More from the AOL Motley Fool board....looks like the Clik! drive is going to have competition in the digital camera arena.
Subject: Japanese translator needed.
Date: 4/10/99 8:46 AM Central Daylight Time
From: HRPlbg
Can anyone translate this web site?
watch.impress.co.jp
I think it talks about a new Sanyo digital camera that is capable of using the New IBM MicroDrive.
Photos on CD everywhere, part I: In the flurry of PMA news in mid-February, we missed the announcement that Wolf Camera plans to roll-out PictureVision's digital kiosks at 500 of their 750 stores nationwide. The kiosks will allow Wolf's 1-hour labs to also scan images to CD or upload them directly to PhotoNet. This item suggests that the conflicting standards between PictureVision and Kodak's Picture CD have been resolved, as it says the kiosks will write Picture CDs. This sounds like great news for photographers wanting to dip their toe into digital, without taking the plunge of buying their own scanner. No mention was made of pricing, but past information suggests that you'll be able to get a roll of film digitized to 4.5 megabyte JPEG files for between $9.95 and $15. - This is ample resolution to make good-looking 8x10 prints. Photos on CD everywhere, part II: In related news, we've independently learned that Kodak's market tests of Picture CD were a roaring success, and they're immediately making the service available nationwide. Expect a delay of a month or two though before you see advertising for it appearing, as they need to ramp-up their production capabilities before widely advertising it. Once they do, expect many of your corner drugstores to sport a "Picture CD" option on their processing envelope.
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Hard drives race against Flash ROM: Calluna has announced a volume manufacturing partner for their 260 Megabyte Type II hard drive cards. (These cards are only 5mm thick, thin enough to fit into most PCMCIA card slots.) No pricing was mentioned, but this has to be good news for professional digicam users, as it will advance the competition between the flash-memory and hard-disk technologies for high-capacity image storage, ultimately driving prices
lower.
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- SanDisk supplies 32MB MultiMedia Cards to LG! A press release from SanDisk Corp today notes that Korean electronics giant LG Electronics has agreed to bundle SanDisk's 32MB MultiMedia cards with LG's new Portable MP3 Audio Players. Whilst not really digital imaging related, this story is interesting nonetheless, as it is not only the digital imaging market which will decide which Flash format(s) will eventually triumph. The MP3 players feature two MultiMedia card slots capable of accepting 64MB in total, which would provide up to 60 minutes of near CD-quality audio. According to LG, SanDisk were selected for their technology achievements and ability to deliver high capacity in a small form factor...
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The above comes from a few digital camera sites I visited this morning. I was surprised at the lack of any mention of Clik!. It makes me wonder how well Clik! is being received by the digital camera market.
Subject: Re: Japanese translator needed.
Date: 4/10/99 10:28 PM Central Daylight Time
From: Shig2
HRPlbg wrote:
Can anyone translate this web site?
watch.impress.co.jp
I think it talks about a new Sanyo digital camera that is capable of using the New IBM MicroDrive.
Yes, it is a Sanyo digital camera that uses IBM MicroDrive. It was shown at CeBit show. They expect the product to be available around 9/99 in Europe at 1,500 mark or a little more than 100,000 yen (or a little more than $800). It's likely to be available in Japan about 1 month afterwards.
Shig
Subject: Re: Japanese translator needed.
Date: 4/11/99 12:10 AM Central Daylight Time
From: DickM71179
From DickM,
HRPlbg posts an excellent summary of some new digital developments and also:
The above comes from a few digital camera sites I visited this morning. I was surprised at the lack of any mention of Clik!. It makes me wonder how well Clik! is being received by the digital camera market.
I believe that Clik! is running out of time, as competition like the IBM micro drive are firming-up agreements. Clik! finally made it into CompUSA locally, a lonely drive with no marketing support sat in the "parts" department in a glass case near the digital cameras. I don't think that the sales people even know how it would be used. (I would have asked, but they were busy selling or demonstrating cameras, never once mentioning Clik!, at least while I listened).
One interesting sidelight at CompUSA was the brand new Kodak APS film scanner ($399, I believe) that digitizes the new film cassettes at very high resolution, I think it was 4.5 MB per picture. Hook this to a Zip or a Jaz drive, and you have a very high quality digital "album" of a conventional film, quite a twist from Kodak!
Back to the marketing issue (or lack thereof) for Clik! By comparison, the same day I watched a young female clerk at Best Buy demo a Sony Mavica for a couple. She had them take a series of pictures there in the store. Then she took the floppy "film" disk over to the computer section, where one demo computer had the editing software installed. She then showed the couple what some of the things were that could be done with a digital "album" (I think that they were sold, and about to buy one of the topline Mavicas, as a result).
Clik!s are hard enough for this very interested board to figure out, as far as the operating methodology is concerned. How is the average potential digital camera purchaser supposed to find out? Osmosis?
Not too far from the cameras at Best Buy was a nice new display of Diamond Rio MP3 players. I'd have to say that they too suffer a bit from the functional ignorance of potential buyers, except in Japan. (I don't think that many over the age of 14 know how to use them by downloading from the Internet). Another great opportunity for both Rio and Clik! (or a Clik!'d Rio). How about a demo of downloading right in the store? (may never happen, as the downloaded music is "free", which isn't exactly good news for hot media stores like Best Buy)
In any case, time is running out for Clik!, IMHO. IOM better get moving!
DickM
Subject: Re: Japanese translator needed.
Date: 4/11/99 1:38 AM Central Daylight Time
From: DW20001
re:In any case, time is running out for Clik!, IMHO. IOM better get moving!
I want to think that those incorporating Clik! or for that matter any other innovative device wouldn't broadcast the event to competitors.
(That is unless you were Sony and wanted to skew the market's perception of your products).
IMO Clik! Still has time to make a major impact. I particularly like the miniaturization of segments of the industry and the opportunities that it affords. |
