Olympus adds a new "touch" to digital cameras. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. Digital camera makers are finding all kinds of ways to distinguish their cameras from each other. At Olympus, the latest unique models feature tap control. Product manager Sally Smith Clemens says the Stylus 1050 SW is designed for the outdoors...
"It'll go ten feet underwater right out of the box. It's a digital camera, ten million pixels. So if you want to go snorkeling, take it to the pool, whatever. You can actually go in the water with the camera. And it's also shockproof. If you happen to drop it, it'll handle a five foot drop and it's not going to harm it. What's new about it though is the camera has a technology called tap control. There's actually a 3D accelerometer in the camera body that's able to detect the frequency and strength of movement to the camera. And the idea is also freeze proof. If you're using the camera maybe snowboarding, skiing, maybe you just live in a climate that several months out of the year is very cool, you can simply tap the camera to bring up common functions like flash control, turning the flash on and off."
The 1050 SW is priced at about 300 dollars. Another unique model is the somewhat heftier SP-565UZ...featuring a 20 times optical zoom...for about 400 dollars. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.