March 2012

Smartphones increasingly taking the place of point-and-shoots
Bloomberg Businessweek reports that according to IHS digital camera shipments will be down 4.3% this year to 115 million units, the lowest since 2009, while smartphone shipments will be up 35% to 642 million units. What this means is that traditional camera makers will increasingly see the market for dedicated compact cameras diminish. The move away from low-margin, low-priced cameras to dSLRs and higher-end compacts is well underway, of course, but the higher end photography market will always be much smaller than that for quick point-and-shoots. -- Posted Friday, March 16, 2012 by chb

Android on digital cameras?
Engadget reports that Samsung is considering the use of Android in its digital cameras. The idea of using a standard OS and interface in digital cameras, of course, isn't new. A good decade ago a company called Flashpoint tried to convince camera makers to use its standardized Digita operating system. A few tried it (Kodak, Minolta, HP) but Digita failed because the last thing camera makers wanted was to all operate the same. So to this day, every camera works differently, and once you get used to a certain system you're pretty much locked in. So one OS for all cameras is a nice idea, but it would have to provide compelling advantages over all those cobbled-together interfaces we have now. -- Posted Wednesday, March 14, 2012 by chb

Edelman PR refuses review
Edelman PR refuses to let us review Adobe Lightroom. Talk about alienating the media. -- Posted Monday, March 12, 2012 by chb