Kodak said it will stop making digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames in order to focus on more profitable products, reports the Associated Press. The move isn’t surprising, as the company is slowly emerging from last month’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. “Our goal is to maximize value for stakeholders, including our employees, retirees, creditors, and pension trustees,” Kodak said in a press release. The company’s digital camera and picture frame products will be phased out during the first of half of the year as Kodak instead focuses on photo printing and desktop inkjet printers. The company will continue to honor warranties and provide technical support for discontinued products, and the move is expected to result in annual savings of more than $100 million.

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Kodak and its U.S. subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Thursday. The petition was filed in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. During the bankruptcy, Kodak hopes to bolster liquidity in the U.S. and abroad, monetize non-strategic intellectual property, resolve legacy liabilities and focus on its most valuable business lines. ”Our goal is to maximize value for stakeholders, including our employees, retirees, creditors, and pension trustees,” said the company in a press release. “We are also committed to working with our valued customers.”  Kodak received $950 million in debtor-in-possession financing, which the company said should provide the assets needed to continue operations during the restructuring. “We look forward to working with our stakeholders to emerge a lean, world-class, digital imaging and materials science company,” said chairman and CEO Antonio Perez. Read on for Kodak’s press release.

Eastman Kodak Company and Its U.S. Subsidiaries Commence Voluntary Chapter 11 Business Reorganization

Flow of Goods and Services to Customers to Continue Globally in Ordinary Course

Non-U.S. Subsidiaries Are Not Included in U.S. Filing and Are Not Subject to Court Supervision

Company Secures $950 million in Debtor-in-Possession Financing in U.S.

Kodak’s Reorganization to Facilitate Emergence as Profitable and Sustainable Enterprise

ROCHESTER, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Eastman Kodak Company (“Kodak” or the “Company”) announced today that it and its U.S. subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions for chapter 11 business reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

“Our goal is to maximize value for stakeholders, including our employees, retirees, creditors, and pension trustees. We are also committed to working with our valued customers.”

The business reorganization is intended to bolster liquidity in the U.S. and abroad, monetize non-strategic intellectual property, fairly resolve legacy liabilities, and enable the Company to focus on its most valuable business lines. The Company has made pioneering investments in digital and materials deposition technologies in recent years, generating approximately 75% of its revenue from digital businesses in 2011.

Kodak has obtained a fully-committed, $950 million debtor-in-possession credit facility with an 18-month maturity from Citigroup to enhance liquidity and working capital. The credit facility is subject to Court approval and other conditions precedent. The Company believes that it has sufficient liquidity to operate its business during chapter 11, and to continue the flow of goods and services to its customers in the ordinary course.

Kodak expects to pay employee wages and benefits and continue customer programs. Subsidiaries outside of the U.S. are not subject to proceedings and will honor all obligations to suppliers, whenever incurred. Kodak and its U.S. subsidiaries will honor all post-petition obligations to suppliers in the ordinary course.

“Kodak is taking a significant step toward enabling our enterprise to complete its transformation,” said Antonio M. Perez, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “At the same time as we have created our digital business, we have also already effectively exited certain traditional operations, closing 13 manufacturing plants and 130 processing labs, and reducing our workforce by 47,000 since 2003. Now we must complete the transformation by further addressing our cost structure and effectively monetizing non-core IP assets. We look forward to working with our stakeholders to emerge a lean, world-class, digital imaging and materials science company.”

“After considering the advantages of chapter 11 at this time, the Board of Directors and the entire senior management team unanimously believe that this is a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak,” Mr. Perez continued. “Our goal is to maximize value for stakeholders, including our employees, retirees, creditors, and pension trustees. We are also committed to working with our valued customers.

“Chapter 11 gives us the best opportunities to maximize the value in two critical parts of our technology portfolio: our digital capture patents, which are essential for a wide range of mobile and other consumer electronic devices that capture digital images and have generated over $3 billion of licensing revenues since 2003; and our breakthrough printing and deposition technologies, which give Kodak a competitive advantage in our growing digital businesses.”

