Kodak EasyShare One now available
posted September 28th 2005 6:00AM
The Kodak EasyShare One has hit the
streets in all of its 802.11b picture uploading, 3-inch swivel touchscreen, and 256MB internal storage glory. The
WiFi capable camera goes for a cool
$599 and comes with a free trial subscription to T-Mobile Hotspots. Kodak will set you up with a SDIO WiFi card for
$99, just in case you had some crazy ideas about actually using this thing wirelessly (it doesn't have that WiFi built
in, after all). Nothing you haven't heard before, just now you can finally buy the damned thing.
Update: The $599 does include the SDIO WiFi 802.11b card.
Update 2: Actually, upon closer inspection of their product pages, we have no freakin' idea if the WiFi is included or not as it seems Kodak has intentionally gone out of their way to obscure this important bit of information from people who want to buy the damn thing!
Update 3: No thanks to Kodak or vendors carrying this and their obtuse marketing language, but thanks to you lovely readers, we happily report that the camera ships with the card. Which, in the end, prompts us to wonder why the WiFi isn't just built-in in the first place…
[Via Designtechnica]
Are there any constraints on where photos can be uploaded to? Gotta be I guess... Downloading as well? Or is it really proprietary?
Yes the camera does have the card built in. There is not an extra charge for it.
thomas:
The card is most definitely not "built in". If you mean to say it will be included that is a different story. It will be included in the contents of the package according to all the retailers who will carry it. The wifi is a SDIO wifi 802.11b card which sits in the top SDIO slot. There is a standard SD slot in the battery compartment.
If you go to the specs page on the Kodak website you can see that the wi-fi card is labled under Addition Features.
http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=9/19/6433/6434&pq-locale=en_US
Additional Features
Wireless
SDIO WiFi 802.11b
"Additional Features" simply suggests that it is a feature that sits outside of their regular classification. Please note that "built-in lens barrier" is also an additional feature...
I think its not built in because that allows for faster wireless cards for the future, possibly. Nice to have the option, plus they can sell the same for cheaper if no one wats it wireless, or if it breaks.
Anyway as I posted before I definately, definately think that Microsoft and Kodak should do a deal - you know Virtual Earth from MS uses Wi-Fi to co-ordinate its location, simply attatch this info to the image and hey presto 'http://www.grazer.de/exif_mapper/' like functionality!
If you go to the products detail page on Kodak's site and click to view images of the camera you'll see that it says this in one of the images:
*Optional KODAK Wi-Fi Card required.
I'm with Kodak. The wi-fi card is in the box and included in the price. We'll clean up the confusing web info- thanks for identifying the issue.
The original announcement in January 2005 said $599 plus $99 Wi-Fi card. The press release yesterday said, "Kodak designed the EASYSHARE-ONE model (US$599 MSRP, including the KODAK WI-FI® Card)..." blah blah blah.
It's an SDIO card that's generic to several new Kodak Wi-Fi products, like printer bridges. It's included at no additional cost with the camera, but I believe this may have been a late competitive move.
The initial release of the SDIO card is 802.11b (which is typical for these cards--802.11g is next year) and WEP only for security. Which is ridiculous. So 2002. WPA and 802.1X are coming "later."
I just received mine today, and can confirm it does in fact come with the SDIO WiFi card. I had actually ordered an extra card because I talked with Kodaks online store people, and even they werent sure (at least two people I spoke with) it arrived today, and of course it came with one. So I am returning the extra card for a refund. It sounds like this happened quite a bit based on the response from the customer service person I spoke with today at Kodak. I posted a couple shots of the camera on my site: http://www.impossibilities.com/blog/ I'll be doing a presentation in two weeks at Macromedias MAX 2005 conference, my preso is geared at Macromedia Flash based UI's in consumer devices, etc. and this is one of the devices Ill be covering.
Rob