RED, Apple and Plato's Cave

A couple of weeks ago, Jim Jannard of RED announced that the Scarlet would henceforth be called the EPIC Light, with new specifications and pricing to be announced. That set off a flurry of speculation about the new camera. The same thing is happening with Apple's Final Cut Suite, for the opposite reason--a lack of news beyond a couple of cryptic emails from Steve Jobs. There's also a lot of speculation about unannounced EVIL (electronic viewfinder, interchangeable lenses) cameras from Canon and Nikon, complete with "leaks" from unnamed sources.

You can easily find (unintentionally) funny exchanges between people who speculate about the unannounced features and delivery dates of these and many other products. It's like people looking at the shadows on the wall of Plato's Cave and debating what and who they are.

It's human nature to speculate, and I've certainly done lots of it, but at the end of the day, it's wasted time and effort. RED, Apple, Canon, Nikon, etc. will release the details of their products when they're ready, and if there's one thing I've learned after years in the technology business, it's that nothing is fixed in stone until you can actually order the product. So relax. It's fun to guess, but it's better to know.