Slashdot Mirror
Sony Presents Bluetooth Digital Camera
JeroenH writes: "Sept. 2, 2002, Sony announced the DSC-FX77. It's a 4 megapixel, fixed lens digital camera with a special feature: Bluetooth. When the camera takes a picture, it will be sent directly through the Bluetooth link to a nearby computer, giving you nearly unlimited space for your photos (well, at least as much as fits on your hard disk). At this stage the camera can only send photos to a computer, but in the future it should be possible to control the camera remotely.
Will the wardriving of the future include scooping up pictures? Time will tell..."
It's bad enough that most so-called technology news and reviews sites don't amount to much more than a collection of regurgitated press releases and graft-driven prose -- most rampant in the games industry as discussed previously on Slashdot in two threads on fraudulent reviews and bribes, junkets and payola -- but does Slashdot have to promote them?
The item above is identical to the DSC-FX77 digital camera press release from Sony Europe's site. Could the reason for posting a press release as news be more payola from Sony?
Everyone whines and complains about the problem but they keep helping and promoting sites lacking any integrity by providing them with traffic. The question I have is why do Slashdot's editors participate and add to the problem by directing traffic to them? I'm sure that the editors are concerned by the brochure-style content of more and more sites, although that wouldn't be apparent from posting this 'story'. I've found that Tim generally does a pretty good job of separating the signal and substance from the noise and fluff, but this one got past you.
If you want to see quality Web content, vote with your clicks and posts and discourage blatant product promotion by shills for product manufacturers.
Frankly, these problems are what made us decide to start Geartest.com. We figured that there should be some place on the Internet where people can find unbiased technology product reviews that can be understood by the layperson. It's been difficult getting manufacturers to loan evaluation units because we specifically tell them that they will not necessarily receive positive coverage by virtue of sending their products -- but a few seem to be coming around to our way of thinking.
Hopefully average technology users and Slashdotters will too.