Agfa Showcases Digital Products at eFocus 2000.Business/Technology Editors WILMINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 11, 2000 Agfa Corporation's Consumer Digital Imaging Group (USA-CDI), a leading provider of award-winning digital cameras and desktop scanners, will showcase some of its latest products at eFocus 2000 in Manhattan Center The Manhattan Center building, built in 1906 and located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, houses Manhattan Center Studios (home to two recording studios), its Grand Ballroom, and the Hammerstein Ballroom, one of New York City's most renowned performance venues. , New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. , October 24. Agfa will display its newest SnapScan scanners - the SnapScan e20, e40 and e50. Also available at the show will be two dual-mode digital cameras - the ePhoto CL18 and the ePhoto CL20, which was introduced at photokina 2000 in Cologne, Germany last month. Agfa representatives will be on hand to discuss the features and capabilities of the new products. Sponsored by leading e-commerce companies, eFocus 2000 will be open from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Manhattan Center, which is located at 311 West 34th Street. The Fall Internet World Show opens the following day. Scanners The SnapScan e20, which combines the award-winning SnapScan technology with advanced software to make it easy for new users to communicate with pictures. Agfa's unique ScanWise scanning software automatically formats scanned images for email, word processing word processing, use of a computer program or a dedicated hardware and software package to write, edit, format, and print a document. Text is most commonly entered using a keyboard similar to a typewriter's, although handwritten input (see pen-based computer) and , text conversion (OCR OCR in full optical character recognition Scanning and comparison technique intended to identify printed text or numerical data. It avoids the need to retype already printed material for data entry. ), Web pages, or image-manipulation programs. For those who want to turn their digital images into high-quality traditional photographs, Agfa includes AGFAnet software. The dual-platform scanner (Macintosh and Windows, including Windows 2000) offers USB USB in full Universal Serial Bus Type of serial bus that allows peripheral devices (disks, modems, printers, digitizers, data gloves, etc.) to be easily connected to a computer. (Universal Serial Bus See USB. (hardware, standard) Universal Serial Bus - (USB) An external peripheral interface standard for communication between a computer and external peripherals over an inexpensive cable using biserial transmission. ) connectivity for fast, on-the-fly data transfer. Agfa also includes a suite of easy-to-use imaging software for a variety of creative applications. The software CDs also contains clipart and templates. Users can create photo greeting cards See e-card. , invitations, or add special effects special effects, in motion pictures, cinematographic techniques that create illusions in the audience's minds as well as the illusions created using these techniques. to photos for creative email messages or for exchanging fun pictures in chat rooms. The SnapScan e20 offers 36-bit color depth Same as bit depth. at a resolution of 600 x 1200 pixels per inch “Ppi” redirects here. For other uses, see PPI. Pixels per inch (PPI) or pixel density is a measurement of the resolution of a computer display, related to the size of the display in inches and the total number of pixels in the horizontal and (ppi). Maximum scanning area is 216 x 297 mm (8.5 x 11.7 in). The SnapScan e40 scanner is the first of Agfa's new "e" series scanners designed to facilitate electronic communications. The high-resolution e40 captures originals and using Agfa's unique ScanWise software automatically formats them for email, word processing, text conversion (OCR), Web pages, or image-manipulation programs. The dual-platform scanner (Macintosh and Windows, including Windows 2000) offers trouble-free USB (Universal Serial Bus) connectivity. Agfa also includes a suite of business and imaging software to provide a complete scanning solution. The SnapScan e40 provides 42-bit color depth at a resolution of 1200 x 2400 pixels per inch (ppi). Maximum scanning area is 216 x 297 mm (8.5 x 11.7 in). The SnapScan e50 scanner, which offers 42-bit color depth and 1200 x 2400 ppi resolution, provides the same high-quality resolution as the SnapScan e40. Agfa, however, added new features including a built-in transparency module and four programmable buttons to the e50 for greater scanning versatility and ease of use. Agfa designed the "e" series scanners to give consumers an easy way to accurately capture photographs, artwork, awards and other memorable items and include them in emails, Web pages, screen presentations or documents of any kind. The e50 scans originals and automatically formats them for the Internet, word processing, text conversion (OCR), or image-manipulation programs. The SnapScan e50 provides 42-bit color depth at a resolution of 1200 x 2400 pixels per inch (ppi). A "lightplate" built into the scanner cover uses a special light-diffusion process for scanning 35 mm transparencies. Agfa includes a 35mm slide holder for easy handling and positioning. With the push of a button, users can scan directly to their email application, OCR program, printer driver or ScanWise scanning software. The four buttons are located at the front of the scanner for easy access. The dual-platform (Macintosh and Windows, including Windows 2000) scanner has a USB (Universal Serial Bus) interface. Maximum scanning area is 216 x 297 mm (8.5 x 11.7 in). All three