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How the Camera Phone Changed the World
theodp writes "Ten years after the amazing Philippe Kahn married a cell phone and a digital camera to capture the birth of daughter Sophie, Slate takes a look at the impact of the camera phone, the gadget that perverts, vigilantes, and celebrity stalkers can all agree on. 'With this kind of device,' Kahn told Wired, 'you're going to see the best and the worst of things.'"
And people say gay marriage is unnatural!
And, I didn't know that Kahn is a minister.
Camera phones have such poor quality. Why don't you just buy a disposable one for a few bucks and save yourself some pain.
If only they'd put a crappy phone on a high-quality camera, I'd be set.
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
I do a lot of business with companies who for security reasons will not let you take a camera phone onto their premises. I also have to leave mine at home when I go to parents evening just in case I might possibly take a picture of a school pupil.
Now, have you tried to get a non camera phone lately? Difficult to say the least.
If I want to take a picture then I get my Digital Camera out (Nikon D2x) and do it properly.
Current camera phones have the same quality as CCTV cameras did 10 years ago.
I'm sorry (and will probably get modded down as a troll) this is one invention I could certainly do without.
The good: as a tool to conveniently record crime or emergency. (in addition to quotidian snapshot use) The bad: abuse/invasion of privacy. neither: as tool to do work (as an evidentiary tool recording what one has done or has observed in a job role) So, the variable is intent.
But I still keep my cell phone picks. Pictures are mementoes for most people. That crazy night when me and the girls snuck into the basement of bio-sci just as it closed and rode around on carts and chucked dry ice into the toilets.... Those types of memories don't need a 20 megapixel roloflex camera. Thats what I use it for.. and also naughty photos. just too pervy pulling out a SLR to take those pictures. It makes girls a bit nervous.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
2003 called. It wants its criticisms of cameraphones back.
Its very small, but its still not as small as my RAZR, and considering all the other crap in my pockets, i dont need the added weight making my pants fall down. Its nice to have a camera with you at all times and not have the extra bulk of it. I was semi-involved in a car accident last week, once we all pulled over everybody whipped out their camera phones. Also for spur of the moment crap that i'd never have a picture of otherwise. Now if im doing dedicated photography, or am somewhere that i know ill want good pictures (holidays, some parties, etc), then i'll bring my good camera since its better suited to the task.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
"We'll see the best of things, we'll see the worst of things, we'll see everything."
Not me. Holy shite. The Daniel Pearl video? Saddam's hanging? Freakin' nightmares for sure.
On the other hand; Jessica's Biels heiny. Dat's good schtuff. Not a camera phone, but a good way to start the day.
Here's the problem. The cellphone was supposed to make it easy for people to be reached on-the-move. For "security" reasons we are not allowed to use our phone everywhere, because the people who are taking photos of us and watching us on videos don't want us to take photos or videos of them (just count how many police brutality incidents on youtube also involve the rough handling of the guy capturing said incident on a camera). On european trains there are "quiet" zones where phones are banned, and if we use our phone on a plane then the phone will immediately detonate all of the explosive liquids stored in passenger's hand-luggage and cause sony lithium-ion batteries in apple G4 powerbooks to burst into flames.
Lastly, and even more importantly than plane death, upgrading the phone's camera just gives the mobile phone industry another excuse to charge you a higher subscription than the previous year.
This message was scanned by European governments and contains no terrorism.
Ultimately all the new technologies are putting an end to privacy. England has largely drunk the Kool Aide and put cameras on every street corner but the rest of the first world is following their example. At anytime you can be photographed or filmed without your knowledge. Even my PDA has a decent built in camera. Newer cars have black boxes and many have tracking devices. Emails are routinely monitored whether at work or by the government. When I was growing up in the 60s such a loss of privacy would have been thought to be Communist or at best facist. It really is the frog in boiling water senario. In fifty years it'll be considered a normal part of life to be under the microscope at work or in any public place. There's even talk of monitoring people in their own homes. Amazing what is being done for our own good. It is creepy to imagine that anytime you or your children may be photographed. Cameras were always pretty obvious so you had some warning. Cell phones are such a part of life no one thinks twice about them. They've already hit 2 megapixels. I have to believe they'll eventually have 5 or 6 megapixel camera phones. Ironically it's just as much the memory holding them back as the CCD chips.
