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The Growth of Picture Phones 147

Posted by Hemos from the where-do-they-end-up dept.
Da1ek writes "Bill Thompson has a article on BBCi, commenting on the flurry of picture messaging phones. 'With cameras everywhere, technology consultant Bill Thompson wonders if we should be worried about where the images of ourselves are ending up', check out the full article here."
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The Growth of Picture Phones More

The Growth of Picture Phones

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  • Do we really need another device to create those pictures that constitute the "priceless" e-mail's received of a drunken someone hitting on their sister?

    ~S

  • Just great.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 05, 2003 @07:38AM (#5018999)
    ...last thing we need is some script kiddies mass mailing the goatse.cx guy to our cell phones.

    • Re:Just great.... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @08:20AM (#5019087)
      "..last thing we need is some script kiddies mass mailing the goatse.cx guy to our cell phones."

      Have you seen the resolution of these phones? People'd probably think you were playing Caverns of Mars or something.
      • I know you were being flip, but the Nokia 3650 I am testing has, like its older brother, a pretty good screen for this sort of thing. It scales the pic automatically, but also allows you to zoom in and out.

        I got so tired of al the pet-and-other-cuteness pcitures we testers were MMS'ing and Bluetoothing to each-other that I enabled the POP3 mailboxes (yes, it can check POP3 mailboxes over GPRS, and decode MIME mail attachments like pix) and told my friends to send me some skinpics.

        I can safely report that a porno MMS service, or a dating/hook-up service over XHTML & MMS is completly feasible and probably will be a massive hit. Use the browser to check out the profiles of the people logged on looking as well, send your instant pic to the ones you like, exchange locations, get laid. The operator will love it, the service-maker will love it, and sex will be driving technology forward again, as it should.
      • I just tried going to http://goatse.cx [goatse.cx] with a Sony-Erisson P800 and there was no doubt about what I was looking at...

  • More afraid of the phones' security holes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zzyrc ( 159123 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @07:40AM (#5019007)
    There has been the first picture phone that could be tricked into dialing 0190-numbers (in Germany, numbers where the receiver gets money from the caller) without user intervention just by a SMS message.

    Now that these phones give any software the ability to use the phone fuctions, when are we to expect the first virus that spreads via multimedia messaging and automatically calls a number in a far away country outside of any jurisdiction?

    Or even better, let the CIA & co. make your phone call back so that you pay for being eavesdropped and watched by the nice little camera.

    The last thing I need is one of these phones...
  • If they invent this, I will die a happy man.

    ~S

  • Dogbert's videophone (Score:4, Funny)

    by jhol ( 301546 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @07:43AM (#5019017) Homepage
    http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/imag es/dilbert20031828950102.gif

  • Bah, who cares. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by forged ( 206127 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @07:43AM (#5019018) Homepage Journal
    The same argument is coming back every time a new gadget comes around. We heard it with webcams, digital cameras, CCTV, etc. So people see my face and know I am here. Fine by me, I'm human, I exist ! (so long as they don't lodge cameras in embarrassing promiscuious places ;)
    • I tend to agree. I'm a very private guy but if your walking down the street or sitting in a public place then you have to expect other people to see you. If they photograph you then oh well. If I happen to be doing something I'm embarassed for others to know about well doh maybe I shouldn't be doing it.

      This is not the same issue at all as government camera networks. Government cameras give the government a power to enforce their power that they wouldn't have otherwise. Leagues of schoolgirls running around snapping pics at Burger King don't pose the same threat to society.

      As it is I often walk the streets taking photos and movies of anything and anyone I find interesting. For me this can range from snapshots of public toilets (with no persons included.. just the bathroom conditions) to artwork and buildings to sweethearts kissing to wildlife. It certainly isn't harming anyone for me to take such pictures so I'm sure cellphone cameras won't destroy society either.

      As far as the option of people to require photo evidence when placing phone calls.. this comes as a shock.. you could just refuse. It's your right not to take a picture if you don't want to. Tell mom or the boss or whomever to go blow themselves.

      I also agree that ever time a new technology presents itself certain people (often journalists and politicians) decide said technologies are the end of civilization. As always I must point out that any technology is a tool, like a hammer. Technology cannot harm or help on it's own. It all depends on how people use it.
      • I'm a very private guy but if your walking down the street or sitting in a public place then you have to expect other people to see you.

        However, most of us would not expect people worldwide to be watching us as we're in a pub or club, nor would we expect future employers to be able to do a google search of every photo containing our face on the historical web.

        Select * from images.archive.org where face_match(image) like face_match(employee_photo[192]);

          • Select * from images.archive.org

          This is assuming that you send your pictures taken with your cellphone, through your cellphone, to some sort of web archive first. Which you won't because the service isn't designed that way. And even if you did, I fail to see how that changes anything about every other picture already posted somewhere on the web today. (and if you did that of course, you should expect stuff like this to happen to you in the natural order of things)

        • I understand people being a bit weirded out by suddenly being psuedo-famous. For those of us that have been online forever it's just something you get used to. The stupid shit you say today, the 'funny' picture you posted of yourself in your girlfriends underwear, etc that gets copied across the Net and linked into Google can be trouble at times but it's just part of life now. In some way we're accountable for every silly or stupid thing we ever do. Your great-grandchildren may very well have this shit linked into their virtual reality family tree. On the other hand when then fuck up, as all of us do, they'll have real life evidence that they aren't the first. They'll be able to get an idea of who you really are even if they never meet you and see who you have been throughout your life. So for all the bad uses of such technology there are equally good uses.

