Disposable film cameras are marketable because customers need to purchase consumables (film) anyways. The cardboard camera body is really just "smart packaging". I fail to understand how the digital photography translates to this business model given that the only consumables involved are the batteries. Will the digicam become cheap enough to be merely a value-add to a battery purchase?

How soon will these be hacked -- such that I'll be able to buy myself an $11.00 2 megapixel camera, and load the photos onto my pc via USB, etc.? so that I can store more images on the cam? I can't... f**kin... wait.

How does this thing work? It's digital - do you supply your own Compact Flash card or do you take the pictures using the camera's internal memory and then take it to the store and pick up your digital prints? That would be my guess.

Then, do they sell/rent the camera again?

This is really short on details, and Ritz doesn't seem to have
them listed on the site yet.

I just bought one. You buy the camera for $10.99. You take 25 pictures. You bring the camera back to any "Big Print Central" camera store. They take your camera. They give you prints and a CD of the files.

After that, they expect you to buy a new camera. They refurbish your returned camera and resell it.

I shall keep anyone interested updated on my progress in, um, experimenting with the item.

I'll be we are only weeks away from a CueCat style hack that screws up their business model.

So you have to bring the camera back to get the pictures? Isn't that "renting", not "disposable"?

If you ask me, yes. I, however, don't intend to return this.

USA Today, has a little more info but nothing of real substance.

This is an idea that needs to go the way of DivX.

Hmm. I wonder if this is anything like the so-called kodak ones where they try to fudge the subject... it's really just a disposable film camera but they give you back you CD instead of prints and call it digital.

Deleon: Nope. Just bought one and took it apart. It has the same optics a normal disposable camera would have, but instead of film it has a sensor. It even has a USB controller onboard.

Farris - where did you buy it? I think I'll pick up a couple (or more) of these and wait for the "modifications" to come out...

The great thing about the disposable film camera is that you can take it places where you might not want to take a decent camera. If it gets dropped, or has beer spilt on it, or you get pissed and leave it behind, then OK, you don't get your photos, but it's no great loss, just a couple of quid. I know a lot of people who use them specifically for this reason.
I suppose the idea of the disposable digital camera is the same.

But while it would be more trouble than it's worth to try and reuse a disposable film camera, I would imagine it won't be long before people dig into the disposable digitals and bring out the USB interface connection then write software to get at the pictures, so they can reuse it.

Ok. It's not going to give you the picture quality of the latest Pentax, but for the price who'd complain?

Right, but NEW digital cameras are on the order of < 5x that price! Given that:

- why bother to retroengineer the cheep one
- why not just buy the "reusable" one?

How much do they charge to retrieve the pictures from the camera? Or does that come with your purchase price?

Bill: Only one Ritz(Wolf)Camera in Dallas had them. I think a total of 14 stores nationwide have them. My suggestion is to call a Ritz-Wolf in your area and ask them if they have them. If they don't ask which location might.

As an update: I'm currently sifting through data sheets on the controller. I'll post a URL later so you can all check/help out the progress.

Deleon: It's another 11 bucks to get one print of each shot, and a CD with jpgs.

This just in: supposedly you can buy these things at certain Walgreens stores as well.

The Wolf Camera on 183 here in Austin hadn't even heard of them yet and said "if they just came out, it will be a while before we get them in".

Bill: Try Walgreens?

If you've got time for a 6 hour roundtrip, and you REALLY want to get one of these things, cruise over to the WolfCamera at Coit and Beltline in Dallas. :)

I still can't find this at the Ritz Camera website. Anyone know
an online retailer?

Well, this isn't quite the same, but my brother just found this, http://bigdaysnapshots.com , which rents real digital cameras for big events. My brother is thinking about getting them for his wedding-- do you think that's a good idea?

I can't answer if it is a good idea. I wouldn't do it, I'd
prefer real film even if it is in disposable cameras. You can
still get CDs of the photos right quick if you want to.

Back on the 'disposable digicam' topic, I tried my local
Walgreens today but they didn't have any and didn't know about
them.