> As always, standards are driven by the mass-market and the mass market > is already speaking on this one. In 18 months time there will be no > difference between mobile phones & cheap digital cameras - all but the > cheapest phones will come with built-in cameras.
hate to bud in but ... it is the cheap phones & plans that actually capitalize on the camera phones. In Japan the easy example is J-Phone. They couldn't migrate to 3G or upgrade to full 2.5G, so they put out really, really cheap camera phones (subsidized with rebates to make them practically free) and captured the teen market. In the US (as seen by TO-Mobiles extremely cheap new camera phone currently being hocked in the US for a carrier that had to be rebranded in order to now be sold off), this approach will be picked up by more and more of the discount carriers (including pay as you go schemes) - especially as rates are whatever the carrier want to make them for data. > Its almost certain that these devices will have GPS location, and > probable that they will have Bluetooth as well. 802.11 less likely > because of power consumption - possible that there will be little "base > stations" to go Blt <-> WiFi so the Bluetooth becomes a wireless drop > cable. The GPS locators all come pre-built in to the newer phones in Asia and Europe & are heading to the US quicker then you can say government ailout -- now whether the carrier's announce this feature and/ or the crack sales staffs at their stores know about them or not is irrelevant. Just getting a Cingular or AT&T Wireless carrier or salesperson to acknowledge that you can flip chips from their phones to other phones is impossible, (based on extensive personal research in the DC and NYC areas) as they won't or don't understand the concept - but that doesn't mean it can't and isn't being done. Wi-Fi doesn't exist yet, but it is being experimented on and will come as bandwidth use picks up, in order to cash in on VoIP schemes (especially since this use - voice or not - could be labeled as data and carriers could price at will and this would make up for the lost money from the flat rate pricing wars). > Realtime video isn't on the horizon unless someone pulls a lot of > bandwidth out of the bag, as ever network speeds grow more slowly than > processing power. Actually in Asia (notably Korea and Japan) it works as well as internet RealPlayer streaming video (in Japan, KDDI's flips from 2.5 to 3G without a hitch and when going from 3 to 2.5G presents just a short time lag in time - think of the "buffering" on RealPlayer - & NTT DoCoMo's all 3G video works pretty flawlessly, but has certain area restrictions that they're working on correcting). Europe's lagging a bit, but several government & EU loans are subsidizing infrastructure costs and new intra-carrier arrangements are helping them move towards video-capability by years end (at least in the bigger cities). In the US the bandwidth is being sat on by carriers, as most carriers own it already (remember the 3G Auctions a few years ago?) they just don't have the money to roll-out a new infrastructure at the moment & our government doesn't look ready to subsidize a complete infrastructure redo like the French, German, Swedish (et al). As soon as the telcos see a money making app they'll be on it quicker then you could imagine -- and with several foreign carriers looking for investments in the US mobile market in Q1 2003, it could be a lot sooner then anyone thinks. ;~) e > So effectively everybody will be walking around with the ability to take > timestamped photos and transmit them. BrinWorld arrives, at least in > public places. No policeman gets to bludgeon a demonstrator unrecorded > ever again - expect them to wear visors and helmets increasingly often, > and to remove the identifying marks from uniforms (as, or course, riot > cops and vigilantes have been doing for decades) > > The authorities will be able to take down the cell networks - though > they won't be able to do that without causing some publicity. They > won't be able to confiscate all phones from everyone who is walking the > street. Presumably in high-security situation (like interviews with > presidents or rides on torture planes) phones can be removed from > visitors but they will be rare. Mobile phones are now so ubiquitous > that taking them away has come to seem as odd as asking visitors to > remove their shoes or to wear face masks. > > > Ken Brown > > > Tyler Durden wrote: > > > > Well, the rason d'etre of 'eJazeera' as I see it is primarily for > > publically-taken photos and videos to be quickly "gypsied" away from their > > port of origination (ie, the camera that took them), so that they can > > eventually make it into a public place on ye old 'Net. The enabling > > technology as I see it here is802.11b, Wi-Fi. A typical scenario is the case > > of public demonstrations where the local "authorities" are called in, and > > where they get, shall we say, a little overzealous. In many such cases > > (here, New York City, Here, USA, and there--China, etc...), such authorities > > will attempt to confiscate devices that could have captured the events or > > captured the perpetrators (and their badge numbers, if applicable) in photo > > or video. > > > > The ultimate aim of eJazeera is to make even the thought of "capturing" such > > video non-existent, due to the commonplace practices outlined in an > > eJazeera-type document (or eventually tribal knowledge). Short of that, it > > is of course in itself desirable for such events to get onto the public > > 'Net.
