Review of DPI Show in London

On Thursday June 26, Kickstartnews Managing Editor Howard Carson and I attended the Digital Photo & Imaging Show at the Business Design Centre in Islington (London, UK). My first impression on entering the show was one of disappointment as it seemed a little on the small side. However, my mood improved as we made our way around the show. There were a few manufacturers present who were showing their solutions and we managed to spend some valuable time, one-on-one with the reps. On the software front there were a number of vendors showing their wares including Apple and Adobe. OnOne and Nik Software were also there showing their respective photoshop plug-ins and running continuous demos. A number of distributors and resellers were also on hand demonstrating other solutions. The live theaters from Adobe, Apple and DPI were running all day and were well attended, often with crowds spilling out into aisles. Printer manufacturers were there in force with large booths from Canon, Epson and HP well manned and equipped with the latest in large format printers. Nikon were notable in their absence, disappointing really as there were plenty of pro users in attendance. There were the usual publications and associations present and it was nice catching up with some of them. The BPPA, BIPP and The SWPP were there looking for new members and spending time with existing members. Magazines such as F2, The BJP, Digital Arts Magazine and Macworld were on hand, giving out free copies and selling subscriptions. I was pleased with Canon's presence at the show as they were demonstrating a start to finish capability which other manufacturers lack. We noted that Canon was able to demonstrate a complete solution for photographers from capture and acquisition through to output. In addition to their pro cameras and output solutions they also had their projectors and pro video solutions on hand for demo. Other exhibitors included Skillset, who were there discussing their training programs for Digital Skills, photography and creative workflows. It's definitely worth checking them out. A number of retailers and resellers such as AJ Purdy, The Flash Centre, The Pro Centre and Rapid Group were there promoting their wares and services and selling discounted products and providing some excellent show specials. Other vendors included Wacom who were demoing their excellent tablet solutions. Computer Unlimited were also in attendance demoing solutions from Corel, Datacolor, Shiraz and Vertus. The lecture program and seminar at the show was full and offered many useful and valuable insights. Speakers presented lectures and seminars useful to photo-libraries, portrait photographers, on documentary photography, celebrity shots, visual journalism and on the art of photography. Overall the show was small in scale but big on delivery, We were able to spend some valuable time with the companies we wanted to see. I hope that next year's show will be similar in nature but somewhat larger in scale. Nikon should really be there, as should a few more third party software and hardware vendors.

Datacolor’s Spyder3 Gets Price Reduction

Datacolor announced a price reduction for its Spyder3 range. As of June the 1st 2008, their award-winning Spyder3Elite is reduced in price from £175 to £155.99 whilst Spyder3Print is reduced by £60 to £253.99, including VAT. For more information on the Spyder3 range visit Datacolor.

Firefox 3 Sets Record

Firefox 3 sets record with over 8 Million downloads in 24 hours, as of tonight the number of downloads has exceeded 18 million. Firefox 3 has also had it's first bug reported. I've downloaded it and will be installing shortly.

Wacom Wins 2 Coveted Red Dot Awards

Wacom have won 2 Red Dot Awards for the Bamboo Fun Pen Tablet and their Cintiq 12WX hybrid interactive pen display. This is the second red dot award for the Bamboo range, as the first model in the series also received the same accolade in June 2007. The Cintiq 12WX features a high quality 12.1” screen, which is optimised for direct input using the ergonomically designed digital pen. With this form of interaction activities such as drawing, painting, sketching, storyboarding, finishing, retouching and compositing allow the creative to work much as they would on paper. For more information on the Bamboo Fun and the Cintiq 12WX visit Wacom. For more information on the Red Dot award visit Red-Dot.org.

NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+

NVIDIA have announced their new GeForce 9800 GTX+. This refresh of the 9800 features architecture based on the more efficient 55nm tech. The GTX+ has a 738 MHz core, 1836 MHz shader clock, 512MB GDDR3 memory (1000MHz), and 2- and 3-way SLI support. It is slated for release in July for $229 retail.

ATI Radeon HD 4850 Official

ATI have announced the HD 4850 graphics card, a single-slot PCIe 2.0 card which features 512MB of DDR3 RAM, a 625MHz clock speed, 993MHz memory speed, 480 stream processors and has support for CrossFireX / DirectX 10.1.

Quark Announce QuarkXPress 8

QuarkXPress 8 is nearly complete and will be available within the next two months. Already Quark are promising to provide a free upgrade to folks who purchase and register QuarkXPress 7 in the next couple of months. XPress 8 includes new pen and picture tools, new drag and drop features, better file handling of Illustrator files, and better control over typography and layout. For more information on what's new in XPress 8 visit Quark.

Macbook Air Ivolution Case From Vaja

Vaja's have just announced their latest product, the leather ivolution case for the Macbook Air. Vaja are a manufacturer whose products I've found to be of the highest quality. Their cases not only look the part, but they are manufactured of the finest materials and to the highest standards. If you own a MacBook Air then this case may definitely fit the bill, you can even personalize it. For more information visit Vaja

Voodoo Omen Desktop - Minimal PC

Gamers and Tech-heads with money are likely to love this new offering from Voodoo. The Omen desktop offers clean lines and a well thought out form. The front of the unit has a built-in 7 inch display for providing feedback and other useful info. Although the image above looks really clean I wonder how it will look once connected and wired up. The Omen is also customizable, with options including high-quality Voodoo Allure paint finishes, laser engraving and custom side panels in materials such as glass, leather and wood. The system includes a built-in 7-inch full auxiliary LCD, Quad radiator, Vertical thermal diffusion, Tool-less architecture, and RGB accent lighting. The Omen includes Voodoo’s Fuel Essential software suite - Roxio, Cyberlink PowerDVD, AVG Professional Anti-Virus and PCDoctor. Pricing for the Omen begins at $6,500 and can reach as high as $20,000. A lot of money for a PC as far as I'm concerned, but if you're interested, visit Voodoo PC.

