Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

Compact flash cards are slowly but surely being pushed out of the digital camera market by SD cards, but there are still plenty of cameras, particularly digital SLRs, that rely on the older format. So companies like RIDATA haven’t given up on CF just yet, and to prove it they’ve just introduced an updated version they call the SMART compact flash card.

As far as I can tell what makes these cards ‘SMART’ is a new internal data monitoring system that works to ensure you never experience any data loss. While having 16GB of storage in your camera is great, it’s not a pleasant feeling when something happens to the only card you’ve been shooting with the past few days. And besides extra data monitoring, the cards also include embedded error correction code (ECC) that supports “two random bits of a sector on-the-fly ECC corrections.” I’ll assume that’s a good thing.

The new cards even offer longer reliability, with a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of 5,000,000 powered-on hours, and 100,000 times of program/erase cycles. The SMART CF cards will be available in two series, a Supreme 150X version with a capacity of up to 8GB, and a Lightning version with a capacity of up 16GB.

[ RIDATA SMART Compact Flash Cards ] VIA [ Digital Photography Review ]

By Luke Anderson

One of the great things about having a digital camera is that you can take hundreds of pictures, then quickly view and edit them on your computer. Unfortunately, that generally requires the use of a card reader. Sure, a lot of the newer PCs have one built-in, but there are still plenty out there that don’t. That’s why I love this little invention.

The memory card is actually quite small, and has a tiny USB connector that lets you plug it directly into your computer, no card reader required. It snaps into a plastic case which essentially turns it into an SD card. I don’t normally get excited about a memory card, but I have to admit that this is a cool design. It’s a little more expensive than your average SD card, but I’d still buy one at around $21 for a 1GB card.

VIA [ Aving ]

By Andrew Liszewski

While manufacturers have managed to cram larger LCD displays onto digital cameras, they’re still far too small for sharing photos with a group of people. But as long as you have access to a relatively large TV, sharing your shots becomes easy with this SanDisk Photo Album. It looks and works like a large multi-format card reader, but can also be connected to your TV for viewing photos.

It includes slots for CompactFlash, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, SmartMedia, xD, SD and MMC cards as well as a USB port for flash drives. (Which is also used to connect it to your PC.) It supports JPEG files up to 16 megapixels and will not only resize them on the fly so they fit on the screen, but using the included remote you can also zoom in to any part of the image. If photos aren’t your thing, the Photo Album also plays MP3s and has limited video capabilities with support for 8fps MPEG-1 files.

You can get it directly from SanDisk for $49.99 or save yourself $10 by buying it from Amazon instead.

[ Sandisk Photo Album ] VIA [ GadgetGrid ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Digital photo frames were probably one of the more popular gifts last Christmas, and based on what I see in stores, this year isn’t going to be any different. But why buy a cheap model with a crappy resolution, when your digital camera is probably taking 7MP+ photos? I recently stumbled across a line of digital photo frames from a company called Ality, and while I haven’t seen one in person yet, they’ve sold me on features alone.

The Pictura Mirror PC019M model has a whopping 19-inch LCD screen and a half-decent resolution of 1280×1024. The frame also includes other basic features like support for BMP and JPG files, a high-speed USB port, slots for CF, SD, MMC and MS cards and will play back both MPEG and AVI video files. But it’s the frame’s other features that really set it apart.

First off, instead of showing a black empty frame when not in use, the PC019M actually has a mirror finish so it not only looks good, but can ensure you do too. It also has a built-in photo scheduler so you can load up specific pictures when friends or family stop by. (Or ensure that other pictures don’t get loaded into the slideshow.) But the biggest feature in my opinion is that it has a touch-screen interface! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to choose a menu option on a regular digital photo frame by touching the screen, only to remember I have to use a set of small annoying buttons instead. Unfortunately though the frame seems to be hard to come by if you’re looking to pick one up. I managed to find a price for the 17-inch version, about $350, so you can expect the 19-inch model to be even more expensive.

[ Ality Pictura Mirror Digital Photo Frame ]

By Andrew Liszewski

NEC will be showing off a new wireless camera at iExpo2007 in Tokyo this week that actually draws its power from a fluorescent bulb. A special ring-shaped component that relies on electromagnetic induction is slid onto the bulb and power is obtained from the magnetic field generated by the light’s AC source.

