A Car Navigation System That Takes Pictures

Brandon Miniman writes "Navman has brought to market the first in-car navigation system with a built in camera, the iCN 750. The camera lets you take pictures of places you've been. Geographical coordinates are then assigned to each picture, so that you can bring up a gallery, and choose your destination by clicking on a picture." Add to this an always-on, all-sides video camera to document that it was the minivan that strayed into your lane, and it'll be even better.

Comments

snaps!

[MrSquirrel]

We could use this to take pictures of women and associate the women with their locations - a kind of new-age black book! ...now, if only us /.ers could get women.

Re:snaps!

[bitt3n]

We could use this to take pictures of women and associate the women with their locations - a kind of new-age black book!

I've tried that.. the problem is that their location keeps changing, and the faster you take the pictures, the faster their location changes in some random new direction.

I'd explain why this happens, but it involves a lot of math.

a topic also for YRO?

[sTeF]

what about my rights to privacy? where i live we still have at least the illusion of privacy >:)
what about restricted areas (numbers sadly increasing again nowadays), where photos are not allowed?
what about my medication battling my paranoia?

Re:a topic also for YRO?

[john82]

What about your insurance company?

I would think the major insurers would love to have an "always on" camera to monitor outside activity and inside activity. It would make such a nice complement to the acceleration, speed, distance and braking data they can get from your car's on-board computer.

Customer: This other car came out of nowhere and ran me off the road!
Insurer: Well we don't find any evidence of another vehicle, Sir, but according to the on-board video surveill... er, protection system, you were drinking a beer and having an animated conversation on your cell phone when you went off the road.

1 more camera needed

[dbc001]

Add to this an always-on, all-sides video camera to document that it was the minivan that strayed into your lane, and it'll be even better.

I want a camera pointing out the driver side window so I can record all the inapproproate behavior that cops exhibit. Like the Picture of Eyes from yesterday, a little red light on a camera would probably go a long way towards making cops do the right thing (and say the right thing too!).

If you're wondering how I can be so anti-police, I recently got assaulted because some nutcase thought that I cut in line in front of him (I didn't - in fact I offered to let him go ahead of me). When the cops arrived, I explained what happened and the cop's reply was "Well, if you fuck somebody, you're gonna get fucked". American police are incredibly unprofessional, rude, racist, sexist, and of course there's the occasional beating too - the more cameras we have pointing at them (not us!) the better off we'll be.

Re:Insurance discount

[mabu]

Seriously.

Could you imagine an insurance company giving you a discount?

Let me line my car up to get a better photo....

[King_TJ]

I can see it already.... Idiots are going to be seen with one of these things backing up and turning their car a little bit, moving forward a few feet again, etc. etc. - trying to make sure they've got exactly what they want in the camera's view to snap a "perfect" photo for the location they're at.

I agree with the other person who posted a complaint that too many devices are adding useless "fluff", trying too hard to be "unique" instead of incorporating truly useful featurea in their products. Sure, it may not be as "sexy" to sell durability or reliability, but frankly, I'd much rather pay for an appliance that'll last 5-10 more years, or a laptop computer that won't die the first time I accidently drop it on a concrete floor than for some gee-whiz, unneeded gadget merged into it.

With all the cameras being put in cellphones, you'd think practically everyone would be able to capture a photo of anyplace they happen to go already. Does a GPS system need to do it too??

You'll be amazed how useless the pictures are...

[dpbsmith]

...It's not that the camera won't have enough pixels. It's not that you need an Ansel Adams-quality photograph.

It's that to get a nice, clear, useful, _recognizable_ thumbnail-sized picture of your destination requires a lot of intelligent thought, good framing of the picture, thirty seconds to walk around and pick a good angle, and a time of day when the light is reasonable.

Three-quarters of the pictures people take with this thing will be

a) unrecognizable due to reflections on the car window they're trying to shoot through, or

b) unrecognizable because of lighting issues (dark, muddy, illegible storefront against a nice bright sky), or

c) unrecognizable because the camera was pointed at the wrong thing, or

d) unrecognizable because a lot of buildings look pretty much like each other, or

e) unrecognizable because the store name is too small to read in the finished picture when displayed thumbnail size on the navigation screen, or

f) unrecognizable because important recognition features were hidden behind a parked car, or

g) unrecognizable because you don't have a view of the front of the building from the only place where you could stop the car, which happens to be the parking lot in back of the building, or

h) unrecognizable because it's night-time and the camera isn't sensitive enough to make a good picture by streetlight (and the streetlighting isn't even enough even if it were, and the flash isn't bright enough to light up a building thirty feet away, and even if it were all you'd get are the flash reflections off the windows...