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!
Film processing is expected to retail at $280 per camera.
How long before "disposable" becomes "free" with a simple hardware/software hack?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
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!
This is even a worse idea than the "2 day dvd lasting" media.
Why do this?
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Finally my point is proven - this is what happens when the marketing department controls projects !!
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
For exactly which economic bracket is $20 considered "disposable"? I consider myself middle-class, and I'm not going to throw anything away unless it cost under $8, if I can help it.
Hear that? That's the collective sigh of landfills across the nation.
I'm looking foward to sticking LCD gauges all around the house with these babies! :)
Controller
SMaL Camera Technologies
Numbering on controller chip:
AIC0021B
02TWN5103
C68051.00
Memory
16M x8 NAND Flash memory: Samsung K9F2808UO8-YCB0
4Mx16 SDRAM: Micron Technologies MT48LC4M16A2TG-75E
Preliminary stuff of interest
The edge connector of the PV2 electrically matches that of the classic Dakota, at least as far as the USB pins go; whatever cable/contraption used to access the classic should work for this one without modifications.
Holding down ALL the buttons at once (shutter, Display, Delete) while turning on power will display a diagnostic screen showing the camera's serial number, firmware revision and similar information.
See John's Dakota page with an update for the PV2, including some USB info, datasheets for the more interesting parts (including the LCD) and a gallery of good dissection photos.
USB info
Here is the dump-out from SUCR commandline, walking thru the device properties. (All versions of SUCR do this, in case the manufacturer decided to get clever and move the devices/interfaces/endpoints/altsettings around). This gives a good idea of the 'organization' of the camera's USB interface.
usb_set_debug: Setting debugging level to 3 (on) LIBUSB_DLL: usb_os_init: dll version: 0.1.8.0 LIBUSB_DLL: usb_os_init: driver version: 0.1.8.0 LIBUSB_DLL: usb_os_find_busses: found bus-0 LIBUSB_DLL: usb_os_find_devices: found \\.\libusb0-0003--0x058f-0x9254 on bus-0 LIBUSB_DLL: usb_os_find_devices: found \\.\libusb0-0004--0x0dca-0x0027 on bus-0 Looking at device with USB id 058F/9254 Looking at device with USB id 0DCA/0027 Found camera... This device has 2 possible configuration(s). Looking at configuration 0...This configuration has 1 interfaces. Looking at interface 0...This interface has 1 altsettings. Looking at altsetting 0...This altsetting has 2 endpoints. Endpoint 0: Address 81h, attributes 02h (Bulk) (In) Endpoint 1: Address 01h, attributes 02h (Bulk) (Out) Looking at configuration 1...This configuration has 1 interfaces. Looking at interface 0...This interface has 1 altsettings. Looking at altsetting 0...This altsetting has 2 endpoints. Endpoint 0: Address 81h, attributes 02h (Bulk) (In) Endpoint 1: Address 01h, attributes 02h (Bulk) (Out) Set config: 0 Found bulk endpoint 129 on Configuration 1 Interface 0 Altsetting 0 Set alt. interface: 0 [...]
The camera has 2 configurations, one is for 200mA and the other is for 100mA, but "seem" otherwise identical. (See the testlibUSB dump-out below for additional details.) When the configuration is set by SUCR, the camera emits a 2-tone ascending beep, and the LED comes on. However, regardless of which of the configurations is used, all control transfers produce a CRC error message from Windows: LIBUSB_DLL error: error sending control message: win error: Data error (cyclic redundancy check).
