If you live in the US and are used to selling cameras to overseas customers — or if you live overseas and like to buy your cameras from US retailers — your shipping choices just got a bit slimmer. In a statement released earlier, the US Postal Service (USPS) said that they will no longer be shipping any items with li-ion batteries in them internationally starting May 16th, declaring the batteries a “fire hazard”. Lithium batteries power many personal electronic devices and have been found to be volatile in certain situations (e.g. improper storage) — they destroy an estimated one US cargo jet every other year. Of course, not everybody trusts USPS to ship their international packages as it is, and this latest development should lead to increased business for private companies like UPS and Fedex.
(via Fast Company via 1001 Noisy Cameras)
Image credit: Hmmm… by Zach Welty
Five years ago, web designer Matthew McVickar decided to give one lucky disposable camera a free vacation, sending it through the mail from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Honolulu, Hawaii with the instructions “Take a photo before you pass it on!”. When he got the camera back, there were seven photographs taken by various workers in the United States Postal Service that show the cameras journey (and the inner workings of the USPS!).
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The USPS has unveiled a new set of stamps called “Pioneers of American Industrial Design” that honors 12 of the most influential American industrial designers of the 20th century, and one of them is Walter Dorwin Teague:
Known as the “dean of industrial design,” Walter Dorwin Teague believed that good artistic design fit both form and function into a single aesthetic package. During his career-long collaboration with Eastman Kodak Company, he designed several popular cameras, including the 1934 “Baby Brownie” (shown on the stamp). [#]
Besides designing cameras for Kodak for 30 years, Teague also worked for the likes of Boeing and Texaco, becoming one of the most prolific industrial designers in US history.
Pioneers of American Industrial Design (via Popular Photography)
The United States Postal Service admitted last week that the Statue of Liberty photo found on 3 billion newly printed stamps was in fact an image of the half-size replica (shown on left above) found in front of the New York-New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas rather than the original in NYC. The original photo was shot by photographer Raimund Linke and was found through Getty Images.
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