News Archive - April 2003 Return to: Current News Archive Index Wednesday, April 30, 2003 Lexar ships 2GB CompactFlash cards 21:40 EDT - A press release from Lexar Media Inc. today announces that its 2-gigabyte CompactFlash cards are now shipping in the USA. Interestingly, when the cards were announced back in early March, Lexar had predicted a speed rating of 32X - but the final product is apparently an even speedier 40X card. (If you're not familiar with... (More) Lexmark: Six new 1200dpi inkjet printers (UPDATED) 05:55 EDT - Lexmark has unveiled six new thermal inkjet printers (three of them all-in-one devices with a built-in flatbed scanner), our good friend Peter Burian noticed. Amongst this number is what Lexmark says is the first sub-US$100 photo printer with built-in slots accepting Compact Flash Type I / II (including Microdrive), Secure Digital, SmartMedia or Memory Stick... (More) Tuesday, April 29, 2003 PRESS RELEASE: Phase One and PictureFlow Announce Joint Cooperation on RAW Conversion Software 16:34 EDT - Copenhagen April 25, 2003: Phase One (Denmark), maker of Capture One DSLR RAW conversion software for Canon and Nikon cameras, is announcing a joint cooperation with PictureFlow LLC (US), maker of YarcPlus RAW conversion software for Canon cameras. As part of this mutual agreement, PictureFlow will become a sales and support channel for Capture One RAW conversion software and Michael Tapes, co-author... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Olympus partners with America 24-7, the largest photography project in history 02:21 EDT - Olympus Reunites with Originators of Best-Selling "Day in the Life" Book Series to Produce Epic Digital Capsule - America 24-7 April 25, 2003, Melville, New York ― Today Olympus America announced that it will reunite with photo visionaries Rick Smolan and David Elliot Cohen, original creators of the highly acclaimed Day in the Life series of photography books, for America 24-7, the largest collaborative... (More) Monday, April 28, 2003 PRESS RELEASE: iView® Launches iView Media™ 13:54 EDT - Quickest, Easiest Way to Manage, Share and Save Your Photos . . . and Your Videos, Graphics and Music -- Available Now for both Windows and Mac-based Computers LONDON, April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- iView Multimedia (iView) today announced the immediate availability of iView Media for Windows®- and Mac®-based computers. Designed for a consumer audience, iView Media is based on the company's award-winning... (More) Friday, April 25, 2003 PRESS RELEASE: Zoran Corporation Reports First Quarter 2003 Results 06:25 EDT - DVD Units Grow 95 Percent, Digital Camera Units Up 551 percent Year-Over-Year SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 24 -- Zoran Corporation, a leading provider of digital solutions-on-a-chip for applications in the growing consumer electronics markets, today reported results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2003. Revenues for the first quarter of 2003 were $37.8 million compared with $31.1 million for... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Kodak Reports 1st-Quarter Net Income of 4 Cents Per Share 06:21 EDT - Sales Rise 1 Percent to $2.740 Billion ROCHESTER, N.Y.-- April 23, 2003: Eastman Kodak Company today said that first-quarter net income, in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in the U.S., totaled 4 cents per share and that sales rose 1%. Kodak's GAAP net income for the quarter included a loss from continuing operations of 1 cent per share and earnings from discontinued... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Interactive Publisher Releases Digital Photography DVD 06:14 EDT - HOOD RIVER, Ore., April 22 -- KnowledgeTrek(TM), publisher of instructional interactive video content, today announced the release of Digital Photography Captured, Volume 1, which explores the exciting new world of digital cameras and digital photography. Digital Photography Captured, Volume 1 is presented in an entertaining, interactive format including 60 minutes of easy-to-follow instruction that... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Paessler Announces PhotoMeister 2.0: A Creative And Easy-to-Use Digital Photo Management Tool 06:12 EDT - Single CD Format Allows Photo Presentation on DVD/VCD Players and Any Computer System FUERTH, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 22, 2003-- Paessler today announced the immediate availability of PhotoMeister version 2.0, an easy-to-use digital photography management tool for Windows systems. This comprehensive software allows digital photographers to manage, edit and publish their digital media. New... (More) Thursday, April 24, 2003 Digital Outback begins DCS Pro 14n report 00:36 EDT - Our good friend Uwe Steinmueller of the Digital Outback Photo website has begun a report on Kodak's DCS Pro 14n digital camera. Uwe's report literally started today, so thus far there's only the very beginnings of what is to come. His initial impressions, though, already show that as described in our own review the camera can frustrate... (More) Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Nikon US releases Coolpix 3100 firmware 20:26 EDT - We mentioned yesterday that Nikon Europe had released a new version of firmware for the Coolpix 3100 digital camera on that continent, and eagle-eyed Jerry Kaczynski spotted that since we wrote the item, Nikon USA has now released the firmware as well. Jerry notes that the firmware released in Europe is apparently identical to that released in the USA today. We've not checked that ourselves, but wouldn't be surprised - sometimes cameras can accept identical... (More) Review posted for Olympus Stylus 400 Digital! 