WTF?! For those few people who've looked at their USB thumb drive and wished it could take photos and videos, a Japanese company is crowdfunding such a device. The concept is proving quite popular: it's blasted past its 100,000 yen ($690) funding target and is currently at 2,255,770 yen ($15,560).
April Tokyo's 3-in-1 USB memory & art camera combines the portable storage of a memory stick with the photography and video capabilities of a modern camera.
Like most USB thumb drives, the device is impressively small, measuring just 70mm x 40mm x 20 mm (2.7 x 1.5 x 0.7 inches), which includes the flash at the top and the protruding camera bump on the front.
The 3-in-1 USB memory & art camera looks like a normal miniature camera, complete with a shutter button on the top right, menu and mode buttons, a status LED, and a 0.9-inch circular LCD screen displaying the camera view. It also comes with a rechargeable battery – no details about that component, though.
Pull off the camera's cap and you'll find a USB Type-A port. The device's storage is provided via the included 32GB microSD card that fits in a slot on the other side. It's able to store the photos you take, videos, and pretty much any other type of data that you could save to standard thumb drives.
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Being so small and costing just 7,216 Yen (around $50) for the early-bird pledge means you aren't going to want to use the camera to record precious life events. It captures JPGs at a 1280 x 960 resolution, while AVI videos are recorded at 1280 x 720 at 30 fps. The crowdfunding page also makes several boasts about its four types of filters – monochrome, orange, green, and blue – though these appear to merely change the colors.
Most people in the developed world have smartphones these days, and dirt cheap USB thumb drives are ubiquitous, so why pay $50 for this device? According to the copmany, it lets users enjoy shooting with an analog feel that you can't get with a smartphone.
April Tokyo's device certainly seems like a niche product. 314 people have already pledged their support, pushing the campaign's total funds to 2,255% over its target.