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Fujifilm FinePix F550EXR

LAS VEGAS — Fujifilm’s CES offering is huge, with 16 new camera models announced. Most are upgrades to existing models, but two of them bring something that seems finally, after years of waiting, to be entering the camera mainstream: GPS geotagging.

The FinePix XP30 sports-cam and the F550EXR mid-range compact both add biult-in GPS to the list of features. These are nowhere near the first cameras to do geotagging, but at last GPS seems to be spreading to consumer cameras, no doubt helped by the great mapping features in apps like iPhoto and Picasa.

The F550EXR is a sleek, thin camera with a 16MP sensor, a 3-inch, 460,000-dot screen which shoots video at 1080p and stills at 12-fps, all through a lens with a 15x zoom (24-360mm 35mm equivalent). Switch to lower quality and you can shoot slo-mo video at 320fps. It promises good low-light performance, and can “smooth” the noise on images by combining several exposures with what Fujifilm calls “Multi Frame Technology”.

There are plenty of gimmicks, too, but the one we like the most is “Navigation Mode”. This will guide you to the spot where you took a photo. Snap your hotel when you arrive on vacation, or grab a photo of your car next time you visit the mega-mart car-park and you’ll never get lost. Simple, but fun and potentially useful. The F550EXR will go on sale in March for $350.

The other GPS cam is the XP30, waterproof to 5-meters and shockproof to 1.5 meters. It has a 14MP sensor, a 2.7-inch anti-reflective screen and a 5X zoom. It’ll shoot 1080p video, offers image stabilization and has the same cool Navigation Mode as it’s sleeker big brother. The XP30 will be out in February for $240. Both of these models have GPS-free versions for $20-$30 less, which hardly seems worth the saving.

See Also:

• Casio 'Hybrid GPS' Camera Tracks You Indoors, Underground
• Nikon Readies Camera-Top GPS Unit
• GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr: GPS for Any Camera
• Unleashed: Bluetooth GPS for Nikon Cameras

LAS VEGAS — Samsung has announced its latest digicam at CES 2011. The SH100’s big feature is built-in Wi-Fi, something Samsung has already tried in the curvier, dumpier looking ST80 back in July. The new camera keeps the 14.2 megapixel sensor, 3-inch touch-screen LCD and 720p HD video, and extends the zoom range to 26 – 130mm (35mm equivalent). GPS is also included for geotagging.

The camera has almost no buttons, relying instead on a phone-like touch interface. And talking of phones, if you’re using a Samsung Galaxy S Android phone, you can hook the two together over Wi-Fi, letting you review shots and remote-trigger the camera’s shutter.

Uploading to YouTube or Facebook can be done over a known network or one of Boingo’s mobile hotspots.

The SH100 will be on sale in March, for $200. That’s $50 less than the ugly older model.

See Also:

• Samsung's Wi-Fi Camera Don't Need No Stinkin' Computer
• Cisco: New Wi-Fi Flip Camera Early Next Year
• Garmin Nuvi: Touch-Screen GPS with Camera, Wi-Fi
• Cheap, Home Made Wi-Fi Tether

LAS VEGAS — Amongst Kodak’s rather mundane CES offerings is the cute little EasyShare Sport, a 12MP waterproof camera (to 10-feet) that costs less than the bag of film you would have bought to go on vacation in pre-digital days.

The C123 has fixed focus, and no optical zoom (although you can use the 5X digital zoom), and no listed specs, even on the specifications section on Kodak’s own site. This befits a camera so cheap that you could lose it and not really blink. The LCD screen, though, is a decent 2.4-inches, and you can shoot VGA-quality movies.

And because there’s a computer inside even the lowliest camera these days, you get all the features of Kodak’s Smart Capture, bringing face-detection, motion-detection (and from there, auto-ISO), and auto-everything (except focus, of course).

Finally, there is one-button uploading to a variety of sharing sites, including Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and even Orkut. You’ll need to plug into a computer first, though.

And the price that I have mercilessly been teasing throughout this post? $80. Available March.

Kodak EasyShare Sport [Kodak]

See Also:

• Waterproof Wrist Camera
• The Best and Worst Waterproof Gadgets
• Agfa Rises From the Depths with Cheap Underwater Camera

Kodachrome film is iconic enough that there have now been several ‘goodbye, Kodachrome‘ news stories, and we just couldn’t resist one more. This time, our tale is of Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas (which we’ve had occasion to reference once before), a film processing store which has the distinction of being the final place to accept Kodachrome for development. The problem? The store has been flooded with packages of undeveloped film from all over the world as the window for its processing comes to an end. It turns out that having that distinction will get you hundreds of rolls of film a day, and Dwayne’s Photo said that it would not process any films that arrived after Thursday. Yes, that was yesterday, though the mail is undoubtedly still arriving.

Kodachrome film is seriously at the end of its life — again originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like home automation may finally be taking baby steps towards the mainstream — Verizon’s just announced that it’ll be demoing that long-rumored Home Monitoring and Control system at CES 2011, with a planned beta rollout in New Jersey to follow. The system will allow users to remotely view security cameras, lock doors, and control lights, thermostats, and appliances through their smartphones or FiOS TV boxes — the same capabilities most other automation systems offer, but with the added benefit of being integrated and installed by Verizon. The pilot homes in Jersey will receive an energy reader, smart appliance switches and thermostats, door and window locks, a power strip, motion sensors, an indoor pan-and-tilt camera, and a fixed indoor / outdoor camera when the system launches next month, but Verizon says that’s just the beginning. We’re told the system will use Z-Wave wireless control units and WiFi security cameras, so we’re guessing there’ll be a central box that integrates everything — and we’ve got a feeling this whole thing is based on 4Home (pictured above), which was just acquired by Motorola Mobility. We’ll find out more at CES — stay tuned.

Continue reading Verizon to demo Home Monitoring and Control system at CES, launch pilot in Jersey next month

Verizon to demo Home Monitoring and Control system at CES, launch pilot in Jersey next month originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 15:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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