I wrote a few stories about Sophie, see here.
-- Cheers!
Japanese phones already have pretty high quality phones on their cellphones. I believe 4.0 megapixel is not too unusual nowadays. Dont know why American companies are so slow on the uptake. Milking older technologies for everything its worth?
They're also good for recording events. Not everyone carries a 20 megapixel camera. Remember the London Undergroud Bombings. One such passenger was a Moblogger and uploaded it through his email to his blog http://moblog.co.uk/view.php?id=77571/ Has anyone used the k800i? Probably the best camera-phone available to Europe and America just now. Incredible device, even better than some conventional phones. I use my camera phone to take quick pictures of those funny moment,s those drunk escapades that i'd probably forget about if i weren't taking pictures with my k750i.
I think many people have a problem with the cell phone camera quality: If manufacturers bother putting a camera on a cell phone, they may as well have decent quality, right? Well, one thing that is overlooked with these cameras is the possibility of digital (panoramic and frame) stitching.
m .jpgi ty_of_books.jpg. jpgn .jpgg p gp g
m 1_corrected.jpg0 _corrected.jpg1 _corrected.jpga ny_corrected.jpgr ected.jpg
By using OSS such as Hugin and Enblend one can increase the resolution of images, add to the field of view and basically achieve the following results:
- http://www.cardope.com/misc/razr_panoramic/bedroo
- http://www.cardope.com/misc/razr_panoramic/divers
- http://www.cardope.com/misc/razr_panoramic/room33
- http://www.cardope.com/misc/razr_panoramic/jsd-va
- http://www.cardope.com/misc/razr_panoramic/car.jp
- http://www.cardope.com/misc/razr_panoramic/car3.j
- http://www.cardope.com/misc/razr_panoramic/ariz.j
Slightly wider shots:
- http://www.cardope.com/misc/razr_panoramic/livroo
- http://www.cardope.com/misc/razr_panoramic/par-ph
- http://www.cardope.com/misc/razr_panoramic/pan-ph
- http://www.cardope.com/misc/razr_panoramic/grandc
- http://www.cardope.com/misc/razr_panoramic/dd_cor
Please note that some of these processed images have not been color corrected with enblend - otherwise they would have turned out much better.
CCTV, phone cameras, pocket cameras, instant cameras, sattelite surveillance. We are photographed 1000s of times every day without even being aware of it (ok I pulled this number out of my ass but we are photographed a lot). I think we just have to accept that as a society we are moving to the point where we lose our privacy and it seems like you can either embrace the loss or try to fight it.
KAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!
So, the variable is intent.
Wow, that's the first time that has ever happened with technology (other than nuclear power, explosive combustion, and usage of sticks)! What a new age in which we must be entering!
The fact that people are continually surprised is perhaps the most surprising thing about technological advances. Here's a couple of items: nuclear fusion plants will be great for electricity production but they will also be terrific for making plutonium (since you can also use the high neutron flux from fusion with external uranium assemblies), quantum computers will be great to solve lots of mathematical problems but they will defeat our bank encryption systems, and faster than light travel would be great for exploring the stars but it would make it impossible to fend off a first strike nuclear attack (hint: use your FTL drive to fly into the White House with a nuke).
Saying that any piece of technology can be good or bad is really saying that any human with a tool can act good or bad. Technology is just a tool, it has no morality. A nuclear bomb doesn't know if it is being used as a PNE or to level a city nor does a cameraphone know whether it is being used to transfer real-time information to a 911 call center or to invade someone's privacy.
I agree with you on doubting the use valueness of a camera phone - however there are still phones without a camera I discovered.