Mr. Perez concluded, “The Board of Directors, the senior management team and I would like to underscore our appreciation for the hard work and loyalty of our employees. Kodak exemplifies a culture of collaboration and innovation. Our employees embody that culture and are essential to our future success.”

Kodak has taken this step after preliminary discussions with key constituencies and intends to work toward a consensual reorganization in the best interests of its stakeholders. Kodak expects to complete its U.S.-based restructuring during 2013.

The Company and its Board of Directors are being advised by Lazard, FTI Consulting Inc. and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. In addition, Dominic DiNapoli, Vice Chairman of FTI Consulting, will serve as Chief Restructuring Officer to support the management team as to restructuring matters during the chapter 11 case.

More information about Kodak’s Chapter 11 filing is available on the Internet at www.kodaktransforms.com. Information for suppliers and vendors is available at (800) 544-7009 or (585) 724-6100.

Kodak will be filing monthly operating reports with the Bankruptcy Court and also plans to post these monthly operating reports on the Investor Relations section of Kodak.com. The Company will continue to file quarterly and annual reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which will also be available in the Investor Relations section of Kodak.com.

Kodak is going through a financial nightmare, with reports claiming the camera company is preparing to file for bankruptcy. In what seems like a last effort to license the company’s patents, Kodak has filed patent lawsuits against HTC and Apple. Kodak claims that both smartphone manufacturers are infringing upon some of the company’s digital imaging patents. The complaint targets the iPad 2, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and the iPod touch (4th generation), claiming Apple’s devices infringe upon four patents. Obviously, the patents all relate to digital images, ranging from capturing them, to transferring photos over email, cellular networks, or wireless LAN networks.

HTC is being sued for the same four patents as Apple, with the addition of  a patent that covers capturing still images while previewing motion images — the same patent is being asserted against Apple and RIM in a concurrent ITC investigation. Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents speculates that the lawsuit is part of a last effort sales and marketing strategy to sell the company’s patent portfolio. Lastly, Mueller believes that even though Apple and HTC are suing each other, they will most likely team up to fight off Kodak. At the very least, the two companies could conduct a joint prior art search, or look to narrow the scope of patent claims to avoid liability for infringement.

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Eastman Kodak could file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this month or in early February according to a recent report. The troubled camera maker will likely file if it cannot sell 1,100 patents, The Wall Street Journal said Wednesday. The company is reportedly speaking with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup and Wells Fargo, and is asking for as much as $1 billion in debtor-in possession financing. The financing could help keep Kodak alive as it moves through the bankruptcy filing process. If Kodak does indeed have to file for Chapter 11, it will then try to sell its patents through the court in a bankruptcy auction, The Journal explained. Kodak may also soon be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange if it cannot recover within the next six months.

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Apple, Google, HTC, Samsung, Microsoft… it’s hard to name a technology company that’s not currently involved in a patent battle with another firm. Google’s general counsel Kent Walker thinks the legal battles could actually hurt consumers and the landscape of today’s ever changing smartphone market. “The tech industry has a significant problem,” Walker said. “Software patents are kind of gumming up the works of innovation.” Google chairman Eric Schmidt recently said that his company will stand behind HTC, one of its Android partners, in an attempt to ensure it doesn’t lose an ongoing patent battle with Apple. “We have seen an explosion of Android devices entering the market and, because of our successes, competitors are responding with lawsuits as they cannot respond through innovations,” Schmidt said. According to Bloomberg, Walker said that Google is looking to purchase patents that will allow it to compete better against its rivals, such as Apple. It is unclear what acquisitions Google will pursue in an effort to bolster its patent portfolio, but there is speculation the search giant will buy Kodak’s InterDigital arm. “Each side can blow the other up on some level –everybody can block the other’s products from coming to market,” Walker said. “You create this mutually assured destruction scenario, but it’s very expensive to get all those munitions. Buying patents so you can hit the other guy, it’s not good form. You hate to unilaterally disarm here, but we haven’t in our history.” Walker said that he’s confident Google has the muscle to “balance the scales” against the likes of Microsoft and Apple.

