While writing the previous story about Kodak I saw that a January 8, 2004 press release says the company in February will introduce its new photo printing kiosks that can accept camera phone photos transferred via infrared, Bluetooth or from a memory card.
The Printer Maker kiosks themselves are no surprise. In November 2003 I wrote about the kiosks, and Kodak's partnerships with Nokia and Cingular Wireless. In that article I wrote that Kodak would offer photo printing speeds of five seconds.
Kodak's press release confirms the five-second speed and notes that, "Kodak Picture Maker kiosks now feature two thermal printers to offer five second prints in 4x6-inch and 5x7-inch formats for increased ease of use and convenience with prints five times faster than current print options."
Capitalizing on ease of use
Kodak says most camera phone photos aren't printed and it hopes to capitalize on the easy of use of its kiosks. Kodak has 24,000 kiosks around the country and is replacing them in stages with the advanced wireless capabilities.
When I wrote about the kiosks in November, I said Kodak, the handset vendors and cellular operators will have a tough road ahead of them to educate consumers about using infrared or Bluetooth. Very few subscribers in the U.S. use their cellular phone's infrared or Bluetooth capabilities -- assuming these capablities are even included -- for anything.
In addition, infrared and Bluetooth can be very tough to get to work. Since Nokia is involved, I assume special attention will be paid to ensure that specific Nokia phones work well with the kiosks. Even if I'm correct, what about the other manufacturer's phones? Is Kodak working with Motorola, Samsung, Sanyo, LG, Sony Ericsson and all the other camera phone vendors to ensure their handsets work well with the kiosks?
One megapixel stimulus?
When one megapixel camera phones are available in the U.S. this year, cellular operators might begin promoting the use of kiosks as a way to print photos. I'm still not sure whether the operators will allow subscribers to transmit one megapixiel files -- three times the size of today's VGA photos -- over their networks.
If large photo files are allowed over the network, I assume subscribers will pay a hefty premium, unless some cellular operators want to stimulate sales of one megapixel handsets and offer low prices for wireless transfers.
One megapixel camera phones might stimulate use of kiosks for another reason: Superior image quality. VGA photos typically look poor when printed in any size smaller than a postage stamp, although you can sometimes "get away" with 4" x 6" -- if you're not fussy. A one megapixel photo printed in a 4" x 6" snapshot could look good.
In any case, printing kiosks might get a shot in the arm when one megapixel camera phones are available in the U.S.
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