Eastman Kodak Co has unveiled the DC 40 digital point-and-shoot camera, costing less than $1,000, and aimed at business users wanting to add digital images to reports and presentations. The company hopes the DC 40 will pave the way for cheap digital cameras for the consumer market. The DC 40, with 4Mb memory, features 24-bit colour; 48 high resolution pictures can be taken before they have to be downloaded to a computer through the RS-232 interface. Extra lenses will be available for wide-angle, close-up and telephoto pictures. The camera will ship with PhotoEnhancer software from PictureWorks Technology Inc, which enables users to enhance their pictures and export them to applications as PICT, TIFF or EPS files. One Kodak executive described the software as really flaky at the moment with a tendency to crash, but he said any problems would be resolved by the time the camera ships in May. It will be ú900 in the UK. Kodak also announced its Build-It Photo CD Portfolio Disk Production for Windows NT and Macintosh. It is similar to the Unix version launched last year, and enables users to write images to Photo CD disks to be shown on computers or television. The new disk format contains Photo CD ImagePac files and other digital content. Users can also modify existing Photo CD images and re-write them to the disks. It is aimed at presentations, interactive still-image multimedia applications and image archiving. Sega Enterprises Ltd’s upcoming Saturn 32-bit games machine will also be capable of playing Photo CD disks, the two companies said. Available in Japan since November, Saturn will come out in the US this September.
