Content

Content in its shift to become digital

Lumix DMC L1 SLR Announced by Panasonic
Panasonic’s first digital SLR camera with interchangeable lens has been announced at the PMA show.
The DMC-L1 utilises Olympus’s Four Thirds System and employs an attractive, solid, traditional design that could prove mighty tempting to old school photographers fed up with fiddly dials and rummaging through onscreen menus.
Coupled with the new Leica D Vario-Elmarit 14-50mm/F2.8-3.5 lens (also announced yesterday), the DMC-L1 serves up a tempting array of hands-on controls, with a large shutter speed dial on the camera’s top plate and manual aperture, focus and zoom ring controls (as well as built-in image stabilisation) on the lens.
Do we like the sound of that? You betcha!
The 7.5 megapixel camera uses a new Live 4/3 MOS sensor using Panasonic’s Maicovicon technology, which claims to deliver “the beautiful images of a CCD sensor with delicate gradation and a wide dynamic range,” along with low noise and power consumption.
The camera’s innovative mirror box unit offers a Live View function that lets users preview scenes directly on the 2.5inch, high resolution, 207,000 pixel LCD as well as through the viewfinder.
This function can be selected in both Auto Focus and Manual Focus modes, so snappers can enlarge part of an onscreen image to fine tune a picture, with the option to also check the depth of field. Nice.
Onboard is Panasonic’s Venus Engine III image processing LSI, claimed to consume only 80% as much power as its predecessor, the Venus Engine II.
The camera also utilises Olympus’s excellent Supersonic Wave Filter which uses high frequencies to blast pesky dust off the camera’s sensor – a real Godsend for photographers fed up with seeing thumping great blotches all over their masterpieces.
The beautifully finished DMC-L1 uses the SD Memory Card format and includes compatibility for the upcoming super-high-capacity 2GB+ SD Memory Cards.
Although full details have yet to be announced, the camera does seem to share quite a bit in common with the Olympus E-330 EVOLT, although the new, Leica-branded lens looks to be a very classy number indeed.
Pricing is yet to be revealed although we suspect your wallet isn’t going to like it one bit.
Four Thirds system
PMA 2006
27 February, 2006
Google Digitises US Video Archives, Iraq Censorship Rumours Debunked
Google has struck up a partnership with the US National Archives to digitise their historic movie collection and provide free access to the public through their video search service.
Initially offering 101 digitised films, the public will be able to view World War II newsreels and footage of the Apollo 11 mission and other Nasa material online.
Also included in the pilot are reels from a 1930s documenting the establishment of the national park system (be steady, my beating heart).
In a statement, US archivist Allen Weinstein declared the partnership as, “an important step for the National Archives in its goal of becoming an archive without walls.”
“Our new strategic plan emphasises the importance of providing access to records anytime, anywhere. This is one of many initiatives that we are launching to make our goal a reality,” he added.
Google censoring Iraq content?
But what Google gives with one hand it appeared to be taking with another as The Register reported that the search engine giant was blocking US viewers from seeing a piece of Iraq footage on their video service.
Although available to non-US viewers, the innocuous clip – which showed US military personnel detonating a roadside bomb in a controlled explosion – was unavailable in the US with The Register (and, to be fair, several others) citing this as an example of a new regime of political censorship at Google.
Happily, this was not the case, as a Google spokesperson explained: “Video uploaders, using Google Video’s ‘Advanced Options’ feature, can choose to blacklist countries. In this case the uploader blacklisted the US and only the US. When uploading the video the content owner set a preference not to show this content to users in the US.”
Of course, had Google not agreed to their highly controversial deal with China to censor search results recently, people would be less inclined to think them capable of censorship closer to home…
Google Video censors Iraq footage – for US only
National Archives via Google Video
27 February, 2006
Ask Jeeves Rebrands, Adds New Search Tools
The site formerly known as Ask Jeeves has retired its long serving butler, rebranded itself as ‘Ask.com’ and served up a new, simplified homepage offering access to new tools like enhanced maps, driving directions, encyclopaedia search and a Web-based desktop search.
