Last year there was an interesting article on how Time Magazine asked 5 photographers to cover the effects of Hurricane Sandy sharing it immediately on Instagram. The goal was to get the photos out to the public as quickly as possible. There are real benefits to instant sharing, but today's SmartPhones are still very limited and lack a decent zoom lens or manual exposure settings.

Long before Hurricane Sandy, Samsung was already on track and was the first to release an Android based Hybrid Galaxy Camera with an Image Stabilized 21x zoom, and the option to subscribe to a mobile cellular plan (although you can't make calls on it) for instant sharing. This probably could have come in handy for that particular Time Magazine project.

Samsung Galaxy Camera Review - GearAddix.com

Without a mobile data plan, the Samsung Galaxy Camera can connect to any Wi-Fi network. Shoot 1080p HD Video, edit directly on the Android platform, and instantly upload to YouTube. Oddly, as an android system you can still download from the Play Store a variety of apps, games, browse the web, sync to DropBox, connect to Google Drive, send Emails, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more.

I find the merge between high quality cameras and smartphones interesting, and I think there is a place for distribution speed in everyday life as well as in Journalism. Hopefully we see more products this year from other companies like the Galaxy Hybrid Camera. For more information check out the Samsung Galaxy Camera via Amazon (click here).

Samsung Galaxy Camera Android OS, v4.1 (Jelly Bean)