Dead pixels on Olympus C4000

I have recently discovered a problem with my Olympus C4000.
Every picture I now take includes a small white dot. On magnification
at 16x this appears to be 4 square pixels.

I have yet to change the smart media card, but as the lens is clean,
I believe this may be pixel failure on the CCD. Does anyone know the
expected lifespan of a charge coupled device, and will the problem get
worse? Is there anything else I can do or try? Thanks in advance.

As my camera is just within one year old I am emailing my vendor where
I purchased the camera from.

 

Use the Pixel Mapping feature in the cam. Page 164 of the PDF manual
that came on your C4000 CD. It's a side-effect of the digital sensor
technology to have this happen. As far as I know they have not made
any digital camera immune to it. Pixel Mapping is a way around it.
Lots of people would be returning their cams if they didn't include
the feature.

 

Yup... that's the reason I bought an Olympus. Only Olympus has the built-in
pixel mapping function. Other makers, like Canon, don't have it. That means
when the Canon develops hot pixels, you're stuck with it, or stuck with $$$
getting it repaired. I don't know why other makers don't have pixel
mapping... perhaps it's patented or something. I've heard there's a hack for
some Nikon models, where you can tell it to pixel map if you have it hooked
up to a PC.