          Laws on employee privacy and such are where you should be concerned. You can't, and probably don't want to stop technology but you can make it illegal for employers to snoop on you. They will anyway but then again they already do. ;)

      • I agree with you up to a point: I'm naturally quite a private person, but I keep private things private.

        However, I am slightly concerned by ever increasing surveillance of public life. It's just too easy to misconstrue something you see in a single photo. What about the girlfriend who sees an incidental photo of her boyfriend cuddling another girl in the park? She doesn't know it's an old friend who's just suffered a personal tragedy and needs comforting. She just sees her (ex-)boyfriend with another girl.

        Your point about government surveillance is really just a special case of this problem. The "I don't care, I've got nothing to hide" crowd make the naive assumption that no-one will ever make a mistake in interpreting the data that's being collected. History strongly disagrees.

        As far as the option of people to require photo evidence when placing phone calls.. this comes as a shock.. you could just refuse. It's your right not to take a picture if you don't want to. Tell mom or the boss or whomever to go blow themselves.

        This I do have a problem with, and the problem is that "voluntary" things that become the norm are no longer voluntary. It's like a "voluntary" ID card: you don't need it. Unless, of course, you want to buy a drink, open a bank account, rent a car, take out a mortgage or travel abroad.

        If you start telling your boss to go screw themselves then, unless everyone else is doing the same, you're just putting yourself first in the firing line. Fortunately, since many ailments serious enough to keep someone off work legitimately don't actually exhibit dramatic physical signs, this one's unlikely to catch on.

        I can see the point in family cases and such, though. How am I supposed to go buy an engagement ring for my girlfriend discreetly if I can't tell her I'm going away with the lads at the weekend and I'll be back on Sunday? And would I want to marry a girl who felt that much need to check up on me anyway?

        • Gak. Why not actually talk about the situation with your girlfriend? You know, develop mutual trust?

          Consider the following realworld scenario:

          My girlfriend checks the security camera system, and sees that I entered the house arm in arm with some girl she doesn't know.

          When she gets home, she asks me casually "So did you have a visitor today?"

          Unless I turn red and start stuttering, she knows that she has nothing to worry about. I'll mention that my old friend so-and-so was in town, and I comforted her because of this or that.

          Now, say I blankly deny having a visitor. Now it could be because I got distracted and forgot, or it could be because I'm covering up. So she can ask me about it, and if I've merely forgotten, this will remind me, and we're back at the previous situation.

          Fundamentally, however, because we do communicate, she doesn't automatically jump to the conclusion that I'm trying to deceive her, and vice versa. And, in my humble opinion, the more you establish patterns of trust, the more likely both parties are to live up to trust.
          • Being recorded all the time obviously leads to more honesty. You can't hide things so most of the time you don't try. Of course things work both ways so if your girlfriend can snoop on you you can snoop on her too. Sure she can see if you had a strange woman over but you can see if she has a strange man over too. You can totally avoid problems such as when both people in a relationship are cheating and do something healthier such as breakup or agree to partner swapping or whatever your thing is. Without all the lies and hidding that makes life painful.

            Also people get bored of snooping after a while. The information is there but people usually don't make a habit of looking it up. If you've ever been a sysadmin you probably know that you don't spend all day reading peoples email and tracking what websites they look at.

            On first thought you might think it'd lead most people to be less open but I've found that not to be the case. People might be freaked out by being recorded for a while but after that they just get used to it and don't care anymore. It just becomes part of life.
    • And the internet was just a fad like CB radio. Right.

      This technology, like the Internet-connected PC, has the potential to change our lives in yet to be determined ways, some of which are good, some of which are bad, many of which, in my opinion, go beyond the realm of "who cares?" When Berners-Lee was inventing the Web, did he forsee the intrusion of pop-up ads, the need for firewalls, and the ubiquity of porn?
      Today the thousand dollar home encyclopedia is extinct because of computers. I don't know if anybody saw that happening besides Microsoft. Certainly it took Britannica years to figure out they couldn't charge a huge premium for their services any more.

      So what I propose to you is that having web connected cameras everywhere carried around by everyone is going to lead to societal changes that we cannot completely predict. Even today I know people who simply hate to have their photos taken. What will happen to those people when everyone has a camera pointing in their faces? Will they become shut-ins? What about employers? Will they do an image search of prospective hires to see if there are any pictures out there of the prospect in a drug den or a whorehouse? Will all sorts of currently face-to-face meetings take place over videophone?Will the government require a picture record submitted into a central registry of all cash transactions over a certain amount? Who knows? "The Jetsons" seemed to come up with all sorts of funny/amusing uses of picturephoes which won't seem so funny or amusing when happening in real life.
        • Today the thousand dollar home encyclopedia is extinct because of computers.

        No it's not. I still consult paper when I can, and you can't beat the layout. Plus it doesn't require me to be sitting at the computer (think couch and fireplace here)...

        • web connected cameras everywhere carried around by everyone is going to lead to societal changes that we cannot completely predict.

        You're right for that, we won't and can't predict what's going to happen to us after that.

        Now for the people who don't want camera pointing in their faces, I fail to see how in the first place carrying a picture phone will differ from the current (and *HUGELY better*) generation of digital cameras. I don't trust that they became shut-ins, and yes, employers still need employees to come to work in the morning !

        I just don't care what other people do with their own lives, and if they want to send a low-quality photo of me taken from far away over their expensive phone service for whichever reason they might have, I still don't care !

  • Fact is... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @07:47AM (#5019027)
    ...a recent tour of the electronics district, Akihabara, in Tokyo, shows that every new phone has a camera built in. Same in Seoul.

