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Kodak Could Have Introduced the Digital Camera but Made This Mistake

January 11, 2018
Staff

WRITER

Kodak was an iconic company and a leader in the film business. But did you know that Kodak, a company that went bankrupt in 2012, could have launched the first digital camera but passed on the opportunity?

In 1975, a Kodak engineer invented the digital camera. But even though Kodak had the early advantage and patented vital technologies that are still used in digital cameras, the company didn’t want to disrupt its film business with a camera that didn’t require film. By the time Kodak officially went digital, it was too late – competitors like Nikon and Sony had already crowded the field.

On today’s show, Glenn and Stu revisited this infamous story to illustrate how quickly the world is changing and how technologies can become obsolete almost overnight.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: Hello, and welcome to the program. Coming up we're going to go into some of the predictions. I think today is tech predictions.

STU: Technology.

GLENN: And it's weird because a lot of these tech things are already happening. Yesterday we told you about KODAKCoin. This is the first time to be excited if you have anything to do with Kodak. It's like, they learned their lesson! You know the story about how they went out of business? How fast that happened? You don't know this? This is fascinating. So Kodak, you know, made film, obviously. They were the film dealer for everybody. They are state of the art film and film processing.

And they had a billion employees in Rochester, New York.

And they see the digital camera and they say, well, that's not going to take off. So they decided to not -- we'll let other people do the digital thing. We'll just stay in film.

One Christmas went by, and it was the first Christmas that digital cameras started to take off. They met again and they were like, no, we're a film company. Three Christmas later, they were almost out of business. It happened that fast. They went from the Titan to three years later, nothing. And they're like, maybe we should do the digital thing and it was too late. The first thing that I think Kodak has done that was smart, they just come out, announced it Monday or Tuesday, a KODAKCoin, and it's like Bitcoin. But here's -- and this is in one of my predictions, that some company is going to do this and they're going to use blockchain and Bitcoin to do it, and I said in the prediction that it would be Facebook or Apple or somebody like that.

Kodak is the one that comes out and does it. And what they've done is, you know how you have, you know, the photo thing, not Reuters, but ...

You always see. You go there for stock photos of news things. I don't know if you've ever seen it.

STU: Yeah, there's a few companies that do that.

GLENN: The big one, you sell your -- or you post your photo of, I've got the President picking his nose, and they put it on a service, and that service goes and everybody has it, and if you want to use it for television or radio or newspaper or something, you just buy it from them, and then that company pays you.

STU: Getty Images?

GLENN: That's what it is.

So Kodak has decided they're going to do it. And so what they do, in your camera, you will take pictures, and it will automatically go into blockchain and be held by you, and you can immediately post it. I mean, you take it, and it posts for sale from Kodak, and then there's no middleman. They're not negotiating anything. It's just posted. They buy it, they buy it through KODAKCoin. You get paid immediately, and it's simple, and there's no middleman. That's KODAKCoin.

STU: That's great.

GLENN: It's really brilliant.

STU: It's interesting because they have a big renaissance because they've tied themselves to this blockchain idea and that's happening to a lot of companies. A lot of them are like very strange stories, like this Chanticleer Holdings. Are you a big fan of them?

GLENN: Chanticleer? I've heard of it.

STU: They own several Hooters restaurants, nine Hooters restaurants, and they own some of the stock at Hooters of America.

GLENN: I'm trying to figure out the connection to blockchain.

STU: Right. That's where a lot of people are too. They said, a couple of weeks ago, that they would use blockchain related technology for its customer rewards program. And their stock went up 50%.

GLENN: That happened -- I saw that happen last year. There was another company that just has nothing -- they didn't know that they were putting blockchain. Nothing. They just put blockchain in their name. It was like, Glenn's Blockchain, and it went up. And the company has nothing to do with chain. They were just like, it's like money off of the blockchain.

STU: Really smart.

GLENN: That's Warren Buffett saying, don't invest if you don't know how it works. You know. Most people don't even understand what blockchain is, let alone Glenn's block change. That's somebody going, I know! Put some money in that blockchain thing!

STU: They're thinking, here's a new company, or a company that's changing its goals and they're working in blockchain. Get in now, get in early. Whoever owns that company, increases their cash by 50% or whatever it is. And then they can sell, and make a bunch of money and when it turns out they're actually do it, eventually the stock will come down but it's a good idea.

GLENN: I had a two-hour meeting with a guy from Silicon Valley who's a real mover and shaker and been instrumental in some of the new companies out now, the new tech companies and had a fascinating conversation.

Yesterday, Stu and I had a conversation with a blockchain and cryptocurrency guy.

And man, I hope he's right.

STU: Yeah, he was optimistic, I had say.

GLENN: Yeah, what was he say that he thought? Bitcoin would go up to? He said.

STU: It was 500,000?

GLENN: 500,000, I thought. And he didn't put a time period on that, did you.

STU: No, I don't think so.

GLENN: And he's been right about a lot of these things. I've sure he's been wrong, but he's been right about a lot of these things. There's a lot to learn like a theorem. He taught us about a theorem yesterday. I didn't release that was like an operating system.

STU: Yeah, it is. A lot of these secondary or even below that coins are built on. It's like, that's the operating system for these new, you know, Bitcoin types. I'm trying to explain this in a way that -- [overlapping voices] KODAKCoin is probably built on a theorem. Which is essentially the operating system for it.

GLENN: How is -- I was reading so have some stuff from Milton Friedman. We put it on a monologue on TV last night. But Milton Friedman talked about the internet and said the internet is going to be gigantic, and it will really change things. It will change government and everything else once you come up with a digital currency.

