Today at CES, Polaroid execs, with the help of new creative director Lady Gaga, have just taken the wraps off a new line of photo-capturing gadgets; like the company’s spokesperson, the cameras are as intriguing as they are outlandish.
Dubbed the Gray Label, or GL, these new product incorporate Polaroid’s Zink (short for “zero ink”) printing technology into the portable photo booth-like experience the company is known for.
First up, the company unveiled (literally; the gadget was cloaked in a silver sheet) a pair of picture-taking sunglasses, the GL20. The glasses, which are huge enough to look geriatric, capture and display images and video on the lenses. The data is also sent to a USB earpiece. Images (not video) can be sent to a printer via Bluetooth.
And what better printer to sent the images to than Polaroid’s GL10, a book-sized mobile printing unit that can print pictures sent wirelessly from camera phones, camera sunglasses and what have you. It prints 3-inch by 4-inch photos in about 40 seconds, with or without the traditional white Polaroid frame.
The GL10 is compatible with all Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones with the exception of the iPhone.
The final gadget shown off at Polaroid’s event was the GL30, a new, more traditional camera from Polaroid that takes and prints (and digitally saves) pictures using the company’s Zink technology. Upcoming versions of the camera will also allow for instant sharing of images to Twitter and Facebook — you know, kind of like you can do with your phone right now.
All in all, the new gadgets are an interesting comeback attempt for the aging brand. The sunglasses might be a bit much for the average consumer, and a portable printer might be a bit too geeky; but we can see Polaroid’s signature photo booth-like paper pics, which have been imitated ad nauseum by mobile camera apps and web apps alike, becoming popular with a certain crowd.