scanners come bundled with Corel Print Office 2000 and Readiris multilingual OCR (optical character recognition optical character recognition (OCR), method for the machine-reading of typeset, typed, and, in some cases, hand-printed letters, numbers, and symbols using optical sensing and a computer. ) software. Corel Print Office makes it easy to create impressive documents and Web pages. It includes photo-editing tools, style templates, and support for digital cameras and scanners. Readiris, which recognizes 55 languages, lets users easily convert hard-copy documents--originals, faxes and photocopies--into editable text. All software is provided in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Dutch for both Windows, including Windows 2000 and Macintosh platforms. Scanner Price and Availability The SnapScan e20 is currently available at the manufacturer's suggested price of $69. The SnapScan 40 is available at the suggested retail price of $149; the SnapScan 50 is available at the suggested retail price of $179. Digital Cameras The compact and stylish ePhoto CL18 has 2 MB of internal memory and true VGA (Video Graphics Array) The display standard for the PC. All PC display adapters support VGA, and Windows machines boot up in "VGA mode" before switching to higher resolutions. optical resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. The new dual-action digital camera offers industry-standard video format and can hold up to 32 VGA (640 x 480 pixels) images. The ePhoto CL18 was the first digital camera in Agfa's ePhoto line to have web-cam capabilities. Shipped with a video cradle, the digital camera can be easily attached to a monitor resulting in the facilitation of either video conferencing See videoconferencing. (communications) video conferencing - A discussion between two or more groups of people who are in different places but can see and hear each other using electronic communications. or online chats. The set-up process is simple and fast. The ePhoto CL18 is slipped into its cradle, and connected by its USB cable to both the camera and computer. Shortly thereafter, two, three or even several people can communicate face-to-face online. The ePhoto CL20 has a convenient optical viewfinder The preview window on a camera that is used to frame, focus and take the picture. On analog cameras, the viewfinder is an eye-sized window that must be pressed against the face. Point-and-shoot digital cameras use small LCD screens that are viewed several inches from the eyes. and a CompactFlash slot for additional capacity. The 2MB of internal memory can hold up to 4 images at the highest resolution (1.3 MP with PhotoGenie) and 24 images at VGA resolution. The CL20 offers live video only with the USB interface at a maximum resolution of 640x480 at 20 fps or 320x240 at a higher 30fps. Both cameras come equipped with Agfa's image-enhancing PhotoGenie(TM) technology. With it they remove image artifacts artifacts see specimen artifacts. such as those from JPEG JPEG in full Joint Photographic Experts Group Standard computer file format for storing graphic images in a compressed form for general use. JPEG images are compressed using a mathematical algorithm. compression, pixelation This article is about the graphics artifact. For the stop motion animation technique, see pixilation. For the censorship method, see pixelization. In computer graphics, pixelation , jagged edges and posterization The effect produced when a photographic image is displayed or printed with a small number of colors or shades of gray. For example, displaying color photographs or video with 16 colors produces a visible posterization, but the images are discernible. , which can be common in some digitally captured images. Agfa also includes Corel Print Office(TM) 2000, which incorporates Print Office 5, Corel Photo House(TM) 5 and ArcSoft VideoImpression(TM), and Microsoft Net Meeting(TM), in all ePhoto CL18 packaging. Corel Photo House(TM) 5 is an image-editing application that allows users to touch up, enhance or alter an image before adding it to a document. With Corel Print Office(TM) 2000 users can create a wide range of items like photo greeting cards, invitations, illustrated documents or even Web pages. ArcSoft VideoImpression(TM) is an easy-to-use video and image editing software program enabling users to animate, edit and create new desktop video presentation for home, business and the Web using existing video and image files. In addition, the CL20 comes bundled with the new Agfa PhotoWise 3.0 for managing digital photos. PhotoWise 3.0 is an easy way to capture, edit and share photos. PhotoWise allows users to organize their valuable photos in albums, create multimedia slide shows, greeting cards, calendars or build HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. pages with selected photos. Camera Price and Availability The ePhoto CL18 is currently available at the manufacturer's suggested retail price of $129, with an additional $30 rebate available until the end of the year. The ePhoto CL20 will be available in November at the manufacturer's suggested retail price of $149. About Agfa Agfa Corporation is a subsidiary of the Agfa-Gevaert Group, one of the world's leading imaging companies, headquartered in Mortsel, Belgium. Agfa develops, produces and markets analog and digital systems, primarily for the graphics, medical and industrial radiography, and consumer imaging and photography markets. Agfa Corporation, headquartered in Ridgefield Park, NJ, employs 5,000 people. Worldwide, Agfa's annual sales are approximately $4.7 billion. Product and company information can be found on Agfa's home page on the World Wide Web at www.agfa.com. |
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