    And who needs drive-by snoop photos, as long as Photoshop is handy. This thing about being worried over one's photo being snapped in public is overblown...I don't see anyone being up in arms over the video being captured by using ATMs or speed cameras.
    • I don't see anyone being up in arms over the video being captured by using ATMs or speed cameras.

      That's just because you're not looking hard enough. There are plenty of people concerned, particularly about speed cameras being used to track people's movements (as is being proposed here in the UK).

      • ...but they are still moving about, aren't they. I said up in arms, not simply concerned. Let me know when they take to the streets in protest and I'll believe there is genuine fear of this kind of thing.

        As it is, cameras at every intersection and along stretches of highways are being used more and more every day. I'm saying the concern we hear about is nothing more than rhetoric.
        • Concern isn't real unless it's taken to the streets in protest? BS.
          • Concern is when you discover someone has taken the last Oreo...not when someone has stolen or maligned your identity.

            Concern: disquiet, worry, anxiety.

            If I were simply concerned over identity theft/malignment, etc., I'd be a bit slow on the uptake, me thinks. Concern and protest are two different things. No one will take to the streets over this, as they are only concerned, and that's my point. There is and there will be no protest, thus is it not an issue.
            • That's an arbitrary definition of when a problem is serious and when it is not. I don't think everything people protest in the streets is a "serious problem"[1], I do however think that some things people are simply "worried, anxious" about are "serious problems".
              You might also want to check your definition of the noun "issue" [reference.com] - yours (if no protest than not an issue) seems to be way off. I can't find any requirement for public protest in the A.H. definitions. You are of course welcome to have your own definitions of words and own ways to classify urgent problems. I don't think I agree with them, though.

              [1] Whatever exactly that may be - it's obviously highly subjective which taints this whole discussion.
              • My use of the word 'protest' was in jest (obviously not related to a proper definition)...a verbal sarcastic exaggeration to prove my point that no one has or will have strong issues with this sort of thing (now you've got me afraid to use 'issue'...darn it all).

                The discussion as begun seemed to hint that public unrest (serious problem?) is just around the corner, so if there is taint casting a shadow on the carpet, it was here when I walked in...sorry if I stepped in it :)
        • I said up in arms, not simply concerned

          Does risking imprisonment to destroy unpopular speed cameras count?
          Example Story [bbc.co.uk]

          (that was using a lorry no less. And don't forget that hundreds of people would have driven past this person while they were attacking the camera, and not one of them reported it. What does that say about public opinion?)
    • I don't see anyone being up in arms over the video being captured by using ATMs or speed cameras.

      I think the point is that the banks and police are constrained by certain guidelines when taking your picture. Such rules would not apply or would be difficult to enforce with your average guy on the street.

      I personally don't mind being photographed whilst in a public place as I am seen by anyone in that public place anyway. The differences arise when that picture is propogated and I start to appear in places I would not normally (eg. dodgy websites!).

      So when will slashdot get picture profiles?
  • "yeah i was just sleeping in the bathtub, i swear"

    http://www.collegehumor.com/?image_id=5374&retur n= pictures/alcohol.2
  • They'll be able to search for you pic on the web, search for your work and home addresses on the web, and kill you, when they know ABSOLUTELY NO ONE is watching.

    Technology is great.

    • Re:Great for stalkers... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @07:56AM (#5019042)
      too many steps in that dance...it is much easier than you surmise.

      The next big thing, happening now, actually, is GPS data as one of the EXIF digital photo variables. You can match a photo to where it was taken, not just when, or of whom, and in what light, with what lens, etc.
      • too many steps in that dance...it is much easier than you surmise.

        Good phrase. I'll have to remember it. If we were talking about sane people, you would be correct.

        The rest of your statement begs the question, because we are able to, should we?

        Going by my girl-friends experiences, the answer is no.

  • ...take my photo. So what? Been done before and it will be done again.

    The real news here is that S. Jobs has positioned QuickTime as a leader in the field of compressed video for use in said picture phones, and...oh wait, I can't talk about that before next week's expo. Sorry :)

  • I'm not allowed one of these. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sitturat ( 550687 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @07:56AM (#5019045) Homepage
    If I get caught with a camera at my place of work, I can and will get fired. I have to carry a cellphone with me though.

    The same goes for many other people.

    I guess this means that they will still have to make many cellphones without picture taking capabilities.
    • "If I get caught with a camera at my place of work, I can and will get fired."

      Interesting point -- I'd completely forgotten that most of the sites we visit require you to leave cameras with the marine at the door.

      So will that lead to a special "phones for people working on classified material" category in phone dealers' customer lists? If I were selling phones (with access to their phone calls and text messages), it wouldn't go unnoticed that this might be an interesting group to listen to.

      Second throughts: maybe interesting wasn't the right word. Nerdishly useful to spies, perhaps?

    • Re:I'm not allowed one of these. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @10:13AM (#5019380) Homepage
      I was recently called up for jury duty. Besides the usual rules prohibiting weapons in the courthouse, there was a new rule that banned cell phones with the capability of recording sound, a common feature in recent models of cell phones.
  • Why would anybody be worried over this if they are not involved in anything fishy? Just don't get drunk like an animal and roll all over the pavement, do not cheat on your wife, if you must work for foreign government, do it secretly and be clever, things like that.

    Chances are, involvement in any of these activities would be exposed sooner or later, new phones could make this just a bit quicker.

    Otherwise, it's clearly a non-issue.

