Ricoh has taken an interesting approach to the problem. When the camera is connected to a PC via a USB or LAN connection it behaves like a network location. It has its own IP address and Web interface, allowing the camera's communications settings, address book and project management features to be configured from the desktop using Ricoh's purpose-built browser software (the default IP address for the RDC-i500 is 127.0.0.1 but Ricoh assures us that it can be set manually).
The camera's image management features let you plan the manner in which the camera distributes pictures across the Internet. For example, you can create shot-lists, predefine titles for each image in the set and give them text tags to streamline the process of emailing them from a remote location. Alternatively, you can upload your images directly to a Web site, nested in an HTML template generated by the camera.
It's possible to use the camera's onboard navigational controls to configure the camera, but the process of entering text is still too awkward and time-consuming for extensive configuration tasks and regular use in the field. From this point of view, the desktop interface is a necessity rather than a convenience, and Ricoh can't quite claim to have removed the 'middle-man' (the PC) completely.
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