Hokey Smoke — they’re finally coming out with disposable digital cameras.
This year, digital cameras (digicams) will outsell conventional cameras, 12.8 million to 12.1 million, excluding disposable, one-time-use cameras. That’s a big exclusion because sales of disposable cameras will reach 214 million this year, up from 198 million in 2002.
This week marks the introduction of the first disposable, two-megapixel digicam by San Francisco-based Pure Digital Technologies, which will be sold under the Dakota Digital brand through Ritz Camera for $11.
While the Dakota sacrifices an LCD screen, which research says is the No. 1 reason people buy digicams, it’s clear that the fate of film is written on the wall. Kodak announced this week it would slash 6,000 jobs this year due to slow film sales.
Which is bad for my company, since we do engineering work for Kodak, but that’s another story.
I’m not sure how they’re going to make it truly “dispsable” — I mean, it has no consumables. I suppose you could limit it by battery life — but you need to be sure there’s enough battery to download the pix, right?
At any rate, an amazing indication of how time marches on. That digital photography could become disposable is astonishing to me.
(via BoingBoing)