Canon powers up digital camera.

Canon has announced a world first - it claims its PowerShot S20 is the highest specification compact digital camera on the market today. Its resolution of 3.3 megapixels translates to a massive 2,048 x 1,536 pixels. It has a retractable zoom lens, plus digital light metering and automatic white balance, which Canon says will help even amateur photographers get professional results. Images can be stored on the supplied 16Mb CompactFlash card or IBM's microdrive device.For the more adept it also has image mode settings for landscapes, fast-moving objects, slow shutter, night shooting and black-and-white. You can control the whole job using Program mode, which lets you tinker with resolution, flash and image compression. Canon has crammed this into a camera weighing just 260g. The S20 has USB and serial connections and comes with software and manuals for PC and Mac. It is due in March, when prices will be announced.Canon: 0121 680 8062, www.canon.co.uk.