With the butler now booted off the homepage, ask.com presents a simple, Google-like interface with a text search box and a collapsible, customisable sidebar with shortcuts to 10 default search tools including maps, bloglines, images, weather, dictionary and weather.
New map features galore (if you’re in the US)
Ask.com says that the map search service has been considerably improved, employing the new AJAX-based technology to let users add new locations (pins) on the map, and then move the pins around on the map to get instantly updated walking or driving directions.
Aerial photos can also be overlaid or combined with regular street views, with the option to print aerial shots for a fee.
After several minutes frantically looking for some pin-pushing, drag’n’drop action of our own, we realised that it’s not for the likes of us Brits and all the groovy functionality is reserved for US maps only.
Were we impressed? Not at all.
And as if to wind us up a bit further, we then discovered that ask.com’s much-touted new encyclopedia search function was also noticeable by its absence on the UK homepage, as was the local search function.
Here’s an idea Ask.com – how about you include a help file to explain this to users, or, even better, give us the same goodies too?
Keeping it simple
In an attempt to stand out from a highly competitive (and Google dominated) market, Ask executives are aiming to provide a super-clean interface with fewer ads and editorial results displayed above advertisements.
“We want to get the message out that Ask.com is a serious alternative to any search engine out there,” said Daniel Read, vice president of consumer products at Ask.com.
Old Danny boy’s got his work cut out for him as Ask Jeeves has remained the least used among the largest search engines, way behind market leaders Google who currently hog an estimated 40 per cent of all queries.
Trailing behind Yahoo, Microsoft, MSN and AOL, Ask Jeeves can only muster a paltry 6.5% of the market, and until we get the same advanced functionality that our US counterparts enjoy, we’ll be sticking with Google, thanks.
Ask.com
27 February, 2006
Sky, Disney HD and VoD Deal Signed
BSkyB, the UK satellite TV behemoth, is getting closer to Disney. They’ve just announced a comprehensive agreement which covers both HD (High Definition) content, which Sky have said will be available in 2006, and the distribution of Disney content will be available on Sky By Broadband, their recently released free content-to-PC’s. service.
It’s the largest distribution deal that Disney has arranged outside the US and also mentions the deal covers video-on-demand (VoD). The VoD section of the deal does cover Sky-By-Broadband, but could also cover their yet-to-be-detailed, EasyNet-delivered VoD service, which interestingly isn’t mentioned in the release.
News release follows …
SKY, DISNEY MEDIA NETWORKS AND THE WALT DISNEY STUDIOS TEAM UP FOR MORE FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT, HDTV AND LEGAL BROADBAND MOVIE DOWNLOADS
Two New Channel Brands – Disney Cinemagic and ESPN Classic – To Launch As Part Of New Arrangement
Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney Become Available to Millions More Viewers As Part Of ‘Kids Mix’ Package of Basic Channels
Walt Disney Studio Movies Available From Sky HD and Sky by broadband
Jetix distribution on Sky digital extended
Disney Media Networks, The Walt Disney Studios and British Sky Broadcasting (Sky) today announced plans to bring a wider choice of channels to Sky digital customers and to work together to exploit new opportunities in high definition television and broadband. The wide-ranging series of agreements expands the portfolio of great content from The Walt Disney Company available to Sky digital customers and extends the relationship between the two organisations.
Two new channel brands – Disney Cinemagic and ESPN Classic – will be made available to Sky digital customers for the first time, while Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney will be available to millions more Sky digital viewers as part of the Kids Mix package of basic channels. There will also be more ways to enjoy great films from The Walt Disney Studios as movies distributed by Buena Vista International Television join Sky’s legal broadband download service, Sky by broadband, and its forthcoming high definition television offering, Sky HD.
