Kodak Says 'Hold My Beer' With Odd Cryptocurrency Bid
LAS VEGAS—The strangest photo-related news to come out of the first day of CES is an easy pick this year. Kodak is getting into cryptocurrency, but with a photographic twist—its offering, KODAKCoin, will be used to manage digital image rights and to pay photographers for use of images.
Well, that's what it's saying at least. It's a weird move, even for Kodak, which has a track record of doing weird things to grab attention at CES. Two years ago, I rushed to the Kodak booth in South Hall to get hands on with the Super 8, a retro analog movie camera.
There was a big spiel about selling film processing as a service, and how it would have interchangeable lenses and an electronic viewfinder. It never turned into an actual product, but it did win a couple of awards (including one from PCMag's sister site, Mashable). The Super 8 was on display again last year, along with news that Ektachrome slide film was coming back into production. (Ron Howard voiceover: It didn't.)
It's not all vaporware. Kodak announced a foray into smartphones at the 2015 show and has followed through with a couple of handsets. And the year prior it showed off its S-1 Micro Four Thirds camera, a product that appealed to the company's traditional market, but was an ambitious undertaking.
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