Worth it: if you can get pictures somewhere useful
on
Megapixels & Camera Phones
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· Score: 3, Informative
Having a 2 megapixel camera is pretty pointless if you only use it to put a picture of your partner on the phone's main screen, or to send multimedia messages (which reduces the quality to something like VGA quality).
However if you can get the image from the phone to an internet site like Flickr, TextAmerica, Kodak, &c, then it is worth having a 2 megapixel image, just like it's worth having a decent amount of megapixels for your regular digital camera. The higher quality is useful for displaying on a PC, or for printing the photo, and so on.
Unfortunately it's very hard to get your pictures from your phone to the internet. Email and WAP uploaders have proved not good enough for this task, and hardly anyone does this.
A new generation of software is emerging on phones though. Services like ShoZu allow you to upload full quality images from your phone to sites like Flickr, TextAmerica, &c, in a very simple manner, and also allow editing of titles, descriptions and even tags both before and after upload. With this sort of service on your phone it really is worth having a decent camera in your phone.
We use ANT at work to build the J2EE server, the J2SE server comms module, the J2ME Java phone client, the C++ M$ Smartphone and Windoze Mobile clients, and the C++ Symbian Series 60 and UIQ phone clients, the C++ win32 test system, and some other C++ clients for propriety phone OSs. It's really rather versitile.
If someone online, like Amazon, and someone offline, like Blockbuster, got together and provided a truly integrated service it would be much better than the current syystem.
Imagine a system where you pay your 10 euro a month to rent up to 2 DVDs at a time. Initially you happen to sign up online at Amazon and get your first 2 DVDs sent to you in the post.
When you finish one of those DVDs you could decide that instead of sending it back in the post, you just pop down to Blockbuster and return it and immediately pick up another DVD. This DVD, like the ones from online, would have no late fees, and you can return it either to ANY blockbuster, or just mail it back to Amazon.
This gives the customer the benefits of both an online system like Amazon.co.uk's and a local shop like Blockbuster.
There's a problem comparing the regulation of email et al to that of nanotech.
When firms were developing novel internet based system, we could say there wasn't much danger inherent in the process. What's the worst that could happen with email?
But with nanotech we're talking about altering the construction of matter at the molecular level. That's obviously more dangerous than sending 1s and 0s around a network.
What if the US were to regulated nanotech like it did email? We'd have months of grey-goo outbreaks before the Congress passed the CAN-GOO act (Citizens Against Nanotech's Grey Onmipresent Ooze) allowing citizens to opt-out of being decomposed into their individual molecules.
OK I jest - but the point is that more dangerous technologies; eg nuclear power, contagion research, human cloning; need more regulation than technologies like email and internet search engines.
I assume someone already owns the pattent on "a device for blocking non-E911 cellphone calls within a restricted area" or something.
Maybe it's a conspiracy - maybe the Carlye Group has invested funds in both companies producing annoying ringtones and companies producing E911-safe cellphone blocking systems. Then using their PR guys they'll whip-up public preassure for establishments like movie theatres to block cellphone calls; and using their government contacts get a bill passed that says that systems that block E911 calls are illegal.
Personally I refuse to buy ringtones. If I like a tune, I've probably bought it on CD; why should I pay MORE money to have it on my phone? (Don't tell me, some record industry group thinks I owe them for performance royalties for letting my phone ring in a public place? What if I _promise_ not to take my phone outside my house???)
Even if you do decide to buy a ringtone, you've then got to hunt around and find somewhere that isn't charging you 5 euros a month for some subscription you didn't even know you were signing yourself up for! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4295625.stm ).
Personally I now stick to phones that you can put.wav &.mp3 files on and use those as ringtones.
Global warming means that the global temperature will rise. It doesn't mean that all areas will suffer/benefit from higher temperatures. It means we can expect a shake-up in global weather patterns as the world heats up. This could mean that the Gulf Stream moves and London becomes as cold as Moscow; or that el-nino is dissrupted occurning more or less frequently than ussual; or that Texas gets snow, or Israel gets a plague of locusts.
The point is that our actions are causing changes, over and above the normal warming we'd expect to see due to normal ebb and flow of ice ages. Just because the phenemenon is called Global Warming doesn't mean that the effects to all will be a warmer domicile. To Floridians it might mean more hurricanes, and to Texans more of that snow stuff.
Over here in Europe it's probably more of a comparison between a 400 PDA or a phone with PDA capabilities that comes for basically free with a 12 month phone contract. It's hard to get a new phone these days without a colour screen, downloadable java apps, built-in camera with picture messaging, PIM capabilities, bluetooth wireless connectivity, radio, and a battery life that beats PDAs by a long way.
If email is deleted without record, what's to stop the powers that be claiming anything they want, and simply rewriting history? Did that email say "mission acomplished"? Or did it say "major combat over"? There's no record. But trust us, we said it: we said "major combat over". If you don't belive us, you're a terrorist.
One day at work after getting particularly annoyed with Caps Lock, Insert and Num Lock; I simply got a screwdriver out and popped the individual keys off my keyboard. Now it's physically impossible for me to accidentally hit any of these keys.
In normal operation, say between a PC and phone, you do need to 'pair' devices using a PIN. However for certain operations - like sending a vCard phone2phone, phones will allow connections to be made and messages to be sent without authorisation.
This allows a vCard (which may just be a message in the 'name' field) to be sent without authentication, or the target having to confirm receipt.
Worse than vCards, you can send pics this way. It may be funny to take a pic of someone with your phone and then 'bluejack' it too them - but I know people who've received some pretty nasty porn over bluejacking too.
