(FORTUNE Magazine) – INTELLIGENT CAMERA How's this for a snapshot. About the only thing Minolta's new Freedom Zoom 105i camera doesn't do is click the shutter. A programmed circuit activated by a sensor automatically adjusts for the distance between the photographer and the subject. It sets the camera's 35-mm to 105-mm zoom lens to produce what Minolta engineers consider a ''pleasantly composed picture.'' Instead of typically amateurish too wide wide-angle or too close closeup shots, finished photos produce a balance of subject and background. Photographers unwilling to let the camera have all the fun can override the automatic feature. The camera also takes sharp pictures of moving subjects by monitoring their speed with a light-measuring cell and focusing to compensate for the time it takes to press the shutter. The Freedom Zoom 105i comes in two versions, a pearl-white one that stamps the date on the photo at $512 and traditional black for $462.

NEVER-STICK COOKWARE Take a metal spatula or scouring pad to your Teflon or SilverStone nonstick pans often enough and your omelets will start to bond to the ruined surface like glue. But Farberware's never-stick Millennium cookware will stand up to ! the most abusive cook. Its secret lies in a new reinforced coating. Farberware blasts the pan's surface with a gritty abrasive and sprays on hot stainless steel particles to create mini peaks and valleys. It then applies two coatings of a mix of polymer binders and fluoropolymer lubricants. Result: pans so durable the company backs them with a 20-year warranty. Says Terry Troy, cookware editor at Housewares: ''Millennium should be a hot product.'' On sale in October, a ten-piece set will go for $240, a 1.5-quart saucepan for $55.

BLOOD SCREEN TEST Johnson & Johnson has achieved a big breakthrough with a new blood screening kit called the Ortho HCV Elisa Test System. It is the first diagnostic tool that detects the presence of antibodies for the recently discovered hepatitis C virus (HCV), which can cause potentially fatal liver disease. An estimated 100 million people worldwide carry HCV, which is often spread by intravenous drug use or through transfusions of infected blood. Sold to blood banks and medical labs, the kit sells for $7.50. Developed by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ortho Diagnostic Systems Inc., the test could reduce the incidence of hepatitis C by 75% and open up an estimated $200 million market for the company.

PLANE WASH Washing a car by hand is a chore, but try scrubbing a jumbo jet with mop and hose. That's what airlines must do about once a month to rid the big birds of grime that causes drag in flight and cuts into fuel efficiency. Now a $13 million Automated Aircraft Washing System developed by Japan Airlines and Kawasaki Heavy Industries gives JAL's jumbos checking into Tokyo's Narita airport a robotic bath. Just five operators using the computer-controlled plane wash -- equipped with 16 robotized washing units, 35 brushes, and 17 TV monitors -- can have a jet gleaming in only 80 minutes at a cost of $1,300. Normal hand washing requires 20 workers and four hours, and costs more than twice as much. JAL and Kawasaki plan to market the system to other airlines, and even the Pentagon is said to be interested. Robert Keady, Japan marketing director for Pratt & Whitney whose affiliate USBI Co. is developing a competing system, calls the JAL/Kawasaki jumbo wash ''an outstanding achievement.''