By Jai C.S.    TMCnet Contributing Editor

The Cisco (News - Alert)Digital Media System is a comprehensive suite of digital signage, enterprise TV, and desktop video applications. Cisco mentions the system to be a flexible and comprehensive solution for digital signage and desktop video that makes it easy to create, manage, publish, and access high-quality digital media for compelling communications.

Jai C.S. is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Jai’s articles, please visit hiscolumnist page.

Edited by Michelle Robart

Simon Dingle

Johannesburg – The City of Johannesburg has awarded a tender to Swedish cellular giant Ericsson as part of its plans to roll out a city-wide, high-speed broadband network.

The Joburg Broadband Network Project (JBNP) will use wireless networking and internet kiosks to provide connectivity to Johannesburg residents and visitors.

The first phase of the rolling out of the network’s fibre core will begin on April 1 2009.

Said Jan Embro, president at Ericsson’s market unit for sub-Saharan Africa: “We are thoroughly delighted to have been awarded the tender and tasked with providing high-speed internet access to Johannesburg’s three million-plus citizens. The prospect of transforming Johannesburg into a truly ‘digital city’ is an exciting one.”

Ericsson’s JBNP proposal includes the deployment of a full wireless network supported by power line communications. In this way, transmission can be directed to points which would otherwise be difficult and expensive to serve.

The city has said it is important that everyone is given equal access.

“It makes sense to take advantage of existing city-owned infrastructure, like the power lines, where possible but the JBNP solution also needs the access flexibility of wireless and the kiosks to ensure that every citizen can benefit from the network,” said Embro.

The network is expected to be completed in 2012.

A recent announcement from SanDisk reveals the launch of new versions of its ImageMate USB memory card reader. Released for users in North America, the next generation USB memory card reader series includes the ImageMate All-In-One and the Multi-card readers.

Adorning an ultra-compact form factor, the new versions of the ImageMate USB memory card readers are now sleek and stylish too. In a small body, the readers will offer users faster data transfer speeds thanks to its upgraded software applications.

The card readers are compatible to a wide array of memory card formats and will allow users to effortlessly transfer data to and from a host computer. Bundled with a standard drag and drop method, the new ImageMate readers also include a dedicated transfer button. The button streamlines the digital content transfer process by auto-launching a user-defined application or website. 

Equipped with this button, the new readers will allow users to open a particular application like Adobe Photoshop or a website like flickr.com with a single touch. Users can then transfer files or edit photos effortlessly. The readers boast of a stylish glossy black and metallic silver design along with detachable tripod base.

“The new SanDisk ImageMate readers are two of the fastest and most reliable USB readers, capable of transferring 1-gigabyte3 of data in less than 35 seconds,” remarked Jennifer Lee, senior product marketing manager, SanDisk. “The ImageMate readers’ space-saving vertical design makes them unobtrusive on your desk, but with such stylish looks they can’t help but stand out.”

Powered by the SanDisk Extreme IV 45MB/s CompactFlash card, the All-In-One memory card reader can reach a maximum speed of around 34 MB/s. As for the Multi-Card reader, it has the ability of reaching a read and write speed of up to 30MB/s and 27 MB/s respectively on using it with a SanDisk Extreme III 30MB/s Edition SDHC card.

With a blue-light for each card slot, the All-In-One memory card reader supports formats like SD, SDHC, miniSDHC, microSDHC, MMC, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro Duo, xD and CompactFlash and more while the ImageMate Multi-Card supports the xD, Memory Stick, SD, SDHC, and MMC formats.

Packed with a two year warranty, the ImageMate All-In-One and the Multi-card readers are shipping now in North America for an approximate price of around $29.99 and $19.99 respectively.

By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY

Digital cameras — on an upswing for a decade — finally hit a wall at the end of 2008. Unit sales rose 7% for the year but tumbled in the fourth quarter, when the industry sees 40% of its annual volume, says Chris Chute, an analyst at market tracker IDC.

IDC projects a sales decline of 10% for 2009, to 36.3 million cameras.

The photo industry meets in Las Vegas next week for the annual Photo Marketing Association trade show, where new cameras are introduced for late spring sales aimed at graduations and Father’s Day. Canon, Panasonic, Sony, Casio and other manufacturers will tout new point-and-shoots that are more full-featured and lower-priced than last year — with greatly improved video features.

Canon lit up the blogosphere in November with the release of its $2,700 5D Mark II — a digital SLR (single lens reflex) camera that can shoot full 1080p high-def. Now it is bringing that feature to a point-and-shoot, the compact $599 PowerShot SX1.

Sony, Panasonic and Casio have new compacts that can shoot high-def video in the slightly lower 720p resolution.

High-def video can provide a boost for compact camera sales by permitting people to travel with just one camera, Chute says. “If I’m going to go on vacation, I don’t want to carry a camcorder with me, too,” he says.

The SX1 is Canon’s first 1080p video/compact in the best-selling PowerShot line.

