The future of tech products is built upon today’s imagination, design, and inspiration. Concepts that allow consumers and manufacturers to see creative, novel, or utterly breathtaking products drive technology style and engineering forward. These are some of those concepts:
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It’s the DXG 589V, the world’s first digital camera that records videos and plays games. Similar in design to the lauded Sanyo Xacti, its compact design is held in your hand vertically with a twist up screen. The lens snaps pics compliments of a 5 megapixel CMOS sensor and records 640 x 480 MPEG-4 video at 30 frames per second.

Perhaps its most unique feature is gaming. Turn the unit sideways and the screen orients itself resembling a Gameboy. There’s a d-pad that rests on the side of the lens barrel and action buttons on the right which by the way look eerily similar to someone else’s design. Gameboy-like or not, it doesn’t play Gameboy games. Instead, the 589V comes with 20 built in games.

If you’re still unsure about it, how about video recording direct from any video source (TV, DVD, VCR) to take on the go? SD card storage and hey, it even works as a digital music player so if you look at the big picture - it’s the convergence device everybody wants right?

$199.99 available now at your local Best Buy and Circuit City.

Designer Pei-Hua Huang has the right idea with his WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) concept phone. He envisages transparent screens that work as viewfinders, giving you a truer view of what it is you’re about to snap.

Of course the concept isn’t all fancy schmancy screen. It comes in an array of colors and patterns befitting of a fashionista picture hound. Who says you can’t geek out while looking good?

[Via Yanko Design]

Ever worked in a printed circuit board inspection factory? Probably not. But if you did, you would know that it’s a lot of tough work. Staring at tiny little transistors, through-hole paths, and conducive traces for errors can be terribly boring, even with the aid of cameras that magnify the components for easier viewing pleasure. Now Sony has stepped in with the answer to the question (42), and has brought with them the XCL-5000 model from their CameraLink series, bidding the inspectors’ darkened spirits goodbye for the calming peace of a cloudless sky.

Instead of using several low resolution cameras to create a higher resolution collage, Sony’s XCL-5000 can replace multiple cameras by simply being better. As their press release states:

The XCL-5000 is a black-and-white model that incorporates a new 2/3-inch progressive scan CCD sensor with square pixels. This imaging technology can capture high-quality, high-resolution video at 15 frames per second, and supports up to 12-bit processing with a C-mount lens.

Since it is only one camera, it saves space in the factory and provides quicker results, since there is less overhead required to build the image of the printed circuit board or display to be inspected. The highly complex assortment of cameras and pieces needed to accurately inspect a PCB would be heavily reduced when replaced by the XCL-5000, which also means that cost would be decreased as well (more money is always good).

With a form factor of 44 x 44 x 57.5 mm, and a suggested price of $4,377, this should be on every machine manufacturer’s and inspector’s wish list.

Sanyo just announced their new mid-range Xacti DMX-CG65 digital pocket camcorder. Still sporting the 6 megapixel CCD and 5x optical zoom but all recordings now support H.264. Use it with the new 8 GB SDHC cards and you can record up to 10 hours of footage.

Japan only for now but it’s a Xacti so it’ll show up in other parts of the world sooner than later. The Japanese will get the obligatory silver and black models along with a green goblin color. Not sure how I feel about that one.

In keeping with the current trend of “how many different devices can I shove into one phone,” Sony Ericsson has come up with their new W610 Walkman/Camera phone.  This new device is a Phone/PDA/Walkman/MP3 Player.  Which I suppose is a smart move by Sony  in trying to keep up with the Apple iPhone that has been dominating the media lately.

The new W610 stores up to 470 full-length music tracks (give or take depending on how many renditions of “Stairway To Heaven” you have) on the provided 512MB Memory Stick Micro (M2).  Apparently it will also allow you to record FM radio clips as well and furthermore be able to retrieve specific data from them such as track name, artist, album, etc.

I have to wonder if Sony is worried about the RIAA and the FCC having a fit over this feature.  Considering the fact that they have chastised satilite radio providers Sirius and XM for providing similar features on their devices.

More details on the phones camera features after the jump

[Via Digitimes]

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Holy crap, 31 megapixels? Well my camera’s a 5 megapixel, so… you know… whatever. I’m not jealous or anything. Anyway the Hasselblad H3D-31 is world’s first 48mm full-frame DSLR camera. It also boasts a very nice 1.2 second capture rate.

Of course all those megapixels don’t come cheap. Hell they don’t even come expensive. You’re looking at ludicrous prices here. Retail price is $24,995. Before you ask, yes the decimal is in the right spot. I have no doubt this camera takes a great picture, but seriously… $25,000 dollars?

[PhotographyBlog]

Nikon just sent Nextlust a reminder that their new D40 Digital SLR is something we should all be paying attention to. Why should we? Well Nikon says the D40 is their smallest and easiest digital SLR EVER! Yeah, their so excited about this little guy. The fully featured snapper will set you back $599.95, so have fun with that Richie Rich.