Still rolling out the videos from IFA last week, this one shows our very own Ashley Norris with Sony's new DSC-200/S digital camera, complete with a Smile Shutter mode to help ensure beaming smiles in all your photos. All together now - cheese!

Sony

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Hitachi have launched the world's first straight-to-Bluray-disk camcorder, and Susi got up close with it at IFA 2007.

Hitachi

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IFA is well and truly over, with most Berlin-bound geeks back in their natural habitats, in our case, Shiny Towers. If you missed our coverage last week, and over the weekend, here are the top five most news-worthy stories. Expect these products to be rolled out over the next few months.

1.) LG's 'Design Art' LCD TVs - two models, the LF75, LB75, with the first model coming in 1080p Full HD and 10,000:1 contrast ratio, and the latter model packing a still-impressive 720p/1080i and 8,000:1 contrast ratio. Three HDMI 1080p inputs and LG's Intelligent Eye technology which 'optimises brightness and contrast according to ambient light' are also included.

Humax's family of HD ready IDTVs has grown again with the introduction of three new models in two sizes.

The three models are the LGB-19DTT, LGB-19DZT and LGB-22DYT, and are being marketed as second TVs for bedroom or kitchen.

The LGB-19DTT is the more basic 19-inch LCD IDTV, while the LGB-19DZT (19 inch) and LGB-22DYT (22 inch) feature an integrated digital Hi-Fi sound system.

All three models feature a single Freeview digital tuner, digital text, and interactive services, and have over-the-air upgrade capability. They can also be used as a PC monitor.

They also have an integrated display which shows the channel being viewed/listened to, plus an alarm clock with snooze function.

Humax Digital

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Still at IFA, Ashley has a look at the VP-HMX10C HD camcorder from Samsung which was announced in their press conference in Berlin last week. It's extremely thin and uses flash memory to store footage. Expect it to swing our way in November this year, at around £499.

Samsung

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Susi from Shiny Shiny takes a closer look at Phillips Aurea, a new ambient lighting enabled TV that Phillips is convinced will revolutionise television. You can take a look at more coverage from the Phillips press conference here.

As mentioned at Toshiba/HD DVD's IFA press conference, a number of manufacturers are set to drop the prices of their current and new HD DVD players, with entry level machines now coming in at around €300 (£200-ish).

Oliver Van Wynendaele, a manager in Toshiba's HD DVD group, said that was around half the current prices.

Heading up the cheap-n-cheerful crop of new players is the Ventura SHD7000, though it's worth noting that it won't play every high definition format, bombing out short of HD's 1080p holy grail. Still, not bad if you're on a budget.

Ashley goes hands-on with the Samsung YP-P2, a new portable media player that's worth a look if you're on the search for an iPod alternative. It'll feature a 480 x 272 pixel touch screen, a Bluetooth, and a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. You can find more on it here.

Camcorder buffs among you might be interested in the VP-HMX10C, a new hi-def camcorder from Samsung. It sports a 2.7-inch high res touch panel screen, packing in 8GB of internal memory and the ability to record h.264 encoded video in 720p. It's also got a cool swivelly handle thingy.

Shiny Shiny's Susi goes hands-on with the new LG Viewty at this year's IFA. With similar aesthetics to the Prada phone, it boasts a touchscreen keypad, a 5 megapixel camera and 120 FPS video camera. More details are available here.

Susi from Shiny Shiny has a few moments at the IFA Phillips booth to check out Phillips and Swarovski's more-fashion orientated tech accesories.

Not to be left out of the massive IFA halls, good ol' Tosh have announced a couple of new HD-DVD players, the HD-EP30 and HD-EP35. Both are third-gen models for the company, who are fully-paid up members of Team HD-DVD, as you'd know if you read Susi's live-blog of the HD-DVD conference yesterday.

As you'd expect, they're full 1080p with 24fps playback and contain a REGZA-Link through HDMI so you can synch it up with other Tosh kit. With support to Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD audio formats, they even upscale standard-def DVDs (gasp! the horror of standard definition!) to 720p, 1080i and the muchly-loved 1080p format.

Both models won't send you into the red, with the HD-EP30 retailing for £240 and the HD-EP35 being sold for a schweet £300. Supposedly - we all know how these figures change drastically.