From 16th March, Disney Cinemagic, a new premium channel brand for families, will be the first place on television to see Disney’s latest animated films such as Pixar’s The Incredibles. Subscribers to Disney Cinemagic will also enjoy regular access to other great Disney favourites such as Lady and the Tramp and Cinderella. Disney Cinemagic will be available to Sky digital customers as a stand-alone premium channel or as a bonus channel for subscribers to Sky Movies 1 and 2.
From the same date, Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney will be available to Sky digital customers as part of the ‘Kids Mix’ of basic channels. Disney Channel will be even more kid-focussed, complementing Cinemagic, and offering live action favourites like That’s So Raven, popular animation series and Disney Channel Original Movies, including High School Musical which is currently taking the States by storm. Playhouse Disney, a channel targeted to preschoolers, will premiere the new CG animated, learning-focussed series, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, in May.
ESPN Classic, launching on 13th March as part of Sky’s ‘News and Events Mix’, will be the only sports channel in the UK devoted entirely to the greatest moments and legends of sport with a mix of all-time classic highlights, matches, movies, interviews, profiles and documentaries. ESPN Classic, part of ESPN Inc., the world’s leading multinational, multimedia sports entertainment company, will be available 24/7 on channel 442. Launch night alone will include Borg vs. McEnroe – the Great Wimbledon Rivalry, England’s 2003 Rugby World Cup Final victory over Australia and the 1984 European Cup Final between Liverpool and AS Roma.
Through a distribution agreement with Buena Vista International Television, Sky Movies will continue to offer a package of current and library Walt Disney Studio films,,with customers enjoying access to forthcoming Sky Movies premieres such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe; The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Sin City and Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. In addition to the extension of existing pay-TV and pay-per-view rights, the new agreement gives Sky the ability to offer these titles in High Definition format and on a video-on-demand basis. These titles will also be available, for a set period, via the Sky by broadband service, which since last month has allowed dual Sky Movies subscribers to download films to their personal computers to enjoy when they want at no extra cost.
Under an amended distribution agreement, Sky digital customers will continue to enjoy access to Jetix and Jetix+1 for up to a further five years from the expiry date of the current deal in 2007. Jetix offers a dynamic programming mix of action, adventure and cheeky humour, both animated and live action, for kids with a core focus on 7-11 year olds, with programming highlights including Power Rangers, Jackie Chan Adventures, Totally Spies and A.T.O.M Alpha Teens on Machines.
In commenting on the announcement, Anne Sweeney, Co Chair of Disney Media Networks and President, Disney-ABC Television Group, stated: “This agreement, which marks our largest distribution deal outside the US, is great news for viewers, who will now be able to access an even broader array of Disney content, either through their TVs or via broadband on personal computers. The strategic utilization of new technologies to meet consumer needs is of paramount importance to the growth of the Disney Media Networks Group, and we look forward to this deal enhancing an already rich association with Sky, and our viewers in the UK and Ireland.”
Richard Freudenstein, Sky’s Chief Operating Officer, said: “These agreements show the range and quality of Disney content. Working with outstanding brands like Disney and ESPN allows us to offer great entertainment for every family member and to break new ground in multi-platform content distribution. With today’s announcement, we are creating another compelling reason for families to join Sky digital and demonstrating again the strengths in content and innovation that position Sky well for sustained growth.”
George Bodenheimer, Co-Chair, Disney Media Networks and President, ESPN, Inc and ABC Sports, said: “ESPN has built up a passionate bond with sports fans and we are very excited to extend this with the launch of ESPN Classic in the UK on the Sky platform. We are confident that ESPN Classic, a dedicated new sports channel designed specifically for the UK market, will capture the attention of the UK sports fan as it has in over 40 countries across Europe.”
27 February, 2006
Buzz-o-Phone – A New Form Of Web Content
The idea behind buzz-o-phone is simple enough. You call a US freephone (800) number where you’re able to leave a voice message. Your elicitation, wise or otherwise, is the posted to the player section of the buzz-o-phone Web site, where the world can listen.
