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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..."
This is another step in the direction of fragmented hardware. Instead of a mobile phone that can take pictures and browse the web, you'll have a camera, a screen, an earplug and microphone, and a screen, all connected via Bluetooth (or some other standard).
This will make it easier for upgrading parts of your system, and only buying what you need (you start with the mobile phone, then buy a camera of low quality, a year later you upgrade that camera, but you can keep using your mobile phone). Expect more of this to come.
Teenagers these days don't have as much sex as they want each other to think they do.
is to let you transfer from one camera to another. For example last week I was at Dragon*Con and there were plenty of times when I would miss a photo op where it would have been kick-ass to have been able to just go up to someone and say "hey, I see you got a pic of that crazy costume, mind if i get a copy?" and voila! I'd have it. :)
This will go with the recent Microsoft rumor that it's new mice and keyboards will be Bluetooth devices. This would certainly explain why all the local stores here are not getting any more microsoft natural keyboard pro's when they sell out so i can't get another one :(
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I believe the story was on News.com a few days ago.
BTW, this is an old story. they'd announced this a looong time ago. i think we've read about it here on
The thing ships with a 16mb memory stick, and can take larger sticks. It also has USB and a cradle for faster transfers. 47 seconds is also for the largest format picture. It can also send video at several frames per second, or a VGA resolution snapshot in under two seconds.
Backing up, the point of Bluetooth isn't Raw Speed. The point of including Bluetooth in a device like this is automation: As soon as you come near the proper PC, this and the PC will detect each other and begin the exchange. You might not have taken the camera out of your pocket or done more than set it down on walking in the door before it finishes the transfer.
If you need the pictures more quickly, simply set it in the USB cradle, or pop out the memory stick and stick it in one of those PC drive bay memory stick adapters.
Later on, you'll be able to configure your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone as a conduit, so pictures can automatically ride a secure tunnel back to your machine wherever you are, giving you an effectively infinite amount of space for your pictures. That's what Bluetooth is for.
More details here for Japanese speakers.
Says the RIAA: When you EQ, you're stealing bass!
Let's say I'm out touring a city and I'm snapping shots for the requisite post-tour photo album. Of course, I'm nowhere near a desktop PC or even a laptop. But lets say I have a Bluetooth-enabled hard drive in my backpack. It's built like these 20GB MP3 players, but it's just a Bluetooth file server nothing more. Now I can wander around the city shooting forever, or until the batteries die, whichever comes first :). Camera tosses every photo into the drive in my backpack (or on my belt, or whereever). If the camera can cache at least a handful of pictures, I'll never notice that transfers take a minute.
[offtopic]
While we're inventing stuff, let's say I have Bluetooth-enabled headphones with an MP3/OV decoder built in. (Heh, and make em solar powered, since they're sitting on top of my head.) They're pulling MP3s off the same file server in my backpack. I guess I'll lose the music stream while my camera stores a picture. I won't mind very much if the player is at least a little bit graceful in it's handling of the bottleneck.