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The U.S. International Trade Commission said on Tuesday its May ruling that Kodak did not infringe on Apple’s patents will stand. The two companies have been locked up in two separate legal battles for the better part of this year. Here’s how it started: Kodak first filed lawsuits against Apple and Research In Motion and accused both firms of infringing on its camera patents. That case was called “In the Matter of Certain Mobile Telephones and Wireless Communication Devices Featuring Digital Cameras, and Components Thereof.” A judge has already ruled in favor of RIM and Apple in that lawsuit, and it could end up costing the camera maker millions of dollars. Shortly after that case was filed, however, Apple responded with own suit against Kodak titled: “In the Matter of Digital Imaging Devices and Related Software.” That’s the suit that Kodak won in May and the one ITC ruled today will stand. “We are pleased that the commission has confirmed the ALJ’s finding that there is no violation by Kodak,” David Lanzillo, a Kodak spokesman, told Bloomberg.

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The International Trade Commission on Thursday reversed an earlier decision in a patent case that could cost camera maker Kodak hundreds of millions of dollars from Apple and RIM. Kodak had filed suit against both firms, claiming that their mobile devices infringed on multiple patents owned by the Rochester, NY-based company. An initial ruling in favor of Kodak was under ITC review, and the commission on Thursday reversed parts of the decision that had previously been ruled in Kodak’s favor. Other parts of the original ruling were sent to be examined by a judge of administrative law, and a final ruling is scheduled to be made on August 30th.

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An International Trade Commission (ITC) judge has ruled that Kodak did not infringe upon camera patents held by Apple. Reuters is reporting that an administrative law judge rejected the Cupertino-company’s claims, with a final decision by the ITC due on September 19th. Kodak, although not as prominent as it once was when film reigned supreme, still holds a treasure-trove of patents. “Many investors see Kodak’s value in its lucrative portfolio of intellectual property,” reads the report. “It has more than 1,000 patents and it made an estimated $630 million in 2010 from its licenses. But analysts have said this revenue from licenses is unpredictable and the portfolio might eventually dwindle.” Kodak has a pending suit filed against both Apple and Research In Motion, again surrounding smartphone camera technology, that is set to be decided upon on May 23rd.

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The International Trade Commission is set to determine at 5:00 p.m. EDT today whether or not it will review the decision in a patent infringement suit filed against Apple and RIM by Kodak last year. A federal judge ruled in January that Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones did not infringe on Kodak patents, as the company alleged. Today, that case may be reopened if the ITC finds cause to do so. Kodak previously scored big against both Samsung and LG in similar patent disputes it filed in 2008. Both companies settled ahead of an ITC ruling in those cases, and Kodak made out with $550 million from Samsung and $414 million from LG. A win against Apple and RIM would likely yield similar gains according to Kodak CEO Antonio Perez. Kodak “deserves to win,” Perez proclaimed in an interview with Bloomberg.

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Remember how Kodak filed suit against Apple and RIM a year ago alleging patent infringement? Well, late yesterday, a U.S. International Trade Commission judge ruled that Kodak’s case — which related to low resolution previews of videos that are displayed on-screen while recording full resolution video — is invalid. Kodak had previously won claims against LG and Samsung, after which it was able to put a licensing deal in place worth a reported $864 million. Things might not turn out that well this time around, however. RIM has filed a federal suit challenging other Kodak patents and Apple is suing Kodak for patent infringement of its patents.

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It’s been out in Canada for a little under three weeks now, but the Motorola MILESTONE has already proven itself to be quite the popular handset thanks in part to all of the Canadians watching American TV and witnessing Verizon’s huge media blitz for the DROID. For a device that has been on sale in one form or another for many months, we have to wonder — is the MILESTONE still worth it? Put on your reading glasses, sit back and relax, and join us after the jump for our hands on the the TELUS Motorola MILESONE to find out.OS

Seeing as this is a hardware review we decided we’d bypass once again dissecting Android because everything that needs to be said about the Android OS has already been said by BG in his epic Android tirade post. If you’re seething at rage just thinking of what it is he said or simply as the prospect of reading well over 1,400 words then let us quickly catch you up to speed: Android, while a damn fine OS that has all the promise in the world, has “practically no human emotion with Google when it comes to technology. Everything is statistical and analytical.” On we go.

