Dial-A-Cam

malloci writes "CNet has this article describing Nokia's new wireless camera. Unlike other webcams though, it is designed to communicate via a GSM network, sendings photos to the user's cell phone."

Comments

Dial-A-Cam Uses

[Blaine Hilton]

I'm not sure where this camera would be practical. It seems the best use would be for remote monitoring, such as for weather stations or remote pipelines, but it can't be so remote so the cell phone network is not established. I believe this is walking a very fine line between a location that can not have a regular POTS line and a location that is out of range from the cellular network. The Cnet article does not say rather or not the camera also records the images. If it does not record then this seems like a pretty expensive toy.

Now if it can be programmed to call a cell phone and send images when a sensor goes off then it becomes more interesting, because I don't think people are going to be watching these things on the phone all the time. Also, at $400 a pop if multiple cameras are needed it would be cheaper to use a PC with 4/8/16/32 port CCTV inputs and cameras that only cost around $100. The PC could still connect to a network using a cell phone device and be able to transmit data and images. It will also in all likelihood provide much more flexibility then this camera solution.

Go calculate something!

Re:Dial-A-Cam Uses

[ONU CS Geek]

Well, Maybe not a POTS line...

When I worked at Cedar Point, their security cameras worked over dry pairs of the telcom's network. Considering I can get a Dry pair (or an alarm circut) for about $8/month per leg (from my house to the Telco, from the Telco to whereever it's going).

A POTS line isn't going to give you much in the way of bandwidth, but, a dry pair is yours...you can do what you'd like to with it...wanna use it to pipe audio from your house to your girlfriend's house? You can do it. Wanna run DSL? Yup...probably could do that (if it's a non-loaded area). Wanna be able to call your parents from your girlfriends house and them not be suspicous when someone else's caller ID comes up...there ya go.

I honestly don't see much use of these phones outside of the 'teen expendable item' category...but who knows.

Ian

Rebirth of the web cam

[nilepoc]

I can't wait for the first fishtank/coffee pot/sunrise/sunst uses. Then we can progrss to spy cams, and the X10 mobile multiuse cam.

I am just not very excited about the loss of my privacy to a camera in every pocket society.

I bet the patriot act will have something to say about this also.

Oh great...

[ekephart]

Now there will be even more area codes. Seriously does EVERY camera need a phone number? Can't each organization buy a few numbers and have extensions for each camera?

And another thing. Talk about a security flaw. Send it a blank text message and it sends you what it sees? I just found a new use for my AT-5000 Auto-Dialer!

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see how much crap we can cram in a cell phone. zzZZzZz..

expected next step...

[edrugtrader]

this is how you would expect the technology to evolve. anything that can be done with existing technology will be done... and through that process new necessities will arise and new features will be implemented that will be joined with all of the exisiting features.

frank norris said something like imagination is only the combination of things not yet combined...

you have a phone... a phone calls another phone and asks to talk to it. that phones human operator can accept and talk.

you have picture phones where a phone operator can call another phone and offer a photo.

why not combine them (if the operator owns both pieces) and call a camera phone: and have it automatically accept, take a picture and send it back. that is really all this is. it automatically pushes a few buttons on the camera phone.

all it is is a scaled down camera phone with less functionality that automatically sends pictures. pretty simple to hack your own together i would think.

now i'll have to take the x10 camera hidded in my bathroom out and put my celly in there instead.

Terrific!

[segfaultdot]

...webcams/netcams aren't slow, grainy and low rez enough for me!

Seriously, it's an interesting idea, but if i really wanted such a device i'd get a WiFi camera (does such a device exist?) and a WiFi pda or slim laptop (not neccecarily at the same location). Much faster and potentially higher quality

Webcam exploits...

[miketang16]

Lovely, that's something I would really love to do, broadcast a wireless signal from a webcam in my house...

There's a reason I have a fully wired network... =)

Re:Probably not allowed

[jumpingfred]

Most network operators would love you to have something that makes a lot of calls. You do understand that they charge money to make phone calls don't you?

WTF?

[Shoten]

This is nuts. A $400 device that needs its own cellular phone account so that you can ask it to send you a snapshot when you feel like it? What the frick is the use of THAT? For less in hardware and MUCH less in recurring cost, I can put auto-refreshing pics from a webcam (like an Axxis) on my website and just look at the bloody page from a web-enabled phone. If I really had a hard-on for something clever, I could use the same gear (with enough wireless bandwidth to my phone/pda, that is) to actually watch live video. Why in hell would I pay so much more just to have snapshots on demand?