Today at the Bluetooth SIG press event in New York City, Polaroid previewed a pint-sized, inkless portable printer dubbed the PoGo, that can turn your digital camera into a modern equivalent of the old Polaroid Instant.
NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - Remember those old Polaroid instant cameras from the latter half of the 20th century? (Would you believe they still make them?) Today at a Bluetooth SIG press event, Polaroid showed off its PoGo portable printer, which uses a Bluetooth link from a cell phone's camera to make your handset into a modern SX-70 equivalent.
In a demo for BetaNews at the event, Andy Mitchelides, senior marketing associate, showed how a photo file can be sent to the printer wirelessly from a cell phone for printout on business card-sized pieces of paper less than a minute later -- all without the hassle of either film or printer cartridges.
Mitchelides told BetaNews that, to avoid the need for ink cartridges, the PoGo uses ZINK (Zero Ink) technology from a company called ZINK Imaging.
Polaroid, long the king of film-based instant cameras, used a focus group to help choose the name PoGo for its first entry into the new realm of digital instant photography.
The Bluetooth 2.0-enabled PoGo will become available July 6 for $199, exclusively in Best Buy stores. The accompanying paper, also to be sold at Best Buy, will be priced at around $3.99 for ten 2- by- 3-inch-sheets.
"That's only about 30 or 40 cents per sheet -- a lot less than for larger printouts. And you can literally carry this printer in your pocket," BetaNews was told.
The paper will be equipped with a sticky backing. So if you want to display the resulting photo on your laptop or lapel, for instance, you can.