Canon technical manager Chuck Westfall says the growth of high-def TV sets encouraged the company to offer the feature. “Consumers can watch their videos directly on the TV easily,” he says. Cameras plug directly into most modern TVs, many of which also have memory card or USB slots.

The SX1 can shoot about 24 minutes of 1080p video on an 8-gigabyte memory card. An 8 GB card can often be found on sale now for $20 to $40, down from $150 to $200 a year ago. An 8 GB card can capture about an hour of 720p video.

What’s new

With over 100 million digital cameras sold over the last three years, one might think that every interested consumer had gotten around to purchasing a camera. True, Chute says, but people buy new ones as replacements (inexpensive cameras tend to break easily) and for new features.

For camera manufacturers, sales of digital SLRs — larger cameras that offer better controls — are still growing, though not by as much.

SLR sales rose 22% in 2008, and will increase 5% in 2009, according to IDC.

Camera manufacturers tend to unveil SLRs later in the year. But on Tuesday, Olympus announced a smaller SLR, the $799.99 E-620 that will ship in May. It offers creative controls such as the ability to shoot multiple exposures.

Point-and-shoots will make up the bulk of camera sales this year. Some other cool new features in the spring crop:

•Blink control. Last year Nikon introduced a feature in one camera that alerted you if a subject blinked. All 10 2009 Nikon Coolpix models have the feature. It is similar to Sony’s “smile shutter,” which disables the camera if you focus on a subject who isn’t smiling. “We just warn you to get another shot,” says Nikon technical manager Steve Heiner. “Our customers love it.”

•Super face detection. Beyond blinks and smiles, many cameras now offer face detection that promises better focus and lighting when multiple human faces are in the frame. Sony has “selected face” memory on two new models, the $250 W290 and $280 H20, both shipping in April. You can focus on a particular face — say your child or loved one, and the camera will remember their characteristics for better lighting and focus.

•Super zooms. You know those huge lenses you see pro photographers using at sporting events? Manufacturers have figured out how to bring huge magnifications into smaller camera bodies. Recent “super zooms” have had 15X and 20X zooms (most point-and-shoot cameras come with a 3X zoom, for medium magnification). Olympus has a 26X zoom on its $449 SP-590UZ, shipping in March. Kodak’s $399.95 Z980, also out in March, has a slightly smaller 24X zoom.

•Super rugged. Point-and-shoots are prone to breaking, so Olympus jumped in with its “Tough” line of waterproof, shockproof and freeze-proof cameras. Panasonic in April ships the $399.95 DMC-TS1, which also offers high-def video. Canon and Fuji just introduced new waterproof models. And Olympus is back with two more “Tough” cameras for $299 and $399, now available in a multitude of colors, including yellow, blue and brown.

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS), the leader in global electronic design innovation, today announced that AMD (NYSE: AMD) successfully used the Cadence® Incisive® Palladium® II Accelerator/Emulator to deliver the first working silicon for its complex ATI Radeon(TM) HD 4800 series graphics design produced in 2008. The ATI Radeon HD 4800 series includes over 800 million transistors and is the most complex AMD graphics design shipped to date.

The Palladium system was thoroughly evaluated by AMD and found to be the most appropriate solution versus alternatives on the market. The system was critical for the overall success of the project and played a key roll in verifying overall system operation, including both hardware and software. The ease of bring-up and integrated software debugging capabilities helped the team at AMD to quickly ramp up its system-level verification environment and to begin system validation much earlier in the ASIC design cycle, saving significant time in the overall schedule and ensuring better product quality.

“Cadence’s Palladium II system and its integrated verification solution provide the most efficient way to test complex interactive ASIC designs,” said Jean Boufarhat, vice president of Design Engineering at AMD. “System-level testing had become a critical aspect of our overall design methodology and the Palladium emulation system offers first-rate value for our development teams.”

The Palladium series provides the highest throughput for validation of complex hardware, software and full systems in the wireless, graphics, networking and consumer markets. The series delivers superior debug, system-wide management, and advanced verification automation features such as assertion- and transaction-based acceleration, and can bring-up a new design in emulation in less than a week.

“We are delighted to be working closely with AMD as they continue to push the envelope delivering complex graphic designs for this fast moving market,” said Tom Cooley, senior vice president of Worldwide Field Operations. “The Palladium series continues to lead the market in the area of verification of full SoC designs with embedded processors, saving months in the overall schedule and reducing the risk of finding costly post-silicon bugs.”

About Cadence

Cadence enables global electronic design innovation and plays an essential role in the creation of today’s integrated circuits and electronics. Customers use Cadence software and hardware, methodologies, and services to design and verify advanced semiconductors, consumer electronics, networking and telecommunications equipment, and computer systems. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world to serve the global electronics industry. More information about the company, its products, and services is available at www.cadence.com.

Cadence, Palladium, Incisive and the Cadence logo are registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other marks are properties of their respective holders.