President Barack Obama is certainly one to embrace the digital age and for the first time ever, an official presidential portrait has been taken with a digital camera.

The picture, taken by the new official White House photographer Peter Souza, was shot using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital camera.

And, as it’s a digital picture, the photo’s Exif data shows the 1916 x 2608 resolution picture was shot using  ISO 100, and a focal length of 105mm, on 13 January 2009.

The Canon EOS 5D Mark II Digital Camera is for sale at Giant Buyer for £2,470.20 including the 24-105 lens kit.

Korean electronics giant LG have kicked off the new year with a bang with the release of eight new LCD TV lines for 2009.

Aiming to cater to all tastes and budgets, LG will introduce small 19 inch and 22 inch budget LCD TV’s to cutting edge 55 inch panel TV’s with cutting edge technology such as LED backlighting.

Amongst their huge range of LCD TV’s for 2009, LG’s high end LH9500 gets wireless streaming capability and LED backlighting. LG use a brand new AV box to stream wireless content to their new screen while the Korean manufacturer says that LED backlighting contributes to a claimed 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

The 55in LH9500 comes in at an svelte like 24.8mm and also features TruMotion 200 Hz, Intelligent Sensor for picture optimisation and energy saving.

Its certainly going to be an exciting year for LCD TV’s!

The Wild Charge system is the first wireless charger to actually work and it looks great too.

This amazing gadget can replenish power in mobile phones, PSPs, notebooks and iPods without all the wires.

So how does it work??

It uses non-inductive technology to pass the current from strip to device without all that nonsense you usually have to go through to charge it.

The first charging strips will be in shops in March, following by the larger laptop-sized chargers which will be available in June.

This is brilliant, no more wondering where you’ve put that bloomin’ mobile charger or ipod cable, they can all be put on this very sleek looking metal strip!

For the past 40 years the first week of January is one of the most important weeks, if not the most important, for consumer electronic manufacturers and the reason for that is because that is when the most prestigious Consumer Electronics show is on.

Held in the city of Las Vegas Nevada, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a major electronics trade show. Sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association, the CES is a trade-only show not open to the public, and it is where manufacturers announce, introduce and preview future products.

A little bit of CES history:

The first CES show was held in New York in 1967. From 1978 to 1994, CES was held twice a year, once in the summer in Chicago and once in the winter held in Las Vegas. However, the summer SCES begun to loose popularity and in the summer of 1995 organisers decided to put the show on the road, consecutive failures led to the cancellation of the summer show and the single  show format was adopted.

Throughout the years the Consumer Electronics Show has been the main stage of notable products introductions, it would be impossible to list all products and technologies introduced at CES over the years, so here is a compilation of the most notable ones in chronological order:

1970: Was the year when the Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) was introduced.

1974: Was marked by the introduction of the Laser disc player.

1981: Two notable introductions this year; the Compact Disc (CD) and the Camcorder.

1985: First notable revolution in the gaming industry with the introduction of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

1996: Year when the DVD was introduced.

1998: HDTV was introduced.

2001: Microsoft introduced its gaming console the Xbox.

2008: Panasonic stole all the attention by releasing a 150 inch Plasma TVs as thin as 0.46 inches.

2009: Highlights to the impressive number of exhibiting companies, +2,700 and the introduction of 3-D Home Entertainment.

For all you gadget fans, here’s a product than may interest you… Lego have confirmed a new line of digital cameras to go on sale this summer.

The product is aimed at children, but no doubt this camera will get your inner 10 yr old excited.

At the moment there is no word on how much this very cool lego digital camera is going to cost or the sort of quality photographs it will produce, but it sure looks nifty.

Lego are also bringing out a line of PMPs and walkie talkies to coincide with the camera. 

The brand has sure come along way from the classic building blocks!

Its January so it must be time for CES the world’s largest consumer technology  tradeshow. It features 2,700 exhibitors, including companies who manufacture products or provide services for the audio, digital imaging, home theater, wireless, content and gaming markets.

Giant Buyer will be featuring some of the new products, gadgets and technology on show from tomorrow.

Back in December 2008, we reported that LG is planning in launching a 3D TV sometime this year, now Dolby one the top end companies in audio technology wants to bring its digital 3-D cinema technology to the home.

Dolby’s introduced its technology to cinemas in 2007 and it is now used in more than 400 big screens in 24 countries.

Negotiations with content providers have already begun, Dolby wants content providers to encode its digital 3-D technology into Blu-ray movies, by doing this costumers will have no need to buy additional hardware, apart from the need of a 3-D enabled TV.

To watch 3-D entertainment we need to make use of special glasses, there are many types available from simple polarized lenses to fast-moving shutters, Dolby’s technology will support whichever glasses the TV manufacturer specifies.

The digital home 3-D entertainment era is upon us but its progress has been slowed by the lack of standardise technology; many associations are working on ways to help standardise 3-D home entertainment and avoid a 3-D format war like the one we experienced between Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

Dolby presented its technology to the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE) in September and received positive feedback, Dolby’s approach to 3-D is completely compatible and will not interfere with current standards been used.

Sales of Blu-ray disks jumped 400% compared to the same period last year -  which given the current credit crunch, the problems that EUK (Entertainment UK) have had recently and subsequently Woolworths and Zavvi going into administration is a suprise.

Almost 1.5m Blu-ray movies were sold in the UK in December, taking the total for 2008 up to 3.7m. Obviously Christmas shopping played a major part in that total, it will be interesting to see if Blu-ray movie sales can continue to grow steadily in 2009.

The top selling Blu-ray disk was not unsurprisingly Dark Knight which has sold 281,000 copies in just three weeks.

2009 sales predictions

Screen Digest predicts Blu-ray disc sales will rise to 17 million units over the next 12 months, accounting for seven per cent of the total disc market whilst DVD will remain popular with 241 million discs being bought by the British Public.