Here is the output from testlibUSB: DLL version: 0.1.8.0 Driver version: 0.1.8.0 bus/device idVendor/idProduct bus-0/\\.\libusb0-0002--0x0dca-0x0027 0DCA/0027 - Manufacturer : SMaL - Product : Digital Camera wTotalLength: 32 bNumInterfaces: 1 bConfigurationValue: 1 iConfiguration: 3 bmAttributes: 80h MaxPower: 100 bInterfaceNumber: 0 bAlternateSetting: 0 bNumEndpoints: 2 bInterfaceClass: 255 bInterfaceSubClass: 0 bInterfaceProtocol: 0 iInterface: 0 bEndpointAddress: 81h bmAttributes: 02h wMaxPacketSize: 64 bInterval: 0 bRefresh: 0 bSynchAddress: 0 bEndpointAddress: 01h bmAttributes: 02h wMaxPacketSize: 64 bInterval: 0 bRefresh: 0 bSynchAddress: 0 wTotalLength: 32 bNumInterfaces: 1 bConfigurationValue: 2 iConfiguration: 3 bmAttributes: 80h MaxPower: 50 bInterfaceNumber: 0 bAlternateSetting: 0 bNumEndpoints: 2 bInterfaceClass: 255 bInterfaceSubClass: 0 bInterfaceProtocol: 0 iInterface: 0 bEndpointAddress: 81h bmAttributes: 02h wMaxPacketSize: 64 bInterval: 0 bRefresh: 0 bSynchAddress: 0 bEndpointAddress: 01h bmAttributes: 02h wMaxPacketSize: 64 bInterval: 0 bRefresh: 0 bSynchAddress: 0
Some dissection pictures
Back of the PV2. The case is held together by 3 screw
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
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 doesn't mention how much memory is inside one of these things. Presumably, it could easily be enough for a couple of hundred 2MP pictures. If this is the case, combined with the preview/review LCD (one of the biggest advantages of digicams when on the road, IMHO), it could certainly be successful.
huh? why exactly is it a _bad_ idea, if they just can make it profitable?
ever used crappy disposable cameras? the worst thing about them is that a lot of the pictures you take turn out as total crap. a preview screen on them would be a great improvement.
it's a replacement for MEGACRAPPYSHIT disposable cameras, and a lot of folk visiting disneyworld or whatever would like one of these. it's cheap for them(customers), so they don't have to have even any stress about if it breaks in the rides or if they lose it and yet they can take better pictures than with a normal disposable one.
20$ for a rent of a 2mpix camera and service to get the pics on a cd isn't _that_ bad at amusementparks & etc..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Forget the 2megapixel camera, I want cheap LCD's.
Hopefully the hardware gurus recycle all of the parts, so we can have a webcam, a display, and a memory stick, all for the low low price of $20.00
Face it, 99% of the digital cameras out there are sold for the recording of the owners' bedroom adventures. Nobody's going to pick one of these cameras up when they realize that Betty Lou Bluehair down at the photo counter at Wal-Mart will get to see them rubbing up against some fat guy in a squirrel suit he had shipped over from Japan.
A $20 color LCD for all your cool projects!
Of course, in this case Disposable == Recyclable. Or do you really think they simply pitch the 2 megapixel CCD sensor, LCD display, internal memory, camera body, etc. in the garbage after you bring it in?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
This looks cool, not that I would use it as I have a digital camera that I am happy with already, but the retailers can reuse the cameras making it a little cheaper for them, and the disposable camera market seems to do pretty well. I think they can replace the disposable 35mm cameras with these fairly well. However as an end users more than maybe 7-8 uses of this becomes pointless as you can get your own one for that much. Though if they are hacked and they turn into $20 digital cameras then I think the company will have to go back to the drawing board. It will be interesting to see if these become mainstream soon or not.
Even with amazingly inexpensive Chinese labour, you can't make a camera with LCD panel for $12 (the probably wholesale cost to the shop). Instead, they "refurb" and resell the camera to the next person - even if they replace the plastic case and battery, it'll probably only cost a couple of dollars to do. SO, they're amortizing the cost over a longer expected life-span. I wonder how many times these will get recycled. And I wonder how they work after being tossed around at a dozen or so frat parties...