    • Re:Non issue (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Doctor Hu ( 628508 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @08:37AM (#5019141)
      Why would anybody be worried over this if they are not involved in anything fishy? ...
      I can think of two reasons:
      1. Although CCTVs and webcams are quite widespread in public places, and digital camaras likewise in tourist spots and on special occasions, adding picture-taking ability to mobile phones makes coverage much more ubiquitous: essentially, you have to assume that you might get imaged anywhere where there are other people present.
      2. There are lots of things that may not actually be "fishy", but which might at first sight appear that way, or which can cause considerable embarassment or worst if taken out of context - intentionally or otherwise.
      I'm not so concerned about misuse as such, as that fear of misuse will make people even less willing than they are now to risk getting involved in day-to-day minor emergencies.
      ... It's clearly a non-issue.
      I beg leave to differ.
    • Sorry, of course you can tell me not to get drunk and cheat on my wife. But maybe i like making mistakes from time to time since I'm a human being. I do NOT want to live under permanent observation. I used to, it was called childhood, and it sucked. I take this as my personal freedom, and yes i am willing to face the consequences but personally i don't like the fact that it is made that easy for self-righteous neighbours or people that want to mob me at work or for whatever reason are trying to spot any weakness i might be showing...comeon, you don't really want that too? Nobody's perfect.

      cu,
      Lispy
    • Why would anybody be worried over this if they are not involved in anything fishy?

      It doesn't matter if you are involved in something fishy. It only matters if you appear to be.

      Unfortunately, history suggests that an awful lot of innocent people will take the heat for something completely benign if mass surveillance gets implemented. Governments already screw up like this when some techie analyst misunderstands what's happening in a picture, or looking at several sources concludes that 2+2=17.

      What makes you think it'll be any different when your significant other, or your boss, or your parents see something that looks (but isn't) out of line?

      [Aside: Hell, most western governments can't even manage a routine social security or tax database without screwing up all over the place. For three months, I was doing two full-time jobs on opposite sides of the UK according to the tax office, after someone there mistyped a number one day. I was overtaxed by several hundred pounds as a direct result. I called to fix this, was asked for my address and date of birth to confirm my ID, and was told that they were very sorry, but they couldn't deal with me any more, because what I'd told them didn't match their records. And this was something where obviously what their records said was actually impossible.]

  • I'm not sure about it being a matter of Privacy as much as it is a matter of paranoia. Anything that can be done with a phone could be done with a handheld digital camera, conceiled street camera, or hidden video camera. Getting your picture snapped asking for directions could be done anywhere, using the cameras that check for people running red lights to someone snapping a picture of friends and you being in the background.

    In the age of American Parinoia, and the subsiquent squeeze that's been put on privacy and the right to freedom, we're all used to being video taped everywhere. Digital Cameras are all over the place, and most stores have some kind of video surveylance systems in place.

    I believe the idea of employers asking for pictures of a sick person is a little out of place, since they could go so far as make you bring in a doctors note, but most don't.

    Now I will believe that business will violate some sort of ethical boundry with devices like this, just like they have with their other surveylance devices. It's nothing new... as long as there has been a camera there has been someone abusing them. Things will get posted for people to see until someone does something about it, and then they will be posted for employees to see.

  • think outside the box, why don't you? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by macpeep ( 36699 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @08:19AM (#5019084)
    I find it odd how many readers of Slashdot, whom you'd think are more progressive than most other people, can't get over the term "phone".

    Every time there is a story about a new advanced mobile phone, you hear people go "Why does my phone have to do X? it's a phone! Why can't it do one thing well?".

    Well, first of all, at least with GSM, which is what most of the world except the USA and Japan use, the phone has worked "very well" for about 10 years now. Coverage is excellent. Sound quality is excellent. Text messages work great. No problems.

    Second, "phone" is just a traditional term that is attached to these devices. Just because people call it "phone" doesn't mean that the only feature it should and could have is voice communication. PDA's are getting phone features now, and "phones" are getting PDA features. You might as well refer to all of these handheld computer & communication devices with some new term. But why? What's wrong with continuing to call them "phone" or "PDA"? It's just a name for crying out loud!

    And as far as the features themselves go, some of them are quite convenient.

    It's quite clear that North Americans have not yet grasped (based on statistics) the convenience and un-obtrusiveness of text messages. It's weird too, as they are basically the equivalent to instant messaging or email, which are both quite popular in North America. Text messages cut down on ringing phones and annoyance quite a lot.

    Cameras, while clearly more of a novelty, can be quite cool too. "Hey, is the bar crowded?" "Here, I'll show you!", and then you send an MMS with a 10 second old photo. "You wouldn't believe how much fun we're having here on our vacation!", and a photo to go with it, like a post card, only instantaneous. Yes, it's not something that is necessary, but it's fun and can be quite convenient and nobody is forcing you to buy one of these devices.

    Always on internet? You don't HAVE to surf or check your email, but if you're sitting in a restaurant, wondering if there are still tickets to that one movie you wanted to see, you can do it and you can reserve those tickets. Sport freak? You can check those soccer / name-the-sport scores. Or perhaps you're camping and want to check the weather forecast.

    Java or native (compiled for the particular device and OS) games? With phones / PDA's that have CPU's as fast as the 486's of a few years ago and as much or more RAM, why not? It means your device doubles as a Game Boy Advance. If you spend a lot of time commuting, waiting on delayed planes on airports, then games can be great!

    There are some "phones" now that also double as mp3 players. Why carry two devices if one is enough? Sure, they may not have a 20GB hard drive like the iPod, but the basic idea is good.

    Bluetooth - it allows you to drive and talk on the phone at the same time, with a hands-free set but without cables to get tangled up in, without having to take the phone out from your pocket. It also allows you to - without cables - synchronize your address book from your PC to your phone. It allows you to use the Internet connectivity on your phone to get your laptop online from anywhere in the world (provided you use GSM, supported in countries on the planet).

