It looks like those looking to put together a quick and easy surveillance system for spying on their employees could soon find their solution courtesy of NEC, which is set to debut a new security cam that draws all its power from a standard fluorescent light. But that’s not all, the camera also boasts some built-in 802.11b WiFi capabilities to stream all that video (or, more specifically, an image every ten seconds) back to a PC, which can presumably be used to monitor dozens of these little all-seeing wonders. No word on a price or release date, but NEC will apparently have more to say about it at the iExpo2007 conference that gets underway in Tokyo on December 5th.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

More than a year since its announcement, Sigma has released an official update on the progress of their DP1 anomaly. According to Sigma, the delay is the result of poor image quality delivered during testing necessitating a “change to the entire image processing pipeline.” Alpha tests of the redesign began in early November with no date given for production. Remember, this is slated to be the first compact to feature an APS-C sized image sensor found in DSLRs — no easy task. In this case, we’re talking the 14 megapixel FOVEON X3 found in their SD14. At least that was the plan. Sigma now says that the specs will change from what was originally announced. Bottom line: Sigma will be rolling out a redesigned compact with unknown specs on an unspecified date. Clear?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Fancy yourself a bird watcher do you? Good — be they the hollow-boned or British-beach going variety, this is the cam to catch ‘em. The Kenko Field Catch digital camera features a 14x, 70-mm optical zoom lens, 3.1 megapixel CMOS, SD slot, and optional power from a pair of AAs. In addition to a viewfinder, a high / low throw-switch on top allows for a quick 24x or 7x zoom on the 2.0-inch LCD. Thing is, this is the same VistaPix IS70 announced for star gazing back in January by Celestron — a company which recently disappeared from the interwebs. It’s expected to fetch ¥64,800 (about $589) and possible hefty fine depending upon use when launched mid December in Japan.

[Via Impress]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Apart from format support and blatant KIRFage, there’s usually not much to distinguish one Chinese “MP4” player from another, so Newman’s L1200 PMP is quite the standout with its 12 megapixel camera. Mounted cell-style on the edge of the device alongside a flash, the cam swivels 180 degrees to take regular shots or 30fps video of your smiling face. Other features include a 3-inch QVGA touchscreen, SD expansion, non-specific AVI video support, and a variety of shooting modes and setting for that cam. Not much else is known, but at just $132, it’s worth a splurge if you ever see it outside of China.

[Via PMP Today]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

IPEVO, better known for its Skype-related offerings, is gearing up to unveil its PoV handheld webcam at the Taipei Computer Show, but thankfully, it went ahead and uploaded most all of the nitty gritty onto its website for us to pore over. Apparently, the device is designed to enable users to easily show others “what they see,” and it features a VGA (640 x 480) resolution, adjustable focus, automatic white balance, a built-in microphone and USB 2.0 connectivity. You can also perch this bugger on your desk or desktop monitor, but c’mon, where’s the fun in that? No word on a price or release date just yet, but those tidbits should be readily available next month.

[Thanks, Roy C.]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

While its smile-detection feature alone may be enough to entice some buyers, the folks at PhotographyBLOG decided to dig a little deeper into Olympus’ new FE-300, and they’ve now churned out a full review of the camera. That feature aside, however, it seems that the camera is a decidedly unimpressive affair, with it boasting some decent specs on paper that unfortunately don’t all add up to a top-notch camera. On the upside, the camera is apparently easy to use for novices, and it’s said to be “reasonably swift” in operation, but its overall image quality seems to leave quite a bit to be desired. As is often the case, things get particularly bad when you start to move up the ISO settings, with camera shake posing some problems as well. So, unless you’re really having trouble capturing the slightest of smiles on your subjects, it seems that you can likely do better elsewhere.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

While things are still far from official, rumors are starting to pick up that Pentax is set to update not one, but two of its DSLR cameras early next year, in advance of the big PMA show. More specifically, according to Photography Bay, Pentax’s K10D and K100D will be getting replaced by the K20D and K200D, respectively, with each bringing with them a number of fairly significant upgrades. If the rumors pan out, the K20D will boast a hefty 14 megapixels, along with a 14 bit RAW A/D Processor, a slightly larger 3-inch “live view” LCD, and improved “in-body shake reduction,” among other features. For its part, the K200D is said to pack a 10-megapixel CMOS sensor from Sony, plus a PRIME 12-bit Image Processor, a 3 FPS shooting mode, and a larger LCD that may or may not be a 3-incher as well. Of course, that’s all still up in the air for the time being, but things should be settled one way or the other by January 24th, which is when Pentax is supposedly set to get official with the cameras.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Olympus’ E-3 DSLR may not have been released yet, but that hasn’t stopped the folks at LetsGoDigital from getting a hands-on with the camera, which they got to check out at an Olympus junket in Istanbul, Turkey. More specifically, they got to check out a pre-production model of the camera, although judging from the picture above and the sample shots at the read link below, it sure appears to be pretty close to the real thing. They are still reserving final judgment ’til they get their hands on a production model, however, but sure do seem to have been impressed by the camera, saying that while it’s not a professional DSLR camera, “it certainly has the features of a professional one.” They were also especially impressed with the camera’s waterproof construction and, most importantly, the quality of the images captured, which you can check out for yourself at the link below.

[Thanks, David]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Ok everybody, here goes round two. This time we’re got one of Microsoft’s new LifeCam VX-7000s. Ready? Here’s how this thing works.

We’ll put up a gadget on the site, and you can only enter it until the next gadget lands (usually within a couple of hours). If you miss your shot, sorry, we’re moving on to the next gadget. Good luck! Oh, and don’t forget the rules. (Yeah, there are always rules.)

• Leave a comment below. That’s it! Who loves you, baby.
• You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you’ll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.) You can enter different giveaways in today’s Black Friday giveaways, but you can only enter this one once.
• If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you’ll be fine.
  
• Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers or US contest laws if you have to be mad.
• Winners will be chosen randomly.
• Entries can be submitted until the next contest goes up. After that we’re all done. Good luck!
• Full rules can be found here.

Last round’s winner: Nate! (Remember, winners are selected at random.)

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Continuing its trend of pushing out evolutionary — rather than revolutionary — digital cameras, Ricoh has just introduced the new Caplio RR770, a model barely distinguishable from the now two-generations-old RR730. Just as the move from the 730 to the RR750 brought with it little more than a minor resolution bump, the 7.16 megapixel RR770 improves upon its predecessor by simply upgrading the LCD to a 3-incher — but retaining the ho hum 3x optical zoom and limited scene selections of Caplios past. Price and release are currently shrouded in mystery, but don’t expect to spend much more than $250 on this unremarkable shooter.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!