COLOGNE, Germany, September 24, 2002 – Eastman Kodak Company today announced it is test-marketing a wireless mobile imaging service that will, in essence, create a mobile photo album for consumers.
Innovative mobile imaging technology demonstrated at Photokina will expand the benefits of the Kodak Picture Center Online service by adding a new and exciting dimension in advanced picture services. Now, consumers will be able to download images from their digital photo album to their cell phones using Kodak Picture Center Online.
"The Kodak Picture Center Online Photo Album serves as a personal image database, from which the user can forward and transmit pictures via e-mail, PDA or also – and this is the biggest news – from personal cell phones," says Dieter Werkhausen, General Manager, Consumer Digital Services, Consumer Imaging, Eastman Kodak SA, Geneva.
The downloaded image files can be forwarded to compatible cell phones, which have been upgraded to include this service. This new exciting service is not only available for users of digital cameras, but also for owners of conventional cameras using silver halide film. Dealers offering the Kodak Picture Center Online service can offer to scan photographic negatives, create digital files and upload images into the Kodak Picture Center Online Photo Album.
By incorporating the cell phone, the Online Photo Album service makes digital imaging easier by offering consumers more choices for sharing in ways that fit into their everyday lives. At the same time, through Kodak Picture Center Online, film users get additional benefits from film and the same benefits of e-mailing pictures and sharing images via cell phones.
Most cell phone owners in Europe already use text messaging with friends, relatives and business partners via the cell phone network (SMS). Now, Multi Media Messaging Service (MMS) will introduce an expanded menu of services that includes: video clips, animated stills, sound and photographs that can be transmitted through the cell phone. Industry experts predict it is only a matter of time and equipment availability until this becomes as popular and widespread as text messaging.
In a pilot installation at Photokina, Kodak will demonstrate how this MMS Service is designed to work. The live demonstration will show how to download digital images from the Kodak Picture Center Online Photo Album to a personal cell phone, as well as how to view and forward images to additional cell phones.
In Germany, the Saturn Chain of Electronic Shops will run the beta test installation for this new mobile photo album service. Starting early September, consumers can upload their digital images from their home PC, via the Saturn homepage, to their integrated Kodak Picture Center Online Photo Album.
Owners of an MMS-enabled cell phone of the latest generation with an integrated digital camera can send their snapshots either directly from cell phone to cell phone or can forward the created image file via e-mail to the Kodak Picture Center Online Photo Album. From there, the user can access and retrieve the picture any time, forwarding it again to another enabled and compatible output device (PDA, cell phone). Consumers also can choose to send the image file as e-mail to another PC.
The digital pictures are stored on a server, which can be accessed any time by the consumer through the Internet, or through MMS- or WAP-enabled cell phones. To help retrieve pictures easily, individual filing systems can be created. The sharing option gives the owner of the personal Online Photo Album the choice to grant access to their Photo Album to a defined user group, or to all Web users.
Kodak software ensures an optimal and consistent quality rendering on the display screens of varying manufacturers supporting this service.
How It Works
First, the user registers via the homepage of the participating dealer. Next, users of digital cameras can upload their preferred pictures, via Internet, into their personal Photo Album on Kodak Picture Center Online. Here they can file, archive, organize and rearrange their digital images and, afterwards, recall and download the images via their MMS- or WAP-enabled cell phone.
Dealers participating in the Kodak Picture Center Online service also can offer this service to users of analogue cameras. It is very simple to add a digitization order when film is brought to the dealer for processing and printing. The negatives are scanned in high resolution and loaded into the consumer’s Kodak Picture Center Online Photo Album.
The Kodak Picture Center Online service also offers the option to order prints on photographic paper from the images filed in the consumer’s personal online Photo Album. The photofinishing lab then performs this service. Afterwards, the finished prints can be picked up in the photo store of the consumer’s choice, or the prints can be e-mailed and paid for with a credit card or bank order.
Kodak research conducted on consumer preferences shows that more than 85 percent of consumers prefer to pick up their print orders at their dealer’s store. The Kodak Picture Center Online service is being offered by a number of retail partner chains in Europe including Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. Among others, retailers participating in this Kodak programme in Germany include: 1hr Platz, Kloppenburg, Budnikowski, Saturn, Lerche and Metro 24. Throughout Europe, other retail chains offering this new service include: Dixons in the Netherlands and Spar and DM in Austria. Further alliances are being proposed in Spain, the UK and in the Nordic countries.
(Kodak is a trademark of Eastman Kodak Company.)