    And if you like your phone to be just a traditional phone for voice communication, then go right ahead and buy one of those models that are just that. The cellphone manufacturers still make those too.
    • It's because of of the balkanized cell coverage in the United States. We're so pissed off at Sprint, Cingular, T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon and whoever else is trying to hawk their latest "digital" network that our phones never seem to work when we need them. We don't know if our "SMS" messages are going to be received on the other networks reliably. Hell, we don't even know if our phone is going to ring sometimes in our own house.

      Personally, I don't care too much about my phone being able to take pictures or surf the Internet or play MP3's. I'm disappointed in Handspring trying to go the "integrated" Treo phone route-- I would have rather seen them make a larger, "steno" sized PDA and "think outside the pocket." But that's another rant-- back to the phones and SMS. If perhaps, cell companies made the "AIM" messaging (not SMS) completely transparent instead of sending it to special codes that you have to remember, it would change American's usage patterns of "SMS."

      I bought the Motorola TimePort because it's supposedly GSM compatible. I think that T-Mobile even has "proprietized" that with some kind of "American" GSM.

      T-Mobile (VoiceStream) even abandoned trying to provide multiple numbers per phone-- something that I would have found intensely useful for a small business. The reason? American's didn't understand the bills and contested them constantly. We suck.

      I could get a $60 adapter to turn my TimePort into an FM radio walkman... but I don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon... [insert ClearChannel rant du-jour]. I'd still rather have a dedicated device for that task.

      I have seen the integrated device fad come and go and come and go-- and no one ever seems to realize, that to suceed you need to build something that does a small domain of things VERY WELL to last. My Visor Platinum does a PDA's job very well, and I won't be upgrading it until something new comes around that isn't trying to do everything at once, poorly. Cell companies should be concentrating on doing one thing very well: replacing your land line with better pricing, services and coverage.

      I'm still waiting for that magical docking box that allows me to dock my cell phone and provide a dial tone to the rest of my house. I'd gladly pay $100 for that box and dump Verizon's land lines.

  • Obviously this will change people's behaviour a bit. While it will be harder to hide your secrets, I think that we'll be less likely to want them hidden. Why? Because everyone will have to become more accepting of other people who they can know so much about.

    You won't have to make up excuses. Don't want to go to work? Instead of calling in sick, you would call and say "Hi, I really need to take a day off". Bosses will be used to these requests.

    I think that when you're in public, you shouldn't expect any sort of privacy.

  • You know MS's Stinger phone? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @08:22AM (#5019091)
    I'm gonna send people with those bsod.gif.

    (it's a variant of the old 'sending "LO BATT" to people with alphanumeric pagers' joke...)

  • Not as popular as you think (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ReVMD ( 141168 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @08:24AM (#5019096) Homepage
    Picture Messaging has been no-where near as popular as its been made out to be, two of the four UK networks only got 10% of the take up they'd been expecting over the christmas period.

    Then the problem is actually getting people to use them, now while three of the four UK networks are offering a free trial period in the hope that people will continue using it

    A lot of people from the research we've done said that they'll use the phones to take the pictures, but copy them over to a computer and send them through the email rather than paying 25-40 pence per message, we don't expect this attitude to change for at least another 12 months on most users.

    This won't be another SMS/Text Messaging phenomenom.

  • Cameras in the hands of citizens are good (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Paul Wright ( 21223 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @08:37AM (#5019139) Homepage
    Much of the concern about the increasing number of cameras in the UK is because they enable Them (the government, law enforcement) to watch Us (ordinary folk). Cheap and ubiquitous cameras in the hands of ordinary citizens are a good thing, or at least, as David Brin [kithrup.com] argues, they are better than the other alternative.

  • AA Words Clog (to) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by infolib ( 618234 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @08:39AM (#5019146)
    AA Words Clog (to)
    The art of snapping someone in a compromising position in a pub or wherever with your camera phone and emailing it to a web site. VK

    From The Guardians "Survival guide 2003" [guardian.co.uk]

    Interesting guide, by the way
  • Like the song by Rupert Hine [lyricsfreak.com] in the eighties:



    "...I'll be stripped to the skin
    You'll be stripped to the bone
    And we'll all say no to the picture-phone
    It was so easy to cheat on a blind line
    With an alibi and your image intact
    Whatever the number -
    Whatever the crime -
    Not only the famous will have to resign
    And you have come to depend
    On your right to pretend you're alone
    Would the star of the screen
    Ever wish to be seen
    Red-eyed and dying through the morning call
    And the president's friends
    Would they live for long
    If they saw down the wire what really goes on
    When you're home to relax
    Come the facial attacks
    And the breathers in masks - oh no!..."

  • Is it just another trend? I think people are buying these things because they are in the shops to replace their 1.5 yr old dead phone and its the "best model" so they think it will last longer. My top of the line Nokia 8310 has developed connection problems just weeks after its warranty expired. Peole keep asking me if I'm going to get a new Nokia phone since mine worked well for a year. My answer is that its a crap phone and next time I'll try a different brand. Its jsut like the last pair of junk Nikes I bought... they were over priced junk and I haven't even considered "their brand" in more than a 1/2 decade. Maybe its time some more of these compaines were visited (or run over) by the Clue Train [cluetrain.com]

    If anyone is interested in the web phones [abnormal.com], I've got 130+ of them I would love to unload... Make an offer... they will display most pages that netscape 4 would display.

  • I'm sceptical (Score:4, Insightful)

    by StrawberryFrog ( 67065 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @09:02AM (#5019210) Homepage Journal
    I'm sceptical because

    1) These are not good cameras. Compared to what's available these days as a stand-alone digital camera, the picture size and quality is pathetic.

