UK so we are delighted to now launch here,” said Ray Sangster, EMEA President at Flip Video. The Flip MinoHD comes bundled with the auto-loading FlipShare software, and is available now for £169.99.

Ritz Camera Centers have announced that they are about to close more than 300 stores across the US. This is part of a court-supervised bankruptcy reorganisation, which will leave about 400 stores still open around the country, the company says. The retail inventory of the stores that are being closed is valued at more than $50 million, and store closing sales offering substantial discounts on all inventory at those locations will begin on Saturday, April 4.

Ritz Camera Centers, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year.

Photo credit: Nerdelicious | Source: Wikipedia | Licence

Kodak Ektar 100, an extraordinarily fine-grained colour negative film introduced at Photokina 2008, is now available in 120 size. Kodak announced this new emulsion just before Photokina, saying at first that it would only be manufactured in 35mm format. In February 2009, Kodak changed their minds and unveiled their plan to launch Ektar 100 for medium format as well, arguing that “the response to the introduction of EKTAR 100 Film has been amazing, with many requests to make the new film available in medium format”. At the time of this announcement, Kodak promised that Kodak Ektar 100 in 120 format would hit the shelves in April - and they have kept their promise. The 5-roll 120 Pro Pack is now in stock in a number of Calumet stores across the USA, retailing for $17.49.

Member of Parliament John Randall led a debate on recent restrictions on public photography in the House of Commons. He addressed three main issues, namely the taking of photographs in public places by amateurs, the recent advent of Google Street View, and the police using power against “bona fide journalists”. In addition to these topics, Randall also mentioned the “incredible hysteria about taking any photographs that might contain a child”. The debate lasted about half an hour and involved other Members of Parliament as well as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department.

Website: Read the full transcript of the debate in the Commons Hansard

ImageSpan, creator of licensing and royalty payment automation platform LicenseStream, has partnered with image copyright service provider PicScout. This partnership serves “to help LicenseStream subscribers immediately monetise content found by PicScout and obtain more value from that content as it gets published across the Web”, as the jointly issued press release puts it. Online image theft is seen as “a huge and growing problem”, with lost revenues from unauthorised uses of images online allegedly exceeding $65 million. The cooperation between ImageSpan and PicScout promises to provide LicenseStream subscribers with a means of tracking how, when and where their images are being used or abused.

The family-friendly online photo sharing website kizoa.com has just relaunched. Kizoa.com, also accessible via kizoa.co.uk, allows users to create slideshows with drag-and-drop simplicity, organise photos into albums and join groups, and also provides them with an easy-to-use online editing interface.