Like we need more things filling up landfills.
im suprised the mods didn't see this!
the cameras do NOT, i repeat, do NOT go in the landfills, they are resold back to the public from the store after use.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
The benefit is being able to recognize, delete and re-shoot poor pictures, which is one of the big pluses of digital photography. The $7 35mm disposable, 24 pictures, might on average net you 8-10 keeper pics. With the digital version, you're guaranteed 25 pictures that you want processed, because you can keep re-shooting until you get 25 good ones. Net-net, probably close to break-even on cost (assuming my 33% estimate above) - coincidence? Also, while some processors don't force you to pay for pictures you don't like, that doesn't alleviate the "sighing landfills" issue. IF you are going to buy a disposable camera, then this would be the more environmentally friendly version, assuming the cameras themselves are recycled as advertised.
drink beer, and let the water run the mill
I did the original hack on the old camera, and, of course, I'm working on the new one... here's my web page on it.
The next step is a ROM dump -- then we can see if there is any code in the flash memory, or if it's stored on the ASIC. I suspect that there is a bootloader on the ASIC and the bulk of the code (certainly the pre-programmed images) is on the flash. Don't know if it's encrypted or scrambled yet.
We're still working on the resolution of the sensor. I read the part number last night, but didn't return any google hits. We can't really rely on the size of the pictures one would get back from processing because, in the past, they've upscaled it.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
im suprised the mods didn't see this!
:)
You must be new here.
the cameras do NOT, i repeat, do NOT go in the landfills, they are resold back to the public from the store after use
Yes, I am continually amazed by the ignorance. Disposable camera means the CONSUMER disposes of it, not the "film processor."
What I'd like to know is, how many times have these ignoramuses bought a disposable camera, taken a roll of pictures, and then tossed it in the garbage?
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
The first disposable digital camera was the SiPix Blink I got for $50 from Fry's. After using it, you want to throw it away even if you have the receipt, because you want to prevent any other human being from undergoing the sheer torture. I looked at the $50 as a charity expense.
What's your damage, Heather?
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, &
Don't expect it to look better than the 1.2 Megapixel camera it really is.
Another unfortunately titled /. article leading to hundreds of pointless conversations by people who do not RTFA. I blame /. editors more than /. readers for this one though.
The cameras are meant to be used once and returned to a printing facility, whereby the images are off-loaded and then the camera itself is put back into circulation.
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.
It is not anywhere near as good a deal as you might think. The 2 megapixel sensor (CMOS I bet, from either Micron, Omnivision or the likes) are going to be flooding the market at about $5~$8 in bulk this year. This technology is booming and going straight for commodity prices. The lens technology is desperatly trying to catch up but is still lacking. Trust me that the lens on this thing is tiny and crappy. Good enough for a quicky vacation pic, but not good enough to replace a regular (sub)$300 digital camera. All the other parts are trivial....except the LCD. Can someone tell me how they managed to get a super cheap LCD in there?
Why does society insist make making more and more degenerate retards? Like we need more ijits filling up web forums.
This whole retard movement just devolves us to jumping more conclusions that has lower and lower sense. Hence the saying "You've never taken a disposable film camera back to the drugstore!?!? WTF!?!?!?!".
Sound familiar? Back in the day, ALL slashdot posters were sensible enough to figure this was the same deal, flash substituting for film. You could blugeon someone senseless with your big antique camera and they would still be alright enough to know this. You can't do that with today's slashdot ijits.
Granted some "disposable" stuff do in fact get reused, such as moronic slasdot rants, but for others, we should actually take the time to decide if they are truly disposable.
... i'd rather have a 35mm disposable than a digital the quality will always be so much better.
That's not exactly true
Required reading for internet skeptics
Why do people insist on calling these cameras disposable?
The business model is basically to rent them out for a rather steep $20, which gets you use of the camera until you fill the on-board memory and then a CD with your images after.
My guess is that the retailers have a minimal markup on the camera with the expectation that they will make their money doing digital prints.
