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January 5, 2005**, **Las Vegas* � Market analysts predict camera phones could take huge bites out of digital camera sales within the next year. They cite convenience as the main issue: camera phones today can take decent pictures and send them to online photo services to be printed within an hour, all wirelessly. Today, Kodak announced a digital camera that can match that convenience and far surpass the quality of any camera phone. The Kodak EasyShare-One is able to send photographs to online photo albums for printing and storage using a Wi-Fi card. Kodak partnered with T-Mobile to make this happen.
This isn�t the first time the two companies have cooperated. T-Mobile and Kodak joined up in August 2003, with T-Mobile as the shooter and Kodak the printer. Together, they created a mobile photo service that could print pictures directly from camera phones. This service has become fairly common, resulting in partnerships between mobile service providers and photo printers, some of which are owned by digital camera manufacturers. Cingular Wireless partnered with Fujifilm to create its Mobile Postcard service, and AT&T Wireless partnered with Snapfish, which prints exclusively on Kodak print paper. Because of the growing convenience with camera phones, the digital camera industry has begun to fight back.
The Kodak EasyShare-One is the first consumer digital camera to offer wireless photo transfer. Many professional cameras � such as the Nikon D2X and the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II � have a wireless feature; however, they cost thousands of dollars more than the EasyShare-One. This camera will work in all 5,200 T-Mobile HotSpots, including just about every Starbucks and FedEx-Kinko�s in the United States.