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Disposable Digital Cameras Have Arrived
damiangerous writes "American chain Ritz camera has begun offering disposable digital cameras for $10.99. The price includes 4x6" prints and a Photo CD of the camera's 25 photo memory. Pictures can be deleted, but there's no LCD."
Seems pretty cool although disposable is a bit of a misnomer because they are really just recyclable, not like Ritz is throwing all the bits in the trash after processing them.
:)
Not being able to review the pics instantly is a drag too as its one of the main reasons I like using digicams (well that and not having photo guy check out my, um, arty pics) and I'm also a little dubious of their claims that a 2 megapixel camera can give you decent prints at 8x10, all that being said having a self timer is neat and I'm sure they'll be pretty popular.
In fact thinking about the recycling a bit more, I wonder if you could ever grab somebodies old pics off of a recycled unit.... I know you can recover deleted pics from a normal digicams media.... Something to think about..
how hard could i tbe to determine the method used to download the pics, and then sell a cable & driver for 20$?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Any bets that the're using a modified USB port, or using 802.11b?
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I have a feeling these suckers'll be hacked faster than a Cue:Cat
Depending on how they recyle these I wonder if it would be possible to recover other peoples pics from the reused memory card ?
The camera costs $10.99, which includes a set of 4-by-6-inch prints, an index print showing thumbnails of all 25 shots, and a photo CD, allowing for further home or commercial printing. The CD also contains Mac and PC software for viewing, saving, printing or e-mailing photos, which need not be installed in the user's computer.
I'm trying to figure out what keeps the user from permanently "renting" this camera (downloading the pics to the computer and then deleting them off camera). Anyone want to fill me in?
It's not stealing. They make a product that can be purchased for $x. They provide value to said product when it is returned to them.
If I can provide said value on my own, I have no reason to return it to them.
Simple economics ^_^
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25 4"x6" prints, an index print, and a cdr of the images?
Walmart runs prints from a digital camera (bring in your own cdr or flash card) for $0.29/print. That runs about $7 for 25. Index print and cd-r will be an extra $1-2.
That's $8 in product, for $11, or only $3 for the rental of a 2MP digital camera, which makes perfectly good 4"x6" prints. (Bearable, but not good, 8"x10"s.)
That's not bad at all, for people that primarily want prints, and not just digital images. Myself, I have a digital camera, and my preferred output is just the cd-r with image files. I get prints made, but far fewer than I keep image files on cd-r.
I'm curious how many rentals each camera has to make to pay for itself. $3/rental, camera probably costs... less than $100. Say about 30 rentals to pay for the camera and related labor expenses?
I can see how this would be a good thing at theme parks, where people are likely to rent and return them in the same day, possibly several times per day... They'd reach break-even in a month, and after that actually start making money.
The nice thing from the business point of view is that the continuing costs are lower. You just wipe the storage card and recharge the batteries, and you rent it again. Don't have to pay a couple bucks in film every time you rent the camera. The battery cost is higher than for a "disposable" film camera because the power draw is higher, but without the LCD, not that much higher.
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These sound perfect for doing a "Matrix" type effect. 45 of these could be used to make a nice 3 second sequence for less than $500. If disposable film cameras were used, registration would be a bitch.
Now it's only a matter of time before it pops up in Bar Mitzvah videos.
Each camera has a UUID -- a universally unique identifier, like a MAC address.
Before sending the camera out, I'd create a pair of public/private keys. I store the public key on the camera, the private key at the camera store (or centrally, whatever, so long as it can be retrieved later during processing).
When the camera takes a shot, it is stored *only after being encrypted* using the public key.
When the camera comes back for processing, the private key is retrieved (thanks to the UUID) and used to decrypt the images.
W/O the private key, the data retrieved is worthless. Generate a new key set before sending it out again.
This being the case, I'd use standard USB or IRDA or whatever and not worry about people violating my rights by reverse engineering the system.
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Here are a couple more tidbits: I believe this is similar to a older kodak camera, in which case the interface is probably a serial to 1/8th jack.
This /. post describes a possible icky drawback (60 bucks down, 39 refund on return ) Hope that isn't the case!
This is a little more detailed about the marketing behind the camera, and it gives the location of the test store.
If this post is not karma-whorelicious, your money back!
Yeah, but you can delete pictures, Stan! I was thinking the exact same thing- $10 for a 2 megapixel digital camera, even without an LCD that's a damn bargain!
As I read it, you can delete the pix in the camera and re-shoot, but you can't view it.
The viewing software is for the CD you get when you bring the camera back - at which point they dump the RAM onto the CD, give you the CD and prints, and keep the camera.
My guess on what keeps you from keeping the camera forever:
1) You can't get the pix out without cracking the camera software, which no doubt includes some serious access control as well as undocumented and perhaps non-standard interfaces, connectors, and protocols. (And they might hit you for DMCA violation by a number of routes, including claiming copyright to the pix themselves until you return the camera.)
2) Eventually the batteris will run down if the camera is not returned for recharging.
Still: I bet there will be a crack within a few months - after which it may go the way of the cue cat. (Depends on whether the loss rate from crackers keeping 'em is higher than their budgeted loss rate - which MIGHT not happen even if they ARE cracked.)
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I'm trying to figure out what keeps the user from permanently "renting" this camera
The current 'disposable' film cameras have some reusable innards (I think), some breakable innards and a cardboard outer shell. From the pic at Technogadgets it looks like this camera has a molded plastic shell, but perhaps it is molded shut and has to be broken to get to the interface. That could be one control to discourage 'permanent renting'. Perhaps the breakable shell holds the lens in place or maybe if the shell is broken too much light will leak and ruin the picture quality of future pics.
Or, maybe the I/O interface is proprietary and/or the processing lab has a device that contacts the chip package leads directly. Sure, a few web pages would go up describing how to read from it, but look at Xbox and Playstation. They're cracked, but it doesn't seem to be significantly impacting their business plans.
To which I say "Print them out? WTF d00d?"
Ritz' target market is "Less-technically-inclined people who want to print their pictures out and look at them in photo albums with their friends."
There is another market out there, however: the market for "Ten-dollar 2-megapixel digicams, and who the hell ever prints their photos to dead trees anyways when it's cheaper/faster/easier to just email the pics to your friends?"
The relative sizes of these two markets is what will determine whether Ritz' business plan succeeds or fails.
Netpliance of I-Opener fame made the same mistake - their target market was "people for whom AOL was too complicated and who didn't want to buy a $799 eek-its-scary e-machine computer thingy when they could have a $99 flat-screen appliance that'd give them the ability to do email and teh intarweb for $20/month."
Part of why Netpliance failed was that there was a small - but sufficiently large - market of people who thought "$99 flat-panel PCs that can be h4x0r3d to run Linux! Wow, I gotta get me some of that! The parts alone are worth $500!"
Moral of the story: Don't be nearsighted when it comes to your target market. Think ahead and make sure you're aware of any other markets, particularly non-target markets that break your business model.
They informed me at the store that it was a 1MP camera, not 2. The packaging does not say anything reguarding this. Also it does NOT include 4x6 prints, it's includes a cd with the pictures however. This matches what the box says:
FREE Photo CD
FREE Index Print
* Camera price does not include processing
The I/O connector is a PCB card edge with 10 wires. Kind of looks like the cassette port on a C64.
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