He is the inventor of the first digital camera: Who is Steven Sasson?
But it was not possible for Steven Sasson to accept his invention. And this was a company disaster:
After graduating from Brooklyn Technical High School, he graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York with a degree in electrical engineering. Steven Sasson started working for Eastman Kodak in 1973. Two years later he invented digital photography and built the first digital camera. It was the size of a toaster, weighed 3.6 pounds, and was recorded in black and white at just 0.01 megapixels.
It wasn't easy for Steven Sasson to accept his invention. Today, Sasson's invention has taken its place among the best-selling electronic devices in the world. The first digital camera that Steven Sasson made in 1975 is on display today at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. On November 17, 2009, US President Barack Obama presented Sasson with the National Medal for Technology and Innovation at the White House for his invention.
Steven J. Sasson (born July 4, 1950) is an American electrical engineer and the inventor of the self-contained (portable) digital camera. Sasson is a 1972 (BS) and 1973 (MS) graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in electrical engineering. He attended and graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School. He has worked for Kodak since shortly after his graduation from engineering school.
Sasson was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2011. In 1975, a dramatic event occurred at the Kodak company. An employee came and said he had invented the digital camera. The device consisted of a complex set of parts: It contained a digital tape recorder, a film camera, an analog-to-digital converter, and circuit boards.
At that time, it took 50 milliseconds to capture the image and 23 milliseconds to record it on tape. After the photo was taken, the cassette was placed on another device and a 0.001-pixel black-and-white image was projected onto the screen. Bosses did not find Sasson's invention striking. In a later interview, Sasson stated that his bosses were convinced that seeing a photograph on a monitor was not interesting and that no one would like it.
Sasson reported that everything is actually complete and the product launch is imminent, but the company has stopped even discussing the issue. Sasson tried to convince his bosses that the image quality wasn't great, but that he could soon develop technology to improve the quality. Kodak's marketing department opposed the project.
It was true that they could sell the digital camera, but it was also clear that the company would reduce sales of its main profitable product, film. Because at that time Kodak was making a profit from every aspect of its photography business. In 1989 Sasson and Robert Hills produced the digital camera.
This product obtained a patent in the field of digital cameras. Kodak made billions of dollars from its digital camera patent by 2007. However, the company was late in entering the digital product market. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2012.