After my father's cell phone broke, I was thinking about giving him mine (SE K750i) and get a new one - of course including a higher resolution megapixel camera and a lot of other features...But after thinking about the lack of frequent use of all these feature I decided to get a Samsung SGH-X210 - cheap (75), small, elegant looking + not a lot of extra features (luxury:fm-tuner) that just get in the way..try it! Just plain text massaging & calling - that's it..
YouTube - UCLA Police Taser Student in Powell.
Megapixels is only half of the quality discussion.
A good camera has optical zoom, a bigger ccd (a bigger ccd at the same megapixel still gives a better picture), autofocus, etc.
Implementing this in a cell phone requires space.
And soon you too will be able to use your camera-phone to stop crime in its tracks!
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Because there are so many companies with so many standards and technologies. Look at how many different audio formats there are for cell phones. It's like each handset had to come up with its own format that it would accept. Plus in America we use are cell phones for 2 things, making calls and texting. In other countries cell phones are used for everything, so the demand for richer and better features are higher.
Can I bum a sig?
Pertaining to this topic..
911 calls in NYC will activate the camera on mobile phones so people can send video of the emergency as it happens.
CNN usually gets images or video from peoples phones within minutes of the incident happening. The 911 people down in NYC just want the same data feed for emergencys..
Kill your TV
what they need is the ability to stitch the picture on the fly so you can just wave the camera around and paint the image in your camera.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
One problem with the disposable camera is that after you take an important picture, the camera can be 'confiscated' and your picture is gone too. With a camera phone, the picture can be emailed to the world before the 'bad guy' can take your phone away....
--jeffk++
ipv6 is my vpn
Screw megapixels, I can't wait for the first Video/Camera/Handgun/Phone...
There are tons of phones without cameras. There is absolutely *no* problem whatsoever getting a phone that doesn't have a camera. Every time an article about cellphones comes up somebody cries out "Can't I just have a phone? One without a camera???", and every time the basic answers is that you damn well can.
Now the problem is that these people aren't asking if they can have a phone without a camera. And they know it. They want a phone that has WiFi, stereo bluetooth, a big high quality color screen, 3G, can play back every media file under the sun and better yet they can put custom software on and isn't locked to any provider... but not a camera. And that is where you do end up getting into "good luck, mate" territory.
Seriously - walk into a store, look on the web, check out office supplies stores (guess what - they sell cell phones that are literally no-frills so that employees can have a cheap company phone).. there are plenty of cell phones without a camera. And if that is their only argument, then they shouldn't complain that it is not a very fashionable design or that it only has a fixed-matrix black-and-white LCD display and they can't download the latest music onto it let alone watch that StarGate SG-1 they recorded to Ogg Theora.
One thing the camera phone has accomplished is a general 'dumbing down' of peoples sence of quality of photos, which has nearly killed the film camera industry.
:)
They get used to poor quality since its *everywhere*, and accept it as 'good enough' since its more convenient..
ya, its a rant.. so sue me
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"Ultimately all the new technologies are putting an end to privacy."
That must be why they call them "public" spaces then.
Is not just "adding a camera to a cellphone" what is doing the big changes. Is the availability (a good percent of people, depending on where, have cellphones, a good percent of them have cameras, and even some of them can film), and to have internet (with places where to easily publish photos/videos be to general public or just to send by mail) as something to enhance use. Pure digital cameras were making social changes already, but cellphones with cameras are putting them really everywhere and to everyone.
I'm sorry (and will probably get modded down as a troll) this is one invention I could certainly do without.
The unfortunate difference between an Internet martyr and a real martyr is that the real martyrs end up dead. Although, maybe Internet martyrs are just real ones posting from beyond the grave.
Actually I'd say that's more Insightful than Funny. While I don't need 70% of the functionality on most modern handsets (phonecalls & texts, anything else is a waste) - a decent bloody camera in the same device (IE. a replacement for a decent point-n-click digicam, I'm not talking SLRs here) is something I would consider using.
