Digital Tech News - Digital Technology & Consumer Electronics

New Casio EXILIM Zoom EX-Z280 and EX-Z33 Digital Cameras

Casio announced the September release of its new EXILIM Zoom EX-Z280 and EXILIM Zoom EX-Z33 digital cameras, a couple of easy-to-use models priced at $179.99 and $119.99 respectively.

Available in silver, the Casio EXILIM Zoom EX-Z280 is a 12.1 effective megapixel digital camera with a wide-angle 26 mm 4X optical zoom lens. This model has the EXILIM Engine 4.0, a CCD-shift image stabilization mechanism, Face Detection, Easy Mode functions, and a simplified menu screen.  The EX-Z280 also captures 720p HD Movies at 1280x720 pixels, and it includes a special YouTube mode for easy uploading of videos.

The 10.1 megapixel EXILIM Zoom EX-Z33 comes in black, light pink, vivid pink, silver and blue, and features a 3X optical zoom lens, a dedicated movie button for recording widescreen movies in 16:9 aspect ratio, and YouTube mode for uploading.

Expressionist ULTRA Three-piece Home Speaker System from Altec Lansing

Sporting a very unique design, the Altec Lansing Expressionist Ultra three-piece home speaker system is ready to add some style to your desktop set-up. The 200 Watt system is one of Altec Lansing's most powerful computer audio systems, and it features five digital amplifiers powering five separate drivers including 3" midranges, 1" neodymium tweeters and a 6 1/2" long-throw subwoofer. This would be a nice addition to a home computer, TV, or gaming console. Packaged with a separate full-function Power, Volume, Treble and Bass controller, you can show this system off to friends after dropping $199.95.

The unique design of the Expressionist Ultra breaks rank from the traditional form of other speakers. It is designed to be showcased, rather than hidden away in an office. The contemporary industrial design of the satellites emphasizes visible drivers set into a translucent bezel. The subwoofer features a distinctive trapezoidal design that breaks up standing waves and delivers the deep bass that brings multimedia to life.

Sony Electronics Limited Edition 7-inch S-Frame Digital Photo Frame Sports Crystal Glass by Swarovski

Sony Electronics has a new blinged-out photo frame for Holiday shoppers this year. The limited edition S-Frame digital photo frame is made with "CRYSTALLIZED - Swarovski Elements," which means loose cut crystal glass manufactured by Swarovski. The stylish digital photo frame features a 7-inch wide (16:10) LCD display with WVGA (800 x 480) resolution, one gigabyte of internal storage capacity for storing up to 2,000 photos, a USB input, and support for Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Secure Digital (SD), Multi-Media Card (MMC), Compact Flash, xD-Picture Card media and SDHC memory cards. The new S-Frame supports JPEG and RAW (SRF, SR2, ARW) image file formats.

Look for the S-Frame DPF-D72N/BQ digital photo frame to be available for about $150 in October.

19-inch Acer Veriton Z280G-EA271CP All-in-one PC

This is the year of the netbook and the all-in-one-pc, and Acer has both of these categories well covered. The company is now introducing its new energy-efficient Veriton Z280G-EA271CP all-in-one PC in the U.S. starting at $499, and it features an 18.5-inch widescreen LCD monitor with 16:9 aspect ratio, 1000:1 contrast ratio and 1366x768 resolution in its 19" by 15" casing. Also, at 2.14-inches thin, this all-in-one PC packs a 160GB hard drive, Super Multi Double-Layer drive, Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader, Five USB 2.0 Ports, 802.11b/g wireless, and an Intel Atom N270 ultra-low-voltage processor

ASUS uBoom, uBoom Q Sound-bar USB Speakers

Laptop computer owners will have a few new ways to pump out high fidelity audio from movies, videos and games, with two new USB speakers from ASUS. The ASUS uBoom and uBoom Q sound-bar speakers put the bass in your face via a maze-like reflex port, which is then channeled through speakers designed to place the user in the audio sweet-spot, according to the company. These cool looking speakers have not been priced yet, but we hope to see them released for the Holidays.

