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Nikon Releases WiFi Digital Camera
LegendOfLink writes "Nikon just revealed the world's first WiFi-enabled camera! It runs 802.11b/g and allows users to send files over a network. From the blurb: "Wireless shooting automatically transfers each picture to a selected computer as soon as it is shot. Pictures can then be viewed with Nikon's powerful yet fun-to-use and easy PictureProject software. And wireless printing delivers the convenience of cable-free direct printing to PictBridge-compatible printers. All these functions are easy to implement, too. Just set them up with the Wizard utility to enjoy easy wireless capabilities that add outstanding flexibility to the digital photography experience. "
Anything that makes porn easier to make is alright in my book.
This sounds more like an advertisement than anything actually useful... generally, if it includes the words 'powerful' 'fun-to-use' and 'easy' it's an advertisement. Might also be in an ad for a hooker >.>
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Isn't this a WiFi enabled camera from Kodak?
a th=6434&pq-locale=en_US
http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-p
I can't help but think that adding wifi will seriously hurt battery life.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Honest honey! I don't know where ~those~ pictures came from!!! Honey?? Let me back in the house....
Agile Artisans
We've seen plenty of wifi-enabled cameras before (such as the Canon EOS-1Ds), but this appears to be the first _consumer_ camera with wifi.
Will they market it like those Centrino laptops that magically allow you to share your photos and do full screen, perfect quality video messaging over the internet while you're in the middle of nowhere with nary a cellphone tower, wireless access point or sign of civilization to be seen anywhere?
The gendarmes can confiscate the camera, but the photos are already on a server outside the country's jurisdiction. This should be handy for journalists, demonstrators, etc.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
should we start calling this place $lashdot alredy?
News will be made when they nolonger encrypt the white balance information in their RAW format. Wake me up then.
-- Instant Karma's gonna get you! [320848 = 2*2*2*2*11*1823]
Does it run Linux?
Imagine it: four guys sitting in a room, playing deathmatch on their cameras. Screw PSP: cameras are the new gaming rigs!
Man, I just realized that there are _way_ too many colons in that post. It's a veritable colorama, a procto-party if you will.
This...
...actually means:
I can see it now...
Honestly, I could write a book.
Does this mean i'll have to install an anti-virus on my camera, too?
Nikon was the first to come out with a camera that was WiFi-capable. Nikon's D2H, which came out in Q3 2003, was also introduced with the Nikon WT-1 (and WT-1A in America), which attached to the camera and provided 802.11b transmission right from the camera. Nikon's latest offerings, the D2Hs and the D2x, are compatible with the new WT-2 and WT-2A, which support 802.11g and some new features. While the camera itself does not have internal WiFi support, it was designed with that function in mind and the optional accessory enabled that. Canon also offers the WFT-E1 transmitter for the EOS-1Dmk2 cameras as well as the EOS-20D. This was introduced after Nikon, however it supports WiFi as well as Ethernet. Mike Isler
Mike
and thus, the internet was flooded with pictures of trinkets in people's bedrooms
First WiFi digital camera? Then what is this supposed to be?
dennis
Not quite right, this ( http://www.wi-pics.com/) is actually the first Commercial WiFi add on, and it supports pretty much any camera that has a CF slot
I was just recently wondering if there were wi-fi digital cameras available. I was shopping at Target when I saw one of those Kodak 'do-it-yourself' digital photocenters with half a dozen slots for almost every type of portable storage media. Mounted on the side was a design afterthought - a bubble of plastic that housed an infared sensor. I would never use the Kodak photocenter simply because bored checkstand onlookers would be able to view my my most private pictures while I crop and edit them. However, the wi-fi add-on seemed like a natural feature.
Then I had another thought: with the advent of protable digtal cams being used to feed a modern culture of voyeurs, it's just a matter of time before there are voyeurs with protable wi-fi cam sniffers, lingering nearby to leech onto an unsuspecting data transfer. I read a few months ago about how some guys had built a bluetooth sniper rifle; unnoticed, they would stand atop tall downtown buildings and digitally eavesdrop on nearby blackberries and other pdas.