Initially Buzz-o-phone looks like ideas that have been around before, like the innovative AudBlog – a link between the POTS world (Plain Old Telephone Service) and the online. We know that ideas build on each other, and Buzz-o-phone may well have picked these up from projects in the past.
Look a big deeper and you may agree with us – we think buzz-o-phone signals a whole new form of content. A simple, barrier-less way of everyone to leave public comment.
Blogging and Podcasting have their own barriers. OK, there’s free online tools to do both of these, but even when these are setup, there’s the barrier to actually getting your thoughts – which are free flowing, to be published and it takes effort. Sometimes the effort is too large and the ideas don’t get sharedexplored a few ideas on his blog as to how Buzz-o-phone might be expanded in the future.
Legal issues?
There has been, in our view, a getting-close-to-hysterical reaction from some panicking about slander and libel.
While the legal issues can’t be ignored, it’s interesting reading the Q&A session on Buzz-o-Phone between Robert French and Matt Galloway. It’s clear that Mr Galloway hasn’t just fallen into this idea – he’s wisely done a lot of background research on the legal side.
Issues with content filtering
To minimise legal problems, or indeed the removal of postings containing swearing (that some might find offensive), the audio comments have to be listened to, in order to know that they fall into the acceptable category. The issue with this, as with all audio files, is that this has to happen in real-time, unlike the text of a blog, it cannot be either read by a computer and checked against a dictionary of acceptability or speed read.
We’d imagine that two versions of the ‘conversation’ will have to be created; the raw, which would be an unfiltered version; and the clear-feed, dropping off comments that are judged as offensive. This is riddled with difficulties of its own – as with all censorship, you have to make you’re own decision as to if your parameters of acceptability align with the self-appointed censor.
All in all, we’re very excited about Buzz-o-phone, so get yourself over there, dial toll-free US 1-800-591-5375 (you can use Skype), contribute a comment and watch it grow.
Buzz-o-phone
Buzz-o-phone player
(via the ever-enjoyable RocketBoom (congrats to them on their initial advertising deal).
24 February, 2006
Xara Xtreme Review (93%)
Xara has been around for over a decade now, and although it may not be as well known as expensive rival programs like Illustrator and Freehand, it continues to offer astonishing value for money, providing ample power under the hood and enough tools to satisfy anything from graphic smudgers to arty pros.
Now known as Xara Xtreme, the vector-based program claims to be “the world’s fastest drawing program”, and we’ve certainly never seen anything as fast on our machines.
Compared to its big name rivals, this fella is a Billy Whizz in a world of Billy Bunters.
Screen redraws are instantaneous, and changes you make to blends, bevels, shadow effects, feathering, graduated transparency and other effects appear on-screen in real time.
Complex objects can be moved around and transformed in real-time, so you won’t be entertained by egg-timer pointers or have to view pesky wireframe or boundary boxes when shunting graphics around the screen.
Although it isn’t the most modern-looking of programs, Xara’s sheer simplicity and power makes it a far less daunting program to master compared to many high-end vector programs, with new users guided by a set of excellent help files and 80+ short movie tutorials.
With an intuitive, customisable and familiar interface, there’s a refreshing lack of dialogue boxes floating about, with most changes being made via an option bar that instantly updates to show the relevant options for the active tool.
Bitmap editor
As well as the usual Bezier, freehand, shape, blend and text vector tools, there’s a handy ‘Picture Editor’ photo enhancement module available for bitmap editing.
This launches when you double-click any imported bitmap image and offers basic photo adjustments like brightness, contrast and saturation, along with useful tools like cropping and red-eye removal.
Imported images can be resized, have text added and then exported as JPEGs with control over compression settings.
Interestingly, Xara also offers Photoshop plug-in support, opening the door to more advanced digital editing and effects.
Xtreme comes with tools for outputting optimised graphics for the Web, a NavBar tool, image slicing and image map support, but if you’re feeling low on inspiration, there are Gallery palettes packed with thousands of ready-made items which can be downloaded off Xara’s site.
