Dejikame (digital camera) has annihilated quite a few jobs in the photo business. First to go were thousands of mom-and-pop camera shops that used to be a staple in the Japanese townscape. Suddenly, people stopped buying film cameras. Dejikame era has come decisively.

Another mom-and-pop camera shop went belly up and closed its shutters for the last time.

Most of the mom-and-pop shops could not adapt themselves to this paradigm shift. Anyway, customers went to large electronic gadget stores, ignoring these sad relics of 20th century. Next to go was, of course, film-related business. Films vanished from left to right, even from busy tourist traps. DPE depots, too, gradually vanished. Once the darling of commerce, those disposable cameras have gone into oblivion.

And finally, camera industry has stopped reporting the production/sales statistics of silver-halide cameras altogether. The last nail has been driven into the coffin.

Now, I guess you have several functioning dejikames among your family members. Counting the tiny ones on mobile phones, more than 10, I bet. But, how many of those bulky family photo albums to store the constant flow of pictures shot by these digital cameras? None? Sure, that might be the trend.

Thick and heavy photo albums have gone, too. Lucky house guests. They won't be bored to death anymore. Family albums and videos of your last vacation used to kill scores of captive audience, statistics say. No albums, because people hardly print pictures anymore. Instead, all images are securely (or flimsily?) stored in PCs, memory cards, optical disks and the likes.

And when you want to see the digital pictures actually, more and more digital photo frames are ready for you. Photo frames grow constantly larger, cleverer and cheaper, as most of the digital gadgets go. Some of them have acquired even wireless communication.

Sony Canvas Online CP-1 digital photo frame. Almost a full-fledged LINUX computer.

Sony has released the newest series of photo frames, Canvas Online CP-1 (VGF-CP1). VGF-CP1's frame hardware part does not show any peaky performance. 7-inch TFT panel of 800 x 400 dot resolution. With its built-in photo sensor, it goes into standby sleep mode when the room light is turned off.

Displayable formats are all too standard: JPEG, BMP, PMG and GIF. Music: MP3 and WAV, yes, two speakers, too. All kinds of memory cards accepted.

Interface: USB to Windows PCs (Apple not guaranteed). Infrared remote control unit.

Well, all in all, VGF-CP1 is another very mediocre digital photo frame... but wait a minute.

Its IEEE 802.11b/g wireless capability changes the game. Now, VGF-CP1 can reach the stars through the access point. Digital images stored on a PC within your local network can be shown instantly.

A screen of VGF-CP1. Time display on top and a line from RSS weather forcast at bottom.

Of course, you can go out onto the Net; direct access to Internet photo-sharing sites (Google Picassa et al.) is easy as ABC. No need to go through a PC. VGF-CP1 has its own OS (Timesys Linux 2.6.19), CPU (i.MX31; ARM11 400MHz) and 512MB of memory (user area, 100MB); it's a full-fledged Internet terminal!

Built-in Web browser, Opera, included. RSS reader capability, too. Controlling them by limited buttons on remote control unit would be a bit awkward, though.

Price tag will be around 30,000 yen (US$295). Can you see the future problem of this genre of products? Because Internet computers are getting cheaper everyday, and soon it will be down to 30,000 yen level. Then who will buy the dedicated digital photo frame like this VGF-CP1. Identity crisis, that would be the problem.

 

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kaisei1
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