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A camera that snaps a GIF and ejects a cartridge that displays it

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Re: A camera that snaps a GIF and ejects a cartridge that displays it

#61

Post by Palomides »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #53

Hah, not exactly what most people think when you use the word 'print' but then again ... People have asked what is the impact of 'free' CPUs. Something Dave Rosenthal realized way back in the 90's was that the electronics for driving a display could be printed on the margins of the display and eliminate the need for a separate controller board. Having watched the evolution of displays and seeing Mary Lou Jepsen's wor…

a sheet for a polaroid costs maybe $2 now, some of them even include a chemical battery to power the camera. it seems very plausible to me that a printed display/controller could hit parity with that.

Re: A camera that snaps a GIF and ejects a cartridge that displays it

#62

Post by michrassena »

nathancahill wrote: post #12

Pretty neat. Crazy it uses an adhoc wifi network to communicate between the camera and the cartridge. Seems overkill for a battery powered device when they are already plugged in to each other physically.

It does seem like USB could handle the charging and data transfer with some kind of custom connection to make docking and undocking easy.

Re: A camera that snaps a GIF and ejects a cartridge that displays it

#66

Post by wongarsu »

dogma1138 wrote: post #39
nathancahill wrote: post #12

Pretty neat. Crazy it uses an adhoc wifi network to communicate between the camera and the cartridge. Seems overkill for a battery powered device when they are already plugged in to each other physically.

Overkill but much easier from a technical point of view considering what was used to make the cartridge.

My first thought would have been to connect the two PIs with a serial interface. Sure, that's another two pins to connect between camera and cartridge, but on the surface it still sounds easier than setting up a reliable ad-hock wifi. The fact that it would use magnitudes less energy is a bonus.

Of course it might be that OP evaluated that and decided against it for good reasons.

Re: A camera that snaps a GIF and ejects a cartridge that displays it

#67

Post by ctdonath »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #53

Hah, not exactly what most people think when you use the word 'print' but then again ... People have asked what is the impact of 'free' CPUs. Something Dave Rosenthal realized way back in the 90's was that the electronics for driving a display could be printed on the margins of the display and eliminate the need for a separate controller board. Having watched the evolution of displays and seeing Mary Lou Jepsen's wor…

I've long imagined something like that: a card-sized (including thickness) full-color display devoted to displaying, say, an entire movie. Given ultra-thin displays like OLED, dirt cheap storage, and "free" dedicated processing, you could hand out videos like sales brochures or cheap paperbacks.

Amazing how technology has advanced.

Re: A camera that snaps a GIF and ejects a cartridge that displays it

#69

Post by Cerium »

jgh wrote: post #44
mortenjorck wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume you mean "lenticular" - which would be a very cool (and possibly mass-producible) alternative. I wonder how you might go about performing the lamination inside the camera... Perhaps you could feed it a pre-laminated sheet that is thin enough that it can be printed on the reverse side?

The lenticular surface doesn't have to be very thick at all and if you can print directly onto the plastic I think what you describe would be pretty straightforward to make!

Could print on the lens sheet then put a white sticker on the back. The sticker would protect the print as well as provided white background.

Re: A camera that snaps a GIF and ejects a cartridge that displays it

#70

Post by michrassena »

I enjoyed seeing the design and build process. There's a long way to go to make a product out of this. I also wonder whether there are legal downsides to using the look and feel of the Polaroid "rainbow" nextstep (which was famously the source of the now-retired Instagram logo).

It would be very neat to have a credit card sized screen with a micro-controller and a bit flash doing the work rather than a full-sized computer.

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