News Bits - 7 megapixel camera phone, DIWA Awards announced, FlipAlbum 6 released

[Ben Stafford]

Samsung announces 7 megapixel camera phone - Samsung SCH-V770

Samsung has announced a new 7 megapixel camera phone at CeBIT.  The new phone includes an mp3 player and business card reader.  It also features a 3x optical and  has a built-in flash.

First availability will be in Asia and there are no details about availability in other markets.

DIWA Awards Announced

The Digital Imaging Websites Association (DIWA) has announced their awards for the top of the class cameras throughtout 2004, announcing their Platinum Award winners at the end of the year.

Winners:
Platinum Award - Canon EOS 20D
Platinum Award - HP Photosmart R707
Platinum Award -  Olympus CAMEDIA C-8080 WZ
Gold Award -  Konica Minolta Dynax 7D
Gold Award - Canon Digitial IXUS 40/SD300
Gold Award - Nikon Coolpix 8800
Gold Award -  Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F828
Silver Award - Olympus Mju mini DIGITAL
Silver Award - Olympus E-300
Silver Award - Nikon Coolpix 8400

E-Book Systems announces the release of FlipAlbum 6

FlipAlbum 6 allows users to easily create cross-platform photo albums and product catalogs and features  E-Book Systems' patented 3-D page-flipping interface.  The albums can be exported to the MPEG-2 format to be burned onto SVCDs or DVDs.

Some new features include:

-- New MPEG-2 format - Users can export albums to higher-quality MPEG-2 video format to create SVCDs or DVDs.
-- Font embedding in album CDs - Recipients of album CDs will no longer need the fonts to be present in their PC to see the fonts used.
-- New layout template feature - Users are able to select different templates to layout their folder of images.
-- Table of contents improvements - Users can change font, size, color and style to the table of contents.
-- GIF format support - GIF objects, including animated GIFs, can be added to pages.
-- Crop shapes - Users are able to add their own crop shape, in addition to the default shapes provided.

Press Release

Web Site

[Eliwood]

That's weird. How could the V1 win when it was introduced all the way back in early 2003 (or even late 2002)? Sony released a much, much better camera (V3) that's a lot more deserving than the V1. I know they consider cameras released late in 2004 because the very deserving 20D is up there. Or is that V1 a typo?

How in the world did HP end up with a "Platinum Product?" They may be top in sales when it comes to printers, but even HP execs admitted earlier to "having a problem" with their digital camera line. I will admit that the 707 is strides better than all its previous cameras, and I will also point out that it has some interesting features (digital flash, undelete, easy share), but it lacks in the image quality department, and we shouldn't lose sight of that as being the most important category.

Other than those 2 oddities, it seems relatively fair although it'd be nice to know how they come up with their choices.

[Ben Stafford]

Looks like I got some old info in there. That V1 listing was old.

For more details on their process, check out:
http://www.diwa-awards.com/

[Eliwood]

Oh, now I see. They split everything up into a bunch of subcategories. Makes a lot more sense now!

[Andrew]

That Samsung camera phone really is impressive, but I wonder how well it actually functions as a phone given the fact their touting the camera aspect of it so much. furthermore, what a disaster the battery life will be if you use the flash to take a few pictures and then make an hour long phone call. The thing looks relatively slim and small for the amount of functionality so the battery can't be all that large.

[Eliwood]

As you said, that Samsung phone is more of a camera that has phone capabilities rather than a phone with an integrated camera. It even has manual controls, something I've never seen in a camera phone. The most ridiculous thing is its ability to take conversion lenses. I honestly think they took one of their camera designs and just slapped in phone features into it.