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From Camera to Web, Sans PC

Technology from DCN and FotoNation eliminates the PC in the digital photography process.

Lincoln Spector, special to PC World

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Digital camera owners know the routine: You take some pictures, transfer them to your PC, then upload them to the Web. Your PC acts like nothing more than a middleman.

Some companies bet you'd like to eliminate that middleman. Soon, you'll have the capability to upload images directly from a camera to a Web site, through separate product and technology announcements.

The advantages, if it works well, are obvious. There's simple convenience, of course. And consider a long, computer-free vacation--if you get low on memory card space, you can upload your pictures and start from scratch.

Digital Camera Network is counting on you wanting this new convenience. Its solution: Shoot-2-Print technology, which bypasses the PC in publishing photos on the Web. It's scheduled to be available this quarter.

Initially, Shoot-2-Print will work only with the Panasonic PV-DC2590 PalmCam, a digital camera released last August that already comes with a modem. Shoot-2-Print, a free service, will let you use that modem to upload your images to DCN's Web site. You'll also be able to order prints right then and there.

DCN representatives say the company is working with manufacturers of other cameras, but can't make any announcements at this time. The company is also planning a package, presumably some sort of modem, that will work with any digital camera.

Phasing Out the PC

Casio, FotoNation, and Zing.com are working together toward much the same goal, based on FotoNation's Click-Free technology. In the meantime, they're offering a solution that still requires a computer, although it makes the middleman status official.

With the current offering, you plug into your PC a Casio digital camera (either Casio's QB8000 or QB2000 cameras, or any future model) as you normally would. Then you upload the images directly to a cobranded Casio/Zing.com Web site.

The computer merely acts as an overpriced interface between the camera and the Internet. As with Shoot-2-Print, the Web site makes it easy to order prints.

Better things are planned for the future. FotoNation hopes to have its FotoCall camera modem available by the second half of this year. And Casio plans to eventually sell cameras with their own built-in modems.

It's quite likely that such modems and services will be a standard part of digital photography in the near future. Who knows? It may even be practical for non-PC users to take digital pictures.

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