Olympus Corp. of the Americas, Center Valley, Pa., announced F. Mark Gumz, president and chief operating officer of the global company's wholly owned subsidiary in the United States since January 2000, will add chief executive officer to his title, effective immediately. His new position will utilize his longstanding experience with Olympus and the leadership skills developed over his 30-year career on behalf of the nearly 2,500 employees of Olympus companies in the Americas.

  Also as of today, the Olympus Corp. holding company that provides shared services for all Olympus companies in the Americas, of which Gumz becomes CEO, will be renamed from Olympus USA Inc. to Olympus Corp. of the Americas (OCA) to better reflect its regional geographic responsibility for North and South American Olympus operations.

  Gumz is the highest-ranking official in the Americas and the first American to be appointed CEO of any Olympus entity. He will retain his positions as president of Olympus America Inc., Olympus Canada Inc., Olympus Imaging America Inc., and Olympus Medical Equipment Services America Inc. He also continues to oversee the operations of Olympus Latin America Inc.

Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, N.Y., promoted Ann S. Turner chief marketing officer and vice president of Kodak's Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group (FPEG), making her responsible for managing the Kodak brand across the company's diverse portfolio of film and photofinishing products and services. The promotion is effective immediately.

  FPEG comprises motion picture film, professional and consumer still films, single-use cameras, and Kodak's silver-halide paper and photofinishing products. Turner previously was regional business general manager and vice president, Americas Region, Entertainment Imaging (EI) division. In her new role, she will provide leadership for marketing processes and strategies across all FPEG businesses, with dual responsibility for the EI marketing program and marketing services staff. Turner will relocate mid-year from New York City to the Kodak headquarters in Rochester.

  Assuming Turner's responsibilities is Michael J. Morelli, who Kodak named vice president and general manager of its motion picture business in North and South America, making him responsible for operations in the world's largest motion picture market. Morelli will oversee the Entertainment Imaging division's operations in the United States, Canada, and all of Central and South America. Morelli is located in Kodak's Hollywood, California headquarters.

  In addition to Turner and Morelli, Kodak also announced the appointment of Joel Proegler to the position of general manager, Film Capture, and vice president, FPEG. Proegler will oversee the Film Capture division's worldwide operations, which comprise professional films, consumer films, and single-use cameras. Proegler is located in Rochester.

Intel Corp., Santa Clara, Calif., closed a deal to create a flash memory chip company along with fellow chip maker STM Microelectronics NV and investment company Francisco Partner, reports The Associated Press. The new company, Numonyx B.V., will manufacture NOR and NAND flash memory chips used in digital cameras and many other portable devices.

  Intel said it has transferred its NOR flash memory business and other memory-chip manufacturing assets to Numonyx in exchange for 45.1 percent ownership of the company. ST Microelectronics acquired 48.6 percent of Numonyx and Francisco Partners acquired 6.3 percent ownership in exchange for a cash investment of $150 million.

  Approximately 2,500 Intel employees will join Numonyx, which will receive $450 million of debt financing from Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A and Unicredit Banca d'Impresa S.p.A, in addition to $100 million in revolving credit.

Drytac Corp., Richmond, Va., has acquired Advanced Finishing Solutions, an OEM provider and distributor of aqueous/UV-curable coating machines and liquid coatings. This move will position Drytac to leverage the growing demand for liquid laminating among users of flatbed inkjet printers, digital print-on-demand presses and photo printers, as well as operators of gicleé and fine art studios, says the company.

  Advanced Finishing Solutions markets its products under such trade names as VERSA-Coater, PhotoMate, PressMate and DocuMate UV, Cyclone UV, AFC Liquid Coaters, ENDURACoat and INSTACure liquid coatings.

  Drytac is a manufacturer and distributor of mounting, laminating, framing and finishing materials, as well as finishing equipment, laminators, hot presses and accessories.

Concord Camera Corp., Hollywood, Fla., reported financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 ended Dec. 29, 2007 and filed its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

  For the quarter ended Dec. 29, 2007, Concord posted net sales of $18.40 million, down from net sales of $19.34 million in quarter ended Dec. 30, 2006. Fiscal year sales for the year ended Dec. 29, 2007 were $40.10 million, down from $48.16 million in the previous year.

  Net loss of the quarter was $2.21 million, a decrease from a net loss of $3.55 million in the previous year's comparable quarter. Fiscal net loss was $3.98 million, down from a net loss of $5.19 million in the previous year.

