Check out my Kodak blog

Kodak has entered into the new millenium with it's "1000 Nerds" tech blog site. Check it out here. I have been fortunate enough to get a couple blogs posted there. Here is the permalink to my intro blog and my blog on megapixels. Hopefully I'll get to post more and will link to them here. The Kodak blogs will necessarily be focussed on Kodak-related topics and technologies, but nevertheless I will endeavor to make them as relevant, topical, and interesting as possible. Enjoy.

Digital Picture Frames for Kodak

I had the pleasure of being interviewed for a new blog site dedicated to promoting the awareness, knowledge, and use of wireless digital picture frames. This site is being run by Frame Media, a group that is promoting widespread adoption of infrastructure and content that is targeted at eventual support of wireless picture frames and whatever they morph into.

I was interviewed as a Kodak employee, so my answers were in line with the Kodak perspective. Nevertheless, I think there was a lot of good stuff to say about both the industry and Kodak in this new area of endeavor.

You can read the interview yourself here.

You can check out Kodak's new frames here.

Ink Jet Printing will never be the same

Many of you saw Kodak's announcement on Feb 6 that they are entering (or re-entering, actually) the inkjet printer industry. This is actually at minimum the third time Kodak has entered the inkjet arena. The first time I can recall is when they bought Diconix, and the second time was when they partnered with Lexmark. This time they are in all the way. By that I mean they have devoted a lot of time and money to try to do it right, and they seem to be in it for the long haul.

You can check out the announcement here if you have not read about it yet. Very cool for Kodak to intro a new product this way, with a spoof of Saturday Night Live in New York City on a Tuesday morning. Antonio Perez can always get a job doing standup if he gets tired being Kodak's CEO.

So what is so new and cool about the Kodak inkjet printers? I'll skip the marketing hype and give you the lowdown. Basically here it is:

1. Separate "Text black" and "Photo Color" cartridges. That means a couple of things. First, text is treated differently than photos, which is the way it should be. Also, if you print mostly plain text, you won't be using up your precious photo inks. Text droplets are smaller, approx 2.7 picoliters in size, giving great sharpness to the edges of the text. Should produce excellent quality text documents.
2. Photo Color cartridge contains "photo black". As most color scientists know, printing black in photos is completely different than printing black in text documents. It has to do with how "black" is achieved in the presence of all the other colors. It's a combination of human perception and color mixing that I won't go into here. Suffice it to say that using a unique "photo black" colorant is the best way to achieve rich, dark blacks along with great colors. Should yield great dynamic range in color pictures.
3. Clear Protective Coat. There are a total of 5 colors: Text black, Photo black, Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. But there is one more ink: Clear. This is a fantastic addition. When used, this will coat the other inks with a protective clear sealant that will allow the final print to be nearly waterproof under normal usage. This will guard it against damage by humidity, water, and handling. It will also allow the final print to be stable and last much longer than conventional prints. What I am not sure about is when this ink is employed. All the time, or only some of the time? Not sure.
4. Pigmented inks. Pigmented inks are much more permanent than the more traditionally used types of inks. I don't pretend to be an expert in this area, but I know that much. Using pigmented inks allows the final print to last under normal viewing conditions much, much longer than other inkjet prints. Possibly as long as 100 years. Certainly long enough for most people to enjoy them for a lifetime. This has been attempted before with little success. Epson had a printer a few years ago that used pigmented inks, but the color rendition was never all that good. Apparently Kodak has solved that problem.
5. Low ink cost. Last but certainly not least, since Kodak has built all the ink jet head technology into the printer and NOT the ink cartridge (like some other folks), replacing the ink cartridge is a much cheaper affair. It also appears some other innovative things have been done to further reduce the price of the cartridges, since one of the main selling points of these printers is a 50% cheaper replacement ink cost. This will no doubt be a fantastic selling point.

There you have it. Great text. Super photos. Permanance. Low cost. Seems like Kodak has a winner. I'm already getting in line.

Some very neat details of why Kodak's printing technology is better and different than a lot of what else is out there can be found in a recent TechBlog posting.

If you just want to forget all that stuff and go buy a printer, you'll have to wait until March, then go either to the Kodak web site to buy direct, or run to your local Best Buy, which for now at least has an exclusive deal with Kodak to carry these printers.

Full Disclosure: In case you did not already know or guess, I am a Kodak employee :)