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..."

Comments

47 Second Transfer Time

[fwr]

With a 47 second transfer time for a full resolution picture I'd say the device is practically useless. Time between pictures is, IMO, one of the most important aspects of a digital camera, as longer timeframes means many missed perfect shots...

Re:47 Second Transfer Time

[LordNimon]

First off, full resolution on a 4Mp camera is a big picture, so most people won't be shooting at that res all the time anyway. Second, if they can implement a local cache for the images, so that they are transferred in the background, then it really shouldn't be a problem.

Come on, admit it - this is cool technology. So what if it has some kinks that need to be ironed out?

Re:47 Second Transfer Time

[lynx_user_abroad]

First off, full resolution on a 4Mp camera is a big picture, so most people won't be shooting at that res all the time anyway.

You tell me what the camera default resolution is, and I'll tell you what resolution most people will be shooting at most of the time.

Lets dissect this digicam

[cioxx]

1. transmit data in distance of up to 10 m without any cable connection.

So that gives you a really small radius around your PC to take pictures, if you're transmitting to a desktop PC. Although with a Laptop it should be fairly easy, but still, that's a lot of hardware to carry around. Not practical at all. The bluetooth technology really gets on my nerves. The range is horrible, and should be replaced by something better. It's not a God's gift to consumers. It's vapor.

2. As more and more peripheral devices develop BIP Bluetooth interfaces...

Ok, lets say I have a Ericsson mobile phone, and it can intercept and store blootooth signals. I doubt there is a phone out there which will store massive uncompressed image data on a tiny memory block. Totally useless. I can see no further applications within the next couple of years. The technology isn't widespread enough, and the storage on BT modules are either a) tiny b) non-existant c) inpractical

3. This state-of-the-art wireless connectivity allows the camera to interface to various peripheral devices without cables.

Vapor.

4. BIP compatible laptop computer can be used to store images, with a full 4 Mega picture taking around 47 seconds to transfer whilst a VGA resolution image takes just 1.5.

Is that even a feature? I can transfer 32 Megs of high quality image data from my DSC F505 under 30 seconds, give or take a few.

5. The DSC-FX77 will be available from November 2002.

Good. Someone should tell Sony that 1999 called. They want the digital camera back.

The only thing that's worth raving about with this digicam is the 4.0 megapixel spec (which is not much by today's standards). I just feel sorry for the people who will be paying lots of money for this overpriced POS.

Re:Lets dissect this digicam

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Bluetooth is a cable replacement, not a wireless network. How many cable are connected to your computer and how many are above 10m? You can take a picture somewhere over the world and then get to a PC and transfer the data with Bluetooth, no need to jack in your USB cable.

2. What is the purpose of a mobile phone? Communcation. Not storage. To store data I suggest to use the Toshiba Pocket Server (1.8 inch HD, 5Gb, ¥50,000).

3. Well, it is state of the art. There is no other universal modern wireless cable replacement protocol. And it lets you connect the camera to other Bluetooth devices. What point about it is vapour?

4. The point is, to transfer the Image, you have to connect it with a cable.
Now imagine, you have your notebook in a backpack, while tacking some pictures. You walk around and later, when you want to have a look at the pictures, they are already there. Pipelining at work.
Of course, when takeing lot of pictures, you'll have to revert to the cable.

Basic Misunderstanding

[yatest5]

I think the poster, and subsequently everyone who has replied, has missed the point of this camera.

It is not bluetooth enable so you take a picture, send to BT device, take another one.

You use it like a normal camera, but you can ALSO transmit your pictures to other BT devices, like sync with your computer etc..

Re:Range and speed

[jandrese]

In reality, Bluetooth is not designed for large data transfers like this. 1Mbps is the marketing speed. In reality, Bluetooth devices have a fairly hefty overhead that cuts into their transmit rate significantly.

Bluetooth was designed around supporting low bandwidth cellular links between your phone and whatever device you have, trading business cards, doing voice (the protocol stack actually has a "bypass" for voice data built right into the spec), and synchronization type tasks. In reality, this camera should be using something like 802.11 if it wants to make that data link useful. (shoot 20 pictures and you're waiting more than 15 minutes for the pictures to transfer. For that kind of speed you could just hook up the USB link cable and have it done in a fraction of the time).

Flash is so cheap, what's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought 256MB of Compact Flash for my digital camera for only $90.
I take everything at 3 megapixels (2048x1536) and
the average size of 118 images was 801KB. That means
I can store 334 pictures. If you really need to take more
than 334 pictures then you probably have $90 for
some more flash memory.