News

Kodak, Polaroid go digital for PMA

February 21, 2002

ORLANDO, Fla. - Updated digital photo kiosks and long-awaited projects will be unveiled at the 2002 Photo Marketing Association's (PMA) annual convention, which starts Feb. 24 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla.

Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE:EK), which has deployed roughly 35,000 digital photo kiosk stations internationally, will display its new Picture Maker Digital Station kiosk at the show. The station allows customers to print four-inch by six-inch pictures from a CD, floppy disk, or digital camera.

The system, which also allows users to write images to a Kodak picture CD, will be available starting this April. Kodak officials said the Picture Maker line should be fully redesigned and implemented by 2003.

Polaroid Corp. (NYSE: PRD), which last May disclosed plans to introduce a digital-printing technology called Opal in 2002 (See story: Polaroid's Opal and Onyx are its gems), will include Opal among its new products on display at the PMA show.

Opal, known formally as the Polaroid Instant Digital Photofinishing System, allows customers to print four-inch by six-inch photos from memory cards at the rate of almost one per second. Customers activate the service by placing their digital camera memory cards in the kiosk.

The PMA show runs through Feb. 27.