Slashdot Mirror
New Disposable Digital Cameras with LCDs
del_ctrl_alt writes "Pure Digital Technologies are set to introduce the world's first ever disposable digital camera [ed. note: see below], retailing in the USA for $19.99. Ritz, CVS, Disney World and Longs Drugs are all going to stock the 2-megapixel camera, which somewhat amazingly has a color preview screen and allows you to delete images before you take it to the store for processing (where you will receive a free picture CD along with your prints)." It's not the first disposable digital camera, which was hacked shortly afterwards, but these include a LCD display (they're made by the same company which made the first ones). Have fun!
I really hope it is hackable. I mean, a 2 megapixel digital camera with LCD for $19.99 would be a pretty good deal, even if it takes a day or two, and even 1 or two broken cameras first. I hope someone comes up with a hack!
Help Fight SPAM today!
I'm looking foward to sticking LCD gauges all around the house with these babies! :)
With a 35mm camera, you don't get to delete pictures and review pretty screenshots before you print. It's just not the same.
Worth the extra $? Perhaps, perhaps not- depends on how much $ you have to throw around. But I'd hardly call this a "futile" attempt. It will make the next round of similar cameras even better and cheaper. There's money in it.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Is it possible to make something like this that's more trouble to hack than it's worth? How much work would it be?
Embedded CPU with built-in mask-programmed or fusible-link ROM. Encrypted images in the flash, with the key in the CPU's ROM so it can't be read out. It shouldn't be impossible to lock something like this down hard enough that it'd cost more than the value of a cheap digicam to unlock it.
It depends... from the site, it appears to have a 16MB memory capacity, which at 2 megapixel is something like 50 or 60 pictures. Considering a decent disposable camera that takes 24 pics costs $5, this is less than twice as much per picture, and gives you the ability to preview and delete pics you don't want developed. Add to that the possibility of modding/hacking it and the potential environmental friendlyness of not using film, and you're not talking a huge cost for the value.
sig?
that I should google first but... I haven't had my quota for abuse today:
Has anyone done any cool hardware hacks to utlize a digital camera's LCD for other purposes? (thinking case mod, mp3 jukebox (like a real jukebox (friend's site), not an ipod) display.
my understanding that trying to use an old laptop's LCD (separate from the laptop) is near unpossible or not worth the effort...
*shrug* some sort of dimented light bulb went off when I saw the post...
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
How long before "disposable" becomes "free" with a simple hardware/software hack?
It seems to me (and this is admittedly off the top of my head, and I apologize if it can be trivially proven to be stupid) that, if you set the camera up so the camera encrypted the JPEG in hardware before it landed on the memory card using a public key, you'd need a private key to get to the JPEG, and the private key would only be on the developing station.
So, sure, someone could hack the developing station, but those are going to be a lot harder to lay hands on than the cameras are. And if the only thing you can ever get from the camera is the public key, and you can't work around the hardware to intercept the image data before encryption, I would think you're pretty well stuck.
LCDs are manufactured using an resource-intensive process, AFAIK, with large volumes of contanimated water as a waste product, and large volumes of dangerous chemicals being used/reused/disposed in the process.
The same goes for CCDs and the electronic guts.
How the fuck can anyone conceive this as a good idea? What an utter disregard for the inheritance of our children!
That said, I want one, just to hack. But, shit, surely we humans have *got* to get a clue one of these days.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I know most of the people on here are looking at this as an opportunity to get a usable digital camera for cheap (with a little elbow grease), but even if the attempts to hack it aren't successeful, the camera is still worth more than they're selling it for. You see, for hobbiest electronics people, LCD screens are ridiculously expensive. In single quantities you'd be lucky to get a lower resolution, monochrome LCD display for twice the cost of this camera, more likely three times the cost. LCD screens, more than any other products are given great discounts in bulk and huge price inflations in small quantities.
That was the reason for my original hack of the old camera. I never got an answer, because I never found a recycled camera. One Ritz employee said that they had a box of all of these cameras that they had ever developed (5-6) sitting around and they hadn't sent them back for reprocessing. The scary thing is that the processing machine doesn't seem to clear the pictures* -- it must be done at the reprocessing place. A good reason for that is the accidental erasure of the pictures -- you don't want to give the clerk the ability to accidently erase the camera before getting the pictures.
The old camera wasn't really recycleable. The case was painted, so any scratches would show. Changing the body would require removal of about a dozen screws (of a few different sizes), so it's impractical to do.
The new camera design is held together with three easy screws and it's easy to replace the case. The body is not painted, so scratches will be hidden. I'm excited to find out if we'll actually see recycled cameras.
(* note: that's heresay and I can't guarantee it)
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
This whole thing depends on "taking the camera back to the store". What's wrong with this picture?
There's a desperate, last-ditch attempt by the camera industry to re-introduce consumables into a product that no longer needs them. Expensive incompatible flash memory cards, expensive special paper for inkjet printers, and, of course, the "printer ink" industry all fit this model. They're just delaying the inevitable.
Incidentally, the inkjet situation should open up in a few years. Key patents are approaching expiration. The basic bubblejet patent expired this year.