17:26 EDT - This camera is the "big brother" to the Stylus 300 Digital, which I reviewed a little while ago. The two models are virtually identical, except that the 400 sports a 4.0 megapixel sensor, vs the 3.2 megapixel chip in the 300. All the features and functions are the same, so if you've already read my... (More) Short-form review posted for Fuji FinePix A200 05:39 EDT - Dave gets hands on with Fuji's low-cost digicam... Fuji's carved out a niche for themselves at the low end of the digicam market, producing surprisingly inexpensive cameras that take surprisingly good pictures. Their FinePix A200 is an entry-level fixed... (More) Review Update: Nikon Coolpix SQ - Test photos added 05:35 EDT - I've updated the Nikon Coolpix SQ review with a full set of my standard test images, and detailed analysis and comments on them. Note that this was a late-model prototype, so it's possible that image characteristics could change before final production models hit retail shelves. The camera performed well, but its images were both... (More) Nikon Europe: CP3100 firmware update 05:31 EDT - Nikon Europe has posted a firmware update for its Coolpix 3100 digital camera. Available for download from the support site, firmware v1.2 corrects a problem whereby the camera shows low battery level on a near fully-charged battery. No update is available on the US website, and... (More) Tuesday, April 22, 2003 PRESS RELEASE: Lexar Media Reports Solid First Quarter Revenues and Profitability 18:34 EDT - Revenues Grow 90% Year Over Year; EPS of $0.06 FREMONT, Calif., April 17, 2003-- Lexar Media, Inc. (Nasdaq: LEXR), a leading designer, developer and marketer of award-winning high-performance digital media and accessories, today reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2003 Total first quarter revenues of $54.6 million increased approximately 90% from $28.8 million in the... (More) One third of US households to own a digicam this year 18:24 EDT - Two new reports released today by Infotrends Research Group and PMA Marketing Research agree that digital camera ownership is currently at about one in five households in the USA - a figure that is on the brink of making digital cameras a mass-market product according to the PMA. An article discussing the new report entitled "Path from Pixels to Prints: The Challenge of Bringing Digital Imaging to the Mass Market" on the PMA's Newsline International page states that a product is... (More) Monday, April 21, 2003 Ricoh to exit film business, focus on digital 15:08 EDT - A news article from Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper picked up by the Associated Press predicts that Ricoh Co. Ltd. will exit the film camera business within the next twelve months. The company has apparently already ceased development of film cameras, and will only offer digital camera models by March 2004. Ricoh's share of the film camera market in Japan is less than 1%, and with... (More) Full (First Look) Review posted for Sony DSC-V1! 05:52 EDT - I'll begin here with my conclusion: This could well be the digicam that finally earns Sony the respect of the "enthusiast" crowd. The upper end of Sony's Cyber-shot line have long sported features the equal of many high end models from other manufacturers, but until now, it's never seemed to me that their top-end units really got... (More) PRESS RELEASE: SanDisk announces first quarter 2003 earnings 05:49 EDT - Record Units and Megabytes Sold, Increased OEM Sales SUNNYVALE, CA, April 16, 2003 . . . SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK), the world's largest supplier of flash memory data storage card products, today announced results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2003. Total first quarter revenues were $174.5 million, up 88% compared to the first quarter of 2002. Product revenues were $155.4 million,... (More) PRESS RELEASE: ImageBuddy v2.8.0 For Macintosh Upgraded 05:43 EDT - Kepmad Systems today released ImageBuddy v2.8.0 for Both Mac OSX and Classic. ImageBuddy's simple and intuitive interface lets you rotate, size, crop, mask and layout your digital photos for printing in just a few simple click. Version 2.8.0 is an update to the program that adds the free placement of text in Page Layouts, 4x Print spooling improvement in Contact Sheets and new Hi-resolution display... (More) Friday, April 18, 2003 Two coups for Kodak as new appointments announced 03:32 EDT - Eastman Kodak Co. has made two announcements over the last few days that could really see the company make its presence felt in the digital arena. Both announcements relate to appointments in high-level management, and in both cases the person in question has come direct from another company that's generally recognized as one of the front-runners... (More) Thursday, April 17, 2003 Review posted for HiTi 630PS printer! 04:44 EDT - Mike Pasini examines a printer that may help persuade you to start putting prints in the family album once more... Dedicated 4x6 photo printers are a category we haven't devoted much coverage to, but these printers are perfect solutions for people wanting "just push the button" ease of use for printing their digicam... (More) Short-form review posted for Canon PowerShot S400 subcompact digicam! 