I’ve covered mini-projectors several times on this blog, greatly anticipating the day when every consumer has one. Yesterday, a landmark was made as Nikon announced that its Coolpix S1000pj will include a miniature LED projector.

This 12.1 megapixel camera comes with a 2.7 inch LCD viewscreen, a 5x wide-angle NiKKOR lens, and can capture HD video at 1280 x 720 pixels. Oh, by the way, Nikon also put out three other cameras, but who really cares about that, let’s talk about the projector on the S1000pj!

All the user needs is a flat surface and he or she can beam their images to a 40-inch size. The user can also mix music, and create effects along with transitions for these pictures.

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If you missed Best Buy’s ad in the Sunday paper, now might be a good time to dig through your old newspaper pile and get it. No, Best Buy didn’t pay me to say that, but I can guarantee there is something more in that Sunday Best Buy ad than just their latest deal.

Yes, it appears that Best Buy is fully embracing the 3D vibe in the air today as last Sunday’s ad is capable of being viewed in 3D. Just so we are on the same page, you do not even need any special glasses.

You will need a personal computer with a webcam. Just turn on your webcam, allow Best Buy access to it, and “slowly move the weekly ad toward the camera until it is recognized”. How will you know that it is recognized? Just watch your webcam display and wait for something neat to happen, because it will.

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This Underwater camcorder can record video to a depth of 10 feet.

Hammacher has an underwater camcorder which snorkelers can use to video to a depth of 10 feet without a case. Ironically named “The Shirtpocket Underwater Camcorder” (since diving isn’t really a shirt sleeve environment), it seems loosely based on the Samsung/Aptek style with 2 1/2″ LCD color screen and SD expansion slot. The 8MP camcorder chip can record up to 60 minutes of standard definition MPEG4 video or take up to 300 digital still photos with the included 2GB sd card.

The expansion slot can support memory up to 8GB. Additionally, it carries a 4x digital zoom capability. One additional feature, the camera serves as a voice recorder and can double as an mp3 player.

USB connections allow for direct upload to your PC and the rechargeable Li-Ion battery has a life of just shy of two hours with a real time recharge time.

Cost is $200.

Hat Tip – Hammacher

I’m sure there are many who can’t stand taking pictures with Flash. I mean, not only do they create too much reflections, but then there is that horrid red-eye effect. The worst case scenario is taking a picture at the aquarium. I mean, you think you got a great shot of the kids by the fish tank, but the picture ends up with a giant white spot. So instead of the kids staring in awe at a cute seal cub, you get a shot of kids looking at a will-o-the-wisp.

Fortunately, some NYU researchers are working on an Invisible Flash. I realize that sounds like a song by Genesis, but it is actually could “reach out, and grab right hold of your heart”. (That’s a reference to the Genesis song “Invisible Touch”, by the way.)

The Invisible Flash works by taking a picture with IR and UV light to produce a black-and-white image. Then another picture is taken with ambient lighting, and both images are then combined with special software.

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I don’t think that I could have sung higher praises of the Digital Foci Photo Book on my hands-on review, but that was before I saw that the Hama Photo Album is about to be released.

I suddenly had a flashback to CES last January, when I stumbled across the booth with this fine product. The only reason why I remember it is because of its Braille dot logo on the word “Album” and its simpler three-button interface. (Simpler when compared to the Photo Book, which is still pretty simple, really.)

The Digital Photo Album comes with a 7” inch screen that displays JPEGs in 800 x 480 pixel resolution. These images can be transferred directly to the device via USB port with USB OTG. There is about 4 GB worth of memory on the Album for the user’s photos, and it can also read SD, SDHC, and MM cards.

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I’ve reported on Digital Foci products before, and they are a company that does not disappoint when it comes to their digital photo frames. The Digital Foci Photo Book is no exception to that rule.

The Photo Book PBK-080 harkens back to the days when people stored their photos in quality albums. It has a leather-like case that magnetically seals, and, once fully charged, the user is free to download his or her photos through memory cards or by USB flash drives to internal memory.

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Every once in a while, some new video game technology is released that could change the way games could be played. We’ve already seen the announcement from Microsoft with their Project Natal, and Sony is chiming in with its own great advancement. Sony has recently announced that the PlayStation Eye webcam is going to have face-recognition technology as well as gender recognition technology.

I believe that we have already covered gender-recognition technology before, and Kish Hirani, Sony Europe’s head of developer services, says that it can “detect gender and even the age of the face, separate facial features such as the nose, eyes, and ears, and even detect whether you’re smiling or not”.

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Considering the number of 3D movies in the theaters this summer, as well as those coming this holiday, one can’t help wonder if we are entering into a 3D era that will not end as abruptly as it did in the fifties.

Fujifilm has now announced that they are putting out a camera that can take 3D images. At first I thought that this was a camera that could produce prints that would be 3D, with certain glasses, but apparently, I was wrong.

According to my source, “to view the 3D images, users can put them on a special 3D enabled digital photo frame or print them with a special 3D printing process that needs no glasses to view”.

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