Electronics giant Sony today announced a new ultracompact point-and-shoot camera, the 7 megapixel Cyber-shot DSC-T10, and the GPS-CS1, a new tiny GPS device designed to tag images and video with location information so photographers and videographers can catalog their media by the place where it was taken, not just the date and time.
The new Cybershot DSC-T10 will be available August for about $400—Web pages describing the T10 are set to go online August 4. The camera isn’t a major shift from the company’s existing Cyber-shot T30 camera, offering a 7.2 megapixel resolution, a 2.5-inch LCD screen, 3× optical zoom, Super Steady Shot optical image stabilization, and performance up to ISO 1000. Sony says the camera offers quick start-up and shot-to-shot times, ca manage up to 250 shots on one charge of the NiMH battery, and the unit sports 56 MB of internal memory so you can take shots without a Memory Stick card, or even while you’re switching cards and something important happens. Sony plans to sell a range of accessories, including a marine kit, carrying cases, and batteries.
If remembering where you were when you snapped a photo or shot some video is a problem—or you just need to be really precise about it for whatever reason—Sony’s forthcoming GPS-CS1 gadget may be just the thing. The GPS-CS1 packs a 12-channel GPS receive into a 3.5-inch, carabiner-equipped gizmo you can latch to a pack or belt loop. Every 15 seconds, the unit records your current location and the time, building a record of your location and route as you amble amount. Later, you sync up that data with your photos using Sony’s GPS Image Tracker application to match the GPS data with your photos and record the locations in the metadata of your images. Sony only guarantees the GPS-CS1 will work with its digital still cameras, but you can bet adventurous folks will figure a way to make it work with non-Sony cameras: in theory, it should easily be compatible with any digital camera which uses EXIF2.1 metadata. The GPS-CS1 will run about 10 hours on a AA battery, and has 31 MB of internal memory which can record about two weeks of route information. Sony says the GPS-CS1 will hit stores in Japan and the U.S. next month for about $150.
