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Disposable Digital Cameras Have Arrived

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the and-here-it-is dept.

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."

7 of 585 comments (clear)

  1. More recyclable than disposable... by zeoslap · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.. :)

  2. Re:It's not disposable... it's reusable. by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Any bets that the're using a modified USB port, or using 802.11b?

    I have a feeling these suckers'll be hacked faster than a Cue:Cat .

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  3. I wonder if you could snag other peoples pics by zeoslap · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Depending on how they recyle these I wonder if it would be possible to recover other peoples pics from the reused memory card ?

    1. Re:I wonder if you could snag other peoples pics by netsharc · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I was about to say "they probably don't have any customer accessible ports, because when people can download the pictures, they can just do that and then reuse, instead of returning, the camera", but this is slashdot, the screws won't stop us. So I do wonder how Ritz plans to stop people from cracking the cameras open, download the pictures, and reuse them indefinitely, depriving them (Ritz) of profit?

      Encryption? Proprietary image format? (Did they manage to persuade a digital camera manufacturer to design a new chip, for what price?)

      Oh wait, but but it doesn't necessarily need memory cards, most (usually cheaper) cameras offer on-board memory, I'm guessing that's what they probably have. It'll be pretty hard trying to get access to what's in that RAM chip soldered to the PCB. That and a proprietary plug should stop a lot of people.

      --
      What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
    2. Re:I wonder if you could snag other peoples pics by Xerithane · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I was about to say "they probably don't have any customer accessible ports, because when people can download the pictures, they can just do that and then reuse, instead of returning, the camera", but this is slashdot, the screws won't stop us. So I do wonder how Ritz plans to stop people from cracking the cameras open, download the pictures, and reuse them indefinitely, depriving them (Ritz) of profit?
      2 minute thought on this: Have an RFID tag with a key that emits to the camera. If the camera doesn't sense that, and the case-removal screws are taken out erase the pictures. If the RFID key doesn't match a checksum, erase the pictures.

      You could even, rather easily, destroy the hardware after deleting the pictures.

      I think this would be rather silly to do, but it's possible. You just have to make it more expensive to hack a single camera than it is to buy a real camera. If the station for unloading cost $200 in parts, they still make a profit (many cameras to one base station) but the user would take a hit spending $210.99 for a 2mp digital camera with no LCD.

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      Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
  4. Re:It's not disposable... it's reusable. by timmyd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

  5. PKI = unhackable by dcgrigsby · · Score: 5, Interesting
    If I were building these things, I'd do it like so:

    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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