Cameras

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to that club you were thrown out of, they come up with another way to keep you behind the rope.

Touted as a "non-invasive" approach to checking ID, iris scanners rely on pattern recognition of the image reflected from the iris's convex cornea--which, when converted into a digital template, will give you away every time.

The problem with conventional iris scanners is that they require the subject to hold still and submit. Now, a new-fangled unit produced by Sarnoff Labs in New Jersey can reportedly identify up … Read more

With its silver filigree accents, the design of the new Vije Deluxe is vaguely reminiscent of the old Mutoscopes found in penny arcade museums. But instead of sepia-toned Westerns, this little number from will be featuring your very own image--with autofocus, even.

SavitMicro claims that its latest offering, a 2-megapixel Webcam, will ensure that your mug always stays sharp (whether you want it to or not, depending on how rough a night you've had). Akihabara News even included a video clip to show its focus mechanism in action. It looks pretty good, so we'll have to get over … Read more

Look at this cute little guy. Don't you wish you took this picture?

Yeah, I don't really care either because he's not that colorful. But you might find it interesting to know that it was taken from underwater with a Nikon digital camera.

Fantasea (pronounced fantasy) just released another underwater housing for a Nikon Coolpix camera to allow photographers to plunge their gadgets into water, sand, dust and what have you.

The FS-9, available from Fantasea for about $200, fits the Nikon Coolpix S-9. The housing comes with an anti-glare hood over the camera's 2.5-inch … Read more

As our own David Carnoy predicted, and as News.com reported, Kodak announced a new line of inkjet printers yesterday at a lavish press event in Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. All three models are all-in-one printers, meaning they include built-in flatbed scanners--and in the case of the flagship model EasyShare 5500, a fax machine, too. Kodak is billing them all as six-ink printers, though they function as four-ink printers when producing color photos; the other two inks are a nonphoto-black and a clear, protective coating.

Kodak is making a big deal over the price … Read more

Kodak's PR folks have been working hard to get the press to turn out in force for an event tomorrow at the NBC studio where Saturday Night Live is filmed. We know SNL-vet Molly Shannon will be there, but in a nod to Apple and Steve Jobs, Kodak's PR folks aren't revealing what the product is that they're hyping.

If you read the Kodak tea leaves (and The Wall Street Journal), there's a good chance what we'll be seeing tomorrow is a new inkjet printer--or even a couple of new inkjet models. That in … Read more

The biggest origami news of 2007 has nothing to do with Microsoft or ultramobile PCs.

Instead, thanks to centuries-old telescope technology reapplied to camera lenses by engineers at UC San Diego, the origami lens takes the cake.

At just one-seventh the thickness as a traditional lens, the origami system could significantly raise the resolution bar for camera phones. It might also make today's slimmest ultracompact cams seem like anvils.

The system borrows the folded optical system found in Cassegrain telescopes, but uses a single, diamond-cut optical crystal instead of a series of mirrors. The origami system bounces light through … Read more

Kids these days don't know how good they've got it. When I was a kid, you were lucky to get one megapixel in your camera, and that megapixel would be written to a single 3.5-inch floppy disk. We didn't have MP3 players or pocket camcorders or any of those fancy things. The only moving pictures we had were on our CRT monitors. And don't get me started on the regular ritual of taking the mouse ball out of your beige mouse and picking lint out of the rollers.

Today, kids have their Facebooks and Myspaces … Read more

Panasonic has a handful of new Lumix cameras on the way for spring, and they're coming in all shapes and sizes. They all have Leica lenses and Panasonic's Mega Optical Image Stabilization, but beyond those features, they vary wildly, from inexpensive point-and-shoots to hefty, high-zoom cameras.

The company claims that the Lumix DMC-FX30 is the slimmest wide-angle lens camera on the market, and at less than 0.9 inch thick it might be right. The 7-megapixel FX30 has a 28mm-to-100mm-equivalent lens with optical image stabilization, so users can take nice, wide photos. The FX30 ships in February and … Read more

Casio announced two new digital cameras today. They're quite different in price, resolution, and features, but both cameras share the same characteristics as every other Casio Exilim we've seen so far: they're small and slim.

The EX-Z75 is a follow-up to the company's budget-priced Casio Exilim EX-Z70. The 7-megapixel shooter is essentially identical to the Z70, except for its slightly larger 2.6-inch LCD screen. The Z75 has the same sensor, 3X lens, digital image stabilization, and 34 scene settings. The $230 camera might be worth a look when it hits stores in March, but you … Read more