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Ricoh's WiFi/Bluetooth Caplios

Ricoh today announced two additions to its Caplio range, the Bluetooth 2.0-toting 500SE model B and the Bluetooth/WiFi 500SE model W. The latter supports 802.11b and g, plus WEP and WPA/WPA2 security. Both have an 8.13-megapixel CCD and 3X optical zoom, and sport a 2.5-inch LCD on the back. Storage is via 26MB of internal memory and SD cards. As you'll have surmised from the rather functional looks, the cameras are also water/shock/dust resistant.

Weight and pricing are both hefty; the 500SE clocks in at 482g with battery on board, and will cost you Y115,500 ($990) for the Bluetooth model and Y130,200 ($1,100) for the WiFi unit.

[Via Ascii24 (Japanese)]

Pentax's waterproof Optio WPi

Seems we missed Pentax's Optio WP when it was announced in February this year, but we'll make amends by noting that its successor the WPi, which gets a bump up to 6 megapixels from 5, will be out on October 4 in Japan. Size and weight are pretty much the same as its predecessor (22mm thick, 135g) and it unsurprisingly still has the ability to shoot for 30 minutes underwater at a depth of 1.5m. Apart from the boost in pixel count, the rear screen has better resolution and some redesigned signal processing means that standard sensitivity is now up to ISO80 from ISO50. Takes SD cards, and should cost somewhere in the mid-Y40,000 range.

[Via Ascii24 (Japanese)]

Shimadzu’s million-frame-per-second video camera

It may only shoot in monochrome at a size of 312 x 260 pixels and take up to 100 frames at a time, but Shimadzu’s HyperVision HPV-1 camera can record at a million frames a second (you can step down through a range of slower rates to a crawling 30 fps should you wish), enabling you to capture those precious split seconds of blindingly fast motion in all the loving detail you need. The rest of the package consists of a Windows-XP powered control unit with a 20GB hard drive and Ethernet/USB2.0 connections; images are stored as either AVI, TIFF or BMP. The whole thing will set you back a stinging Y22 mn ($205,000). We hear the Wachowski brothers will be using this in their next film to capture up close the subtle vibration of Agent Smith’s nostril hair as he takes a punch to the head.

[Product page (Japanese)]

(Crossposted to Engadget)

The Ubiquitous Communicator

Japan’s second attempt this week to prove that the PDA is still with us comes from the Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory, part of the T-Engine Forum that develops the TRON OS. The Ubiquitous Communicator packs in a lot of goodies: RFID reader, fingerprint sensor, Bluetooth, WiFi, 2-megapixel camera on the back and another 300,000-pixel unit on the front for videophone calls, mic and speaker for VoIP calls, and so forth. There’s a catch, as you might expect; the first production run models will cost something above Y300,000 ($2,700), though the second run should see that come down to about the same price as a high-end digital camera, which should help the quest for, er, ubiquity.

[Via ITmedia (Japanese)]

30X zoom digicam

Sounds like Kowa Prominar's TD-1 has been through a series of delays almost as long as its lens (it was first announced in March last year), but it's finally coming out in early July in Japan. The main feature--damn, we gave it away in the title--is the 30-times zoom lens, enabling you to photograph the individual M&Ms floating around the cabin of SpaceShipOne while staying right here on the warm surface of the Earth, where there's oxygen. At Y210,000, though, its price is way back up there where the air is thin. 3.14 megapixels, takes SD cards (which probably look even smaller than normal next to its 36-cm long bulk), weighs 2.3 kg. In no sense whatever is this targeted at reserved young Japanese men who show up at PR events involving C-list teenage female entertainers and try to take photos up their skirts.

[Impress PC Watch (Japanese)]

Cheap goodies from NH Japan

NH Japan, having just come out with the MPM-201 and 202 video players we featured the other day ["we" in this case means "Engadget" -- ed], has announced a slew of new stuff. Some of it, like the camera USB drives, looks a touch generic, but there are a few interesting picks: The DV-5 pictured right is a 3-megapixel MPEG-4 video/still camera with a 2GB drive; the DV-588 is a midsized 5-megapixel camera with a 3X optical zoom that should sell for a reasonable Y30,000; and there's a currently vaporous 2GB audio player called the NH-2000 that supposedly has a Bluetooth headset with it (we hope they mean the whole thing can be recognized as a Bluetooth headset as per the Diva GEM). NHJ still aren't making the kind of stuff that you can really brag to your friends about, but they’re steadily getting there.

[Via Impress AV Watch (Japanese)]

Battery-powered MO datadump drive

MO drives may not be be all that sexy or popular these days, but Fujitsu has a neat battery-powered model coming out in Japan that incorporates an 8-in-1 card reader for dumping images from your digicam memory card. Size is 195 x 135 x 29 mm, and the MO drive section can also be detached for use as an external USB drive that runs off bus power. Your mileage may vary with this one depending on how cheap MO disks are where you are, however; in Japan a 1.3GB disk will only set you back about Y1,000.

[Via Ascii24 (Japanese)]

Olympus's new AZ-1 compact digicam

Olympus's latest digicam, the compact Camedia AZ-1, hits Japanese shops this June. Standout feature aside from the compact size (94 x 21.9 x 67 mm) is a 2.5-inch, 210,000-pixel screen with a 160-degree viewing angle, and 3X better contrast than previous Olympus models. In short, they're pitching it as something of a portable photo viewer as well as a camera, a notion that's backed up by the ability to create 12 photo albums, each containing up to 100 shots, which can be viewed as slide shows with a variety of transition effects. The camera itself is a 3.24-megapixel unit with a 3X optical zoom that takes JPEGs up to 2,048 x 1,536 pixels in size, or QuickTime movies at up to 15 frames per second. Storage is via xD-Picture Cards.

[Via PC Watch (Japanese)]

[Read: Spec sheet and product pics at dpreview.com]

Mini Rolleiflex-style TLR digicam

Komamura, the Japanese sales agent for Rollei cameras, is to release a mini-sized (49 x 45 x 73 mm) digicam that apes the design of the Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex on May 21. Neatly, the 1.1 inch LCD display used for the viewfinder is positioned at the top of the camera to be viewed from above, in keeping with the original.

The Mini-Digi uses a 2 megapixel sensor that takes pics with up to 1,280 x 1,280 resolution through a fixed-focus F2.8 9mm lens, with shutter speed settable between 1/15s and 1/7500s (exposure and white balance is automated). Stores pics on an SD memory card; looks like PC connection is via USB.

Should sell for Y39,800 (excluding tax) in Japan.

[Via PC Watch (Japanese)]

Nikon D2H/WT-1 wireless add-on review

Digital Photography Review is carrying a writeup on their roadtest of the new Nikon D2H digital SLR with the WT-1 Wi-Fi add-on. Sounds like the speed is limited to 2.2 Mbps for some reason, but overall the package gets the thumbs-up.

[Read: Nikon D2H Review]

Digicam roundup from PMA show

There has predictably been a flood of new digital camera announcements at the Photo Marketing Association show in Las Vegas. There's an as-ever superb and exhaustive roundup of all the goodies at Digital Photography Review. We'll therefore confine ourselves to noting a couple of things that caught our fancy: