Samsung Electronics has developed the world's first 3-inch VGA LCD screen for digital still cameras which can also be used for portable media players and other small devices that utilize little power and require high resolution screens.

Previously, LCDs could not be made to such tiny specifications. Samsung's ability to create LCD panels that operate at 30hz (instead of the usual 60hz) made it possible for them to create VGA images on the tiny screen without compressing or otherwise manipulating the signal.

Without the advances Samsung discovered, low power, high resolution LCDs of this size wouldn't be possible. According to a Samsung press release, "the three-inch VGA LCD also incorporates a dot inversion scheme that lowers power consumption while substantially reducing the image flickering that has prevented such an approach in the past."

The public will see the new monitor at IMID 2006 (International Meeting on Information Display), in Daegu Korea on August 23. A commercial version of the 3 inch VGA LCD will be made available in the first half of 2007.

While not big with American audiences, soccer is the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world. The FIFA World Cup is aired in 213 countries and the 2002 games in Korea earned a total cumulative audience of 28.8 billion viewers. The stats for the ongoing games in Germany isn't in yet but we have a feeling these photographs by Steven Young will draw its share of fans. Originally featured in a Japanese magazine, the series of images shows soccer's more feminine side.  But don't pooh-pooh these women field warriors, they took off their kid gloves (and almost everything else) when they took on each other on the field.