PowerfulPixel, Fla., is attempting to set a world record, and offering anyone the chance to take part. On Dec, 9, 2006, PowerfulPixel Founder Todd Bradford captured an image of the N.A.S.A Discovery space shuttle's first night launch in approximately 4 years. The image gained popularity, and an idea intended to unite people from all across the nation, while breaking a world record, was born.

 The photo will be used to set a new world record as the world's largest photo mosaic. If completed, the project will break the current world record set in Spain on Oct. 31, 2006 by more than 43 times. The image will be almost 5 acres in size and visible from satellites orbiting miles above the earth.

  PowerfulPixel will be printing out each and every pixel in the shuttle picture as a 4-inch square of color which will then be affixed to pieces of plywood. Over 6,650 pieces of 4-by-8-foot plywood will then be laid out on the ground to recreate the original picture. Once the project has been certified as a new world record, the project will be dismantled, and all the plywood will be used to build new homes for fellow Americans.

  The pixels in the photo and all are available for a sponsorship fee of $12. Once all the pixels have been sponsored, the project will be built, displayed and certified. If someone sponsors a pixel, that person will receive a certificate of authenticity, their name will be displayed on the PowerfulPixel website, and once the goal is reached, every sponsor will be known as a world record holder.

  Pixels can be sponsored to honor or memorialize a friend or family member as a unique gift. Schools can participate in the fundraising program, which uses the world record breaking project as a unique fundraising activity. If sponsors want to support a featured school or organization, 25 percent of the $12 pixel sponsorship fee will go toward their fundraising efforts. Sponsors may also earn rewards including mp3 players, digital cameras, trips to Florida, and rides on G-Force One airplane, where you can experience weightless flight just like the astronauts on the space shuttle.

  PowerfulPixel believes that if individuals can pull together to do something as insignificant as set a new world record, everyone can pull together to do things that can the country better. Based on that, PowerfulPixel encourages everyone involved to do something selfless for someone they know and for someone they have never even met. Stories are features on the "You did what?" section of the PowerfulPixel website.

ScanMyPhotos.com, Irvine, Calif., is participating in the Photo Preservation Center's "Great American Photo Scanning Project," beginning today. Created by the Photo Preservation Center, an educational division of ScanMyPhotos.com, and sponsored by ScanMyPhotos.com, "The Great American Photo Scanning Project" aims to promote scanning services and inspire people to have their shoeboxes of analog photo snapshots digitally scanned.

  Throughout April, ScanMyPhotos.com is providing up to 1,000 free photo scans to members of Flickr, MySpace, Blogger or Facebook, they will get up to 1,000 4-by-6-inch photos scanned to DVD, only paying $19.95 for return shipping and handling.

  The Photo Preservation Center features a national network of service providers, as well as links to photo scanning service providers who are current members of PMA, and a local listing of photo scanning service providers who are current members of the Independent Photo Imagers.

  In related news, the Photo Preservation Center announced the 2008 Artistry of Genealogy Awards (AGA), sponsored by ScanMyPhotos.com, which aims to help consumers preserve and record family history through genealogy. The categories and genealogy website winners during a telephone survey of 945 ScanMyPhotos.com customers across the nation during Jan. 12-March 24, who identified their favorite websites for the several categories. A list of categories and website winners is available on the AGA awards website.

BlueCubit LLC, Reston, Va., released ImageNest, a software application for automatically laying out (nesting) digital images and optimizing paper usage. ImageNest, the culmination of 2 years of research and development of photography workflows and designed by photographers, enables users to improve efficiency, quality, and overall ease of use in a printing workflow, the company says. Features include nesting, automatic resizing, automatic rotation, layout controls for multiple and single images, scaling, and cropping. ImageNest is available for Macintosh OS 10.4 or higher and is a universal binary application.

Hasselblad A/S, Copenhagen, Denmark, announces that an update of the Apple Leopard operating system now includes official support for the Hasselblad RAW files produced from a range of the Hasselblad digital camera solutions. The new Apple Aperture 2 release also includes support for these Hasselblad RAW file formats.

  The free Leopard update includes support for Hasselblad RAW image files in the 3FR, FFF, and DNG format, created with any Hasselblad digital camera product with a 16 Mpix, 22Mpix, 31Mpix, or 39Mpix sensor.

  This update means that Hasselblad RAW files will now be visible in the Finder feature on Apple Macintosh computers and able to be opened directly from Mac-specific applications such as Preview, iPhoto, and Aperture. The new OS X support allows the creation of thumbnails for both FFF and 3FR files, enabling quick file inspection via Quick Look.