Sometimes an idea is crazy enough to might actually work-- like the Socialmatic, a concept for an Instagram-powered digital Polaroid camera from Antonio De Rosa.
For those of you not in the know, Instagram is a smartphone camera app for iPhones and Androids. It turns regular digital snaps into "artsy" vintage-style photos, with a number of filters emulating classic film cameras (chiefly Polaroid instant cameras).
The Socialmatic proposal looks fairly interesting-- it suggests the camera should have 2 main lenses (one for main capture, the other for 3D filters, webcam applications and QR code capturing), a touchscreen interface, 16GB of storage and wifi/Bluetooth connectivity.
An internal printer and a steel-banded 2D build (it looks like the lovechild of an iPhone 4 and Polaroid Land Camera) complete the concept.
Will something like the Socialmatic exist, some day? Facebook does own Instagram, buying the company last April for nearly $1 billion.... Not that De Rosa is waiting for a call from Mark Zuckerberg, starting an Indiegogo campaign in the hopes of funding the project.
A dedicated digital camera for the reason customers prefer buying smartphones as a dedicated camera replacement? We hope it will actually happen, someday.
