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Hacking Canon Point-and-Shoot Cameras
Pig Hogger writes "If you're stuck with a cheap Canon point-and-shoot camera and have feature envy over the neighbor's sophisticated latest model, fret not! According to this LifeHacker article, the CHDK project allows nearly complete programmatic control of cheap Canon point-and-shoot cameras, enabling users to add features, up to and including games and BASIC scripting."
Canon hacking has hit mainstream, it seems... with extra visibility I'm sure the higher ups in the company will soon know about them (no doubt the engineers already knew about the project). I LOVE my Canon cameras, so, I really hope Canon doesn't pull an Apple or a Creative and start intentionally guarding against firmware hacks because then my future purchases will have to go elsewhere.
Sidenote: I had an old A80 camera that's maybe 6 years old stopped taking pictures. Turns out there was an old technical bulletin about it in their KB and that Canon was offering free repairs to any affected unit regardless of its age. I sent it in and they did what they promised AND the turnaround was around a week.
More Twoson than Cupertino
While games are a nice gimmick that gets the project attention, it looks like there are real features here. Me, after I lost my old Powershot I bought in 2004, I got a new Powershot A550. I was unhappy, however, to see that it had even less features than the old Powershot. Instead of trickling whizbang features down into cheaper cameras over time, Canon has been getting rid of them altogether. Now, one missing feature is hardware, the swivel viewfinder, and I can't do anything to remedy that. Similarly, I cannot use the camera as a webcam with a few hacks like I could the old one. However, this open firmware project will restore my precious RAW capabilities. It will also give me longer exposure times that I've long craved.