It seems the more freedom we embrace, the more we surrender.
Come on a wifi digital camera.. what a waste of good ideas. how about something that everyone would want. a laptop hard drive in a nice small pack that has a battery and wifi.
it sits there as a wifi share either set it to join any network it finds when turned on or make it default to adhoc mode.
that would rock. " Hey I need those files, just a second, I'll download them from my backpack."
there are gobs of really cool stuff that could be done with wifi or bluetooth, yet we get useless crap like wifi enabled digital cameras.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
WI-FI just seems to me to be pointless on a camera. It's not like I'm going to be out taking photos near hotspots all the time (for example, backpacking through Costa Rica) What I really want to see is a GPS-enabled camera that records not only time and date in the metadata, but also latitude and longitude. I always seem to have a hard time recalling where it was I took my photos once I have all of them on my hard drive. Imagine being able to integrate these photos with, say, Google Earth (a satellite flyover slideshow!). Or, imagine being able to search for photos using Spotlight in OS X Tiger by location. I can see real geek appeal to something like this, instead of adding a battery-sucking feature that would only be functional in a narrow slice of locations.
In 1968 Mayor Daily tried to suppress a crowd protesting the war and what they perceived as the theft of the primary elections and Democratic presidential nomination by the party elite.
He did this by ordering his police to smash the newsies' cameras.
This had always worked before.
He also has his pet union bosses block the stringing of much of the TV cabling into the convention center, hotels, and surrounds that would have carried the pictures. That was expected to work, too.
But the newsies were trying out a new technology: The "minicam". This was enormous. A "miniatureized" TV camera about as big as your torso, shoulder mounted. Hooked to a backpack full of electronics and batteries, with a big antenna sticking out. About all a strong man could carry. But just barely enough to get the signal to the next stage: A semitruck full of electronics, located within a block, terminating in a microwave dish to pipe the signal to a nearby studio.
And this was Chicago. Where all three major networks had a studio there, along with the major facilities for their cross-country video landline.
What was brand new about it the "mini"cam: It was real-time. By the time the billyclub smashed the lens the image of the billyclub had come zooming at the faces of a country full of TV watchers.
Oops!
For the next three days the crowd chants "The Whole World Is Watching" as the process repeats. The country is treated to video of the National Guard and the 101st Airborne shoving crowds around with assault rifles, jeeps mounting machine guns and others mounting barbed-wire barriers, and enough teargas to fog the center of a city, plus enough repeats of police people bashing that instant replay is redundant.
And a once-well-liked Democratic party functionary's nomination is totally discredited. And the Republican wins the race.
Fast forward to near the end of the century. Video cameras that record on tape are now a consumer item. And a citizen tapes the interaction between the LA Police and Rodney King. Regardless of whether the cops were acting rightly or out of control, the scene makes for riots once it hits the news - and again when the cops are acquitted.
So is the reaction of the California governments to clean up the LA cops? Of course not! (Their gang task forces are left to run wild until their pattern of evidence-faking and perjury leads to legal challenges of their previous cases and the release nearly everybody they ever busted.) Instead they pass a law to BAN recording government functionaries (such as police) performing their functions. And the police use this to sieze any videotape made of their actions.
Videocams are in the same position that film cameras were BEFORE the Democratic Convention of '68.
Until now.
Cellphone cameras were a start. But this looks like a system that will put publication-quality radio-linked realtime news photography in the hands of the general population.
Granted it's just stills so far. But it looks to me like John Q Public just got his hands on the class of technological tool that only the network newsies have had for the last 35 years.
Just in time for the next step in the replacement of the the news establishment with the Internet-based open media. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Yes, that Ricoh. I think rather than built-in wireless it had a TCP/IP stack, an FTP client and a PC Card slot for whatever kind of compatible network card you wanted to put in: Ethernet, wireless, whatever.
And it was definitely a consumer camera. It had a tiny lens and was designed as a flattish bar similar to old 110-film Instamatics.
