News

Minolta Announces the Release of the Maxxum 4

Apple to offer eMac to consumers

QuickTime 6.0 Released

Kodak updates Picture CD Format with Improved e-mail Features

Cutting Out the Middleman from Stock Photography

PhotoSelect Corp. Non-Rectangular Photos  

Lexar 12X High-Speed CompactFlash Gets Capacity Boost to 512MB 

Minolta made public this month the worst kept secret in photography - the release of the Maxxum 4. Essentially a Maxxum 5 with a reduced feature set and a lower price, the Maxxum 4 becomes Minolta's entry level SLR as well as the lightest and smallest SLR currently available.

Apple to offer eMac to consumers

Apple is now offering its new eMac to consumers. Launched in April, the eMac was originally offered to education customers. Apple is now offering a new CD-RW and modem configuration eMac through its retail channels. The eMac features a 17-inch flat CRT and a 700 MHz PowerPC G4 processor. It carries a retail price of $1,099. All eMacs include iPhoto for managing and sharing digital photographs, iMovie 2 for creating digital movies, and iTunes 2 for creating a digital music library. With five USB ports and two FireWire ports, eMac provides plug-and-play connections to peripherals such as digital video camcorders, digital cameras, printers and scanners.

QuickTime 6.0 Released

In other news Apple announced that a preview of QuickTime 6 is now available as a free download from www.apple.com for both Mac and Windows. QuickTime 6 is the first mainstream MPEG-4 solution for streaming media to all MPEG-4 compliant players. Apple is predicting that MPEG-4 will be the next-generation international standard for digital video.

Kodak announced the availability of the Kodak Picture CD version 5.1, which features an improved e-mail address book that allows consumers to send multiple pictures within a single e-mail, according to the company. According to a recent consumer survey conducted by Kodak and ICR, an independent research company, only 20 percent of consumers felt it was easy to send pictures via e-mail. 

  According to Kodak, the Kodak Picture CD offers the following features:

• Send favorite pictures as an e-mail attachment to family and friends quickly and easily with the new address book
• Combine a picture and text to create a Picture Postcard
• Create a slide show chronicling an event and then share via the Kodak Picture Road Show
• Order additional Kodak prints and enlargements of favorite pictures through Kodak Picture Center Online and have them sent directly to family and friends.
• Enhance pictures by removing red eye, cropping, adding captions or applying fun effects.
• Use an improved consumer interface complete with easy-to-understand command icons and pull-down menus

Cutting Out the Middleman from Stock Photography

Typically, a photographer's photos are selected by stock photo publishers who then create catalogs of images which they sell to photo buyers as CD ROM collections or as downloads from the publisher's web site. Using the concept of peer-to-peer collaborative e-commerce, Vtechmedia has created an e-marketplace of royalty-free digital images where photographers, not publishers, set the price they want and where buyers purchase direct from the photographer to cut out the middleman. Prices range from 10 cents to $20. The submissions are approved or rejected for content restrictions such as pornography or off-topic subjects such as digital artwork. Once accepted, the images are categorized where buyers may browse and purchase for download. 

Vtechmedia's system keeps track of all the accounting, billing, credit card authorization, royalty payments, etc. Photographers may submit and list photos free of charge. When a photo is purchased and downloaded, the photographer receives a 50% royalty per purchase. Photographers interested in submitting their photos for evaluation and possible listing should contact http://www.vtechmedia.com/home/photogphoto.asp.

PhotoSelect Corp. Non-Rectangular Photos

PhotoSelect is the first web site in the world to offer non-rectangular photos ready to use without the necessity of doing a selection or a clipping path. The PhotoSelect images have already been selected by experts and the photos are by award winning photographers. These isolated images such as people, animals, airplanes, ships, weapons, food and many other types have smooth edges surrounded by graduated transparency. The edges of these non-rectangular photos are therefore smooth not jagged rough edges. For more information go to http://www.photo-select.net/

Lexar 12X High-Speed CompactFlash Gets Capacity Boost to 512MB 

Lexar announced the addition of a 512MB CompactFlash card to its 12X High-Speed Series. The 512MB High-Speed card will be available at leading photo specialty, consumer electronics and mass merchandisers worldwide at a suggested retail price of $374.99.

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