Ritz Camera's recent promotion of the $10.99 Dakota Digital "Single-Use" digital still camera (SUDSC) highlights one attempt to capture print revenue from an increasingly digital world. Leveraging consumer familiarity with single-use film cameras-still almost 20 percent of all film developing-the SUDSC requires users to print their digital photos with Ritz for another $10.99 or more.

Hardware is turned in for reuse after 25 images are acquired, and a proprietary download interface with scrambled picture format keeps images locked to the photofinisher. In essence, lower electronics costs let a hardware leasing model emerge, where value tilts more toward the capture and consumables, not the camera.

The hardware platform is made in China by Pure Digital Technologies (San Francisco). Electronics are based on a 1.3-Mpixel imager from Micron Technologies' (Boise, Idaho) CMOS image sensor. Handling both image capture and A/D conversion, the Micron sensor is paired with a SunPlus (Hsinchu, Taiwan) ASIC-unpublished as to particulars but clearly handling all processing tasks related to imaging and memory management.

The camera relies on 128 kbytes of code store flash from SST Memory (Sunnyvale, Calif.), a 16-Mbyte NAND flash from Samsung (Seoul, Korea) for image storage, and 8 Mbytes of SDRAM from TM Technology (Hsinchu) for working memory.

The Pure Digital design includes a flash lamp for low-light shooting but lacks a color LCD for image review. Rather, a Holtek (Hsinchu) chip controls a simple monochrome status LCD and buzzer for keeping the interface simple and cheap. Power is supplied by two internal AA alkaline cells, probably adequate for more than one turn through the product's 25-picture life cycle.

Economics of the SUDSC are intriguing. With a $10.99 camera lease fee per use, about two or three hardware turns cover the cost of the camera bill of materials and refurbishments. The follow-on $10.99+ for print processing is almost certain to be the primary profit generator until many recycles per camera are achieved.

Early reviews of the Ritz offering highlight an image-quality gap compared with the single-use film competition, suggesting a need for further development. While rumors of a future Ritz 2-Mpixel/color-LCD SUDSC design point toward more capable SUDSC offerings, image quality and cost will ultimately have to win the day. Whatever the fate of SUDSC, it is intriguing how advancing technologies have enabled what would have been almost unimaginable just five years ago.

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