Tech Specs

When its EV-DO counterpart came out late last year, it was easily the most advanced Android handset to come to market. Quite a lot of things have changed since that time — what with the release of the Nexus One and the announcing of the Desire — but as it stands, the MILESTONE is still no slouch. Here are some key specs to keep in mind before you go on:

• Android 2.0.1
• 550MHz OMAP3 processor
• 256MB RAM / 512MB ROM
• 3.7″ WVGA capacitive touchscreen display
• 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash
• aGPS with MotoNav pre-loaded
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
• 10.2Mbps UMTS/HSDPA
• 6.5 hours talk time / 380 hours standby (3G)
• 60mm x 115.8mm x 13.7 mm, 165g
  

Build Quality

As far as build quality goes, it’s pretty hard to fault the MILESTONE. On the top half of the device we have the display, encased by a metal bezel, and made up of a sturdy slab of plastic that does a more than admirable job of resisting scuffs and scratches. Underneath this is a fairly unique sliding mechanism that relies not on an easily breakable spring but a simple and unseen rail system. When pushed open or closed, it locks itself into place with a delightfully reassuring “click”.
On the lower half of device is where we see the plastic components come out of hiding. But fear not because they’re amongst the best we’ve ever encountered. The bezel immediately surrounding the keypad and d-pad is matte black while the entire backing of the device is made up of rubberized plastic save for the rectangular piece directly below the camera module that bears the “with Google” mark. Your average hardware-related creaks and groans and nowhere to be found on this device.
The only real concern we have with the hardware is the volume rocker/camera zoom because it’s looser than… well, we’ll let you fill in the blank. All of this high quality fit and finish means that the MILESTONE weighs in at an incredibly hefty 165g but oddly enough it feels great in the hand and surprisingly light in pockets. Bonus: This weight equals crime deterrent.

Display

It’s not an AMOLED nor is it even Super AMOLED, but for the life of us, we haven’t come across many screens that have wowed us like the 3.7″ WVGA display on the MILESTONE. Popping to life with rich color, easily viewable from all angles and bright enough to overcome direct sunlight, this display is also very accurate making things like web-browsing and typing on the virtual keypad all the easier. How would we rank it overall? Second only to the iPhone, but just by a few hairs because of the slightly better capacitive factor.

Keyboard

We know it looks like it might be nightmare to type on what with its lack of very flat surface, lack of major definition and overall footprint, but the QWERTY keyboard on the MILESTONE is actually quite nice. Okay, it doesn’t even come close to anything RIM makes and could definitely have used a bit more refining before the design was finalized (who in God’s name thought the tiny spacebar, two blank keys and non-sensical punctuation layout was a good idea?), but after a few days we think most people will be rather happy with it. And let’s be honest: with the stock Android virtual keypad being as bad as it is (who actually likes it?) you’re really going to want to use the real deal as much as possible. Or get Swype.

Camera

The MILESTONE’s 5 megapixel auto-focus camera is barely passable as a camera on a modern smartphone. It boots up in an acceptable amount of time, but the saving of images consistently took 4 plus seconds. The worst part is that after going through the whole boot up, focus, snap the pic and save it routine, any special moment you had hoped to capture forever will invariably come out looking like they were taken on a VGA webcam in a dimly lit room way back in the early 2000′s. Just in case you were wondering, the dual-LED flash seems to be as effective as the goggles Radioactive Man once infamously wore. Yeah.

Multimedia

Simply put, Android needs some work when it comes to multimedia. It can do everything you want reasonably well, but the interface feels rushed and incomplete and, what’s more, is quite clunky and cumbersome. We did find ourself enjoying videos if only for the screen, but things like the music player might prove to be a cause for concern for those hat refuse to carry a phone and a dedicated MP3 player. Nonetheless, it still manages to do an admirable job given what we honestly feel is a lack of effort on Google’s part.

