This was a curiosity item: HTC had their “Double Exposure” (photography related) event in New York! It started at 4pm eastern and ended 47 minutes later. You can rewatch the HTC video feed at YouTube and the live blog from CNET. Coverage of the announcement by various technology sites can be found through Techmeme…
Live-blogging the announcement: new “Eye Experience”… The update will roll out to HTC One users later on… Now new phone, “HTC Desire Eye” with dual (front and back) 13mp wide-angle lenses and IPX7 waterproofness. New phone is vehicle to roll out their new “Eye Experience” thing… Now we have a fashion show (???!?!?!) but more is coming up… Now discussing new video features and collaborative sharing (Zoe)… Zoe is currently in Beta but very soon it will become a version 1.0 in Google Play supporting Android devices running 4.3 or later – not just HTC devices – any Android devices… Plus, Zoe is soon coming to iPhone users with a new built from the ground up… Crazy, 4th grader nationally ranked AAU basketball teams… Looks like some kind of an action camera thing is going to be revealed now?… Introducing new camera, the RE (see below)… more fashion show, this time with the RE camera… Now an inspirational speech… Event ends…
HTC Announcements
New Tiny “RE” kinda-wearable kinda-action camera – looks like an inhaler – turns on when you grab it, no power button – takes 16mp photos with a press – long press takes 1080p videos – another press stops video – 146-degree angle lens… digital stabilization… waterproof… no PC required… accompanying app works with Android smartphones (Google Play) and iPhone (iTunes)… You can use the phone as a viewfinder and initiate videos… time-lapse videos can be started from the RE app, no cables… Open API and SDK for third-party development… Coming in next few days ability to live-broadcast the RE output via YouTube… To be available globally, in USA, four colors (teal, orange, navy blue, white), sold by HTC, Best Buy, Amazon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon – in time for the holidays… More details at REcamera.com website…
+ “Eye Experience technology”
+ new HTC Desire Eye smartphone with IPX67 waterproofness that uses the Eye Experience technology
+ Zoe app becomes a 1.0 product
+ Zoe will now work on any Android 4.3 or later device
+ Zoe will now become available as an iPhone/iOS app written from the ground up
Background: HTC started as an OEM, but slowly climbed the ranks. Some could argue that they made the best two smartphones the last couple of flagship years (HTC One M8 and M7). Taiwan makes a number of P&S digital cameras, but none of the Taiwanese manufacturers so far have been able to break out into the spotlight which is dominated by Japanese companies, Samsung, and the film-era European manufacturers (Leica, Zeiss, etc).