The other thing is that I had to buy a phone with a camera because, at the time, Verizon (#1 Consumer Reports) didn't offer a basic phone that showed the phone number of the caller without having to answer. With the phone I have, I just look at the cover and see who's calling. The basic phones you mention, you have to open it up. I'd give you a link, but their store site (Verizonwireless) is down for maintenance today.
To me the greatest thing that camera phones (and cheap digital cameras in general) bring is a possible curb on government oppression. Around the world in both totalitarian regimes and democracies, people gather to protest about various government actions and decisions. In totalitarian regimes and sadly also in our democracies, these protests are often met with grossly excessive force from riot police. In democracies the police often wait until the media finish and leave before making their move on the protesters.
However, now that so many people have camera phones (even in non-democracies), it's much harder to get away with such oppression. All it takes is for one person to film a police officer beating an unarmed man cowering on the ground and it will be around the world very quickly.
I think this prevalence of cheap and portable video-capable devices has lead to a change of tactics in some countries. In an environment where everything the police do is being recorded on video, governments are seeking to avoid confrontation altogether. It has become increasingly popular to either herd protesters into "Free Speech Zones" (in the US) or just effectively ban protests altogether as is the case in the UK, for half a mile or so around parliament square.
In case you're wondering, I've never actually been on a protest myself. Like most people I am either too lazy or too scared of being clubbed by Police to attend (which is exactly the attitude governments like).
Perhaps life really is full of possibilities.
Thanks for speaking the truth that has been absent from all discussions of cell phone cameras - THEY SUCK!
It doesn't matter what resolution they boast, how big a memory card you can install, or whether it can even record video - the point is that these cameras have horrible quality lenses and tiny, low quality sensors that generate terrible photos in the best of circumstances (bright daylight, high contrast subject posing motionless for the picture), and are completely useless in less than bright conditions and/or with subjects that are moving or which require split second timing to capture.
I agree that they should be eliminated altogether from cell phones until and unless they start to approach the level of performance we had in quality compact digital cameras seven years ago. (The 2 megapixel pocket camera I owned in 2000 took infinitely better photos that any 5 megapixel cellphone camera today.)
Now the problem is that these people aren't asking if they can have a phone without a camera. And they know it. They want a phone that has WiFi, stereo bluetooth, a big high quality color screen, 3G, can play back every media file under the sun and better yet they can put custom software on and isn't locked to any provider... but not a camera. And that is where you do end up getting into "good luck, mate" territory.
So they're not just asking for a phone, they're asking for a good phone. Bastards. Should be hanged.
Fortunately, there is at least one such device. http://www.nokia.com/A4145124
then they shouldn't complain that it is not a very fashionable design or that it only has a fixed-matrix black-and-white LCD display and they can't download the latest music onto it let alone watch that StarGate SG-1 they recorded to Ogg Theora.
Yeah? Well, I want a phone that can do all that, but the company policy is no cameras, so they don't get my big bucks. Instead I have a cheap candybar that I can't even set the imperial march as the ringtone for when my boss calls.
That would be why he said it is difficult to get a cell phone without a camera, not impossible. I have yet to hear anyone argue there are no cell phones without cameras who was not obviously exaggerating. But they are few in number, they often have to be specially ordered (last time I went to Best Buy all their phones had cameras), and often lack features which people who actually work for a living (and cannot take a camera in to the office) might want. That is what people are complaining about.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
I'm not sure why people have this need to video tape everything. Just experience it in the moment instead of trying to get that one great camera angle.
Besides I'm not sure who wants to see this later on. Him? Why? His wife? Why? The kid? Why?
...The dramatic reduction in the size of digital still cameras and MiniDV camcorders will still change the world anyway. The ability to download still images and video to a desktop or laptop computer, process the data, and upload it to the Internet has turned citizens into de facto journalists. In fact, many pundits now say if we had modern digital cameras and digital camcorders back in 1963, instead of having only one clear film of the assassination of President Kennedy we would end up with video and still images of that unfortunate tragedy from multiple viewpoints.
