Attendees Praise I3A's Imaging Innovation '08 Conference, Full of "Firsts"

Business Wire,  June 18, 2008  

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Kodak's Ken Parulski Receives I3A Annual Achievement Award

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- A stellar gathering of leaders from across in the imaging industry assembled in Vancouver, Canada for the 62nd Annual Conference of the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A; http://www.i3a.org), the leading global association for the imaging industry.

The interactive, technology-focused conference, Imaging Innovation '08, took place June 4-6, and attendees were privileged to witness a number of industry "firsts:"

* A live consumer panel on camera phones - described as "a focus group without the two-way mirror"

* Mobile Imaging Moneymakers panel -- the first time a panel has assembled to discuss and contrast three usage models of visual search: two-dimensional barcodes, watermarking and object recognition

* The first public demonstration of Tessera's wafer-level camera

* First look at Light Blue Optics' holographic technology, prior to its launch

Participants praised all aspects of the conference organization, offering comments such as:

"Unique blend of technology, science and business with incorporation of dialog with actual consumers and a leading professional photographer;"

"Good speakers and great consumer panel;"

"Three days of informative sessions and essential networking for imaging companies;"

"Nice size. Excellent opportunities for interaction;"

"Good learning experience, especially on mobile imaging."

Cutting-edge presentations and panel discussions offered attendees new insights, such as:

* The Digital Imaging Market: At a Crossroads Ed Lee of InfoTrends outlined three possible paths forward for the industry, with opportunities in all:

1. Straight ahead - continue exploiting ongoing opportunities in the traditional photo imaging markets

2. Move down the path to the "connected experience" driven by user content - exploring opportunities in an ecosystem composed of "anytime, anywhere" use of any device, any image from any location.

3. Move down the path to completely new innovative applications and uses

* Live Camera Phone Consumer Panel Consumers offered their insights and opinions on a range of camera phone usage questions. They universally felt that camera phone images are poor quality: "dark, blurry and three seconds too late," while pictures taken at night were cited as being especially poor quality. Offering some hope for handset manufacturers and confirming that I3A is moving in the right direction with its Camera Phone Image Quality Initiative, panelists said they would pay more for a camera phone with functions that produced better pictures (like zoom lenses), but they still felt they needed a regular digital camera for "memory" event picture-taking. The consumers also confirmed that ease of use is a priority. Almost all of them thought that the cameras in their phones are too difficult to activate and use, too hard to get pictures off. Transfer time is not as important as ease of use.

* Regional Photography Trends from the Consumer Perspective Christopher Chute of IDC Camera estimated that annual camera phone shipments will reach more than 1 billion by 2010. He stated that the focus is on Europe, where there are now the most advanced networks: Japan is no longer the market prognosticator. A prevalent device trend is that camera phones are becoming rich media devices, not just still cameras, and video use is rapidly increasing.

The complete program, with many presentations available for download, is available from www.i3a.org.

Attendees also applauded the recipients of the 2008 I3A Achievement and Safety Awards.

I3A Achievement Award

The 2008 I3A Achievement Award was given to Ken Parulski, Research Fellow in the Chief Technology Office of the Eastman Kodak Company, a longtime leader in imaging standards development with I3A and the international standards community. This annual Achievement Award is given to an individual who has been nominated by others in the I3A community and selected by a committee of judges. It was created to recognize, encourage and celebrate that person's contributions to the advancement of the imaging industry through participation in I3A.

"Ken Parulski's accomplishments in the development of digital photography are clearly outstanding," said I3A President Lisa Walker. "His standards involvement and activism over the past 30 years resulted in development of some of the critical ecosystem components that helped to lay the foundation for much of our industry today. I am so pleased to recognize Ken's achievements with this I3A award."

I3A Safety Awards

This year, I3A's Safety Excellence Award Program honored Agfa Corporation, Eastman Kodak Company, Foveon, Inc., Fujicolor Processing, FUJIFILM U.S.A., Inc., Nethra Imaging and Sony Electronics Inc.

"Best in Class" safety winners were Eastman Kodak Company, Fujicolor Processing, Konica Minolta Business Solutions, U.S.A. and Texas Instruments Incorporated.