And here we are. We're at a digital currency. And you just wonder, how is -- how are the governments of the world, when push comes to shove, they're so far behind that they don't -- I remember having a conversation with somebody in Congress who sits on a committee for this kind of stuff, and I was talking to them about the technology that's coming. Me. Me. I have a rudimentary at best understanding of the stuff.

And they just kept looking at me and blinking, and they were in a room with a few people, and they were like, huh. We're going to have to look into that. Maybe we should -- we should look at, is there regulation that would -- we should be looking into? And I went, what? By the time you guys even figure this out, it's too late.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: And they just -- they have no concept of what's coming.

STU: Yeah, people talk about this, and it's not a matter of whether cryptocurrencies fail because of the governments try to stop them. It's the idea whether governments will fail because of cryptocurrencies. So it's interesting. And I think like, these things obviously been in the news a lot. I think there's different levels of interest. Like the top tier people who are real investors and really know this stuff -- excuse me -- there's a secondary tier.

GLENN: Would you like some more NyQuil?

STU: The secondary tier of people who know a decent amount about it and invested in it. There are people who follow the news and are interested in things like a money supply that the government can't inflate. I think a lot of people in our audience are interested in that aspect of it, the idea that that thing could solve something we've been complaining about for decades, and it's not centralized through a government. I think there's a level of interest there. I think at the bottom of it is just, I like hearing stories about people getting megarich off of things. I love those stories are, like, someone invests a dollar -- we had someone who wrote in yesterday to one of our stories on Facebook and said, they got in an argument with --

GLENN: With their wife.

STU: -- in 2017 about buying 500 bitcoins.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

STU: Now, 2013!

GLENN: How much was that?

STU: Let me look at the Bitcoin charge here real quick.

GLENN: I didn't realize was 500 Bitcoins. Somebody in our audience, we have to talk to you. If that's you, you have to call in.

STU: Oh, my gosh.

GLENN: So how much was it?

STU: I'm looking here.

GLENN: He had an argument with his wife, and she said, we're not going to put money in Bitcoin. And he said, honey, right now it will cost us how much?

STU: I'm looking that up.

GLENN: We should invest 500 Bitcoin.

STU: Can you imagine? Can you freaking imagine.

GLENN: 2013, that had to be --

STU: 2013 we are at --

GLENN: It had to be 200?

STU: To 2013 it changed -- that was the year that it had its first -- what they were calling at the time a bubble where it peaked at a thousand dollars. Okay? But then it ran down with it was -- he said 2012 or 2013. So 2013, it was, for most of the year, about $100. At the beginning of the 2013 it was $13.

GLENN: 500.

STU: So that would have been $25,000, right? 50 times 500 is $25,000. So that's a good -- so you think, I don't know.

GLENN: Now do 500 times let's say $15,000.

STU: $15,000 will get you a return of $7.5 million.

GLENN: Are they still together? Are they still together? We have to track that listener down.

STU: Yeah, he said -- we had the argument, I lost the argument, and I'm still poor was the way he described it. $500 Bitcoins, he must have had some money. But $7.5 million is better than 8,000 in money, at least that's my impression.

GLENN: Is it? I'm not sure. That common core math?

STU: I have to show my work. But that's nothing compared to the goes who founded Ripple. Now Ripple is another cryptocurrency. You have the Bitcoin, theorem, light coin.

GLENN: Ripple seems pretty shady, only because they announced that Ripple was going to go on to coin base, and if --

STU: They didn't announce that. That is a rumor. There's no reason to believe that that's happening at this point.

GLENN: No, I know that but I thought it came from them.

STU: No, I don't think so.

GLENN: Well, somebody -- and it looks pretty -- it looked pretty solid and it went from like 1.50 to 350, 3.90, something like that.

STU: And it's in the high one dollars right now. But it was also 0.06 -- or 0. -- 0.6 cents in 2017.

0.6 cents is what it was. You could have bought these things for 0.6 cents. Now it's different from let's say Bitcoin, as I was talking about, it's not centralized. Right? And it is -- there's a limited amount of Bitcoins that will ever be created, so there's no inflationary risk here. Most of the Bitcoins, 80 some odd percent of them are already out. So there's not an inflation there.

Ripple, they created 100 billion of three things upon inception. So they created 100 billion of them, and the way they gave them away, they did giveaways, they did all sorts of things, but they've only released a third of them. So 66 billion of these Ripple coins are held by the company, which is like three guys who created them.

They're currently about $2 per coin. Okay? So that's a lot of money.

The way this breaks down, Forbes looked at it. It's actually insane. The cofounder and CEO, Chris Larson, who stepped in, he now serves at the executive chairman. He has 5.19 billion Ripple tokens.

And his personal holdings, and a 17% stake in the --

GLENN: He's not $5 --

STU: No, more than that. His net worth currently -- and this is slightly higher than it was now, but net worth personal, $37.3 billion. That would make him the 15th richest American on the 2017 Forbes 400 list.

GLENN: This stuff is going to -- this stuff is going to change the world. Think of the power shift. Here's the guy who had nothing!

And now he's got $37 billion! I mean, you know.

(Laughter.)

In the wrong hands, we -- Hooters is going to be where Congress meets!

(Music).

STU: I got news for you. They're already meeting there.

GLENN: It is a Hooters. Without the wings.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A new Monroe Doctrine? Trump quietly redraws the Western map

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.