Hardly an issue really. Most software can do entirely without it anyways - and that is only the case with ONE single body - every other body is fine.
:) Not that Canon is perfect, but I want out of Nikon's ever increasing mediocrity.
If you want to pick issues about Nikon's stuff, there's lots of REAL ones to pick...
I, for one, didn't buy a Nikon DSLR body to replace my old Nikon SLRs. I went with a Fuji DSLR instead. The flash system is just a mess. Not that it doesn't work. But why change the flash gear like 3 times in a row? From *real* TTL to eTTL/iTTL oddball stuff. So you had to ditch your 500$ SB-28, replace it with a SB-28DX for another 500$, then ditch it, buy a SB-80DX instead for another 500$, and ditch it again, and buy a SB-800 instead for another 500$!?!
If you make a living out of it, sure, that may not seem like a big expense, but otherwise... Ouch! That's assuming you only need 1 flash, and also assuming you don't use other flash types like macro ring flashes. Otherwise you'd have to chance those as well. I didn't have yet another 500$ for a SB-29s macro ring flash to replace my perfectly good real TLL macro ring flash.
And then what about all the preflashes that trigger the studio strobes and can't be cancelled on many (most? all?) of their DSLRs? So the strobes give all they got during the preflash, and then are out of power for the real flash... Useless! Most of their bodies (D100/D70 etc) don't have PC sync cords either - gotta buy the expensive wireless triggers and rely on them to work properly... Yeah right. Some bodies only have mechanical screw-in type of "remotes" too, no infrared or cabled remotes.
New DX lenses? That's OK. As long as you don't mind paying as much for a non-full frame lens that's not particularly good. It's not an issue until the day they decide to change the frame size again... Because out of the current one, having a maximal theorical resolving power for 35mm lenses... We're approaching max resolution that can ever be attained - unless they go full frame again. In which case you can just throw away your DX lenses... Or for usually less money, you can buy BETTER 3rd party lenses that are full frame. Point in case: Nikon DX 12-24mm VS Sigma's and Tokina's. Both 3rd party lenses are cheaper, full frame, and have better pic quality. Full frame also means it'll work on any F-Mount camera, be it a Fuji, Kodak, Nikon, or some Nikon film SLR of any kind. Why would one spend MORE to get such inferior, short-sighted stuff like that? Amongst pros and prosumers, I've seen exactly 0% interest in their DX lenses.
Nikon has been listening to their north american (and european?) consumers less and less these days it seems. It just seems like they're putting out stuff that THEY want to - not what WE want.
The D70 might not be bad right now, but they tend to be slow at coming up with new / equivalent stuff to canons, like VR lenses, whose selection is still very limited and quite expensive... Note how you see canon stuff sold EVERYWHERE? Even at best buy! But nikon? Nah... Only Nikon authorized shops. Old mentalities...
Being a nikon system user is becoming less and less attractive everyday.
I'm pretty much locked in with their stuff (lots of $$$ invested in good lenses) - the mount at least. Keep it or sell it all at a huge loss... If it wasn't for a Fuji DSLR I would have bought a Kodak DSLR instead (uses Nikon lenses too; F-Mount stuff), the SLR/N is very nice but I'm not that rich... I'm a coder - not a CEO.
As for Nikon's stuff... I just may sell everything at a huge loss before I buy one of their DSLRs. I hate Nikon (the japanese company) a LOT more than I'll ever hate microsoft.
There's times like that I wish some sucker/looser would trade my Nikon gear for equivalent Canon gear
Part II: Behind the Scenes at the CES Keynote
Is the protocol open? (My guess based on current information is: NO)
Can you send commands to the camera through WiFi? (No hint that it is, so probably NO).
Can the camera be run off a power supply? (Probably YES)
If you could do all those things, the camera would make a great web cam and Nikon could sell huge numbers of it. But probably it won't work again.
It is truly frustrating that there is so much great camera hardware out there and camera manufacturers screw up on the software, the protocols, and openness. I have yet to see even a working, fairly complete PTP implementation over USB.