One of my personal favorite consumer electronics genres has to be the rugged digital camera, when you're dragging yourself through mud, diving on a remote coral reef, what have you, this technology means you can cost effectively record your memories, totally awesome. What is slightly less awesome is that the current approach to the ruggedized cameras doesn't go far enough to make them life proof. The need to have access to the camera's battery and memory modules makes it necessary to rely on some type of ruggedized gasket to, hopefully, keep the elements at bay, a rather large point of potential failure. In the era of incredibly cheap memory and wireless data modules combined with the adoption of inductive charging for home electronics we have a solution for a stronger camera.
Instead of selling a camera to home consumers where they must supply the memory card, why not have the camera have the memory capacity embedded, general consumers can already buy flash memory at well under $1/GB of storage capacity electronics manufacturers can comfortably add a large memory system to a mid-level compact camera without harming the bottom line too much. Additionally when you look at developments to create smarter point and shoot platforms whereby photos can automatically be uploaded not only by WiFi but over cellular networks, it is surprising to see that integrated camera memory isn't exploited more.
The battery question is a little fuzzier depending on how a business wants to treat its target markets. From the perspective of creating a rugged compact camera, having a removable battery causes more problems than it solves. As mentioned earlier the ability to remove the battery pack requires an opening within the case of the camera that increases the likely-hood of moisture and dust coming into contact with more sensitive components. Instead of a removable battery design the camera to have a built in inductive charging module, with wireless charging there is no need for the case of the camera to have any openings. To allay consumer concerns about their inability to change batteries mid trip, product developers could compensate in a range of ways, making the camera as energy efficient as possible (this would minimize hardware costs over larger production runs), expanding the battery system to take advantage of the volume that would have been needed for housing a removable battery system, and finally (at least as far as I can think of) having some kind of solar/battery operated inductive charger unit sold separately (device manufacturers love this kind of thing anyways).
Instead of selling a camera to home consumers where they must supply the memory card, why not have the camera have the memory capacity embedded, general consumers can already buy flash memory at well under $1/GB of storage capacity electronics manufacturers can comfortably add a large memory system to a mid-level compact camera without harming the bottom line too much. Additionally when you look at developments to create smarter point and shoot platforms whereby photos can automatically be uploaded not only by WiFi but over cellular networks, it is surprising to see that integrated camera memory isn't exploited more.
The battery question is a little fuzzier depending on how a business wants to treat its target markets. From the perspective of creating a rugged compact camera, having a removable battery causes more problems than it solves. As mentioned earlier the ability to remove the battery pack requires an opening within the case of the camera that increases the likely-hood of moisture and dust coming into contact with more sensitive components. Instead of a removable battery design the camera to have a built in inductive charging module, with wireless charging there is no need for the case of the camera to have any openings. To allay consumer concerns about their inability to change batteries mid trip, product developers could compensate in a range of ways, making the camera as energy efficient as possible (this would minimize hardware costs over larger production runs), expanding the battery system to take advantage of the volume that would have been needed for housing a removable battery system, and finally (at least as far as I can think of) having some kind of solar/battery operated inductive charger unit sold separately (device manufacturers love this kind of thing anyways).
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