Browser

Thanks to the MILESTONE’s snappy processor, awesome display and a little thing called multi-touch, the web experience on the MILESTONE is fantastic. We hate to do it, but for the sake of a benchmark that everyone can understand, we pitted the device against an iPhone 3GS (you knew this was coming, didn’t you?), the de facto standard for mobile web browsing. Speed wise both devices loaded up content-heavy sites within +/- 2 seconds of one another over 3G and 1 second over Wi-Fi. What sets them apart, however, is rendering. We really appreciated how big everything seemed on the MILESTONE and how easy it was to read even the tiniest text, but overall the  iPhone 3GS did a much better job of accurately and properly rendering websites as they’d appear on a desktop. But again, it’s a very close call.

Email Support

Being a product of Google, Android naturally has great Gmail support built into it and supports all of the goodies you’d expect like labels (sadly you cannot create, edit, or remove them), stars and search so we’ll leave it at that. The thing we really want to talk about is Exchange. Yes, the MILESTONE supports it, but we use the word support loosely. We hooked up one of our Exchange accounts to the MILESTONE and, truth be told, we wouldn’t count on Android for our BGR email if you paid us. Here’s a few reasons why: On several occasions the notification panel let us know we have a new Exchange email only for us to find it actually hadn’t been downloaded by the Email. This either led to us having to wait 5 seconds (!) while a sweet and simple text email was downloaded or manually hit Menu > Refresh. No doubt this is a bug and will likely be addressed in a future update, but the reality is we have no idea when an update is coming and have no guarantees it will completely fix the issue. Another fatal flaw with Exchange is folders because you can’t actually place an email into a folder of your choosing. To make matters worse, you can’t look at emails that are already in folders that are older than the maximum length you set up for synchronization (it caps out at one month). Add to this the fact you cannot even do something as basic as search for messages and the picture is quite clear: business users stay the hell away, get on board with Google Apps, or use one of the hideous looking but very function third party clients like Touchdown.

Telephony

We don’t often use our cell phones for actually calling people any more thanks to things like email, IM, BBM and SMS, but when we do we demand excellence, and thankfully the MILESTONE delivers. Calls came in loud and clear on both ends, and a few of the people we spoke to made a point of mentioning the lack of background noise.

The Network

Reality check: TELUS’s HSPA+ network is brand new and most of its customers are still milling about in the land of EV-DO. Because of this we think it would be unfair and inappropriate for us to compare its network (or Bell’s, for that matter) to Rogers’s which has been at the GSM/HSPA game for years. Having said that, commenting on it in and of itself is fair game. So how then would we summarize the network? Mind-numbingly fast. In fact, we ran speed tests on a daily basis and not once did we see speeds drop below 4Mbps.

Two Huge Issues

So far most of what we have said about the MILESTONE is positive, so naturally it’s time for two huge drawbacks.
The first is that paid apps from the Android Marketplace are unavailable in Canada. So unless you want to be greasy and get into pirating apps, you’re just going to have to make do without. Hope might be on the horizon considering it was just this week a spokesperson for Google mentioned the possibility of an announcement related to paid apps in Canada as early as next week, but this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve heard such a thing.

The second major drawback won’t hit everyone like the lack of paid apps, but it will sting the keeners. As you no doubt know, one of the greatest things about Android devices past is the ease in which users can root, hack, and load custom ROMs. Unfortunately when it comes to this particular device, Motorola has made what we consider to be a very weak move in locking up the bootloader. It doesn’t mean hacking is forever out of the question, it just means it’s going to be tough and take some time (odds are someone ends up gaining root access not too long after the first software update is issued). Nonetheless, we can’t help but think such a move violates the spirit of Android and is just plain odd considering the DROID does not have this restriction. “Smartphone Without Limits”? our asses.

Overall

There’s no denying that we’ve had some pretty uncomplimentary things to say about the MILESTONE, but it must not be forgotten that we’ve also given it a lot of praise. As we sit back and try and think of how to sum up our thoughts into a few sentences, we can’t help but come to the inevitable conclusion that, despite our perceived flaws, we think the average consumer who is out for a smartphone will really enjoy the MILESTONE provided they’re okay with dedicating some time to what is for some a bit of a difficult learning curve. As for the nerds, it’s really hard to say. If you’re not totally put off by the lack of paid apps and the fact that rooting is presently an issue then we say give the MILESTONE a shot. After all, we like it.

