Zone-10 is being quiet on predictions about upcoming Four-Thirds and Micro Four-Thirds cameras. Does this mean anything?

The rumors about upcoming Sony, Nikon, Panasonic and Olympus cameras are starting to pick up, some are true, some are fantasy, some are misguidings intended to fool the public and competition as well as build interest. We will soon see the cameras and I'm quite confident that we won't be disappointed.

Just keep this in mind when you view product rumors of soon-to-be-released items:

1. Those who REALLY know aren't talking,

2. The leaks with valid information usually come from one of four or five locations in the world and proceed official announcement by about 72 hours. In almost every case, the leaked information is not in English, Japanese or French. Which language the leak is presented in is carefully chosen and not some form of mistake. Once in a while the "source" will mess up and jump the gun or sometimes be confused and not release the leak, but 48-72 hours is the norm.

3. No prototype is ever tested in final form. All final field testing is performed on variants--some with features to be included, some not, some for other products. Those who spread rumors based on field-tested items are usually right about some stuff, wrong about others and the wrong information is used to identify the source of the leaks.

4. The manufacturing runs for each introduced product has been scheduled months and sometimes years in advance. Of the majority of camera products, the release schedule is highly predictable. As has been mentioned previously on this site, increases in megapixels is also predictable.

5. See #1.