At a press conference in Japan on Wednesday, Sega of Japan announced the release of the Dreameye, its Internet digital-video camera for the Dreamcast. The main functions of the Dreameye are video mail, photo mail, and TV phone. The Dreameye will come bundled with user-friendly software called the Visual Park, developed by Sega and CSK Research Institute (CRI).

　　With the help of KDD Technology, the video-mail function lets users send movie data of up to 25 seconds, and the receiver can save the data onto the VMU. The Dreameye can also be used as a stand-alone digital camera, and with the software developed by Sega and PictureIQ called Dream Photo Fun, users can open and edit pictures they have taken. Sega also has plans to develop and publish games that may let users to integrate pictures into the game. Users can take up to 31 shots with the data saved onto an internal flash memory. The resolution of the pictures will be at 640x480 pixels.

　　A demonstration of a TV-phone session between the president of Sega, Shoichi Irimajiri (who is currently attending the Milia trade show at Cannes), and a Sega spokesperson was shown at the conference. Similar to the PC's webcam, users will put the Dreameye on top of their TV and wear a headset to speak to the person on the other side. The TV phone can be used via the Internet or through phone lines. The demo also showed other features in the TV phone such as zoom in/out, brightness adjustment, volume adjustment, and data transmission rate, and even minigames and message boards were available while waiting for a call.

　　The Dreameye is scheduled for a June release in Japan. No price has been set yet.