Toshiba

Nikon is showing off their wares here at IFA, with several new cameras added to their CoolPix range. First up, for the entry-level seekers, the L14 has the honour of supposedly having the longest battery life out of the vast barrel of 3x zoomer compact cams. Specs include a savoury 7.1-megapixel sensor, 23MB inbuilt memory (expandable by using SDHC memory cards), 2.4" LCD screen, and is available in black, or to please both genders, in blue and pink.

Nikon is claiming with the power of Greyskull just two Lithium AA batteries the L14 can take up to 1,000 photos. £129.99 is the figure being bandied about for this model, though it's early days yet. The next step up, the L15 comes with 8-megapixels and a 2.8" LCD screen.

Nikon

Shiny Shiny's Alex Roumbas takes some time at the IFA Sony exhibition stall to check out a couple of new phones: the Sony Ericsson K770i and K850i.

Boston Acoustics is one of those American brands people have always heard of but are never really sure why. What they don't realise is that they're responsible for churning out gorgeous looking speakers capable of customisation beyond your wildest beliefs. Those wildest beliefs being, err, able to match your speakers with your $899 Habitat jacquard sofa.

Take a look at the above video to see me chat to Robert Follis, representative for the company, and to ogle the new Play Smart range, available in a plethora of sizes and colours.

Boston Acoustics

Susi, Alex, Chris, Ashley and Kat have all stormed Berlin, Germany, en masse for three days full of convention centre-trudging, otherwise known as IFA. No news as yet on what IFA actually stands for, but stay tuned to see if anyone finds out. More importantly, keep checking back here all day for all the latest news concerning consumer electronics - you'll find the latest links here for your reading pleasure...

IFA 07: Video of Sharp's prototype 20mm thick LCD HDTVs

IFA 07: HD-DVD (and Toshiba) bite back

IFA 07: Loewe's stylish BluTech Vision Blu-ray player

IFA 07: Panasonic's latest SLR - the DMC-L10

IFA 07: Samsung's BD-UP5000 - the world's first Blu-ray/HD DVD player?!

Remember those speccy new LCD TVs Sharp showed off in yesterday's press conference at IFA? Yes, those stick-thin prototypes, just 20mm thick and weighing 25 kilos? Here's video proof they exist, and four different ways of mounting them. I'll take all four, please, Mr. Sharp...

So, yesterday we heard about how Blu-ray is taking over the world. They're winning the war. They're the format of choice. Or are they? I'm here waiting for the Toshiba/HD-DVD press conference to start, and wondering if there's another side to the story....

First up, we get a look at the new stuff coming from Toshiba though.

Apparently the man on the stage is a German TV presenter. Bless him, I think he's used to people being more impressed. He's just branded himself a 'movie freak'. That's all I can tell you about him, to be honest. So, to Toshiba.

Oh, no. First we're sitting through a bizarre showreel of some cogs that turn into a boat. I'm not sure why. It's quite a nice boat, but I'm pretty sure Toshiba haven't branched out into sailing equipment... Don't worry. We'll get to the good stuff in a minute.

God. It's going on for hours. This is bizarre.

Loewe is known for having some of the most stylish TVs on the market, so it is no surprise to see an eye-catching Blu-ray player from the German technology company - the BluTech Vision.

Available in a black or silver finish, it has all the features you would expect, including HDMI, 24p film-like motion, TrueHD, DTS HD and 7.1 surround. But I suspect it has a few other tricks on the aesthetics front - like some novel way of inserting the disc, as the picture doesn't give much away on that front.

Releasd in Europe in October, no price available as yet.

Loewe website

Via Engadget

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Panasonic has used IFA to launch its latest SLR - the DMC-L10.

It features a 10.1-megapixel Live MOS sensor, 2.5-inch LCD with permanent live view and 270-degree rotation, a dust reduction system for the sensor via Supersonic Wave Filter system, Venus Engine III image processor for high quality image rendering, Face Detection, Intelligent ISO Control function, optical image stabiliser and nine scene modes.

It's sold with a lovely 14-50mm Leica lens and should be available in October. No price as yet.

Panasonic website

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