Tag Archives: kodak

Mar 11

Photos in your pocket

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I tend to be diligent about deleting photos from my personal camera (and often reformatting the memory card, just for maintenance’s sake) once I’ve downloaded them to a computer, even though my current camera’s removable SD card has room for hundreds of photos. But I know people who have photos on their camera from months and months ago.

Well, Kodak has just introduced a new touch-screen camera that’s designed to leave most of your photos on. It has internal memory (not a removable card, but built-in memory) capable of storing 5,000 photos in HD resolution. There’s also a micro-SD card slot; you store the photos in their full, original resolution (up to 14MB) on the removable micro-SD card, downloading them to your computer as needed, but the somewhat-smaller HD copies are kept on your camera so that you can pull the camera from your pocket and show them to friends at a moment’s notice. In effect, you can carry your entire library of photos (at least, photos you take from this point forward) in your pocket. The camera includes face-recognition features which would allow you to quickly call up all of the photos of your sister, for example. I’ve been playing with the face recognition in Picasa, and it’s pretty amazing.

I just bought a new digital camera, so I’m certainly not in the market for the Slice right now, but it will be interesting to see if this is where the technology is headed going forward.

Aug 01

Flip competition

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I love the Flip Ultra pocket video camera I bought back in the spring. It did just what I wanted — allowed me to bring back video from my Costa Rica trip. In fact, someone from LEAMIS called me just this week to ask me about the camera, because LEAMIS wants to get one to document one of its other trips this summer.

Anyway, my co-worker Brian pointed out to me today that Kodak is introducing its own competitor to the Flip, the Zi6. It has better resolution and uses removable memory cards (which would have saved me from having to take my laptop to Costa Rica). Of course, the Flip is intentionally and unapologetically as simple as possible, so some Flip users may not want the extra options provided by the Kodak model.

I am not that interested in Flip’s own new model, the Mino, which is slightly smaller and thinner than my Ultra. It uses an internal battery. One of the things I like about the Flip is that it runs on normal, inexpensive AA batteries — I use rechargables here, and I simply stocked up on batteries for the Costa Rica trip.

In any case, these pocket-sized cameras revolutionize video, because you can carry them with you wherever you go — you don’t have to plan for lugging around a camera. I carry my Flip in a pouch on my belt every day, in case I need to shoot video for the newspaper’s web site. They’re easy to use, and while they can’t compare to a top-of-the-line camcorder they are surprisingly high quality considering the size and low price. (With the introduction of the higher-priced Mino, you can now find the 60-minute Flip Ultra for as low as $129.)

Feb 16

How are you fixed for blades, boys?

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When Gillette invented the safety razor, a business decision was made to sell the razors themselves as cheaply as possible, the idea being that once the customers got used to the system you’d make the money back over time by selling them blades.

Computer printers sometimes seem the same; you can get a good deal on a printer only to find that the ink is expensive and has to be replaced very often. But, unlike Gillette in those days, consumers today have other options — home cartridge refill kits or places like Walgreen’s that will refill and test inkjet cartridges for you.

I am surprised that no one before now has tried marketing their computer printers on cost of use. Kodak has new technologies which they claim allow more prints per dollar than competing brands. I noticed this in TV advertising and heard Gene Simmons of Kiss talk about it during a talk show appearance. (Simmons had been a competitor on “Celebrity Apprentice,” which I don’t watch, and apparently one of their tasks was proposing a marketing slogan to Kodak.)

I’m working on a partner letter for my mission trip this weekend — I started printing one out the other night but then found things I didn’t like and ended up throwing a stack of them away. I went to buy ink today and ended up using a little bit of my tax refund for a new printer/scanner/copier instead. I went with a Kodak, for the reasons stated above. The MSRP for the b/w and color cartridges is a penny less each than I had been paying for cartridge refills at Walgreen’s. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything if you get fewer pages per cartridge, but Kodak claims that their overall cost per page is dramatically less than the competition. That should come in handy as I print letters and newsletters on the lead-up to the trip, and if I get serious about marketing the novel.

I’ve never owned a working scanner, and it will be nice to have one. I’ve also never had a printer with the dedicated paper slot for little print-sized photo paper, and it will be nice to have that as well.

I think I’ll like this gadget.

(NOTE: I do not do sponsored posts.)