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Uniden's new UDC-7M cam: now with less crap?
Last time Uniden came out with a camera, we dubbed it the "crapcam," mostly for its superlow price of $100, which seemed a bit sketchy. Today, we came across another Uniden cam for over $200, called the UDC-7M. It's a 7 megapixel, 4x optical zoom, 2.4-inch screen ISO 50 to 800 shooter, and according the company's site it comes with 26.5MB of internal storage -- that's an odd number, no? There's also an SD/MMC card slot for those who can't make do with that paltry internal storage. The cam is for sale -- in one of three bright colors -- direct from Uniden in Japan, and including shipping, costs ¥24,980. But what's the best part of the 7M's listing? You know it's a quality item when at the bottom of the product description, it says: "This product is BRAND NEW" -- just how we like 'em.[Via Far East Gizmos]
Fujifilm's six megapixel F20 thrives at night
Besides the S6000fd that we just brought you, Fujifilm has another six megapixel shooter slated to hit stores in September, though this model is more at home in a pocket than a camera bag. Being touted as the little brother to the company's already-compact F30, the new F20 sports many of the same features as its big bro -- besides the 6.3 megapixel CCD, they both share a 3x optical zoom and 2.5-inch LCD -- with the major differences being size, display resolution, and battery capacity. Also like the F30, this model is designed to perform in low-light conditions that would prove difficult for other compact cameras which don't share its relatively high maximum sensitivity of ISO 2000. The other nice touches here center around the flash: it automatically adjusts its intensity based on ambient lighting, and is part of the innovative "Natural Light & Flash" feature that snaps two consecutive shots -- one with flash and one without -- to provide users with a so-called "photographic safety net." No word yet on pricing, but since you can pick up the F30 for under $400, we imagine that this model will be available for around the same cost.
Computer-brain interface device will speed up video footage review
No matter how many spy cams and unmanned surveillance drones government and law enforcement officials can pack into public spaces, their utility has traditionally been limited by the finite amount of footage human monitors can review in a given time frame. New DARPA-sponsored research out of Columbia University, however, may soon allow folks tasked with keeping an eye on video feeds to perform their jobs up to ten times faster -- by leveraging the rapid image processing abilities of cortical vision. Since people are able to recognize suspicious activity much more quickly than they can consciously identify what's wrong, professor Paul Sajda and his team developed a computer-brain interface device -- similar to ones we've seen control an on-screen cursor and bionic limb -- that monitors an operator's neural output while he/she is watching streaming footage, and tags specific images for later perusal. Once the technology is perfected in the coming months (it still emits too many false positives, apparently), it could allow for more thinly-staffed monitoring departments, though we suspect it will probably just convince officials to deploy more and more cameras.
Casio introduces 7.2 megapixel Exilim EX-Z70
So Casio's just announced that it's taking the six megapixel Exilim EX-Z60 and bumping the resolution up to 7.2 megapixels in a new model whose name you can probably guess, while at the same time managing to make it just a little more pocket-friendly by shaving a few millimeters off the depth. Besides those extra million or so pixels, though, the Exilim EX-Z70's specs remain nearly identical to its sibling's, so the 2.5-inch LCD, 3x optical zoom, and digital image stabilization will come as little surprise. Retailing for around $425, a black version of this 118-gram point-and-shooter will be available at the beginning of July, while a silver edition will hit the streets about a month later. Keep reading to get a view from the back, though if you're familiar with Z60, you'll have seen it all before...
