Canon Digital Rebel Hacked Into A Pseudo-10D

Reverb9 writes "When Canon introduced the Digital Rebel, the world's first entry-level Digital SLR camera, many remarked on its similarities to the 10D , its $500 more expensive big brother. In fact, the two cameras share much of the same technology and so Canon implemented a number of software-based limitations to avoid destroying sales of the professional-oriented 10D. Now, a new hack that restores a previously hidden menu along with a few additional tricks has added nearly all of those 10D features to the Rebel, with an arguably superior user interface to boot. Canon has so far said little on the hack but certainly cannot be happy with its potential effect on sales. This is, however, a reality that more corporations are having to confront. In an era where programming labour is relatively cheap and computer connectivity more frequent can artificial, marketing-driven, barriers between technology products, last?"

Comments

Re:Ah... the first of a start.

[gandalphthegreen]

You may have paid for the hardware, but the software is licensed to you. In this case, you are only allowed to use the portions of it that are openly available. That's the reason, among others, that this camera costs so much less that its bigger brother: it does less stuff. You want to do more stuff? Pay for the camera that does it.

Have you ever heard of this thing called capitalism? Maybe you should read up on it.

Who Should Be Angry?

[LuYu]

Canon has so far said little on the hack but certainly cannot be happy with its potential effect on sales. This is, however, a reality that more corporations are having to confront.

Really? So, corporations have the right to lie to the consumer about what they are selling? Is that not called false advertising? Do corporations have the right to lie in order to make the customer think that two products with the same hardware are fundamentally different and charge more money? Is that not fraud?

This reminds me of floppy discs in the 80's. They would have "single-sided" and "double-sided" floppy discs at different prices. They acted as if the double-sided discs were some sort of new technology and released them later at higher prices. In reality, all discs were double sided. The only thing they lacked was a write-protect hole in the side of the disc jacket. Anyone with a hole punch could have had a double-sided disc at "single-sided" prices.

What is wrong about this is that the disc manufacturers were lying to their customers. This is fraud. At the time, I had a hard time believing the manufacturers were not investigated or punished for this sort of actvity. Now, for some reason, some people think that this sort of criminal activity is okay.

It is Canon's customers that should be angry. Both those that purchased the $500 version (for getting hardware they could have gotten for much less), and the those that purchased the "entry-level" version (for getting sold an intentionally crippled camera). Canon lied to all of them.

So, what, then, is the "reality that more corporations are having to confront"? Is it the reality that they need to have some accountability to their customers? Is it the reality that they have to tell the truth?