Thanks to Herb Hou over on the Taiwan based dcview.com for putting me on the trail of Ricoh's next 3 megapixel digital camera. Based on the RDC-7 the new RDC-i700 will have extended functionality, not least of which (a first in digital cameras) a 3.5" touch sensitive LCD display (to be used with supplied scribe) and supports Internet connectivity (another digital camera first). It will be possible to upload images and email images directly from the camera. This camera will go on the market in Japan on September 20th at 158,000 YEN (US$1,480).

UPDATE: We've now concluded that it's the same 3.34 megapixel, 3x zoom specification as the RDC-7, in a larger body. Image modes: 2048 x 1536, 1024 x 768, 640 x 480. JPEG & TIFF, AVI @ 320 x 240 15fps. Uses Compact Flash and has 8 MB of built-in memory. Connectivity is provided by a PC Card slot on the side of the camera (below the CF slot) which will accept PCMCIA modem or ethernet cards. Web browsing is available. There is a web page construction system built-in (using HTML templates) and uploading is carried out by FTP, e-mail and you can also FAX directly from the camera.

More info:

• Impress PC Watch article on the RDC-i700
• Ricoh Japan