CES - Digital photo and video

LAS VEGAS--New parents who skipped CES this year to stay at home with the little one, your timing was just a few months off.

Withings unveiled its Smart Baby Monitor at the show today, and says it expects the devices to start shipping in late March. (Pricing details are to be determined.)

The monitor, which looks like a cute, little-kid version of a spy gadget, is unlike traditional baby monitors in that it does not involve close-distance communication between devices. Rather, the high-resolution 3-megapixel camera with extra-wide lens (not to mention night vision with infrared LEDs and temperature and humidity … Read more

Sony takes the Noah's Ark approach in its prosumer 3D camcorder, the Handycam HDR-TD10. There's two of everything: two lenses (naturally), two Exmor R sensors, and two image processors.

Though it lacks the ability to remove the dual lens (like Panasonic's approach), you can still opt to shoot in 2D, using only the left lens, and the unit can play back 3D content in 2D by using only the left-side video.

It can do this because Sony uses a proprietary approach called "frame packing." Rather than save a single file with side-by-side left/right frames--which … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Panasonic updated its FP-series ultracompacts today, announcing the Lumix DMC-FP7 and DMC-FP5. Both feature an internal 4x zoom lens in a slim body with touch screens.

The main differences between the two models are resolution--the FP7 is 16 megapixels and the FP5 is 14 megapixels--and the FP7 has a larger display.

The FP7 also has three new modes for retouching faces, clearing skin textures and whitening teeth, and adding makeup.

Panasonic also trickled down a few of its newer "intelligent" features such as Intelligent Resolution that improves sharpness and clarity and added Intelligent Exposure (for improved detail … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Panasonic updated its FH-series compacts, Wednesday, announcing the Lumix DMC-FH5 and DMC-FH2. Both feature a wide-angle lens with a 4x zoom in a slim body.

The main difference between the two models is resolution: the FH5 is 16 megapixels, and the FH2 is 14 megapixels.

Panasonic also trickled down a few of its newer "Intelligent" features such as Intelligent Resolution, which improves sharpness and clarity, and added Intelligent Exposure (for improved detail in highlights and shadows) and Tracking AF to its Intelligent Auto (iA) automatic shooting mode.

Lumix DMC-FH5

LAS VEGAS--Panasonic updated its FH-series compacts today, announcing the Lumix DMC-FH27 and DMC-FH25. Both feature a wide-angle lens with an 8x zoom in a slim body.

The main difference between the two models is a touch-screen LCD and all that comes with it, including Touch AF (autofocus) and Touch Shutter for shooting simply by tapping on your subjects.

Panasonic also trickled down a few of its newer "Intelligent" features such as Intelligent Resolution that improves sharpness and clarity and added Intelligent Exposure (for improved detail in highlights and shadows) and Tracking AF to its Intelligent Auto (iA) automatic … Read more

LAS VEGAS--There is no shortage of compact megazooms around, and here are two more from Samsung: the WB210 and PL210. These are in addition to the WB700 announced at the end of December.

WB210:

14 megapixels

12x 24-288mm lens (35mm equivalent)

3.5-inch touch-screen LCD

720p movie capture

HDMI output

PL210:

14 megapixels

10x 27-270mm lens (35mm equivalent)

3-inch LCD

Optical image stabilization

720p movie capture

HDMI output

Editors' take: I'm not sure the world needed two more compact megazooms, but here they are regardless. The WB210 looks promising, … Read more

The SD Association announced a new interface for flash memory cards today that triples data transfer speeds.

The faster SD card specification was expected since the group started previewing it in September. But more unusually for the consortium, the SD Association also announced an e-book specification at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

"Our new e-Book application...opens broad consumer access to e-book content, and turns billions of existing SD mobile phones and devices into e-readers," Norm Frentz, chairman of the SD Association, said in a statement. "SD continues to evolve its capabilities to support voracious consumer demand for portable movies, television broadcasts, high-definition home videos, and now full-color books."

It's not yet clear who among e-book reader makers, publishers, or other companies are on board with the new specification, but two partners showing eBook support at CES are Toshiba and Sharp, the association said. Such partnerships will be important to its success, though, and there already are other e-book formats, such as ePub.

But eBook won't live in isolation. "The association plans to support popular external formats like ePublish, CPS, XMDF and ".book" formats in the near future," said SD Association communications director Kevin Schader. And to keep content publishers happy, it's free to use and supports copy protection. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Samsung's DualView technology, which puts a small LCD in front next to the lens for self portraits and other things, is as good an idea today as it was when it premiered in 2009. It must've struck a chord with consumers, too, as Samsung is back with three models--the ST700, PL170, and PL120--two of which are very similar, but separated by $80.

The ST700 is the flagship with the most shooting features, a new smartphone-like touch interface, and a couple nonessential extras. It also features a new Easy Self Shot mode that shuts down the rear LCD … Read more

LAS VEGAS--It looks like Samsung is creating a nice little family of minicamcorders. The HMX-P300 and HMX-P100 are pretty much higher- and lower-end versions of the same model, but the P100 isn't so crippled that it's not worth checking out.

The P100 has a backside-illuminated 5-megapixel CMOS sensor for better low-light recording, a fixed focal length f2.2 lens, and a 2.3-inch LCD with an 80-degree viewing angle so you have more shooting and viewing flexibility.

The P300 gets a backside-illuminated 8-megapixel CMOS sensor, a 3x f2.8 zoom lens, and a 3-inch touch screen.

Both can … Read more