where there’s smoke there’s fire

Update: here is a scan of the magazine.

This just in (thanks J):

I’m sending you this tip I found in the most popular French photography magazine (the equivalent of popular photography in France) called “Chasseur d’Images” (maybe you’ve heard of it before). They’re usually very VERY well informed because they’ve been here for a long time.
In their august issue, they’re talking with A LOT of confidence (as if it was a sure thing) of a new Nikon product with the code name Nikon VP650 that should be announced in August and shipped in September. This camera would be a compact camera with a LED projector that could project up to  8×12 images in good quality in the dark. They are also stating that this projector could be manufactured by the company FoxLink (it’s in Taiwan). If I’m sending you this, it’s because I trust this magazine very much, because they’ve been right before, and because it came out on July 25th and they were already giving out the specs of the d3000 and the D300s!!  When I’m reading you’re latest post and this news from Chasseur d’Images, it’s seems to me that this compact with a projector is the groundbreaking news were waiting for.

The reader is refering to magazine #316 (July 21 – September 21 2009). Chasseur d’Images have indeed provided us with some good leaks in the past. This news combined with my previous posts (see here and here) will bump the rating of this rumor to 95%. Just what’s with the name VP650 – hopefully this really is just a code name: VP = Video Projector?

Here is a link to “Foxlink developing micro projector”. Apple, Nokia and Samsung are also planing to use this device.

Thomas Lorenzen and Svend Erik Nørklit from Nikon Denmark held a press conference on Thursday in Copenhagen for the Nikon D300s, D3000 and the two new lenses. I received a report that at the end of the event they said “Nikon will reveal a groundbreaking news next week” (unconfirmed report). Look at the 11:00 entry in this report from that event (thanks for the link web-fotografen.dk).

I am still waiting on confirmations on the above story and on what’s coming next week. The fact that is a weekend doesn’t really help. There is a Nikon event scheduled for August 4th in Austria and in Sweden. I have received pictures of a Coolpix camera with a built-in projector. I am sorry, but this time I could not puplish the pictures online – I could only describe the camera (requested by the source). I can tell you that the camera looked like the Coolpix S60. Is this going to be the “groundbreaking news”? A new Nikon P6000 maybe? I don’t know yet.

FYI: you can go to microvision.com for more info on those mini-projectors.

P.S: I added the 70-200 lens poll to the previous post.