Hot Off the Wire – ‘The Impossible Project’ reinvents instant film; Watching TV while also using PC is up sharply; Global anti-piracy deal in the works?
In this product image provided by The Impossible Project, a package of the company's new instant film made for Polaroid SX-70 cameras is shown. The Impossible Project on Monday, March 22, 2010 announced that they had successfully reinvented instant film and will start selling packs this week. (AP Photo/The Impossible Project)
Related Blog Posts
- Hot Off the Wire –EBay CEO’s pay slides 55% to $10.1 million; PayPal to double Asian workforce; Google likely to prevail in EU suits
- Hot Off the Wire –Palm phone sales plunge 28%; Opera browser shipments soar; Taiwan firm to fight Apple phone suit
- Hot Off the Wire – Texan allegedly disables cars over Internet; Yahoo buys sports fantasy firm Citizen Sports; Viacom-YouTube secrets to be exposed in lawsuit
- Hot Off the Wire – Google phone now runs on AT&T network; Microsoft told to pay $106M in patent dispute; Bing gains market share
- Hot Off the Wire – Maryland firm BroadSoft files for IPO; Twitter preps China page; John Grisham’s Firm, other titles now e-books
On The Web
- The Impossible Project
- Nielsen report
- Local Tech Wire at Twitter - sign up today for latest news alerts
Site Search
Get the latest news alerts: Follow LTW at Twitter.
A roundup of the latest high-tech news from The Associated Press:
• Enthusiasts revive Polaroid film, plan to sell it
NEW YORK — A group of engineers and enthusiasts who leased an old Polaroid film factory in the Netherlands announced Monday that they had successfully reinvented instant film and will start selling packs this week.
The news gives new life to some old Polaroid cameras. The company, called The Impossible Project, will sell film for SX-70 cameras made in the '70s as well as more recent cameras that take 600-series film.
Each film pack will cost $21 and produce eight black-and-white images. The company plans to introduce color film this summer, and expects to make 1 million packs in the first year. The film will be sold online initially, but the company expects to make it available in some stores as well.
Polaroid stopped making instant film in 2008, but Fujifilm of Japan still makes it, and some of its packs fit in professional Polaroid cameras. Fuji doesn't make SX-70 or 600 film.
SX-70 film was prized by artists because it had a soft image-carrying layer that could be squeezed around while developing, distorting the image in entertaining ways. In addition, the cameras are icons of design: Tent-like when opened, they fold into a flat package.
The revival of instant film was dubbed The Impossible Project because of the complexity of the product, and because key materials used in Polaroid's formulation were no longer available, so the startup had to figure out a new way to make the film.
The original Polaroid Corp. filed for bankruptcy in 2001, followed by the successor company in 2008. Holding company PLR IP now controls the Polaroid brand name, licensing its use mainly to electronics companies. It is not involved in The Impossible Project and the new packs won't carry the Polaroid brand. However, PLR IP announced in January that new instant-film cameras would be launched this year that can use the packs.
Last year, a digital camera with the Polaroid brand launched with a built-in printer, producing small, sticky-backed photos reminiscent of the old film.
• Study: TV, computer use multitasking up sharply
NEW YORK — The amount of time people spend on the computer while watching TV is going up sharply.
The Nielsen Co. said Monday that people who multitask this way spent an average of three and a half hours doing so in December. That's up sharply from the two hours, 29 minutes that Nielsen reported only six months earlier. (For complete report, read here.)
The percentage of TV viewers who do this isn't going up that fast. That increased by 57 percent to 59 percent during the same period. But those who are doing it spend much more time at it.
Television executives have pointed to this trend to help explain why big events like the Oscars, Grammys and pro football playoffs have been doing so well in the ratings — people watching and making comments to their friends through social Web sites like Twitter and Facebook.
• EU to seek publication of anti-piracy deal
BRUSSELS — The European Union said Monday it wants the United States and others to publish a draft global anti-piracy deal to end rumors that it advocates cutting off Internet access for illegal downloaders.
European Internet service providers said last month that they were alarmed by leaked details of the secret talks that they feared could lead to criminal sanctions and "three strikes and you're out" cease-and-desist orders to cut off access for users who share copyrighted content.
They worry about legal changes that could make them liable when users break the law and warn that this would damage users' rights to privacy and freedom of expression and ultimately stifle innovation and competition in Europe's Internet industry.
EU trade official Luc Pierre Devigne told a European Commission public hearing that the EU would seek to get the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Japan and others to agree on publishing a draft text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement at April talks in New Zealand.
He said details of international talks are usually secret but that the EU was anxious to assure European users that it wasn't planning to strike a global deal that would force any changes to EU law.
"We want to have the negotiating document released so that rumors can be dispelled," he said. "Three strikes is no one's idea, no one has ever proposed that."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy had advocated a "three strikes and you're out" rule, under which Internet use would be tracked and users caught downloading would be warned twice before their Internet access would be cut off for a year. Britain is considering similar legislation.
Featured
E-mail Preferences
The Skinny
- Will RTP-based ChannelAdvisor go public? They're thinking
- What brands are winning Super Bowl hype? Two Durham firms to find out
- In Super Bowl of social media, Patriots win, Triangle firm says
- Big job cuts coming at IBM? Don't be surprised
- Erskine Bowles is among those who can cash in big time on Facebook IPO
- Ignore Facebook hype - Check out 'risk factors,' too
- Facebook vs. Google IPO: Which deal ranks better?
- Triangle StartUp Factory says business already booming
- Entrepreneurship remains at heart of Tech Wire mission
- Flashback: Tech Wire launched 10 years ago today