Eye-Fi eyes up the European market

At the end of 2009, Eye-Fi, the makers of wireless SD cards that let digital camera owners wirelessly upload photos and videos to a computer or the Internet, entered the UK and French markets. Eye-Fi offers 4 versions of their SD card. The Share Video (4GB) and Pro (4GB) cards enable direct uploading to the web from the camera, while the Geo (2GB) and Home Video (4GB) cards enable wireless uploading to a computer (both PC and Mac are supported), but not directly to the Internet. The Eye-Fi cards retail from €49 for the entry-level Geo card to €129 for the pro card. Eye-Fi cards are currently available from a small number of retailers in France and the UK.

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Facebook Keeps More Pixels

Facebook recently increased the maximum size of photos uploaded to its site from 604 pixels to 720 pixels (longest dimension). The phased rollout was completed for all users in early March. While many observers see this as a nearly 20% increase in size, the actual increase is just over 42% for most images, as most users will not be increasing just one dimension of their photos. Read more »

3D TV Battle Heats Up – What’s the implications for digital photography?

In March, Samsung and Panasonic announced the launch of their first 3D-capable TVs. Coming from Samsung are 46-inch and 55-inch models of the LED C7000 HDTV, priced at $2,600 and $3,300 MSRP, respectively. Panasonic is marketing a Full HD 3D Home Theatre System, through Best Buys’ Magnolia Home Theaters. The combined system will cost $2,900 and consists of a 50-inch plasma 3D HDTV ($2,500 MSRP), one pair of 3D active shutter lens eyewear (Additional pairs will cost $150) and a 3D Blu-ray Disc player ($400 MSRP). More introductions are expected from Samsung and Panasonic later this year. Others like Sony and LG will also follow early this summer.

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Candy Bars and Books on Demand

Recently I wrote about the Xerox/On Demand Books announcement (Xerox and On Demand Books Collaborate on Espresso Book Machine) and it has gotten me thinking about the purpose of a book-on-demand machine, or what is also sometimes called a book kiosk. What types of books are best suited for a book kiosk? If the kiosk is in a book store, it generally wouldn’t need to be used for anything that could be found in the store, unless the store had run out of a mass-produced book and the book kiosk could create a suitable facsimile in a timely and economic fashion. The fit would be much better if the desired title were obscure (like an out-of-print book), targeted (like a university course pack), niche-oriented (too quirky to be stocked on shelves), customized (perhaps drawn from a reservoir of copyrighted content), personalized (maybe using a combination of personal and professional content), or self-published. The more likely that it couldn’t be found in the store, the better. But why does the book kiosk even have to be in a bookstore? What about airports, convention centers, hotels, resorts, theaters, retail stores, or cruise ships?

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Timely results and HP SmartStream Designer

Today HP announced the commercial availability of HP SmartStream Director 4.0. In the release HP notes that SmartStream Designer allows wide format printing organizations to offer faster turnaround and address the need for shorter runs and variable data. There has been an increasing focus on these tools for wide format among all kinds of printing organizations, but especially as more commercial printers invest in wide format digital printing systems. As it happens InfoTrends just got data back from our World Wide Survey III, a joint InfoTrends/FESPA study (look for results to be published next week). In it, 81% of the survey respondents, who are wide format print companies, reported they are seeing an increase in demand for shorter turnaround times. 67% reported an increase in demand for shorter runs. 52% have seen an increase in demand for more versioning and personalization.

We’ve been showing data like this for quite a while, with trends indicating a need for digital wide format systems to address variable data printing. Many of the 3^rd-party wide format RIP solutions offer options and modules that enable variable data printing as well. We’ve been suggesting that important wide format product developments in 2010 would be aimed at easing the integration of wide format systems into the production environment. The launch of SmartStream Designer 4.0 for wide format certainly fits the description.

Google – A Nice Place For a Picnik

Yesterday, Google announced its acquisition of Picnik, the online photo editor. Established in 2005, Picnik is a powerful Flash-based in-browser editing suite for photos that are already online, with tools well beyond the standard zoom/crop and rotate functions offered by most online photo services. Read more »

Minimum Acceptance Level Océ Not Reached – What Will Canon Do Next?

Canon announced today that 71% of Océ’s shares have been tendered to Canon, which is below the 85% that Canon required to go ahead with the deal. Now that ‘only’ 71% has been tendered or acquired by Canon, the company needs to make a decision about what to do next. They have the following options:

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No Heidelberg at Graph Expo 2010

WhatTheyThink reported last week that neither Heidelberg nor Komori would exhibit at Graph Expo this year. This news represents the culmination of a trend that has been brewing over the past ten years at the Graph Expo and Print shows. Since 2004, InfoTrends has compared the Graph Expo show floor maps to provide an indication of market changes. These rankings are compiled by measuring the published show floor map. Initially InfoTrends began conducting this exercise to show the impact of the digital vendors on a trade show that had been dominated by traditional printing press vendors. This point has long since been made. For all practical purposes, as one looks at the list of top vendors, Graph Expo has become dominated by digital exhibitors.

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Getting Compact

I was reminded recently of a good example of innovative design. I had seen GBC’s eBinder at ON DEMAND 2009 in the Xerox booth where it was shown in-line with a Xerox Nuvera, but the full impact of the design took a while to sink in. As is often the case, a picture can tell the story better than a wordy description. The eBinder uses a single flat plastic consumable (see below) to form an elliptical lay-flat, wrap-around  binding that can support document page counts ranging from 2 to 100 sheets.

eBinder Ellipse consumable (top) and GBC ProClick consumable (bottom)

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The iPad: a Photo Enthusiast’s View