Casio's compact 10 megapixel EXILIM EX-Z1000 reviewed
Proving that there's still a little bit of life left in the so-called megapixel race, Casio is offering a compact digital camera that packs a 10 megapixel sensor into the smallest space we've seen since Samsung's latest ridiculously excessive cameraphone, and what's more, Let'sGoDigital finds that the company actually puts some of those extra pixels to good use. Besides its unrivaled maximum resolution of 3648 x 2736, Casio's EXILIM EX-Z1000 initially impressed us with a high res 2.5-inch display and unusual maximum ISO of 3200, but LGD finds that while the screen indeed delivers superior performance, the latter feature, as we suspected, produces unacceptable levels at noise. Images captured at ISOs below 400, however, were judged to be "impressive," with good color accuracy and visible detail, and there are plenty of options available to manually tweak such settings as white balance, flash intensity, and even aspect ratio for slideshows on either 4:3 or 16:9 TVs. The biggest downside to the Z1000 is probably its sub par 3x optical zoom, although this is one area where the camera's abundance of pixels helps to compensate somewhat, as Casio includes a "Non Deterioration Zoom" mode that lets you sacrifice image size for better-than-average digital zooming at settings as high as 17.1x. Overall, it sounds like your $400 buys you a well-built, full-featured, and solidly-performing camera -- with a very respectable 300+ shot battery life -- along with the dubious distinction of being the only person on your block to own a point-and-shoot sporting more megapixels than most people's DSLRs.
Kodak patent for age-detecting camera system
Even despite all those face lifts, tummy tucks, fake tans, dye-jobs, and botox injections, Kodak may soon be able to accurately gauge one's age when it comes snapshot time. They apparently filed a patent in 2004 for a system which, as the above images culled from their patent filing so plainly suggest, determines the age of a photographer's subject by putting that red-eye effect to good use and metering the size and distance between those two red dots the rest of us can't seem to reliably get rid of in our photos. Apparently pupil dilation reflex time increases with age (like most other reflexes), you'll be able to find out for sure whether Grandma really is as young as she says. Though frankly we're not really sure we want to know.[Via New Scientist]
Sony working on 60fps CMOS for high-res stills
In a move that promises to minimize the trade-off between digital still and video cameras, Sony announced today that it is working on a CMOS chip capable of capturing images from every pixel at a blazing 60fps. The problem with current imaging devices is that consumers must sacrifice image quality when they are recording video, but risk missing important shots due to shutter lag and the general non-continuous nature of still photography. Along with a new digital signal processing chip also being developed by Sony's engineers, the sensor should allow cameras to be used strictly in video mode, with high-res stills capable of being extracted later. No word on when we'll see actual products sporting the new tech (regular CMOS sensors are only starting to replace CCDs in consumer devices), but it's nice to know that camera manufacturers are finally throttling back on the megapixel race and instead focusing on improving the imaging experience.[Via Digital Camera Info]
Mamiya bailing on camera biz
It looks like another venerable Japanese camera company is about to exit the business, just weeks after Konica Minolta produced its last camera. According to reports out of Japan (which we've confirmed with our Japanese bureau), Mamiya, best known for its high-end pro equipment, will be selling off its film and digital camera business to focus on other sectors. The company apparently has had "stagnant sales" of its digital models, including its 22-megapixel, $12,000, Mamiya ZD, which was released in Japan in December and in Europe just last month. The buyer is apparently Cosmos Scientific, a Japanese company better known for its IT business than for any expertise in digital imaging. As of now, it looks like the deal is set to close on September 1. We'll keep you posted as we get further details.
Switched On: Bringin' da noise brings in da funk
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a weekly column about the future of technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:At next week Photo Marketing Association show, all eyes will be on the viewfinders, LCDs, and output of digital cameras. As growth of these cameras slows in the U.S. within the next few years, though, manufacturers need to continue to increase their appeal. One feature that has improved dramatically in the past few years is digital video capture. Many digital cameras can now capture 30 frames per second of digital video until they fill their storage media, and conserve space with advanced codecs such as MPEG-4 used by Kodak and DivX used by Pentax. Legacy limitations such as not being able to zoom while recording video are also starting to fade to black.The expedience with which consumers can now capture high-quality digital video clips with their cameras is spurring a wave of digital video sharing services such as Google Video and YouTube, where consumers can share their amateur porn precious memories. Paradoxically, though, in this online video renaissance, the previous champion video capture device -- the camcorder -- has been left holding the accessory bag. While increasingly popular DVD-based units have greatly simplified the path to playback on the television, they've done little to bridge the online gap or shrink the size of the devices. Here slim flash memory-powered digital cameras have a great advantage.