04:40 EDT - Canon's "Digital ELPH" line of digicams have been market leaders in the subcompact category, and with good reason. They're compact, stylish, ruggedly built, and deliver great image quality. The latest addition to the line, the Canon PowerShot S400 lives up to the standards set by its predecessors. With a four-megapixel... (More) Lens shortage bites into digicam production 04:36 EDT - An interesting news item from Nikkei Electronics Asia notes that a shortage of lenses over the last year held back digital camera production. The story, picked up by the excellent Future Image Report, says that despite the supply problems, the digital camera market grew by 66% to 24.55 million units in 2002. With projections having been for... (More) PRESS RELEASE: ACD Systems Launches ACD AutoShare - Image Database Sharing Solution for the Corporate Market 04:21 EDT - New image sharing database saves corporations time and money Victoria, British Columbia - April 14, 2002 - ACD Systems International Inc. (TSX: ASA), the digital imaging company, today announced the availability of ACD AutoShare™, an image database sharing solution for the corporate market that integrates with the company's ACDSee 5.0™ and ACD mPower Tools™ products. The development... (More) Wednesday, April 16, 2003 Epson announces Stylus Photo 900 printer 19:51 EDT - Epson America Inc. has today announced an addition to its lineup of Stylus Photo inkjet printers, the new Stylus Photo 900. Featuring a print resolution of 5760 x 720 dots per inch, a 4-picoliter minimum droplet size and 6 ink colors, the Stylus Photo 900 couples the ability to make borderless prints or accept roll paper with... (More) Sony lowers DSC-F717 pricing 17:53 EDT - Whilst browsing our affiliate PriceGrabber.com today, we noticed that Sony has apparently lowered pricing on its DSC-F717 digital camera. Formerly set at a list price of US$999, the camera is now selling for $799 from Sony Style, and PriceGrabber shows that most retailers seem to be selling at or below this new price. If you're considering the DSC-F717, you might want to read our review, posted late last year. Sony announces DSC-P1 battery problem (UPDATED) 15:51 EDT - Sony Japan and US have announced that they has begun a one-year program to fix a potential fault on the DSC-P1 digital camera. According to the announcement, a combination of factors can cause the camera to stop charging the battery before charging is completed. The camera reports a full charge, but over time the life of the battery... (More) Rob Galbraith posts Kodak DCS Pro 14n review 04:50 EDT - Our good friend Rob Galbraith, a professional photojournalist and proprietor of the Rob Galbraith Online website, has posted an interesting review of the Kodak DCS Pro 14n digital camera. Rob's sample photos, beautiful as always, demonstrate that the camera is capable of taking good photos - but much as we did, Rob also discovered that problems with noise and color left much to be desired... (More) Tuesday, April 15, 2003 Leica announces 3mpix, 3x zoom digicam 20:04 EDT - Leica Camera AG has announced a new digital camera with a very distinctive visual style, the Leica D-Lux, for the European market. The new Leica D-LUX, uncovered by our friends at the German website digitalkamera.de, features a 3.34 megapixel CCD imager, maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels and a 3x optical zoom lens. At first... (More) Monday, April 14, 2003 Review roundup: 20+ recent reviews from around the web 15:47 EDT - As usual, our friends at the other main digital imaging sites around the web are busy with countless reviews. A few of the recent reviews that you may be interested in are as follows: Digital Camera Resource Page Olympus Stylus 300 Digital - "If you want a small and stylish point-and-shoot camera, the Olympus... (More) Saturday, April 12, 2003 Short-form review posted for Canon PowerShot A70! 02:40 EDT - Last year, Canon's PowerShot A40 topped the charts on the IR website for popularity, outstripping all other camera models. This was a surprise, since my readers tend to gravitate more toward higher-end models with lots of bells and whistles. On the other hand though, the A40's popularity should have been no surprise: It offered... (More) Short-form review posted for Nikon Coolpix SQ! 02:36 EDT - I've just posted a review of Nikon's slick-looking Coolpix SQ (minus sample photos at this point though, see below) a compact 3 megapixel model with internal lens and swivel body. With a square design that's somewhat reminiscent of the Minolta Dimage Xi, the SQ's sleek body slips easily in to pockets, while the swivel body that's been something of a Nikon trademark makes it easy... (More) Thursday, April 10, 2003 Sony Memory Stick price cuts, new products 05:17 EDT - Sony Electronics has added a couple of new products to its Memory Stick lineup, and reduced prices on the rest of the range, according to a news item we read today. Our friends at Steve's Digicams noted that the Sony 1GB Memory Stick Pro card is now available from Sony Style's website at a cost of $639.99 (62¢ / MB), whilst a 256MB Memory Stick Select card (which... (More) Make some money with your favorite photo 04:57 EDT - Hi-Touch Imaging Technologies - better known as HiTi - has announced a contest offering