For some, the world of digital photography can be a bit daunting. Megapixels, digital zooms, aspect ratios. Huh? For others, the only question is which in my stable of cameras shall I bring on my next outing? Whichever camp you fall in, Kodak’s EasyShare cameras are a great choice for their quality, ease of use and attractive price-point. Get this one for a song and have a great camera in your pocket for your next photo op. It takes fantastic pictures. Point and shoot, that’s it. 10.2 megapixels means you can crop away at your images to get the perfect shot – without reducing image quality. Kodak’s EasyShare system makes it a snap to capture your photos, upload them, share them and print them. And this package comes with a Charger kit so you’re always powered up and ready to go.

Eastman Kodak announced on Tuesday that it has filed complaints alleging patent infringement against LG and Samsung in both the United States District Court for the Western District of New York and the US International Trade Commission. The disputed patents involve technology related to image capture, compression and data storage and a method for previewing motion images. The complainant asks for compensation for damages resulting from the alleged infringement, though the the amount of damages was not disclosed. Kodak also seeks injunctions to prohibit Samsung and LG from subsequent importation and sale of products, believed to be the Samsung Blackjack II and the LG Dare, cited in the complaints. Both Samsung and LG will fight the patent infringement allegations with LG’s spokesman Choi Jun-hyuk saying, “Our digital-camera technology is different from the one used by Kodak. We haven’t infringed upon Kodak’s related patents.” That makes it pretty clear LG is not going to lay down, roll over and hand Kodak a big wad of cash. It looks like we have another Battle Royale brewing over emerging technologies, though this time it’s not CDMA chip sets but diminutive camera phones that are caught in the legal cross hairs. We will have to keep our eye on this to see if it is just a bunch of posturing by big companies in order to negotiate a settlement and sign licensing agreements, or if these filings will indeed trickle down and have an effect on consumer camera phone availability.

[Via CNN Money]

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Could point-and-shoot cameras become phased out by camera phones in the future? With a rising army of high-megapixel and high-quality camera phones, one would imagine that everything your current point-and-shoot can do will also be commonplace on future phones. Kodak, one of the biggest names in photography and imaging, has partnered up with Nokia where they will cross-license one another’s patent portfolios. There aren’t any hard details so anything anyone can say right now is pure speculation, however the deal is said to “provides significant benefits to both companies, [and] is royalty bearing to Kodak.” So far, Kodak has slapped some of their technology onto the MotoZINE ZN5, but its notable contributions haven’t gone much further. We’re hoping this is a really good sign of things to come and there is no doubt this will give a tremendous boost to the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer. Can you guys imagine a 10+ megapixel Nseries phone with Kodak’s Camera Control UI and technology powering the imaging and internals?

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This weekend shouldn’t be all about AT&T, right? How about some T-Mobile holiday love? Motorola announced the MOTOZINE ZN5 back in June and since then we’ve heard some rumblings about the 5 megapixel shooter possibly coming to T-Mobile here in the US. Rumblings confirmed. Word just came in that T-Mobile will be dropping the MOTOZINE ZN5 on November 3, just in time for the holidays. Sure the ZN5 might not be quite as exciting as some of the other news we’ve gotten this weekend but as far as camera phones go, this is no slouch. 5 megapixels, a xenon flash, on-device photo editing courtesy of Kodak Perfect Touch, EasyShare integration and a dedicated one-click Simple Share key make this handset a mobile photog’s dream. Spec refresher:

• 5.0 megapixel camera with Xenon flash and video capture
• High resolution landscape screen
• CrystalTalk technology
• ModeShift technology
• 150 MB of available memory, 1 GB microSD card included
• Simplified sharing and editing via Kodak applications
• Stereo Bluetooth connectivity
• WiFi
• Microsoft Windows Media Player 11
• Integrated FM radio
• MegaTones and HiFi ringers
• myFaves capability
• Photo caller ID
• Video capture and playback
• Video messaging
• Voice recorder

Hit the jump for five more marketing slides.

Thanks Gman!