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Having a 2 megapixel camera is pretty pointless if you only use it to put a picture of your partner on the phone's main screen, or to send multimedia messages (which reduces the quality to something like VGA quality).
However if you can get the image from the phone to an internet site like Flickr, TextAmerica, Kodak, &c, then it is worth having a 2 megapixel image, just like it's worth having a decent amount of megapixels for your regular digital camera. The higher quality is useful for displaying on a PC, or for printing the photo, and so on.
Unfortunately it's very hard to get your pictures from your phone to the internet. Email and WAP uploaders have proved not good enough for this task, and hardly anyone does this.
A new generation of software is emerging on phones though. Services like ShoZu allow you to upload full quality images from your phone to sites like Flickr, TextAmerica, &c, in a very simple manner, and also allow editing of titles, descriptions and even tags both before and after upload. With this sort of service on your phone it really is worth having a decent camera in your phone.
We use ANT at work to build the J2EE server, the J2SE server comms module, the J2ME Java phone client, the C++ M$ Smartphone and Windoze Mobile clients, and the C++ Symbian Series 60 and UIQ phone clients, the C++ win32 test system, and some other C++ clients for propriety phone OSs. It's really rather versitile.
If someone online, like Amazon, and someone offline, like Blockbuster, got together and provided a truly integrated service it would be much better than the current syystem.
Imagine a system where you pay your 10 euro a month to rent up to 2 DVDs at a time. Initially you happen to sign up online at Amazon and get your first 2 DVDs sent to you in the post.
When you finish one of those DVDs you could decide that instead of sending it back in the post, you just pop down to Blockbuster and return it and immediately pick up another DVD. This DVD, like the ones from online, would have no late fees, and you can return it either to ANY blockbuster, or just mail it back to Amazon.
This gives the customer the benefits of both an online system like Amazon.co.uk's and a local shop like Blockbuster.
There's a problem comparing the regulation of email et al to that of nanotech.
When firms were developing novel internet based system, we could say there wasn't much danger inherent in the process. What's the worst that could happen with email?
But with nanotech we're talking about altering the construction of matter at the molecular level. That's obviously more dangerous than sending 1s and 0s around a network.
What if the US were to regulated nanotech like it did email? We'd have months of grey-goo outbreaks before the Congress passed the CAN-GOO act (Citizens Against Nanotech's Grey Onmipresent Ooze) allowing citizens to opt-out of being decomposed into their individual molecules.
OK I jest - but the point is that more dangerous technologies; eg nuclear power, contagion research, human cloning; need more regulation than technologies like email and internet search engines.
I assume someone already owns the pattent on "a device for blocking non-E911 cellphone calls within a restricted area" or something.
Maybe it's a conspiracy - maybe the Carlye Group has invested funds in both companies producing annoying ringtones and companies producing E911-safe cellphone blocking systems. Then using their PR guys they'll whip-up public preassure for establishments like movie theatres to block cellphone calls; and using their government contacts get a bill passed that says that systems that block E911 calls are illegal.
Personally I refuse to buy ringtones. If I like a tune, I've probably bought it on CD; why should I pay MORE money to have it on my phone? (Don't tell me, some record industry group thinks I owe them for performance royalties for letting my phone ring in a public place? What if I _promise_ not to take my phone outside my house???)
m ).
.wav & .mp3 files on and use those as ringtones.
Even if you do decide to buy a ringtone, you've then got to hunt around and find somewhere that isn't charging you 5 euros a month for some subscription you didn't even know you were signing yourself up for! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4295625.st
Personally I now stick to phones that you can put
Global warming means that the global temperature will rise. It doesn't mean that all areas will suffer/benefit from higher temperatures. It means we can expect a shake-up in global weather patterns as the world heats up. This could mean that the Gulf Stream moves and London becomes as cold as Moscow; or that el-nino is dissrupted occurning more or less frequently than ussual; or that Texas gets snow, or Israel gets a plague of locusts.
The point is that our actions are causing changes, over and above the normal warming we'd expect to see due to normal ebb and flow of ice ages. Just because the phenemenon is called Global Warming doesn't mean that the effects to all will be a warmer domicile. To Floridians it might mean more hurricanes, and to Texans more of that snow stuff.
Over here in Europe it's probably more of a comparison between a 400 PDA or a phone with PDA capabilities that comes for basically free with a 12 month phone contract. It's hard to get a new phone these days without a colour screen, downloadable java apps, built-in camera with picture messaging, PIM capabilities, bluetooth wireless connectivity, radio, and a battery life that beats PDAs by a long way.
If email is deleted without record, what's to stop the powers that be claiming anything they want, and simply rewriting history? Did that email say "mission acomplished"? Or did it say "major combat over"? There's no record. But trust us, we said it: we said "major combat over". If you don't belive us, you're a terrorist.
One day at work after getting particularly annoyed with Caps Lock, Insert and Num Lock; I simply got a screwdriver out and popped the individual keys off my keyboard. Now it's physically impossible for me to accidentally hit any of these keys.
In normal operation, say between a PC and phone, you do need to 'pair' devices using a PIN. However for certain operations - like sending a vCard phone2phone, phones will allow connections to be made and messages to be sent without authorisation.
This allows a vCard (which may just be a message in the 'name' field) to be sent without authentication, or the target having to confirm receipt.
Worse than vCards, you can send pics this way. It may be funny to take a pic of someone with your phone and then 'bluejack' it too them - but I know people who've received some pretty nasty porn over bluejacking too.