    2) Unlike text messaging, it is driven from the top down, not the bottom up. I can't speak for the USA, but for the rest of us, SMS (text messaging) has become a valuable social tool. The mobile phone networks did not predict this, it caught them by surprise when this added-on extra became one of the main events. Most mobile phones, with the 0-9 keypad, are appallingly badly designed for text entry. SMS is a killer app in spite of this.

    Now they have come up with picture messaging - 1/10th the expressive power, 1000 times the bandwidth (and they can therefore charge more for it) backed by big ad campaigns here in the UK. Well, SMS never needed ad campaigns to make it popular, people made it popular because it worked for them, not because some company told them that they needed it. After you've had your picture-phone for a year, when the novelty has worn off, I wonder how often you'll use the photo-message function compared to the text message function?
    • Picture messaging isn't intended as an SMS replacement, its what they like to call an 'enhanced lifestyle feature'.

      Its expected that people will use them to send pictures from holiday rather than postcards, pictures at parties when people can't make it, and to your current girlfriend when you've found a new one and you want to split up with her in the worst way possible.

    • Re:I'm sceptical (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jon_eaves ( 22962 )
      I've used a Nokia 7650. I never wanted one until I got to play with it for a weekend. I write Java applications for mobile phones and I needed one to test an app, and I wasn't interested in the camera at all.

      I was hooked, it was so much fun. Took photos of everything that moved (and didn't). The photo quality was *great*. 640x480x4096 colours. Perfect for "web-ready" images.

      Now, you and I can use a digital camera, connect to a computer and email it to somebody.

      But guess what, most people don't have the skills or equipment to do it. I expect these things will sell like hotcakes once the price drops to the "mass consumer" level.
    • I don't have a picture phone, but I do carry a digital camera with me a lot. Once you have the ability to take a photo to illustrate something, rather than trying to describe it, you find all sorts of uses. Maybe not every single day, but certainly often enough to be useful.

      SMS was just a novelty in the US for a long time, just like picture phones are now. Why type something in on that silly little keypad when I can just talk to them directly? I use it all the time now, but I had an SMS-capable phone for almost a year before I ever even tried the feature. I think photo capability is another means of communication that will also find its niche once it becomes commonplace and cheap.

    • A picture phone isn't intended as a replacement for a digital camera. I already have a digital camera, and a good one too. But you know what I don't have in my pocket right now? That's right, a camera.

      The SMS features of my phone aren't even a replacement for the two-way pager I already use for work (that pager has a QWERTY key layout, better configurability of message notification, etc.); and I'm sure the PDA functions are far more primitive that a real PDA. But such a phone combines all of these features into one device that it's reasonably for me to carry around all the time. So it may not be as good as any of those things, but it's much more useful since I will actually use it.

      I don't think the argument that picture phones are "top-down" driven makes any difference. It may well be true, but I have a feeling that picture phones will catch on whether or not they are heavily hyped, and the more users there are the more options we'll have for cheaper bandwidth. Alternatively, if they wouldn't have caught on otherwise I don't think hype can "force" people to use a luxury item like this they don't have to.

      You may be right that I'll use the SMS function more often than the picture function--but so what? On my phone the camera doesn't take up extra space (it's not an attachment--that is a stupid idea) and even if I use it three or four times a month, while I'm SMS-ing every day, it's still worth it. And I'll always have it sitting there to record something pretty I want to show my wife, to record a license plate in an accident I've just witnessed or to snap a picture of that new car I fancy.

    • Now they have come up with picture messaging - 1/10th the expressive power...

      Whatever happened to the aphorism "A picture is worth a thousand words"?

      • Whatever happened to the aphorism "A picture is worth a thousand words"?

        It doesn't true hold very often.

        For instance, a friend said to me a few years ago, as we bought movie tickets "whatever did we do before cellphones?". Well, we were a lot more rigid in our planning, that's what we did. And we missed each other more often.

        Now we have to option of sending a text message to co-ordinate our social lives, e.g. "I have 4 tickets for the 8:30 show lotR T2T @ Odeon Covent Garden cinema, meet us corner of Shaftsbury Ave" or "am running late, cu l8r". Now try expressing that in 400*600 full-colour pixels.

        I'll admit that picture messaging will be a godsend to tree-surgeons, and in the event of car crashes. But these are niches - text will continue to predominate. Or perhaps you'd like to reply in JPG format.

  • Picture phones = gimmick (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    the pictures phones are a gimmick, nothing more. Look at the commercials for god-sake: yeah, like I'm going to be at a yard sale and happen across a rare pure-ivory toad for $1, which I'll take a picture of and e-mail it to Christie's. And of course I won't have a $1 on me to buy the rare pure-ivory toad because I SPENT $300 ON THE PHONE!

    uh-huh, sure. I can't think of one reason I would ever need a picture phone where I wouldn't have a much better digital camera, unless I'm at a bar one night and the girl's on the counter start taking it off...

    They're about as practical as a segway.

    Maybe in about 5 generations when the picture quality rivals that of today's digital cameras, but for now it's just another gee-whiz feature to get people to buy the latest-and-greatest.

    Oh, and did someone forget about battery life? 1) Digital cameras have poor battery life
    2) Cellphones have poor battery life .... hey I Have a Great Idea!!! Let's combine them and see what happens!!
    • My Sony Ericsson T68i has the camera attachment and I get very good battery time (the phone gives me 240 hours standby and 5+ hours talk time with 30 pictures taken or 7+ hours pure talk time). Even the nokias battery time has increased impressively.

      Perhaps you should get outside into the daylight and stop needing to use the flash on your camera.
      • I thought battery time on a cellcam phone would be low as well.

