compact

The 404 294: Where daylight-saving time is no friend of The 404

Daylight-saving time really messes with the guys of The 404. Today, we realize how old we are when compacts discs are 30 years old. Obviously, teens prefer MP3s over CDs; audiophiles die a little. Another teen creates Muziic, a program that lets you build a music library from YouTube. And finally, Walgreens starts to sell sex toys.

With music, pictures and now your documents living online, it's not going to be long before your pr0n collection moves there. Justin feels pretty compelled to write guidelines on how to do this. As a matter of fact, he's become quite the expert on how to do it in your \System32\ folder on your Windows partitioned, disguised as a temporary cache.

Congratulations to Elizabeth for winning a copy of House of the Dead: Overlord for the Nintendo Wii. Right now, "The Nerdy Dirty" is leading our contest for a 404 motto, but we're waiting to see what our community comes up with the phrase "Not found." As always, call in at 1-866-404-CNET (2638). Or send us an e-mail at the404 [at] cnet [dot] com. We've got more giveaways coming up--I know, it sounds like we're bribing you, but you gotta do what you gotta do to get those listeners.

EPISODE 294 Download today's podcast… Read more

Lexar to boost CompactFlash speed, capacity

LAS VEGAS--Lexar plans to introduce faster, higher-capacity CompactFlash cards using a new generation of the flash memory technology, a company executive said Wednesday.

Lexar's current top-end 300X-rated CompactFlash cards use a standard called UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access) to transfer data at 45MB/second, and their capacity tops out at 16GB. But using a new generation of the standard, UDMA 6, Lexar will release cards that have significantly faster transfer speeds and larger capacity, Jeff Cable, director of marketing, said in an interview here at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) show here.

Cable wouldn't be pinned down on precise details, but he said the new cards' capacity "probably" would be 32GB, and their transfer speeds likely would "pretty close to" UDMA 6's threshold of 100MB/sec, which is more than double that of today's UDMA.

Only newer SLR (single lens reflex) cameras support current UDMA technology, but it's spreading, and there are benefits. For example, cameras can take longer continuous bursts of photos, and photographers can zoom faster to check focus when reviewing shots on the camera LCD. Video, which is arriving in new SLRs, also can saturate data-transfer pathways. … Read more

Olympus high-end compact due by summer

LAS VEGAS--Olympus has set a ship date, albeit one with a lot of wiggle room, for its first high-end compact camera using the Micro Four Thirds technology.

The camera maker first showed a nonworking "concept model" of the camera at the Photokina show last September, and the same model is on display here at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) trade show. Now, though it sports a label, "launching this summer." … Read more

New Pretec CompactFlash card gets super fast

Pretec, a maker of CompactFlash cards including very high-capacity ones, on Tuesday brought the speed of CF cards to a new high.

The company unveiled what we believe to be the world's first CF that offers speed up to 666x, which translates to about 100MBps. This is about four times the speed of a typical CF card and getting close to the theoretical maximum speed of the CF specification, which is 133MBps.

(To further increase the maximum speed of CF cards, the CompactFlash Association has released the new generation of the CF specification, called CFast, which breaks the 133MBps … Read more

VIA's Em-ITX form factor: Less means more

In making embedded devices, one of the biggest challenges has always been reducing the physical size of the device without compromising the functionality. And the main component that decides the size of a computer is the motherboard.

In this regard, VIA Technologies has some good news. The company announced Tuesday its latest board form factor for embedded systems, the Em-ITX. The new board boasts dual Input/Output coastlines while still establishing an off-the-shelf standard for ultraslim embedded devices.

Measuring merely 4.7 inches by 6.7 inches, the Em-ITX form factor is 30 percent more compact than the existing Mini-ITX standard, … Read more

Samsung slides out spring SL cameras

Samsung's latest mainstream compact cameras--the company's SL series--may not be the most colorful or innovative we'll see this year, but at least the models in the lineup are clearly differentiable from each other and don't compete with each other at every $10 increment.

A the top of the line, the $249.99 12-megapixel SL820 has a 5X 28-140mm-equivalent optically stabilized zoom lens, a 3-inch LCD, and supports 720p H.264 MPEG-4 movie capture (the lens can zoom during capture). While the $50-down-the-line SL620 has the same resolution, LCD and a 5x lens, the lens is a … Read more

CNET News Daily Podcast: Big new ideas for little cameras

Compact-camera manufacturers have started testing the waters with some cool high-end features as they search for new ways to gain revenue, market share, and recognition. CNET News reporter Stephen Shankland goes over a few of them.

Plus, is a $99 iPhone on the way? That and more on Wednesday's CNET News Daily Podcast.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Today's stories:

Cellulosic ethanol could compete with gas, study says

Solar energy 'power towers' to light up California

Apple gearing up for $99 iPhone?

High-end ideas reshape compact-camera market

Google surges in U.S. search engine rankings

Microsoft promises Windows Azure savings… Read more

High-end ideas reshape compact-camera market

Compact-camera manufacturers have begun testing the waters with a wealth of high-end features as they search for new ways to gain revenue, market share, and recognition.

In earlier digital photography days, a camera with an extra megapixel of resolution, face recognition, or image stabilization could stand apart from the herd. But now that herd has grown larger, most folks who'll buy a digital camera already have done so, the economy has put consumer spending on ice--and camera makers are making some bolder bets with high-end features.

Among them: Nikon's built-in GPS support to record where a photo was taken, Casio's high-speed video, and the Micro Four Thirds camera system from Panasonic and Olympus.

Premium features aren't an easy sell. They tend to appeal to market niches rather than the mainstream. Early implementations are often rough around the edges. And it's hard enough to convince people to buy a new camera, much less one with the higher price of premium features.

But winning those customers can have a good payoff with better profit margins. And that's critical in this day and age. Market research firm IDC expects that after years of growth, the shipments of digital cameras will decline in 2009.

"It's crowded, and it's getting crowdeder," IDC analyst Ron Glaz said of the digital camera market. "We're anticipating that with the slowdown in economy and disposable income, we'll start seeing consolidation of the vendors." In other words, even though something in the neighborhood of 38 million digital cameras are sold annually, some companies will throw in the towel. … Read more

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