Xara should easily fit into most user’s workflows too, with support for all the common vector and bitmap graphic formats, including Flash, AI (Illustrator), Corel DRAW, TIFF, GIF, PNG and PDF, and offers integration with Adobe/Macromedia’s Dreamweaver and Flash software.
The verdict
Once again, we were knocked out by the performance, superlative speed and graphics capability of Xara, but we’ve kept the best bit until last: the price.
At just $79 (~£46, ~e66), Xara Xtreme retails for a fraction of the price of its rivals and with its sophisticated and powerful set of tools can only be considered an absolute bargain!
Highly recommended.
Ease Of Use: 85%
Features: 85%
Value For Money: 95%
Overall: 93%
Xara Xtreme
24 February, 2006
Samsung Helix XM2go Portable Satellite Radio/MP3 Player
Announced at the CES 2006 show earlier this month, the Samsung Helix XM2Go has now appeared for pre-orders on Amazon.com (US).
There’s been quite a lot of excitement about the Helix, which comes with an alluring feature set, offering a portable satellite receiver and mp3 player/recorder in a highly pocketable package.
The big news about this unit is its ability to receive XM satellite radio transmissions, letting users combine live XM radio with their personal digital music collections (MP3s and WMA).
XM Satellite Radio may not mean a lot over here in Europe-land, but in America it’s the country’s most popular satellite radio service, offering 160 digital channels, including news, sports, talk and entertainment, traffic & weather with “the deepest playlist in the industry” covering over 2 million titles.
The good news is that the service is commercial free – the bad news is that it’s a subscription service, with plans starting at $12.95 a week.
The Samsung Helix XM2Go lets users record up to 50 hours of broadcast on its built-in flash memory, with users able to build their own playlists on the device, mixing XM radio content with their own digital music.
A handy built-in memory buffer lets listeners save an entire XM radio song even after the song has already played halfway through, and a built-in FM transmitter means that music can be beamed to any FM radio frequency, making it easy to listen to XM content on any home or car stereos.
The Helix offers a neat TuneSelect feature, which alerts users when one of their favourite artists or songs is being played on an XM channel and there’s also built-in support for the XM + Napster music service.
This lets users ‘tag’ a song they hear on the XM radio, and then buy and download the tune song via Napster.
The attractive looking device measures a cutesy 3.7 x 2.2 x 0.6 inches, weighs in at a lightweight 4.5 ounces, with a large 2.2 inch 180 x 180 TFT colour screen dominating the front of the unit.
It’s not cheap at $399.99, (~e335, ~£229) but that’s the sort of price early adopters can expect to pay for such a cutting edge gizmo.
Shipping is expected in early April, with the optional YA-CP100 car kit retailing for $69.99 (~e58, ~£40).
Amazon
XM Radio
22 February, 2006
Sport1, Film1: First HDTV channels in Holland
The World Cup In Germany this year is going to be the big opener for HDTV in Europe.
When I was in Berlin mid-last year there was a lot of talk about it, and with the annoucment below, it’s clear that that HD mania isn’t going to just be restricted to Germany, as Holland follows suit.
Sport1, a new pay-TV channel will be the first HDTV channel in Holland and on the back of it they’ll be launching Film1 – no prizes for guessing what they’ll be putting on that.
Dutch Sport1 and Film1 to launch HDTV channels with World Championship football
News release follows
Amsterdam, 21 February 2006 – New Dutch pay-TV service Sport1 will air the World Championship football in Germany in the HDTV (High Definition Television) format to kick off the first Dutch HDTV channel fully dedicated to sports. A Sport1 HDTV channel will launch early June, driven by the start of the World Championship on June 9, and will also show matches from the main European football competitions as well as a wide variety of international sports in the HDTV format. Launching at the same time in early June, a Film1 HDTV channel will show the latest Hollywood movies in the HDTV format.