        But I was pleasantly suprised by the Sanyo SCP-5300. My wife has been taking as many as 20 pictures per day and uploading them to her webcam site [carlazone.com], and the phone has yet to run out of battery...this usually includes flash pictures as well.

        I believe the imaging element is CMOS, not CCD, which means it can run at very low power, but really looks bad/banded in low-light.
    • Look at the commercials for god-sake: yeah, like I'm going to be at a yard sale and happen across a rare pure-ivory toad for $1
      While I agree that this use if kind of silly and far-fetched, I saw another commercial where a guy was someplace where he didn't speak the native language and the people he was talking to didn't understand English. So he had a friend send him a picture of a toilet and then he showed it to the people. They pointed him towards where the bathroom was. That's a reasonable use for a picture phone (granted, there aren't many).
  • Face it, before the advent of phones with built-in cameras, his picture was being routinely taken, particularly in tourist traps like Disney World. You probably can't walk ten feet there without someone including you in a family snapshot.

    I'm skeptical that these phones will catch on. It all fits into the general tech concept of lets make a combination microwave oven-refrigerator with a built-in web browser. Frankly, if I want to take pictures, I'll use a camera dedicated to that purpose. It will undoubtedly have better capabilities. Furthermore, in the real world how often does someone need a camera unexpectedly. And as for his examples of professionals, in most cases I think a dedicated camera, with better functionality, would be better for them.

    • Well... saudi-arabia thought this was scary and banned the Nokia 7650 outright so men wouldn't go around snapping pictures of women they had no business lookin' at in the first place.. (ie. not their wives).
      I suppose they could take it a step further and mail that picture to all their friends before any law-officer could stop them too ;-)...

      aah the power of technology! =)
    • I'm pretty sure the cameras on the phones are mostly used as a drunk-cam. They're not something you use to snap your holiday pictures or other "planned" pictures.
  • A women-only wedding celebration ended in a dramatic fistfight [arabnews.com] in Saudi Arabia when invitees caught one of the young women taking shots of another with her mobile phone camera while they were all dancing together.

    The Saudi government has banned mobile phones that have cameras, but they are smuggled in.

  • Last summer, a group of men armed with automatic weapons attempted to rob an armored truck carrying cash. While the truck was parked in front of a mall, they pulled their van beside and started forcing the truck open.

    The guys with the guns were constantly waving people to stay back. They didn't realize, however, that one of the people had a Nokia 7650 and was snapping photos of them as fast as he could. Those photos then ended up to TV news and several newspapers as they were the only pictures of the perpetrators.

    In cases like these it is quite useful that people have a digital camera readily in use.

    • But did they catch the criminals with the help of those pics? Could those pictures be used as evidence in court? I suppose not. So, what's the benefit of people having digital cameras allways with them?

  • REAL uses for picture phones (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @10:22AM (#5019410) Homepage
    I just CAN'T believe that "social" uses of picture-taking phones will be more than a brief-lived novelty/gimmick/fad.

    On the other hand, just imagine how useful one of these things could be for a field service engineer, customer service, etc. ("OK, you've got cover opened, right? See the board? Do you see a little switch pack down at the left?" "[Click] This one?" "Yes... could you get a little closer?" "OK [Click]" "Good, now see switch #6, set to 0... set it to 1."

    Insurance adjusters (who now have to carry digital cameras and laptops with them)...

    All sorts of situations where someone in an unfamiliar situation wants to CONSULT with someone at a remote location...

    • All sorts of situations where someone in an unfamiliar situation wants to CONSULT with someone at a remote location...

      And you can't imagine this happening in the non-proefessional domain?

      "Okay, I'm in the cookies aisle, but I don't see the cookies you were talking about. Where are they again?"

      "Show me where you are...okay...no...they're further down...near the Oreas...that's it."

      But, as the article implies, I think the "killer app" is people checking to see if the person they're talking to is lying about his or her whereabouts. Parents checking on children, jealous boyfriends checking on girlfriends, bosses checking on employees, and the biggie is...drum roll...wives checking up on their husbands.
    • I just CAN'T believe that "social" uses of picture-taking phones will be more than a brief-lived novelty/gimmick/fad.


      How about: Girlfriend tries on dress in shop, wants boyfriend's advice before buying it. Or, guy sits on home on Saturday night, receives an MMS message from his friends with a photo of the party, decides to hit the party.... Etc.


      It's no secret why MMS is currently being pushed so hard in Europe ($$$ - many mobile operators freely admit that the SMS boom caught them unawares and they were forced to maintain a low unit charge), but I think it has a real chance to be a lot more than a gimmick.


      (Anyway, MMS could be viewed as just a stepstone for the KILLER 3G app - real-time videoconferencing.)

    • Here's a social use for you:

      Wee'er at thisa batr here and im soo drunmk an man theres a hot chickl here wiht me ,look at thjis!

  • poor limeys (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by kraksmoka ( 561333 )
    You poor folks in the UK have never had any privacy rights anyway, why worry now? You can be ticketed by camera, is being busted by cellphone camera any worse, except that it means your wife or mom can bust you with technology just like your welfare state can? Better, since security is SO important in the European capital of radical Islam, this just makes us all feel safer, no privacy for anyone, no problem. Face it folks, you're just stumbling around looking for Big Brother's face in your cellphone so you can calm down about this privacy myth once and for all.
    • security is SO important in the European capital of radical Islam

      A bit rich coming (I strongly suspect) from the nation that funds the IRA ... but basically I agree. Surveillance by the Government is far more of a problem than this, which is about surveillance by fellow citizens. Especially when the Government releases terrorists onto the streets, then claims it needs to watch us all as an anti-terrorist measure.
  • In the next product generation you probably can have your camera wirelessly connected and put it into your glasses, etc.