Now I’m not sure if this technique ends up causing the bulb to draw more power, but the real advantage is being able to install a camera where it would otherwise be difficult to run power cables to. NEC expects the cameras to be used in office settings for checking up on employees (I’m sure that will go over well) but when you consider that almost every store in the country uses fluorescent bulbs, it also becomes a cheaper way to setup a security system.

At the moment the camera only supports VGA resolutions (640×480) but I assume that’s not a limitation imposed by the way it’s powered. What’s not clear though is whether or not a security system based on this technology can be defeated by simply turning off the lights.

[ NEC Develops Wireless Camera Powered by Fluorescent Light ] VIA [ EcoGeek ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Ricoh has just announced the follow-up to its GR DIGITAL camera with the cleverly named GR DIGITAL II. The camera actually uses a fixed focal length lens which sets it apart from other P&S cameras on the market. The lens is the equivalent of a 28mm on a 35mm camera, with a maximum focal length of F 2.4.

As a result the camera is specifically designed for landscape and other wide-angle photography. In fact it even includes an electronic leveler for keeping your shots horizontally or vertically level, which is important for that type of photography. An on-screen bar shows which way the camera needs to be tilted to make it level, or an audible signal can be used if you’re looking through the optical viewfinder and can’t see the LCD display.

Other improvements to the GR DIGITAL II include a new 10 megapixel sensor and the ability to shoot with a square frame to emulate 6×6 medium format cameras. Images can be saved as JPEGs or as RAW files straight from the sensor using the Adobe DNG format.

The camera should be available sometime in November for about $700.

[ Ricoh GR DIGITAL II ] VIA [ The Online Photographer ]

By Evan Ackerman

Back in 2006, Eye-Fi WiFi SD cards were little more than an awesome idea just begging for some commercial investment to get them into production. And now, they’re here. These brilliant 2gb SD cards contain fully independent wireless software and hardware that will automatically upload pictures to the photo sharing website of your choice (or even to your home computer) via any locally available wireless network. No actual modifications are made to your images during this process (unless you want them resized), and the whole thing is managed at the Eye-Fi website. So, just to clarify, all your digital camera has to be capable of is saving images to a standard SD card, and the Eye-Fi card will work for you. As you might expect, range is not great (well under 100 feet), but power requirements (although unspecified) are supposed to be minimal. As we suggested last year, this means that you may be able to use your SD card as a buffer of sorts, freeing up space on the card as images get offloaded via WiFi. I can’t immediately tell whether Eye-Fi moves or copies files (I suspect it’s the latter), in which case you’d need to somehow be able to figure out which of your pictures have already been transferred. The price for all this convenience? $100 (at least 5x more expensive than a regular 2gb SD), with the software and online services included. Available at most major electronics retailers.

[ Eye-Fi ] VIA [ Sci-Fi Tech ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Not content with just letting users view their photos on a printer’s LCD screen, HP has upped the ante on their Photosmart A826 model by including a 7-inch touch screen. It’s not only the largest display you’ll find on a consumer printer, but it also allows you to perform many photo editing tasks that usually require access to a PC and specialized software.

You can add captions to a photo either by writing directly on the screen with a stylus (included) or your finger (not included) or by typing them in on a touch screen keyboard. You can also doodle on a photo, adding mustaches, knocked-out teeth and eye patches which is always comedy gold. For those photos that didn’t turn out as perfect as you’d like you can even use the stylus to remove red eye, adjust the contrast and other basic corrections.

At $249.99 it’s probably not the type of printer you’re going to replace in 6 months, but if you like to skip the PC step when it comes to printing your photos this seems like a good solution.

[ HP Photosmart A826 Home Photo Center ] VIA [ Popular Science ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Based on the lack of SpongeBob related Hallowe’en costumes I see at the stores these days, I can only assume he’s not quite as popular as he used to be. But while this SpongeBob digital camera might be a little late to the party, I’m sure there are still plenty of fans eager to snatch it up. Even if it does make him look like some bizarre cyclops creature. (As opposed to a bizarre sponge creature.)

The camera itself is pretty crappy, with a resolution of just 640×480 and no LCD preview screen. But it does have a basic monotone display showing the number of available shots left, a flash and a focusable lens. Not surprisingly the camera only captures the images as JPEG files, which you can safely assume will be heavily compressed. Oh, and I’m willing to bet this SpongeBob won’t be quite as happy under the sea…

You can find the camera on Amazon for just $19.99.

[ SpongeBob SquarePants Digital Camera ] VIA [ Uneasy Silence ]