Most high end phones used by serious people like blackberries etc have a NC model standing for no camera. On a related note the company I work for also bans camera phones but you can get a camera phone pass if you are at a certain job level. It has become a kind of status item. The untrusted masses have just ID cards. The intemediate have a camera phone pass , the executives have property passes which let them them take laptops in and out and the IT guy has a Gold pass which lets him move multi-million dollar servers in and out. Shows to go who on top :)
**Life is too short to be serious**
I took this photo with my phone last week as I walked to work. Nokia N80, 3mp. The original picture is bigger and sharper than the large one on flickr. As good as most pocket shooters, imho. Night time shots aren't great though.
Rocket science is easy. Neurosurgery, now *that's* difficult.
"How camera phones changed a select number of people to make them think that anyone gives a wet slap about what they see in the course of a day."
Most of the world is mostly the same.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Maybe it's time for a one pixel camera.
The government can't save you.
'With this kind of device,' Kahn told Wired, 'you're going to see the best and the worst of things.'" I think George Eastman (inventor of the camera) might have beaten Kahn to this quote. This statement is a little short of profound :)
Now if Kahn had said "you're going to see the best and worst of upskirt porn, drunkass celebrities and rednecks fighting", he would have said a mouthful.
"One thing the camera phone has accomplished is a general 'dumbing down' of peoples sence of quality of photos, which has nearly killed the film camera industry."
Apparently it hasn't killed the "analog hole" industry.
Most clamshell/flip cell phones can be configured not to answer the call when the user opens it to see who's calling.
I'm personally pretty sick and tired of the use of megapixels as indicator for the quality of digital cameras and cameraphones. I pretty much bet that my older P&S digical camera (Canon Powershot G3) absolutely trounces any 4-megapixel camera phones in image quality, despite being released in 2002. It's even worse than the use of mega/gigahertzes and MIPSes for computer performance; the optics, size of individual photosites and other factors just have so much impact for image quality that it's downright silly to use a single figure to evaluate the image quality.
The above does not mean that I'd want phones with camera to disappear from the face of Earth; if the image quality is sufficient for somebodys needs, it's fine for me. I'd just like people to have some more informed bases for comparisons.
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
Although Camera Phones don't have the best quality there are useful and convenient. I don't always carry my camera but usually have my phone
Examples:
I am at my sons Lacrosse game and I forgot my camera at home
Car accident, need some pictures of the accident scene
Those crazy moments when I wished I had a camera
You camera battery dies and you really want a picture.
The ability to take a picture and send to anyone with out a PC
ETC
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
Pics or it didn't happen.
You can also get a E50 with no camera. However, it doesn't have 3G.
The thing is, there are people who would like a phone with other high end features, but can't have or don't want a camera phone. Most, if not all of the no-camera phones are very basic phones that are pretty stripped down. It would be trying to find a motherboard for a computer without integrated Firewire. There are plenty of boards out there that lack it, but try to find one with high end features like SATA Raid, gigabit eithernet, and PCI Express, but no Firewire.
For a gadget loving crowd, there's a surprising amount of camera phone haters. Weird.
Anyway, I love them. After last year's incident with Michael Richards, I realized that the ability for anybody to capture events and then distribute them has pretty profound implications. If that incident had happened just a few years ago, it would've been far from the frontpage, rapidly forgotten. But because people were able to see it themselves they were able to respond to the situation as if they were present. And people reacted accordingly.
Sure, sometimes things can be put out of context, or are simply trivial, like seeing Britney's cash-and-prizes. But other times, it can highlight an important event, like the UCLA taser scandal or Saddam's hanging. And all these examples are just what happened last year, off the top of my head.