    One press of a button and your exact position (and the last 30 seconds of sound/video) is on an ICQ to your friends and email to the police.

    When we get there, I predict a big drop in violent crime.

    And the implications for people's politeness are interesting when anyone being an asshole can be sent to a hundred people as email in a minute (Subject: "What an asshole! Anyone know him?"). (Especially interesting with face recognition).

    The problem is the possibility of 1984. We have a better and better world today beacuse everything depended on a good industry and to get a good industry you more or less needed an open democratic society.

    What if some control state can keep the economy open and throw all political troublemakers in jail? Stalin Sovjet that works well... shudder! History as a foot trampling a face.

  • How long until there are more pictures of us than in our whole life before? On my New years eve party there were three digicams this year taking approximately 500 Pictures together. That would make about 50 pics with my nose on it. I assume there have been about 1000 to 2000 pictures shot in my lifetime since 1976 (i mean those i agreed to take only). Let's make a quick guess: Given the fact that camhandies will take off later this year (after CeBIT) i assume that during this year there will be at least a middle of 100 pics being taken of me a month. That would make a rough guess of 1200pics a year. Good chance that next time around this year there will be more pics of me than in my whole life before.

    Geez, one more reason to not leaving the house.

    cu,
    Lispy
  • I have one of those picture phones - a Nokia 7650 [nokia.com] to be precise. I have taken numerous pictures with it, but I've never sent a single picture to anyone else's phone. This is because a) no-one else I know has a phone capable of receiving pictures and b) it costs me money. When I want to get a nifty picture off the phone, I transmit it via infra-red to my laptop, and that costs me nothing.

    Having a camera built into my mobile (which I carry all the time anyway) is a cool thing, although the picture quality of the 7650 isn't that great. The 640 x 480 res is ok, but the colour quality, sharpness and light response are pretty bad. It's fine for sending a postage-sized image to another phone, but it's not good enough for use as a cheap digicam. When the quality improves a bit (perhaps enough to produce a decent standard-sized print), these devices will be really useful.

    The whole messaging aspect depends on everyone else having the capacity to actually receive the pictures you send. Phone manufacturers are already pushing for this, and including the facility to view transmitted images on their new mobiles, even if they don't include a camera.
  • Cameras are nice, so are built-in GPS devices.

    But they don't grab me -- yet -- when what I want is unmetered wireless access per se. Sure, it may be *bandwidth* limited (hey, even 28.8 would make me grudgingly satisfied, 56K would be groovy, 128 or higher would be pleasant like punch), but what I *don't* want are a) roaming charges and b) per-minute costs for calls or data.

    Yes, I'd pay $100/month flat. Even $150. *Maybe* even $200, once enough LEO sats / dirigbles / solar planes / (whatever) are circling to provide coverage that is at least all over North America.

    A few places I'd like to be able to communicate (voice and data) from:

    - friends' apts and houses in cities I don't live.
    - Big Bend National Park (far West Texas)
    - chair lifts in Utah
    - my favorite chinese buffet
    - a tube floating down the Guadalupe River

    Now, it's true there are times that I would *not* like to communicate from these places -- this list is just a few examples of places which I'd like to be able to visit without being tied to a long cord. Batteries have gotten smaller and better, there's plenty of processor in the Zaurus and other handhelds to use the Web, send email, etc -- it's just the communication infrastructure that isn't yet as far as necessary to make this possible.

    Long-range 802.11 stuff is getting impressive, but I so hold out hope for the balloon / satellite option, because I doubt the guadalupe mountains are going to be convered otherwise.

    timothy
  • Amy: Hey! That's me!
    Bender: No it isn't. I just took some pictures of your face and stuck them on someone else's body.
    Leela: [looks inside] Hey!"

    (episode 2ACV09, A Bicyclops Built For Two)

  • I don't have a general problem with these phones specifically. Ultimately it's just another camera. If the people in question want to carry a camera, they could just as well carry one of the new, smaller-than-a-wallet digital cameras and upload them somewhere that evening.

    I do have a problem with societies general move to increased monitoring. People argue "if you're not doing anything wrong, what's the problem?" The problem is that "wrong" is relative and your legal (and in your mind, ethical) activities may cause problems elsewhere. Say you love your spouse, but your spouse is a tad bit paranoididly jealous. Suddenly an innocent picture of you meeting a potential business client of the opposite gender might look suspicious. Perhaps you're just listening to a union organizer's pitch during a unionization effort. Suddenly your decision to just listen, even if you decide against, might cost you a job if a photo of the two of you talking is mis-interpreted. Perhaps you live in part of the world where there is still a strong level of racism/sexism/somethingism. You decide to try and work for social change, but because you have a family to protect you decide to only work behind the scenes. A photo of you meeting someone might cause your children to be threatened. A visit to an family planning clinic might result in your harassment elsewhere as your photo circulates amoung extreme anti-abortion activists. Perhaps the economic downturn has dramatically left you with no options for employment, so you take a job with someone who illegally screens employees based on religion. Sure, it's illegal, but you need the work to support your family. Suddenly photos of you attending religious services might cost you your job.

    Sometimes the society around you might strongly disagree with your actions, actions that you feel are ethical and correct. Privacy allows you to follow your heart without needing to put yourself on the line. Sure, ideally you'd have no external commitments and would make a public stand, but for most people that isn't an option.

  • The article discusses the implications of pictures of you floating around, but what about pictures of your data? With picture phones in everyone's pocket, every internal memo and every screenshot of products under development is just a click away from your competitors.

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