Simantic

Kodak Back on Consumer Track

Simon 6th February 2007

I try not to post every bit of tech news I’m interested in here. But this one is important for both professionals and the everyday consumer. Just over two years since the Eastman Kodak Company ditched the production of film-based cameras, they’ve announced what the company calls a “revolutionary new product line.” Just when you thought that they’d lost consumers in the film market to Fuji and Ilford, the digital camera market to Canon, Nikon and now Sony, and the printer market to Epson, Canon and HP… well, they’re back. At least on the latter of the three markets.

The new product line consists of a new range of multi-function inkjet printers that contain new pigment-based inks that will not fade for 100 years, rather than the average time of consumer inks that is often 15 years. Despite what Gizmodo and others may have you believe, the ink is not so much revolutionary as evolutionary. In fact Epson’s pigment-based UltraChrome K3 uses a similar technology that they claim lasts up to 200 years in black and white and 108 years in colour. However, it should be noted that this is the first time that such pigment-based ink will appear in low-end consumer models as opposed to ‘prosumer’ and professional medium and large format printers. The big news is that Kodak’s inks are extremely cheap and will save you — what they claim to be — up to 50% on printing costs. This should give the others a run for their money.

While I’m at it I might as well just mention Intel’s new 45-nanometre technology used to make the next generation of microprocessors. The info on the chips, which was announced the other week, can be viewed on the Intel site. Also, Robert Scoble has done some really interesting interviews with a couple of the Intel nerds here and here. Apparently some company released an operating system last week and some other company will release one soon. It’s going to be a big year in geeksville.

Entry Filed under: tech