Justin just sent me an image he snapped of a billboard for the Panasonic Lumix line of cameras (click it to see full size).
The billboard reads “If it has a ringtone, it’s not a camera“. A clever advertisement, I must admit. However I wonder if it may also have a more interesting message with it: Are camera manufacturers feeling threatened by modern cellular phones?
When camera phones were introduced, this was unheard of- the image sensor was more of a novelty than anything else. Even today, cheaper phones traditionally use sub-par optics and sensors resulting in washed out color and poor image quality. Generally people dismiss blurry low-light shots as “camera phone pics”. However modern high-end phones are blurring that distinction (no pun intended), with 8+ Mpix sensors and using brand name lenses and optics such as Carl Zeiss.
In fact, Sony claims to employ the same camera bits of their Powershot line of cameras into their higher-end Sony Ericsson phones, making one wonder if there is really any difference at all in image quality.
So what do you guys think? Are camera phones really replacing digital cameras in real-world use? Or will there always be a place in your heart for standalone cameras?
I suppose it could be considered kind of ironic that Justin took the picture using his iPhone 3GS.
Holy cow, what a week. Every time Mordy or I sat down to write a post, something else happened. I’m going to try to condense it all into one week, going by topic. Bear with me: (more…)
Here are some interesting things from DigitalLook, but not exactly interesting enough to be their own article (no offense to the vendors, who were all awesome)
Note that I do have photos, but I seems to be mangling the photo functions of the blog, so I will be holding off on adding them. (more…)
I know 15 cents is not a lot of money, but when you are trying to convince your 60 year old father to send texts, 15 cents is a big hurdle.He can’t fathom why on earth he would pay anything for a short message that is difficult for him to type, when he can pick up the phone and call me for free.I am not sure if it’s a generational thing or if it is really a cost thing, but.nevertheless, t-mobile is not going to make this adoption fight any easier.
First it was Sprint Nextel who raised their SMS rates, then Cingular Wireless and then at that point how could Verizon resist.T-Mobile has now joined the pack by raising individual SMS prices from 10 cents to 15 cents, effective June 1.
On the positive side, for all of you camera phone addict out there, unlike t-mobile’s predecessors, they actually will be decreasing the cost of MMS from 25 cents to 15.
CBS News and Fox News announced partnerships with social networking solutions developer Neighborhood America to enable citizen journalists to upload their user-generated video news reports for possible network broadcast. Fox News’ UR Report service debuted Monday and will enable viewers to submit video clips from their mobile handsets and PCs to the network’s website–according to Neighborhood America, Fox News programs including “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Hannity & Colmes” and “On the Record with Greta van Susteren” will each air user-generated content on a daily basis.
For CBS News, Neighborhood America developed CBS Springboard, bolstering the network’s existing citizen journalism service with mobile access via the company’s 2006 acquisition of wireless solutions provider Movo Mobile. Neighborhood America will also approve all videos uploaded to the CBS News website, further verifying mobile content to guarantee it originates from a local source.
I have been waiting for a long long time to finally blog about this. Sharpcast today introduced a powerful new version of Sharpcast Photos mobile edition, delivering a completely new way to view entire photo collections on mobile phones, share desktop PC and web photos from anywhere, and get camera-phone photos automatically to a person’s PC and the web where they can be enjoyed more easily. The new Sharpcast Photos mobile edition, available today as a free download at www.sharpcast.com/download, gives consumers fast, fully automatic synchronization of their photos between their mobile phone or wireless PDA, all the PCs they use, and the web. Sharpcast Photos is the debut service built on the company’s patent-pending universal push synchronization platform, which marks the first instance where Blackberry-like push synchronization capability is available to the average consumer, outside of an enterprise setting. It automatically backs up photo collections online, organizes them into web albums, and keeps the collection constantly up to date across all of a person’s mobile phone, all their PCs and the web. Sharpcast eliminates the every-day hassles of manual uploading, tedious sharing processes, forgotten backups and sync cables so people can get on with creating and enjoying their media.
