Smile, everyone: Polaroid employees bring back the instant camera

The eight-track tape never got a second chance. But things are looking up for instant film, which last year seemed destined to follow the sound-recording technology into the history books. A Polaroid licensee, the Summit Global Group, said Tuesday it would be re-launching Polaroid brand instant cameras. That proves The Impossible Project (that group of Polaroid employees who leased the Polaroid factory and purchased the company's equipment in the Netherlands) is now entirely achievable.

The licensee did not give a time frame for the relaunch. But The Impossible Project still says it is being commissioned to develop and launch a limited edition of Polaroid-branded film in mid-2010. "Large-scale production and worldwide sale of The Impossible Project's new integral film materials under its own brand will already start in the beginning of 2010 -- with a brand new and astonishing black and white Instant Film and the first color films to follow in the course of the year," says the press release.