SanDisk: The New Film
Digital Photography is definitely an up and coming industry. There are more and more cameras available every day and the increasing role of digital photography in both business and personal lives is undeniable. I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner, however, the metaphor of memory to film is starting to translate from concept to product marketing and packaging.
SanDisk is slated to release a new line of digital memory products that will be sold in much the way the traditional Kodak, Fuji, etc. films were marketed.. and at a surprisingly similar price point. As CNET's News.com reports:
The Sunnyvale, Calif., memory card marker on Wednesday unveiled the Shoot and Store memory card, which it says will sell at stores such as supermarkets and drug stores for prices starting at about $15.
To date, many consumers buying new digital cameras have opted for single, higher capacity memory cards. But by offering inexpensive memory cards at the stores consumers frequent and where they might already shop for film or process pictures, SanDisk hopes it can inspire them to take large numbers of photos—-using Shoot and Store cards. Then, as the product's name suggests, the company would like to see people using the cards as digital negatives of sorts, to permanently store images instead of downloading them to a PC.
The company agues that more readily available, less expensive memory cards could also lead to more people using digital cameras.
I would tend to agree that digital photography will be more commonplace. I am not sure the role that exchangeable memory will play in that world as compared to more pervasive devices and open standards for inter-device memory usage.