Altec Lansing MIX iMT800 Digital Boombox for iPhone and iPod

Plantronics is trying to bring back the boombox by introducing the new Altec Lansing MIX iMT800 digital boombox for iPhone and iPod. Priced at $299.95, the MIX features specially engineered horn-loaded tweeters and mid-range drivers, a 5.25" side-firing subwoofer and 5.25" tuned passive radiator which pumps out deep, punchy bass with XdB technology. The MIX iMT800 Digital Boombox is compatible with both iPhone and iPod,  and it also includes two top-mounted 3.5mm auxiliary inputs, an FM radio, and a digital 7-band graphic equalizer. The device runs on AC, and offers 30 hours of play time on 8 D-cell batteries.

The MIX also includes a clip-on carabineer remote control, and a built-in cubby that secures the remote.

20-inch MSI AE2010 Wind Top All-in-One Desktop PC

 
MSI announced its next-generation Wind Top AE2010 all-in-one desktop PC, with a wide 20-inch touchscreen being the highlight of the system. Powered by an AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core processor, the MSI AE2010 Wind Top boasts an EPA ENERGY STAR Version 5.0 efficiency rating, and it features an ATI Radeon 3200 graphics card with DDR3 128MB VRAM, a 320 GB hard drive, 6 USB ports, a 4-1 card reader, a SuperMulti DVD Rewriter, a VGA input and output, a built-in webcam and microphone.  Starting at $649.99, this sleek all-in-one PC also comes with a color-matched multimedia keyboard and mouse.

Sony's Full-frame Alpha A850 Digital SLR Camera

Sony announced the new full-frame Alpha A850 digital SLR camera, a 24.6 megapixel model that will be available in September for about $2000, body only. A new 28-75mm F2.8 lens will also be available in November for about $800.  

The a850 camera is designed to deliver ultra-fine picture quality with a high resolution, 24.6-megapixel, 35-mm full-frame Exmor(TM) CMOS sensor and fast image processing with dual BIONZ(TM) processing engines. It also offers high-speed continuous shooting of 24.6 megapixel images at up to three frames per second.

Nokia N900 Maemo-powered Smartphone with Touch Screen and QWERTY Keyboard

Headed to select markets in October 2009, the new Nokia N900 smartphone and mobile Internet device is powered by the open source, Linux-based Maemo 5 software which helps the N900 to deliver a PC-like experience on a handset-sized device. The Nokia N900, featuring a 3.5 inch touch-sensitive widescreen 800x480 pixel display and sliding QWERTY keyboard, should be a nice multi-tasking device as it allows you to have dozens of apps open and running simultaneously thanks to a powerful ARM Cortex-A8 processor, up to 1GB of application memory and OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics acceleration. The N900's panoramic homescreen can be fully personalized with your favorite shortcuts, widgets and applications.

Nokia N900 Specs and features:

- 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and dual-LED flash
- 32GB of internal storage
- microSD card slot for up to 48GB
- GPS / A-GPS
- Adobe Flash 9.4 support
- FM transmitter
- Bluetooth 2.1
- WiFi
- TV-out
- Quad-band GSM EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
- WCDMA 900/1700/2100 MHz

 

The Nokia N900 will sell for 500 Euros, or about $714 excluding sales taxes and subsidies. More Maemo details are available at http://maemo.nokia.com.

Sony S Series and E Series Walkman Video MP3 Players Announced

Shipping in black, red, violet and pink colors, Sony's new S Series Walkman Video MP3 player, featuring "high-quality" built-in stereo speakers, will hit stores in September with 8 GB and 16 GB versions priced at $110 and $130, respectively. The speakers look pretty cool actually, and probably offer decent sound quality for a small device like this.

The slim, lightweight S Series Walkman is less than a half-inch thin and sports a 2.4-inch QVGA LCD screen with fast response time, with smooth video playback at up to 30 frames per second. The player has impressive battery life, providing 42 hours of music playback and up to 6.5 hours of video playback through the headphones, and 17 hours of music playback and up to 5 hours of video playback through the stereo speakers.

Supported audio formats include MP3, WMA(DRM), AAC(non DRM) and Linear PCM,  along with AVC (H.264/AVC) Baseline Profile, MPEG-4 and WMV(DRM) video codecs, and JPEG photos. This new S Series Walkman also offers voice recording and FM radio recording.