photographers in the USA to win cash or HiTi photo printers. The contest is open to anybody over the age of 18 legally residing in the US, and is seeking photos on the topic "American Life Today". Each photographer may submit only one 1600 x 1200 pixel (or larger)... (More) ACD announce Deneba acquisition 02:42 EDT - A press release distributed by ACD Systems International Inc. and Deneba Systems Inc. announces that the two companies will be merging in a $5.5 million deal. ACD will acquire all shares of Deneba, which makes CAD, illustration and photo-sharing software, in exchange for $4.5 million in cash and $1 million in shares of ACD. Deneba shareholders will be able... (More) Wednesday, April 9, 2003 Minolta announces DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 23:00 EDT - Minolta Europe has announced a new 35mm film scanner in its "Scan Elite" lineup, an email from IR reader Daniel Sidenbladh tells us. The new Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 is a rather attractive-looking vertical form-factor film scanner with a resolution of 5400 dots per inch (dpi) and 16-bit A/D conversion. The unit features Applied... (More) Portable storage customised to your needs 16:33 EDT - Nixvue Systems Pte. Ltd. of Singapore has today announced a new addition to its lineup of Digital Album products, portable storage devices that let you offload your flash memory onto a hard-disk when you're away from home. Available only from the digital-gear.com website, the Nixvue Digital Album Lite lets users "roll" their own storage device that meets their particular needs. The device is sold with no hard-disk built... (More) Saturday, April 5, 2003 Nikon Coolpix 3100 review updated with results from full production model! 04:38 EST - This is the "big brother" to the Coolpix 2100 that I just completed the review for. Pretty much identical, except for a 3.2 megapixel sensor instead of the 2100's 2MP CCD. Image quality was nearly identical to that of the 2100, the main differences being higher resolution (no surprise... (More) Nikon Coolpix 2100 review updated with results from full production model! 04:36 EST - I was impressed with the feature set and ease of use when I first reviewed a prototype of the new Nikon Coolpix 2100, but now that I've had the opportunity to test a production model, I'm impressed with the photos it shoots too. All in all, Nikon has come up with a very nice little package here for novice photographers on a budget. Unique features like its "scene assist" mode (that helps you frame your shots to take maximum advantage... (More) Wednesday, April 2, 2003 Full review updated for Olympus C-750 Ultra Zoom! 04:58 EST - Having received a late-model prototype (apparently very close to production level) C-750 Ultra Zoom from Olympus, I've gone ahead and shot all my standard test photos and updated the review with full conclusions and test results. The bottom line? Very impressive: The C-750 has really excellent color, plenty of resolution, a lens with lower distortion and artifacts than I'd been expecting from a long-zoom model, and loads of features.... (More) Full review updated for Olympus C-740 UltraZoom! 04:56 EST - Here's another review update for you, with full test photos, performance measurements, and analysis. This time, it's the Olympus C-740 UltraZoom, the "little brother" to the C-750UZ that I just did the update for as well. As with the C-750, there's a lot to like here: The main differences relative to... (More) Short-form review posted for Olympus Digital Stylus 300! 04:51 EST - The Olympus Stylus series of point & shoot cameras bears one of the most powerful brand names in the film-based photographic world. Consistently among the top-selling film camera lines, Olympus has so far jealously guarded the Stylus brand name, declining to apply it to any digital models. No more though, as with the introduce of the... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Minolta announces availability of DiMAGE Messenger Version 1.01 03:36 EST - Enhanced version of new PC software program available now as a free upgrade to current users of Minolta DiMAGE Messenger v1.0 Ramsey, NJ (April 2, 2003) - Minolta Corporation announces today the availability of Minolta DiMAGE Messenger v1.0.1. Current users of DiMAGE Messenger v1.0 who have purchased the program can upgrade their version for free at www.dimagemessenger.com. Additionally, a free trial... (More) Sony ordered to pay $25m in patent claim 03:25 EST - We told readers almost a year ago about a company called Forgent Networks, which claimed to have patents covering the JPEG image file format, and had successfully signed licenses with a number of companies based on the claims. A press release distributed by Imerge Consulting Group (below) alerted us to a similar case which resulted in a $25 million judgement against Sony Corp. in late February. Sony was the second company to... (More) Tuesday, April 1, 2003 Server problems - sorry for the inconvenience! 14:38 EST - Visitors to our site last night may have noticed an extended period from about 11:30pm to 4:00am Eastern time where the site was inaccessible (likely our readers on the West coast of the US were most affected due to the timing). The outage was caused by a rogue script, and has now been corrected. Our apologies to anybody who was unable to access the site last night for the inconvenience... Return to: Current News Archive Index