Sharpcast Photos mobile edition currently supports Windows Mobile 5.0 smartphones, including popular devices such as the Samsung Blackjack, the Palm Treo 700w, the Motorola Q, and the HTC Star Trek (Cingular 3125) and the UT Starcom 6700, among dozens of others. I tried downloading it on my HTC Excalibur but apparently my Microsoft.Net Compact is not update. Anyways, more phone platforms will be supported in 2007
With the new Sharpcast Photos mobile edition client, photos taken on a person’s phone are instantaneously sent to the web and to their desktop PC, in the background, with absolutely no intervention required on the part of the user. It is true invisible computing. The gentlemen at Sharpcast are always wary when talking with me because they think I focus to much on the mobile side. It is true and I do see there point. The magic thing about Sharpcast is that it does not matter what device you have with you… your pictures and information will always be there.
Photos on the person’s desktop PC and in their online web albums are automatically visible on their mobile phone in full-screen view, without having to rely on sync cables or a mobile web browser. The organization of the albums are kept perfectly intact on the phone, and photos stream instantaneously down to the phone as they are viewed, as if the entire collection is on the phone at all times. The mobile edition is a client customized for mobile phones that allows people to share albums right from their phone directly to other people’s desktop PCs, in such a way that neither the sender or the receiver ever has to worry about the hassle of sync cables, mobile web browsers or cumbersome registrations or sign-ups. It’s faster and simpler than mobile photo sharing has ever been.
Sharpcast Photos is unlike any other photo service due to its continuous multi-way synchronization which keeps a person’s PC in perfect sync with the web and with their mobile phone. For example, when photos are edited in one location such as a home PC, the change is made everywhere else instantaneously and automatically on the person’s other PCs and in their online web albums. If photos are added through a web browser while away from home, those photos automatically appear on the person’s home PC and on their mobile phone.
Because Sharpcast Photos includes powerful desktop software and does not rely solely on web access like most services, people have access to their entire photo collection from anywhere even when they don’t have web access. Changes made to a collection while offline, for example on an airplane, automatically synchronize the next time the person connects to the internet.
Now, To add to this Sharpcast and Alltel Wireless today announced that Sharpcast Photos has been selected as the standard and exclusive photo sharing and synchronization application for Alltel Wireless’ line of Windows Mobile-powered smartphones, including the new Palm Treo 700wx and the UTStarcom PPC6700. Sharpcast Photos will be available on most new Windows Mobile smartphones from Alltel Wireless. Any existing Windows Mobile phone owner can download the application and sign up for their free Sharpcast Photos account at www.sharpcast.com/Alltel.
This is an extremely powerful tool and one that I would definitely keep my eye on.
MobileActive has a great article on a new mobile-to-Internet video communication service called Veeker and their debut of their mobile phone as a video capture and communication device during this year’s U.S. election.
Veekers “Veek The Vote” received over 750 mobile video messages from Americans using the video camera in a mobile phone to show the world where they stood on Election Day (thats a lot compared to Rock the Votes 24 submissions and Video the Votes 96). “Veek the Vote 2006†was the result of a partnership between Veeker and YouthNoise (www.youthnoise.com), the Internet’s first social network for youth dedicated to social change.
“I appreciate the work that activists from across the country, like those on VeekTheVote.com, have done to identify existing problems, and to help protect the rights that we all enjoy,” states recently re-elected U.S. Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) about Veek the Vote 2006.
Snap a photo. Send it to PhotoCrank. Get the picture back personalized with captions etc. Share with your family and friends. At least that is what it says on the PhotoCrank website. Various captions get added based on the email address you send the picture to.
So taking a picture and sending it to golddigger@photocrank.com will cause a picture like the following to be sent back to your phone. The whole shebang will cost you 30 cents billed directly by your carrier… that is if you can remember the plethora of email addresses and their corresponding caption.
I think that PhotoCrank definitely has a future but I still prefer applications like Comeks which has a bunch of captions and editing options directly on my phone and is, most importantly, free.
Simply put, Citizen Calling is an experiment being done by the British Parliaments Home Affairs Committee which is experimenting to see whether mobile phones are a good way for people (especially young people) and their governments to interact. UK Citizens can interact via txt, video, audio, or pictures.
Justin just sent me an image he snapped of a billboard for the Panasonic Lumix line of cameras (click it to see full size).
