Longtime friend (and colleague in a number of businesses) Mike Priddy flew back to the UK this week from his adopted home in The Netherlands, and we caught up by taking a trip to Birmingham's annual Focus On Imaging expo. One of the reasons for visiting the show each year is to try to take the temperature of the industry, and to get a sense of where it thinks it's heading. In previous years we've noticed swings towards (and then away from) ink-jet printing, to and from compact cameras (and back again), and the ebb and flow of services to photographers. This year seemed to me rather inconclusive, as if the industry is unsure about where it's left by the confluence of smartphone photography, digital printing services, ebooks, compact system cameras, large-sensor DSLRs, and digital video. Chinese companies offering remarkably good value accessories were in full force, elaborate wedding album vendors were everywhere, and the spectre of the devastated UK photographic retailing market hung silently in the air.

To coincide with the show, and to take advantage of Mike's visit to the UK, we used the opportunity to record a pilot to what will soon be a regular Futurilla podcast. You can hear us talk about some of the developments in digital photography, and some potential future directions, in the Resolution pilot episode.