 I'm Vlad with The Verge at Photokina 2012, a bi-annual trade show that brings together the latest and best in camera innovations. This year's convention is still full of big lenses and massive price tags, but it's also playing host to an increasing number of so-called connected cameras. Pretty much every photography company now has a model in its range that comes with Wi-Fi enabled, and they all agree that it's a feature that's going to grow in importance and value. It's becoming very important. We see that a lot of people have smartphones at the moment and want to share pictures that they take immediately. If you look at how images are being used in the world these days, there's always an ever bigger requirement for easier sharing of images, so Wi-Fi definitely enables that process. Cameras in general have been, I would say, a stand-alone product, but I think people are getting used to sharing photos wirelessly using their mobile phones, but people are realizing the fact that you actually need a better camera to shoot in person's memory. I've often wondered why, when mobile phones have had Wi-Fi for years, cameras weren't catching up by adding what seems like an obvious feature to a content creation device. I would have to say it's probably technology hurdles. Most companies making cameras today are strictly camera companies, and they're living off an older paradigm, legacy architectures, legacy technology that's kept them kind of bottled up in a camera path for technology. The priorities for the M-System are for professional use, easy to use, and rangefinder photography. So connectivity, for example, is not in the foreground because it's a tool to make professional pictures, and Wi-Fi applications are more for looking at pictures, making it comfortable at home. That's not really the purpose of that camera. Nikon was one of the first manufacturers to introduce Wi-Fi in the compact camera segment back in 2001 already, and now we have come back with actually one of the first Android-enabled cameras with Wi-Fi, our Nikon Coolpix S800C. Evidently, for the connected camera to matter, it needs to be matched by suitably intelligent software. That seems to have been the missing ingredient, until now. Do customers want a separate user interface experience, or do they want commonality between their smartphone and their camera? And by using an Android OS, we can give them either one. Camera interfaces have never been very smart, and replacing them outright with the versatility and expandability of Android makes sense. We wanted to offer something new to the market. We wanted to show that Nikon was innovative. With Android, you have the amazing opportunity to share all your pictures, you use all the apps that are available on the App Store. By having an open OS, right now this is the control interface we have. In the future, I would expect customers to be able to select the control interface and be able to download it from a developer and continue to add on and make it whatever they want. These first attempts are still very crude, and they include almost no customizations tailored specifically to cameras. Until a camera-specific smart OS evolves, a number of companies are trying to get connected via alternative means. Callen's philosophy at the moment is we have an OS in our cameras that delivers fast performance, high image quality, and a good user experience in a camera. And our adoption of Wi-Fi has been very much to sync with a smartphone and to utilize the very capable interface within the smartphone to enable the transfer of images. So at the moment, we're very much looking at using the best of two worlds rather than maybe taking a compromise in adoption of a non-specified or optimized OS. For now, we're going to be sticking to a Sony, how do you say, a proprietary. So it's not going to be an open source format. We're going to continue to develop, however, additional applications based on what we feel is highly demanded by consumers. Ultimately, everyone's in agreement that in order to fight off the threat of smartphones, cameras have to become a little bit like smartphones themselves. In some cases, you might even struggle to draw a distinguishing line between the two.
 I'm Vlad with The Verge at Photokina 2012, a bi-annual trade show that brings together
 the latest and best in camera innovations.
 This year's convention is still full of big lenses and massive price tags, but it's also
 playing host to an increasing number of so-called connected cameras.
 Pretty much every photography company now has a model in its range that comes with Wi-Fi
 enabled, and they all agree that it's a feature that's going to grow in importance and value.
 It's becoming very important. We see that a lot of people have smartphones at the moment
 and want to share pictures that they take immediately.
 If you look at how images are being used in the world these days, there's always an ever
 bigger requirement for easier sharing of images, so Wi-Fi definitely enables that process.
 Cameras in general have been, I would say, a stand-alone product, but I think people
 are getting used to sharing photos wirelessly using their mobile phones, but people are
 realizing the fact that you actually need a better camera to shoot in person's memory.
 I've often wondered why, when mobile phones have had Wi-Fi for years, cameras weren't
 catching up by adding what seems like an obvious feature to a content creation device.
 I would have to say it's probably technology hurdles. Most companies making cameras today
 are strictly camera companies, and they're living off an older paradigm, legacy architectures,
 legacy technology that's kept them kind of bottled up in a camera path for technology.
 The priorities for the M-System are for professional use, easy to use, and rangefinder photography.
 So connectivity, for example, is not in the foreground because it's a tool to make professional
 pictures, and Wi-Fi applications are more for looking at pictures, making it comfortable
 at home. That's not really the purpose of that camera.
 Nikon was one of the first manufacturers to introduce Wi-Fi in the compact camera segment
 back in 2001 already, and now we have come back with actually one of the first Android-enabled
 cameras with Wi-Fi, our Nikon Coolpix S800C.
 Evidently, for the connected camera to matter, it needs to be matched by suitably intelligent
 software. That seems to have been the missing ingredient, until now.
 Do customers want a separate user interface experience, or do they want commonality between
 their smartphone and their camera? And by using an Android OS, we can give them either
 one.
 Camera interfaces have never been very smart, and replacing them outright with the versatility
 and expandability of Android makes sense.
 We wanted to offer something new to the market. We wanted to show that Nikon was innovative.
 With Android, you have the amazing opportunity to share all your pictures, you use all the
 apps that are available on the App Store.
 By having an open OS, right now this is the control interface we have. In the future,
 I would expect customers to be able to select the control interface and be able to download
 it from a developer and continue to add on and make it whatever they want.
 These first attempts are still very crude, and they include almost no customizations
 tailored specifically to cameras. Until a camera-specific smart OS evolves, a number
 of companies are trying to get connected via alternative means.
 Callen's philosophy at the moment is we have an OS in our cameras that delivers fast performance,
 high image quality, and a good user experience in a camera. And our adoption of Wi-Fi has
 been very much to sync with a smartphone and to utilize the very capable interface within
 the smartphone to enable the transfer of images. So at the moment, we're very much looking
 at using the best of two worlds rather than maybe taking a compromise in adoption of a
 non-specified or optimized OS.
 For now, we're going to be sticking to a Sony, how do you say, a proprietary. So it's not
 going to be an open source format. We're going to continue to develop, however, additional
 applications based on what we feel is highly demanded by consumers.
 Ultimately, everyone's in agreement that in order to fight off the threat of smartphones,
 cameras have to become a little bit like smartphones themselves. In some cases, you might even
 struggle to draw a distinguishing line between the two.