The manufacturer makes their money by being able to rent the same camera multiple times.
Certainly some of the cameras will be "lost" to hackers, but this is a cost of doing business and is probably far cheaper than creating and inforcing some sort of deposit mechanism since, for the average user, the "deposit" is the precious memories stored on the camera that they can only get back by returning the camera.
If "hacking" of the cameras become widespread, then one can expect that the company will either take action or go out of business.
If they take action, there will no doubt be much grousing among the slashdot community, but really, what right does a parasite have to complain when the host its bleeding dry seems to extingish it? Better to keep a low profile.
Sadly, durable stuff is likely to outlive its usefulness.
I've got an old Toshiba laptop somewhere - powered by a 7.14MHz 8086. The machine is heavily built and works fine, has decent battery life and, apart from being a bit grubby and yellowed, works just the same as it did when new.
Except it's almost entirely useless when it comes to working alongside modern computers. It and my modern iBook have no ports, disks or anything in common. I'd need a third computer to get data between the two.
Then there's digital cameras. I've got a Fuji FinePix 6900 Zoom, which I've had for a bit over two years now. It still takes really good photos, and continues to work extremely well, but I have a feeling I'll be replacing it because of obsolescence rather than it breaking.
I'm eyeing up Canon DSLRs, looking at new things they can do which my camera can't - new advances that simply hadn't been (affordably) available when my camera was designed. Long, low-noise exposures, high-capacity rechargeable AA batteries, higher resolution, and so on...
Technology advances ridiculously quickly. Yes, you can stick around with something prehistoric, but unless you have very limited needs you're likely to constantly lust after what's you're missing on a newer device. I'm not advocating disposable hardware, but at times I understand why things now are rarely (over-) engineered to last. By the time they break, they'll be dinosaurs surrounded by smaller, faster, cheaper descendants...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
I'd be willing to overlook the common misuse of "LCD" with "display" if it's prefaced with "an", as in "an El See Dee display". But beginning it with "a" makes it a clear case of saying "a Liquid Crystal Display display", which is just plain wrong.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
This will replace the disposable film camera, which does NOT get recycled, and ends up in the landfill.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Why does society insist make making more and more disposable crap?
Because at the rate (this) technology is advancing, you might as well consider all digital cameras disposable within a few years. Also, there are people who demand desposable cameras so they won't be afraid to take it on their mountain climbing trip.
This whole disposable movement just evolves us to making more stuff that has lower and lower quality.
Yes, because we all know that this 2 megapixel camera with LCD display is of extremely poor quality as compared to the 1 megapixel cameras that cost several times more. (Won't even bother to tell you that these are returnable, not disposable)
Hence the saying "They don't make 'em like they used to."
Reminds me of another old saying, "Do not say, 'Why were the old days better than these?' For it is not wise to ask such questions." -- Ecclesiastes 7:10
it is not wise to ask such questions." People have been complaining about how good the old days were for 3000 years already. Maybe you should just accept progress and be happy with our improvements in medicine, travel, etc. (You can mod me down now, for mentioning the bible.)
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
It'll cost 20 bucks at the local Rite Aid, but I can guarantee you that once past the gates of Disney, it'll cost at least 40 or 50. Or any other amusement park, for that matter. Enough that it'd negate any economy. But, you forgot your own camera, so you pay.
Actually, I envision the park security no longer allowing you to bring your own camera. You know, to improve safety and give you a more enjoyable experience.
Hey, a bottle of water costs 3 bucks in there.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The LCD is detailed on the Maushammer pages. DataSheet for the LCD is here.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
From the article:
The slashdot writeup also mentions that it is a color lcd, though I know some people are too busy to be bothered with reading the writeup.
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.
*sigh* I am sure others have a similar experience, but I bought a 2MP Kodak (DC280) back when they were $600. That was when I worked for a company that actually gave out bonuses. Don't get me wrong, I am really glad that I got it, but wow. I never would have guessed that 5 years later a $20 disposable camera would be of comparable quality. (I know mine probably takes better pictures, but it also weighs about 30 lbs and eats batteries like Cowboy Neal eats tacos).
