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Flip Video camera maker hit with patent infringement lawsuit

Advanced Video Technologies lobbed a patent infringement lawsuit against Pure Digital Technology, maker of the popular Flip Video cameras, according to a Reuters report.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in a U.S. District Court in New York, alleges Pure Digital infringed on Advanced Video's patent for its Full Duplex Single Chip Video Codec. The technology is designed to compress the video and allow it to be displayed on small-screen devices.

Advanced is seeking unspecified damages and a "reasonable" royalty, according to a Reuters interview with Stephen Roth, attorney for Advanced Video. He noted Advance is not seeking … Read more

How fast is your flash?

It's languished for a while, but Rob Galbraith's extremely useful and detailed database of performance tests on CompactFlash and SD media has just been updated. If you've got burning questions about whether it's worth the extra bucks for a flashier flash card, this is the place to look. Recent additions include tests with the Canon EOS 40D and Nikon D300.

Get photos off your camera phone

Though carriers have loosened some of the reins in the last couple of years, it still can be a tricky process to get photos off your camera phone. The most common method, sending your snaps as a multimedia message to an e-mail address, costs money. Sure, you can offset individual messaging fees with a messaging plan, but that too will add a few dollars to your monthly bill. A Bluetooth file transfer is a better (and free) option, but you'll need Bluetooth on both ends. Also, up until recently some carriers restricted Bluetooth use so they wouldn't lose … Read more

Killer Download: Share your photos with Web albums

I take a lot of pictures with my digital camera at birthdays, family gatherings, and other events, so I'm always on the lookout for new ways to share the photos. As new programs hit the scene and older programs evolve over time, my favorites change because of various factors like ease of use, number of features, and of course, the king of all reasons: price.

One of the best ways I've found to share pictures with friends and family is to make them as accessible as possible by creating Web albums. With the right software, you can lay … Read more

Digicam clone from China: Too good to be true

From the same country that spawned countless of iPhone clones comes a camera that looks too good to be true. And apparently it is.

Chinese company Chinavasion is promoting its prosumer lookalike point-and-shoot, the ZKX-DC5010. While it looks suspiciously like Sony's H7 or Nikon's upcoming P80, the specifications tell another story.

It comes with an outdated 5-megapixel sensor, tiny 2.4-inch LCD display, fixed lens (with no indication on focal length) and 4x digital zoom. All these telltale signs point to one thing: Unless you are really hard up on cash and still want to take pictures, stay … Read more

Flashing in circles

A new photographic trend may be in the making: ring flashes. We spotted an LED ring light for point-and-shoot cameras last week, and now we have the Ray Flash from Expo Imaging, as well as a conceptual shooter with built-in ring flash.

The Ray Flash is an adapter for your hotshoe flash unit and is currently compatible only with Canon's 580EX series and Nikon's SB800. This is clearly targeted at dSLR users who are venturing into fashion and portraiture photography. The light from the Ray Flash is soft and wraps around the subject, producing an almost shadow-less picture. … Read more

The Tospom: A camera that plays catch

Clearly, some researchers at Japan's Okude Laboratory are having too much fun with their work.

Their latest invention, the Tospom, is a ball-shaped camera takes a picture of the receiver when he catches it. The rationale, according to its inventors, is to engage the photographer and his subject while snapping a picture and also to "draw out a more natural and relaxed expression from the subject."

While its Web site gave a demonstration of how to use the ball-cam, it didn't state how it worked. All we can figure out is that you can also hold … Read more

An LED ring flash for compact cameras

Sometimes our macro shots turn out underexposed because we're blocking the light source. At the same time, to avoid the harsh shadows created by built-in flashes, we end up contorting our bodies in awkward angles just to get some light.

With any luck, those days may be coming to an end with the LED Ring Light from Marumi. It works like this: A compact shooter's lens protrudes through its ring of eight LEDs while remaining attached to a three AAA-sized battery pack. A 12-centimeter flexible arm connects the flash to the power source so this gizmo can be … Read more

Canon loses SLR share, as Nikon surges

When it comes to the strategically important and fast-growing market of SLR cameras, Canon remained No. 1 worldwide in 2007 but lost share to Nikon, new statistics show.

Canon sold 3.18 million single-lens reflex cameras in 2007 compared with Nikon's 2.98 million, according to a study released Tuesday by market researcher IDC. That represents a 42.7 percent and 40 percent share, respectively, of the 2007 SLR market. It's a much narrower margin for Canon than in 2006, when it had 46.7 percent of the market, compared with Nikon's 33 percent.

Nikon SLR shipments … Read more