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.'"

Comments

Cell Phones + YouTube = God Bless Technology

[joeytsai]

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.