Digital camera was invented in 1975, Kodak hid it

It is definitely a gift to be able to predict the future and it is a gift anyone in business would wish for. Wouldn’t it be a surprise to know that the digital camera wasn’t invented when we thought it was, that a 24-year-old man had fabricated a digital camera while tinkering in Kodak’s office as far back as 1975 but the big bosses then decided it wasn’t going to fly.
In 1973 there was nothing like iPhone or the socials networks, or even digital camera, that was when Steven Sasson went to work for Kodak. According to BRW, Sasson invented the process that led to what we have today:
“A world without iPhones or Instagram, where one company reigned supreme. Such a world existed in 1973, when Steven Sasson, a young engineer, went to work for Eastman Kodak.
“Two years later he invented digital photography and made the first digital camera.
Mr. Sasson, all of 24 years old, invented the process that allows us to make photos with our phones, send images around the world in seconds and share them with millions of people. The same process completely disrupted the industry that was dominated by his Rochester employer and set off a decade of complaints by professional photographers fretting over the ruination of their profession.”
But Kodak, not seeing into the future, rejected the idea then, not believing the public would embrace the technology.
“They were convinced that no one would ever want to look at their pictures on a television set,” he said. “Print had been with us for over 100 years, no one was complaining about prints, they were very inexpensive, and so why would anyone want to look at their picture on a television set?”
The reason Sasson failed to convince the executives was because he told them the stark truth of when the invention could compete in the market.
BRW put it this way: “When Kodak executives asked when digital photography could compete, Mr. Sassoon used Moore’s Law, which predicts how fast digital technology advances. He would need two million pixels to compete against 110 negative color film, so he estimated 15 to 20 years. Kodak offered its first consumer cameras 18 years later.

Read also: Innovation… The blind can now take pictures

Sasson explained the reason for the rejection: “When you’re talking to a bunch of corporate guys about 18 to 20 years in the future, when none of those guys will still be in the company, they don’t get too excited about it,” he said. “But they allowed me to continue to work on digital cameras, image compression and memory cards.”
Consequently, the young inventor was not allowed to talk about his invention, or show anybody the prototype. Eastman Kodak simply hid it. Three years later, the company filed for bankruptcy.
But today, Sasson’s first digital camera, is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. President Obama awarded Mr. Sassoon the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at a 2009 White House ceremony.

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