© Courtesy of RE-35

Plug-in dig­i­tal film is not a new con­cept but a for­got­ten one.

I never heard of any actual prod­uct that shipped with flexisen­sor; one major rea­son I think is the actual cost of pro­duc­tion and the actual sell­able price point the mar­ket can bear. Nonetheless, a half-baked, 2-page web­site with a ‘com­ing soon’ place­holder has just popped up on my radar screen this morning:

RE-35:

The RE-35 car­tridge replaces the film in your clas­sic ana­log 35-mm cam­era. Set the ISO to 400 and your done — your cam­era will now take high qual­ity dig­i­tal pic­tures. […] RE-35 will be avail­l­able later this year. Check this site reg­u­larly for more infos.

None other than an apple-esque prod­uct teaser & an impres­sum that leads to a web­site of what looks like to be a design firm respon­si­ble for their ini­tial web teaser are avail­able at this point, so I wouldn’t hold my breath to it. Alas, it would be a kick-ass com­pe­ti­tion to the bro­ken dig­i­tal imag­ing indus­try if a) they ship, and b) they ship an incred­i­bly usable prod­uct with a lucra­tive price point.

They seem to have got the design right, but I’m not too sure about the RE-35 name (nice domain name, though) — there’s a rea­son why the iPad is not named TB-123, and the iPhone is not named Re-Phone, easy to pro­nounce, catchy word is as impor­tant as the product’s design & packaging.

Film fanat­ics would have a woo-hoo-nostalgic party night when it hap­pens, and I would be thrilled to see an actual prod­uct ship. (Thanks Bimo!.)