HP Announce New PCs and Laptops

HP unveiled their new generation of all-in-one PCs. The new HP TouchSmart family of PCs feature HP software designed specifically for touch control. A finger tapped or swept across the high-resolution screen delivers quick access to information, entertainment and social networks. Without using a keyboard or mouse, consumers can play music and create playlists, zoom in or out of photos, and quickly check the weather or watch TV. These all-in-one devices would appeal to folks who dont have a lot of room and who really want a lot less clutter. The Wireless mouse and keyboard only add to the minimal experience offered by the Touchsmart Series. The HP TouchSmart IQ504 PC and the TV-tuner equipped IQ506 PC are expected to start at $1,299 and $1499. HP also announce 16 new laptops, including the business-centric EliteBook premium series, which now arrives in a new slate of sizes and configurations. A new selection of Pavilion based Entertainment notebooks the dv4, dv5 and dv7 all of which feature with ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection. The are also some new HP Compaq Presarios, the CQ45, CQ40 and CQ50 which have a new look and feel and feature the new HP Imprint 2 surface finish. For more info follow this link.

Apple Announce 3G iPhone

So it's official, Apple are to begin selling the 3G iPhone in 22 countries on the 11th of July. This will be accompanied by a price drop. No idea on UK prices as yet but I hope its more in line with the US prices than the typically usurious rates they normally charge us Brits. The US price will be $199 for an 8 GB edition, and $299 for a 16 GB version, which will also be available in white. The iPhone 3G comes in a full black plastic case, metal buttons, the same 480 by 320-pixel multitouch LCD display and a flush headphone jack. The new iPhone also has an integrated GPS receiver. According to Apple it offers improved battery life (up to 300 hours on standby, 10 hours of 2G talk time, 5 hours of 3G talk time, 6 hours of browsing, 7 hours of video, or 24 hours of audio). Update With all the noise about the 3G iPhone, there are also a lot of gripes too ... nice that they've added the 3G and improved on things like the headphone jack and battery life (Still no user replaceable battery though). Other issues include: No A2DP audio on bluetooth No copy and paste 2MP camera No Video recording No MMS. No front camera No flash support inside Safari - although this may be handled in the future via an update. No user uploaded ring tunes No support for Memory Cards Details of O2 Pricing in UK: Monthly Charge £30 £35 £45 £75 Cost of 8GB iPhone £99 £99 Free Free Cost of 16GB iPhone £159 £159 £59 Free

Samsung Announce their i900 Omnia

Samsung have announced their Windows Mobile 6.1-powered i900 Omnia. The Omnia features quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE support, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, a built-in accelerometer, WiFi module, USB port, FM tuner, Bluetooth with A2DP, a 3.2-inch 400 x 240 resolution display and a 5-megapixel camera (with smile detection and geotagging). Coming in 8GB and 16GB versions and further enhanced through support for MicroSD memory. Samsungs TouchWiz user interface will certainly add a little more for folks to consider making it a worthy adversary for the iPhone 3G.

HTC Touch Pro - Its Official

HTC have revealed their Touch Pro, Originally codenamed Raphael, it is a cool looking unit which features the looks of the Touch Diamond, but outfitted with a QWERTY slider. The Touch pro comes kitted out with WiFi, HSPA, Bluetooth, a 2.8-inch VGA display, a 3.2 megapixel camera, 512K of ROM, 288MB of RAM, and 900 / 2100MHz 3G with quadband GSM and EDGE. It also comes with Windows Mobile 6.1 featuring HTC's TouchFLO 3D interface. The Touch PRo should first show its face here in Europe in the third quarter. American units should ship later.

Samsung S2 Announced For South Korea

Samsung have released their "pebble" like S2 MP3 player in South Korea. The S2 features DNSe audio processing, comes in five colors, and supports audio in MP3, WMA, and OGG formats. The audio players come in 1GB and 2GB models. No news on it's availability in other markets.

AMD Announce Next Generation Laptops

AMD have announced their new line of Turion High Performance Notebooks. Their Next-Generation Notebook Platform features AMD Turion X2 Ultra Processors and Dual Graphics Processors. The Notebooks featuring ATI PowerXpress are designed to switch automatically between graphics processors when you switch to battery power to ensure better battery life and power consumption. Notebooks featuring ATI Radeon™ HD 3200 Graphics Technology with Microsoft DirectX®10 also offer outstanding performance with 1080p based HD.

Seagate To Make SSD's

Seagate have announced that they will be making SSDs. This decision is despite CEO Bill Watkins apparently ridiculous stand on not getting the appeal of SSDs. Mr Watkins has been very public about downplaying the appeal of this storage technology and has also been responsible for spearheading legal efforts against companies that produce SSDs. Although Watkins is right about the cost differences between disk based drives and SSDs, this price difference should come down dramatically in the next couple of years and given the more stable SSD platform, which is by its very nature less prone to mechanical failure, the SSD drive should become a force to be reckoned with.