As more content is produced by the masses, I'd expect a lot more interesting stories ahead. I mean, these "Time Person of The Year" awards don't come easy.
http://www.talknerdy.org
Hanged? No. Fully realize that they're going to have limited choice? Hell yes - and yes, there are actually choices out there as you point out "Good luck, mate" doesn't mean they don't exist
Heck, you can get a PocketPC Phone edition equal in every way to the HTC Wizard - but without the camera:
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename
Authorities (and by that I mean law enforcement primarily) always likes to to throw cameras on the citizens. Public places, private places, etc. Constant surveillance makes it much easier to catch criminals, no doubt. We can debate the merits of this and whether or not it is worth the trade off till the cows come home.
The camera phone however, has turned the tables a bit. Now those authorities are finding that they are being watched and recorded as well. Historically, a corrupt or abusive cop has little problem having his story believed over that of the evil criminal. Recently we have seen a near explosion of police abusing their power and assaulting people. Cops beating up a guy in Pittsburgh no long ago, the UCLA campus police tazering a mouthy student multiple times (and threating to tazer bystanders who simply asked for badge numbers), etc. Once these are up on youtube, suddenly action is taken against the police where it would ordinarily have been ignored, laughed off, or denied.
This is good for everyone, the more corrupt and abusive police kicked off the force, the better for citizens and police alike. For any authority's position to work, they need trust. Right now there is a bit of a trust problem between the police and general public and only by taking care of the problem officers will that ever change.
Finkployd
According to Wikipedia, Phillipe Kahn entered the US on a tourist visa, setup Borland International shortly there after and didn't receive a Green Card until 1986, 4 years later.
This sounds like a service google could run--you snap a pic of the barcode, and your phone goes to a site where you read reviews about how great the product is/how much it sucks.
Do you mean this? (flickr stores the original if you upload it, even though they don't want to show it if you don't have a pro account).
It's larger alright. Sharper? Wouldn't say so, IMHO, it's much better at medium and large, the full resolution really brings out the flaws.
Purple fringing, almost all detail eaten by heavy noise reduction (look at the smaller tree branches, there's nothing but blur), badly overexposed sky. And that's in nigh perfect conditions.
It's pretty good for a phone picture, maybe it's on-par with cheapo pocket shooters, but it's nowhere near the good ones.
I want a tiny phone without a camera. I want the Zoolander phone!
911 calls in NYC will activate the camera on mobile phones so people can send video of the emergency as it happens.
Wow!!! Score:4, Interesting? Some mods actually fell for this? Nice work, deviceb. Got any other tall tales for us?
While this is true, what we REALLY need is further integration. The GUN-cameraphone would solve a ton of problems. We'd probably even have direct democracy, finally.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
after long road works and bad traffic, driving at a walking pace, there was an accident on the other side of the road. on impulse, I took a photo; was spotted by a traffic cop; now I'm facing a charge of driving without care/attention... probably will result in a fine of up to US$1000 or GBP500. This is the downside of always-with-you photography equipment and impulse picture taking, there are times it is quite ill advised.
get a Free BSD!
That would make "firing off an email" a lot more interesting....
I miss the days when phones were devices used to talk to people. And for that matter, I miss when video game consoles were used to play video games (Sony trying to shove every feature they possibly can down our throats) and search engines were search engines (Google usurping every industry they possibly can).
And if you don't like nokia, sony ericsson make the k800i which is pretty much the same. The flash is a bit better than the one one the N73 but the thumbstick pisses me off. Can't force the flash on, it can't really cope with light behind the subject, and the battery is only good for two days when you're on a 3G network but other than that it's a good phone :)
It's not exactly rocket surgery.
One of the best inventions in the last ten years. Phone and camera really comes hand in hand. Now comes the 5Megapixel N95 Nokia phone. http://www.treo700.org/
Go for a Sharp then- pretty everything you're asking for (9xx series- 910SH has 5MP sensor with 3x optical zoom and autofocus, 904SH has image stabilization, 3.2MP sensor, 2x optical zoom and autofocus, the 903SH has the same without image stabilization, and the 902SH is trailing behind with all the features of the 903SH but with a 2MP sensor). They are pretty big, though.