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Last time I was @ WDW it rained a couple times (typical FL weather) and I was worried that my digital camera would get wet and quit working. It's not a really expensive camera... was only a couple hundred bucks, but I don't really want to replace it due to it getting wet and shorting out or getting broken on a ride. I also don't like having to worry about losing it or getting it stolen. If I had been able to rent a digital camera while I was there, I would have done that instead of using my own. The quality may have not been quite as good but @ 2 megapixel they would have been good enough. I wonder if they will offer versions with larger capacity. If you could rent extra memory cards, that would be a bonus. I don't want to have to carry around 10 cameras with me... with mine I had a nice large memory card so I didn't have to swap it the entire trip and the spare I brought was tiny and fit in my little camera bag easily. Fitting 10 cameras into a camera bag would be a bit more difficult, not to mention trying to take all of those on a ride with you. So maybe cameras with quite a bit more capacity for those of us who want to rent one and have it last several days worth of pictures.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
this is ugly.
I wrote a paper about how some of this stuff is impacting the environment not to long ago. I thought I had an idea, ends up the actual numbers are WAY higher than I ever would have thought.
http://robert.accettura.com/archives/000380.shtml
for anyone interested.
It was an Environmental Bio paper, for my gen ed lab requirement. I'm a Business MIS/Comp Sci student, so like all students in the class, you orient the paper towards your field.
They don't. The shops which sell these things pay more than $20 for them. They can "sell" them at $20 because people have to return them to get their photos. Once they have the camera back, they can repackage and resell it again for $20. And again. And again. Until it gets too scratched up, dirty, or gross to sell any more.
There hasn't been some magical advance in technology to make these things so cheap. They aren't. It's just that there's a big incentive to return the camera (i.e., you can't get your photos if you don't).
Do you really think the camera shop just tosses a perfectly good, reusable digital camera in the trash after a single use?!
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.
Whitesheet on LCD:
L CD /AU%20Optronics/A015AN02V1.pdf
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/%7Edisplaze/PDF/
looks like it should be very easy to use for other projects.
Your mammas flamebait.
how do you think film "disposable" cameras work? If you RTFA, it already says the industry average of reuse for disposable cameras is 5-8 times. They dont just throw them away!
"illegal" indeed.
-
But you do have a point... If they compress like crazy they could get a large number of pics. That falls into the "you get what you pay for" category.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
"Pure Digital's San Francisco offices are typical pod-style workstations, with computers and posters everywhere. Large images of waterfalls, mountains and beaches adorn the walls -- all snapped by a Pure Digital camera, which has the equivalent of a 2-megapixel sensor. A megapixel is a measurement of a camera's resolution."
What does "the equivalent of a 2-megapixel sensor" mean? Is it not 2 MP?
The article didn't mention anything about batteries; usually a big concern with digital cameras. Does the end user have to supply them? Are they built into the camera? What happens if they run out before your one-time use is done?
I agree with you, to a point...I would never be happy with a 1.2 megapixel camera. I like to be able to crop after I shoot pictures, and I like to blow up the occasional good one. On the other hand, for people who are just going to be printing snapshots to stuff in a shoebox or tack up on a bulletin board or something, high resolution just isn't all that important. For that matter, some people may only want to put the pictures on the web--in which case they'll probably downsample them further anyway.
There is also the issues of privacy when the pictures are of any, uh, salacious nature. How do you know your pictures won't end up where you don't intend?
This is an issue? People will drop off 35mm film at Wal-Mart that has their homemade porn on it. There always was the analog hole (*ahem*). Very few people bother to develop their own colour film, now or ever. Those same people will not worry about using their disposable digital to share their intimate moments with the clerks at the grocery store. Everybody else who wants to take their own naughty pictures will use Polaroid or buy their own digital camera. Home porn is probably not the target market for this technology....