The launch of these two channels is an important step forward in making the superior HDTV broadcasting available in the Netherlands. chellomedia, the owner of Sport1 and Film1 in the Netherlands, has concluded an agreement to this effect with the digital cable platforms of UPC, Essent, Multikabel and CaiW. These Dutch cable operators are currently preparing their technical infrastructures for the launch of HD services. Digital cable is optimally suited to HDTV transmission due to the very high capacity of the cable infrastructure.
chellomedia, which bought the film and sports rights for the Netherlands from Canal+ last year, first concentrated on the launch of Sport1 and Film1 as a digital pay-TV service. The main goal was more content and more channels for the consumer at a lower price. The launch of HD channels for Sport1 and Film1 is a logical next step in the strategy to become the leading provider of sport and film content in the Netherlands. Another step, in advance of the launch of the HDTV channels is the change to broadcast Film1 and Sport1 in the anamorph widescreen format (16:9), coming from the older 4:3 screen format related to analogue television (as far as the content allows for this).
HDTV: far better picture and sound
Jeroen Bergman, Managing Director of chellomedia Benelux added: “A growing number of consumers are buying high quality flatscreen TV systems for their homes, with which they enjoy a better viewing experience. HDTV transmission here provides a huge improvement of picture and sound quality over current standards of transmission. HDTV offers television viewing of the future. There has not been such a technological revolution since the move from black and white TV to colour. We are proud to be among the initiators of the future of a new standard of television viewing.” Consumers need a HDTV ready TV set and HDTV ready digital decoder for viewing in the HDTV format.
Film1 and Sport1
Film1 and Sport1 are Dutch pay-TV services of chellomedia, the European content and digital services division of Liberty Global, Inc. Film1 boasts four movie channels and broadcasts first-rate films that are making their first appearance on Dutch television. These vary from blockbusters to independent and art house films.
Sport1 is a 24-hour sports channel with an extensive range of live sports. This channel can be extended to maximally eight sport channels, enabling viewers to decide for themselves what matches to follow. Sport1 televises all the major European soccer leagues, as well as the UEFA Champions League, the English FA Cup and the Copa Libertadores, as well as hockey, basketball, baseball, darts, golf and tennis.
21 February, 2006
AOL Set To Battle Skype, Google And MySpace
America Online is about to come out of its corner fighting as it gets ready to slug it out with Internet heavyweights such as MySpace, Skype and Google.
Ignoring shouts from the crowd that ‘they’re a big organisation but they’re out of shape’, AOL CEO Jonathan Miller told USA Today that they’re ready to KO the opposition with a salvo of killer punches.
New video search tools
First up is a new video search tool which integrates with the innovative Truveo technology which AOL bought in December.
The company claim that by using Truveo’s “visual crawlers”, they can now find and index high-quality video on the Web that traditional search engines can’t see, and will include AOL Hi-Q Videos (DVD-quality) in their video indexes.
The 1.8 million videos already indexed through Truveo will be added to AOL’s existing archive of 20,000+ original and licensed videos, along with the 2.5 million Web videos indexed through Singingfish.
Come mid-March, AOL will also be making 14,000 Warner Brothers-owned classic TV shows available for free (but supported by advertising), as part of its new In2TV service.
Mashing up MySpace
With 43 million active users signed up to their AIM messaging service, AOL is hoping that with their substantial music and video offerings, they’ll be able to mount an effective challenge to the immensely successful MySpace social networking community.
Seeing as they already operate the world’s most popular messaging service, AOL should be in a strong position to take on Murdoch’s company.
As Miller points out, with so many people already using Buddy Lists to chat with others, “the barrier to getting people to use it would be very low.”
With the new service, subscribers could simply click on a name in a Buddy List and be taken directly to that person’s personal website.
Charlene Li, analyst at Forrester Research, reckoned AOL’s plans made perfect sense, adding: “The key is making a strong link with AOL Music. Part of the reason MySpace works so well is it has music.”