OSx86 FTW
I have a 4-year old Casio exilim 2.0 megapixel that also plays mp3s. The photos are excellent (for a 4 year old camera), and it is a very basic mp3 player that plays with some hiccups. I can say you that this is much better than the other way around! I use the mp3 player for my car every now and then, and can get pics that are good enough to print. I use the SD card to put any amount of mp3s or photos on the little thing, it's very flexible and I only have to carry around one small device. Shame they don't make this combination anymore.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
The quality is less important than its omnipresence.
I used to keep a single-use 35mm camera in my car. Those things are not known for taking quality pictures, least of all when they've been alternately baked and frozen in a car for a few seasons. However, this didn't really bother me, because I could imagine times when just having any camera at all, regardless of how bad the pictures or how washed-out the colors would be, would be a Good Thing.
That's the role I see cellphone cameras filling. I don't think they're really going to cut into the standalone camera market (at least, not more than disposables cut into the film-based standalone camera market), but I can see them totally taking up the disposable-camera one.
The benefit of such an omnipresent technology isn't that people will be able to not bring regular cameras where they did before, but that they'll be able to take photos of events where they traditionally have not brought bigger cameras.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
That's rather bizarre.
I can think of some special circumstances here in the U.S. where you wouldn't be allowed to take pictures (privately owned clubs or beaches could prohibit photography, although I think only nudist/naturist ones probably would bother), but in general any place in public is fair game. And it's more or less expected that any place where you have parents and children, there are going to be (lots and lots of) photos taken.
That's not to say that you can use photos of random people taken in public places for commercial purposes, because then you get into their control over the use of their "image," but the photography per se is protected.
There are certainly situations which are legal, but might cause you to be harassed by the police -- standing on the sidewalk outside an elementary school and photographing the children, when it was clear you weren't a parent might draw unwelcome attention, but if it went to court you'd probably be vindicated.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I recently saw an ad in US News & World Reports that was for a very basic, phone-only cellphone, just like the kind that I hear people begging for all the time on Slashdot.
It looked like they were going for the older demographic, because of the emphasis on large print and big keys, but it seemed like something that would appeal to anyone who wanted a very simple phone (but not as dumbed-down as the one-button children's cellphones).
It's apparently called the Jitterbug, and is made by Samsung. It seems to be marketed by a network or virtual network called "Greatcall," but perhaps it's possible to buy the phone elsewhere and use it on a different network. I assume the plans that they're pushing with it are similarly basic.
What would be nice would be if you could get it as an unlocked GSM phone, and then pop in a T-Mobile SIM (last time I checked, TMobile had the least-expensive voice-only plans, in cost per minute).
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It should be called the SLRSLR - Single Lens Reflex Self Loading Rifle.
No beer, no TV make Lifthrasir something something
I looked at his newly acquired red Razor, and it has so much crap on it that apparently the only place they could find for the SD card was under the battery.
It's there because they're probably putting it in place of the SIM card slot. If the phone is the one I'm thinking of, it's from Sprint, which being a CDMA network doesn't use SIMs. So rather than just leave a nonfunctional slot there, under the battery, they turned it into a MicroSD/TransFlash card slot for loading additional music.
I think it's a case of the card being shoehorned into a design that really wasn't made for it, thus you end up with it in a very strange place. The design of the Razr, externally at least, hasn't changed much from its very first version.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
That observation was the impetus behind a research project called Video 911. It's different from the new move in New York (which is a great advance) in that it is intended to operate even as a deterrent. When you launch the app on the phone it begins transmitting video and sound to a call center. The user holds a button on the phone to signal that they still have control. When they release the button, they have a short window to type in a code to neutralize the recording. Otherwise it is inferred that they have lost control and the video and GPS data are passed on to an operator who decides whether to dispatch police.
The deterrence would derive from the assailant knowing that their image, voice and actions have already been transmitted to an evidence store. More details are in the paper and presentation.
The biggest result of the camera phone? UFO sightings haved dropped dramatically.
Seriously though, where can I get a good phone without a camera?