~Idarubicin
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~displaze/PDF/LCD/A U%20Optronics/A015AN02V1.pdf
(to parent: you have a space after LCD in your original link)
Who said Freedom was Fair?
For 4"x6" prints with archival properties, it's still cheaper to go to the store and get your digital images printed on a mini-lab than to use an inkjet with archival paper and inks.
Even if it weren't cheaper, it's more certain:
Color silver halide prints have decades of history and you can "believe" it when the printer says "will last 80 years under proper storage conditions."
With ink-jet archival materials, the manufacturers have to use accellerated aging to test their materials with. That's good, but not as good as real-life data.
Now, when they get something with the archival properties of silver-halide prints affordable for home or photo-intensive small business users, that will be a Very Good Thing.
Oh, and with many ink-jet glossy prints, you dare not get them wet.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
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.
These cameras are reusable. Sure, there may be some waste during manufacturing, but the fact that the exact same materials can be used for hundreds of photos makes up for it.
Film, on the other hand, uses equally nasty chemicals and byproducts, if not worse, and is a 1-shot deal. You can't "delete" a film photo and take it again - its commited to the silver halide crystals, like it or not. And the stuff they use to turn that film into prints is much, much worse than the ink in a digital printer.
Get your priorities straight, bud. This is good for the environment.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Well one use (I could sell these by the dozen in the UK) is for nightclubs... you want the convenience of digital (instant review, quick uploading the morning after) but don't want to have hundreds of quids worth of equipment lost, stolen, trampled or dropped in a beer!
Actually most labs don't throw away disposable film cameras either. They are designed to be easily opened with out damage and get sold back to remanufacturers for about $0.25 each. Same thing on the waste from most of the photo processing. The developer and rise chemicals are degradable organic chemicals, and the fix, which has all the heavy metals in it cannot be dumped legally and is full of silver so it is processed and the metals are extracted.
In the end conventional film cameras and processing are friendly on the environment than electronics manufacturing for a digital camera. Admitted there are processes out there that aren't, but not too many people out there shoot Kodachome or use pyro developer any more.
Granted, this is a discussion of the *new* Dakota cam with LCD, but I'm surprised the newest hacks of the old one haven't been mentioned:
(All of these can be found on Rodrigo Balerdi's page)
1) Run your own code on the camera
A code loader has been written that allows you to nondestructively load your own executable code into the camera's 8MB (slightly less of it usable by you) DRAM. A small demo program from his site demonstrates the concept by blinking out a pattern on the 'Ready' LED, but programs of arbitrary complexity could be written...subject to the limitation that you can't access/execute any of the onboard firmware in this mode. (Bracing for the inevitable Beowulf-cluster comments...)
2) Bye-bye 25-picture limitation
Another clever hack lets you reset the 25-picture limit to an arbitrarily high number. This allows you to take pictures until the camera's FLASH memory actually fills up completely (under "real-world" outdoor picture-taking conditions, I've found this to be about 50 shots, but it will vary with how compressible your images are).
3) Firmware updater and miscellaneous updates/bugfixes
Balerdi's patchfile for an existing Dakota firmware corrects several nits/bugs with the original. It makes the number-of-pictures display count upward from 0 instead of downward from 25 (very useful in conjunction with the previous hack), ensures picture numbering starts from 1 everytime the camera is cleared and always remains consistent (even if you delete shots), and fixes a bug in the original firmware that could result in 2 pictures having an identical number/filename (making one impossible to download).
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Here I am refusing plastic bags in stores, refusing to buy milk in plastic bottles, minimizing air conditioner use, hating myself for using a gas-powered outboard motor, trying to be nice to the environment in every way I can, and here we have businesses mass-producing disposable digital cameras.
I thought everyone already knew that disposable stuff is baaaaad.
Simpy