Camera phone
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Image:Camera phone sharing.JPG Image:Sony ericsson k750i back side.JPG Image:Philippe Kahn.JPG Image:PK earlyCphone.JPG A camera phone is a mobile phone which has a camera built-in and usually has an implementation of a server-based infrastructure that allows the user to share pictures with anyone instantly. Philippe Kahn invented the camera phone in June 1997. The first commercial camera phone was the J-SH04, made by Sharp Corporation and marketed by J-Phone (Vodafone) in Japan in November 2000.
Camera Phones share pictures instantly and automatically via a sharing infrastructure integrated with the carrier network. They do not use connecting cables or removable media to transfer pictures. In essence, Camera Phones create a new category of consumer devices around the "instant visual communications" paradigm. Hence the camera phone is the central part of the communications event anytime, anywhere. Personal computer intervention is not necessary.
Some camera phones use CMOS image sensors. This is due largely to reduced power consumption compared to CCD type cameras, which are also used. The lower power consumption prevents the camera from quickly depleting the phone's battery. Images are usually saved in the JPEG file format and the wireless infrastructure manages the sharing. The sharing infrastructure is critical and explains the successes of J-phone and DoCoMo in Japan as well as Sprint in the United States.
Major manufacturers include Nokia, Sanyo, Samsung, Motorola, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, and LG Electronics. As of 2006, the resolution is typically in the megapixel range. Samsung Electronics, as of 2006, has a 10.0 megapixel camera phone, the WCDMA SCH-B600.
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[edit] Social impact
As a network-connected device, megapixel camera phones are playing significant roles in crime prevention, journalism and business applications as well as individual uses. On the other hand, they are prone to abuse such as voyeurism, invasion of privacy, and copyright infringement. Because they can be used to instantly share media any time, anywhere they are a very potent personal content creation tool.
From time to time, organizations and places have restricted the use of camera phones because of the privacy and security issues they raise. Such places include the Pentagon, federal and state courts (see, for instance, [1]), schools, or local fitness clubs. One country, Saudi Arabia, for a short time, banned the sale of camera phones nationwide for a time before reallowing their sale in 2004 (although pilgrims on the Hajj were allowed to bring in camera phones). In South Korea and Japan, all camera phones sold in the country have to make a clearly audible sound whenever a picture is taken. In Singapore camera phones are banned at companies or facilities that have an association with national security. In Europe, some BDSM conventions and play parties ban cellphones altogether to prevent camera phone abuse. However, camera phones are everywhere today with projected sales for 2008 of over 1 billion units worldwide.
There is the occasional anectdote of Camera Phones linked to industrial espionage and paparazzi activity as well as some hacking into wireless operators' network.
Camera phones have also been used to discreetly take photographs in museums, performance halls, and other places where photography is prohibited. However, as the sharing is automatic and instantaneous, even if people get called on their action, it is too late as the media is already out of reach, unlike a digital camera that only stores images locally for later transfer.
The newer camera phones also support video-clips and sometimes peer-to-peer video calls. Camera phone video and photographs taken in the immediate aftermath of the 2005 London bombings were featured worldwide. CNN executive Jonathan Klein predicts camera phone footage will be increasingly used by news organizations. The ability to immediately share media from anywhere at anytime makes every citizen a potential real-time news-reporter.
[edit] History
The camera phone, with or without server infrastructure, has several fathers or mothers. Inspired perhaps by the comic strip Dick Tracy, the idea of transmitting images between two individuals was pursued in earnest with the development of the digital mobile phone. However, compared to digital cameras of the era, a consumer-viable camera in a mobile phone would require far less power and a higher level of camera electronics integration to permit the miniaturization. The CMOS active pixel image sensor "camera-on-a-chip" developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory by Dr. Eric Fossum and his team in the early 1990's achieved the first step of realizing the modern camera phone as described in a March 1995 Business Week article.
The first camera-phone complete with server infrastructure was demonstrated on June 11, 1997, by Philippe Kahn when his daughter, Sophie, was born.<ref name="Parks">Parks</ref> Kahn integrated a miniature camera into a Motorola cell phone and, as his wife Sonia Lee Kahn was in labor, broadcast pictures of the newborn baby around the world using a complete server infrastructure that he had developed. The camera phone solution complete with infrastructure became the founding vision for LightSurf Technologies, now owned by Verisign.
In Japan, J-phone deployed in 1999 the first sharing infrastructure with camera-phones, using the blue-prints of Kahn's 1997 designs in partnership. the first integration of a camera sensor into a phone was developed for Sharp electronics working professionals who wanted to keep an image of their children with them wherever they went and as they worked. The user interface was designed to be simple so that novices and children could also use the feature. The designers felt it was important to have the child's photograph displayed on the cellphone as accurately as possible. That Sharp phone was the camera phone that J-phone launched with its infrastructure in 1999. Today all major carriers around the world offer camera phones with complete sharing infrastructures.
[edit] Notes
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[edit] References
- Parks, Bob (October, 2000). Wired Magazine, The Big Picture - Philippe Kahn. Retrieved on 20 April, 2006.
- Low, Leonard (2006). The Use of Camera Phones in Education: Mobile Learning. Retrieved on 9 October, 2006.
