Ricoh Co Ltd will this autumn to the US market the DC-1, a digital camera that can store 492 still pictures on a 24Mb PC Card – and can also record motion video, and will store a maximum of four five-second seqences with accompanying sound in place of the stills – and the storage capacity can also be used for up to 100 minutes of pure audio. The camera, which was launched in Japan in April, has a 410,000 pixel charge coupled device. The camera is described as small enough to fit into a shirt pocket – although that is a rather stretchable claim because when Sony Corp came out with the first portable transistor radio, Akio Morita fitted out his salespeople with shirts with oversize pockets so the shirt pocket claim could be made. Pictures can be downloaded to a personal computer, a television or a video printer, and the device can be used with a modem to send pictures over the phone; it is about $1,500 in Japan; no US price as yet.
