Many of us miss Polaroids. They weren’t all that great, but they did provide a strange sort of instant gratification. Sadly, Polaroid is dead. But it keeps coming back in other forms. You might remember Zink, that company whose technology prints digital photos on the spot without ink.

Well, they’re back, this time with strange bedfellows. They’ve been rolling around in the sheets with toy-maker Tomy to make the xiao TIP-521, a digital camera with a printer built in. The xiao has a five megapixel resolution, so you may want to wait a bit. The point is they are on it people. Polaroid lives on.

Polaroid finally has a release date for their portable Bluetooth mini-photo printer, the PoGo. It uses an inkless printing system developed by Zink to create 2 x 3-inch full-color copies of images from your camera or cellphone. The photo sheets contain tiny dye crystals that form your picture when they’re heated and the process takes roughly sixty seconds.

The PoGo will give you fifteen prints per charge and connects via USB or Bluetooth. They expect it to be a big hit with teens, but who knows, might be a hit with grannies for all I know. You can get one starting on July 6th for $149.

The company most known for their instant film cameras and the instant film that went with them is closing it’s last film plants in Mass., a victim of the digital age. The fun instant Polaroids will soon be a thing of the past. To the horror of those who love all things retro, no more instant film will be produced.

Within the past two years, Polaroid had already stopped production on the instant cameras. The film will be available until around next year, so those who want or need more can still get it. It was only a matter of time before the 21st century caught up with Polaroid’s format. In the not too distant future, the only people interested in buying the film will be Hollywood production designers wanting to use it for authenticity in movies etc. Well, they had a good run, and captured many an embarrassing moment, the occasional ghost and various assorted naughty things. It’s been fun.

Polaroid’s DPJ-08580B is only one of a hundred gadgets that go with your iPod, but it manages to stand out admirably. The device is basically a portable DVD player with an embedded iPod dock, which will allow you to view videos stored on your iPod in a larger format. Not huge mind you, but larger. The screen is 8.5 inches.

It retails for just 28,000 yen, which is about $252, but if you absolutely have to buy an accessory for your iPod, you will probably get more enjoyment out of this one then most of the other gadgets out there.

The digital photography age hasn’t been kind to old school titans like Polaroid. The creators of the instant photo have taken a beating as digital cameras and photo quality printers hit the market and eliminated the need for dropping off your canister of film at the local photo department. However, this latest announcement from the company shows that there’s still innovation happening in their R&D department.

The Polaroid Media Backup CGA-02540 is perfect for anyone you know that is technophobic when it comes to downloading or transferring photos from one computer to another. When you …