Stalking Skype
Miller also revealed plans to turn AIM into a full voice platform which would compete directly with Skype.
Although Google and Yahoo instant message services already offer VoIP calls, AOL’s market dominance could quickly establish them as a force in cheap Internet phone calling.
Expected to should roll out in late spring, AOL also intends to open up the new AIM voice service to outside software developers.
No doubt AIM users will be hoping that this may finally produce long-overdue tools to let them chat with users of other messaging services.
AOL
21 February, 2006
Cornucopian Cavalcade Of Canon Cameras Confirmed
Canon have unleashed a veritable avalanche of new cameras today, with no less than ten new models being announced ahead of the PMA 2006 show.
Canon EOS 30D
Top of the pile is the 8.2 megapixel Canon EOS 30D, which is something of a minor tweak of the EOS 20D, offering a slight body redesign, 3.5% spot metering, selectable continuous shooting speed, 100,000 shutter cycle life and a larger LCD monitor.
Sporting a wide 100-3200 ISO range, the camera offers the same sensor and image processor as the EOS 20D but comes in at a slightly lower price than its predecessor (EOS 30D body only, €1,399, £955)
Link
Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Next up is Canon’s third generation ‘super zoom’ compact, the 6-megapixel PowerShot S3 IS.
The successor to the popular S2 IS, the camera offers the same monster 12x optical zoom, with new features including a larger 2.0-inch vari-angle screen and an increased sensitivity range going up to ISO 800.
Decked out in a mean looking gunmetal gray, the PowerShot S3 IS digital camera will be available in May for an estimated selling price of $499.99 (~£286, €420).
Link
Canon PowerShot SD700 IS Digital ELPH (European name: IXUS 800 IS)
Proudly touted as the new flagship of the range, the 6 million pixel Canon PowerShot SD700 IS comes with an optical Image Stabiliser, a 4x optical zoom, ISO range up to 800 and a large 2.5-inch LCD.
This is the first ever ultra-compact from Canon to feature built-in image stabilisation, and with a host of auto, scene and manual modes looks to be a very versatile camera.
The camera will be available in April for an estimated selling price of $499.99 (~£286, €420).
Link
Canon PowerShot SD600 and SD630 (European name: Canon Digital IXUS 60 / IXUS 65)
Looking down the range, Canon have rolled out two more additions to their Digital ELPH / Digital IXUS range, the PowerShot SD600 and SD630 cameras.
Both these 6-megapixel cameras feature a 3x optical zoom and High ISO Auto and ISO 800 settings and seem identical apart from the lack of an optical viewfinder and bigger 3.0 inch LCD screen on the SD630.
The SD600 comes with a smaller 2.5-inch screen and will be available in March for around $349.99 (~£200, €295). The PowerShot will be available in April for an estimated selling price of $399.99 (~£230, €336).
Link
Canon Powershots A700 and A540
Turbo-boosting its ‘A’ series range of compacts with gusto, Canon has announced no less than five new models.
Keen photographers might like the look of the PowerShot A700 and A540 cameras which offer 6 million pixels, full photographic control, 2.5-inch screens and the option to add conversion lenses.
The $349.99 A700 comes with a substantial 6x optical zoom, optical viewfinder and ISO sensitivity up to ISO 800, while the $299.99 A540 offers a 4x optical zoom, viewfinder and ISO 800.
Both should be available in March.
Link
Canon PowerShots A420, A430 and A530
Taking the lift down to the bargain basement, we find three new entry level cameras, the Canon PowerShots A420, A430 and A530, all sporting a 1.8-inch screen and optical viewfinder.
The 4-megapixel A420 serves up a 3.2x zoom and 5-point AiAF auto focus, the 4-megapixel A430 has a 4x optical zoom and 9-point AiAF auto focus while the A530 ramps up the resolution to 5 million pixels, a 4x zoom and ISO 800.
Link
Did we ever mention that we think DPReview is great?
Canon
21 February, 2006