Hoy I've recently bought a digital pocket camera, a Panasonic DMC-LZ7. It's a pretty good one, as pocket cameras go, and eats std. AA batteries and SD memory cards. So far so good, and bear with me for a moment. This will get relevant at some point :]
The camera has a simple video mode, as they often do nowadays. Now, I don't expect wonders from a pocket cam in the video department, but there are a couple of things that struck my eye eventually. Panasonic advertises that the maximum video length varies with memory card. Support says 2G is the maximum. The actual camera, on the other hand, seems to have a hard-coded limit of 15 minutes, when it stops, with space to spare on my 2G SD. Ah well, it's a corner case anyway to want so much video on that device. A bit dishonest, though. Then comes the part which really pisses me off: Panasonic has crippled the camera so that you can't use zoom or focus functions while recording video. Now, I know this is not a camcorder. I don't expect it to record good quality video - just something casual once in a while. However, maybe I'm gullible, but I do not fucking expect Panasonic to maliciously lock me out of basic camera controls when recording. Presumably, this is all due to some sort of petty marketing policy to intentionally cripple the software on consumer goods with the goal to increase demand for their other devices. As someone having a clue or at least a half, I'm not particularly itching to buy a Panasonic camcorder after this; if they're willing to cripple basic functionality like this, who knows what any given Panasonic product will refuse to do for me! Almost reminds me of Apple. Well, scratch the almost. Now, for the relevant part. I want an open digital camera. So, hey, OpenMoko guys (or somebody else in the consumer device business and into openness), when you're well on your way to having revolutionized the mobile handset market, consider building one or twelve. While of course not any sort of priority especially this early in the game, such companion devices to the phones would fit into the Open Mobile Kommunications theme quite nicely, especially with bluetooth (and/or wifi) for easy integration with the cells - something conspicuously lacking from all but the highest end cameras I could find. (I do realize that some eventual OM phones will also likely have integrated cameras, but they will also be behind the real pocket cams, never mind real cameras, in quality and flexibility for a long while yet.) Meanwhile, I was happy to hear that the GTA02 can provide 100 mA on the USB port in host mode. It will likely make accessing USB cams in general a whole lot easier from the phone when necessary... PS: Did I mention that I'd suggest being careful buying Panasonic if you don't want crippled products? Good. -- Mikko Rauhala - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - <URL:http://www.iki.fi/mjr/> Transhumanist - WTA member - <URL:http://www.transhumanism.org/> Singularitarian - SIAI supporter - <URL:http://www.singinst.org/> _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community