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The Nokia 7650 Cell Phone w/ Integrated Camera 147

Posted by CmdrTaco from the bring-on-the-integration dept.
Unstrung writes "Nokia has just started shipping, in Europe, its first mobile phone with a digital camera onboard, unleashing on the unsuspecting continent a device with roughly the same mischief-making potential as the office photocopier - but in a package you can take to the bar on a Friday night." It's 640x480, and doesn't look clunky. In short, me want.
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The Nokia 7650 Cell Phone w/ Integrated Camera More

The Nokia 7650 Cell Phone w/ Integrated Camera

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  • this is cool, but.. (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    they already have them in japan. who would have thought?
  • What a terrible idea. Imagine having to explain all the pictures to your other half with steam coming out of their ears.

    I'm sure it would have a thousand useful applications but this with alcohol could end civilisation as we know it.

  • Has he even seen his fiance in the past 24 hours?

    How many stories has he posted in that time, compared to his average daily post count?

    Just curious.
  • i have only a nokia 7160, and have not been very impressed with it. the phone is not very well built, the battery will fall off if you look at it funny, the microphone sucks.

    i would much rather have a motorola, or any of the cool Japanese ones before i buy another nokia again.
    • I also have a 7160, and have not had any problems with the battery falling off, or with the microphone - maybe you got a bad phone. (I did have problems with the battery on my 6161, but I dropped that one a couple of times.)

      My only complaints about the 7160 are that (1) it's too big and (2) the slider does seem a bit flimsy. I'm worried it will pop off every time I answer a call. The 7650 appears to have a much sturdier slide thing going on, but it's hard to say from the pictures.

      As for Motorola - the only phones I would buy from them are the i90c or the v60t. All of the Timeports I've seen hold up okay, but the vibrate doesn't really quiet the phone. Not to mention that the interface isn't anywhere near what Nokia has.
    • i have only a nokia 7160, and have not been very impressed with it. the phone is not very well built, the battery will fall off if you look at it funny, the microphone sucks.

      i would much rather have a motorola

      Why, so the antenna would fall off, instead?

      Motorola's phones suck, too.

      - A.P.
    • Dude, most Nokia phones are fantastic. The 6xxx/5xxx series have been the benchmark in which other phones are held against for ages now. I'd guess it's the 7160 model that kinda sucks, it was never made in a TDMA/CDMA version for the US and mostly just used in Europe as a GSM model. Meaning it likely didn't make the cut for durability. I wouldn't give up on Nokia, I've had a 918, 5160, 6180 and now a 8360 and totally been in love with every one.
  • If you are looking for a really small camera, be sure to check the SMaL Ultra Pocket [smalcamera.com]. It is the size of a credit card and 6mm thick.

    You can find it as the "Fuji Eyeplate [axia.co.jp]" or as the "Logitech Pocket Digital [techtv.com]".

    I've got mine and its really cool.

    Fh
  • It probably won't be here soon, because the US doesn't really have GPRS or MMS ( MultiMedia Messaging System).


    • What do you have then?

      I've got an Ericsson T68m with GPRS from Orange. I only use the GPRS sparingly, because on a cost/MB tariff, it's quite expensive, but it's a god send when I'm on customer site and I want to email, or catch up on the latest Slashdot stories over lunch. Last week I was in France for the week. Guess what, GPRS was available there too, and I didn't even need to change the dial up number (which isn't really a phone number at all as it starts with a '*') it just connected me to the local French net. There was none of this messing around with strange telephone sockets either. What a relief that was.

      Actually, the best use I've found for GPRS when I'm away from home, is for internet chat services (MSN, Yahoo, etc). Because they are low bandwidth, you yak to friends and family for hours and it hardly costs anything.

      Macka
      • Actually, the best use I've found for GPRS when I'm away from home, is for internet chat services (MSN, Yahoo, etc). Because they are low bandwidth, you yak to friends and family for hours and it hardly costs anything.
        Messaging apps (mostly SMS, rather than Internet chat protocols, but it's much the same as far as the consumer is concerned) are a big profit center for wireless service providers -- everywhere except the US. No vendor-neutral protocols. And all the fees are connect-time based, so it's too expensive to use, even if there were anybody else to talk to.

        You'd think US vendors would wake up and smell the profits. If I could transmit small bits of data using a pocket device, and not have to pay a lot to do so, I'd use the service a lot. And most people would use it more than I would.

        But instead, vendors are chasing UHF and Ham operators off the air to free up the bandwidth to do 3G networks. Which still won't provide enough spectrum to provide a video phone to everybody who wants one. Not to mention consumer resistence to buying the necessary expensive hardware. Which will go maybe 15 minutes before the battery runs down. Unless it melts first.

        Oh well.

    • HELLO? Cingular and Voicestream offer GPRS in their GSM1900 markets. AT&T is also rolling out GSM850 and GSM1900, and offering GPRS phones for their mMode service.

  • Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stirfry714 ( 410701 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @07:30PM (#3830574)
    Okay, call me naive, but there might actually be uses for this phone that aren't sick and/or twisted.

    I mean, how often have I wanted to describe something to someone else, but just can't seem to get the right words? Assuming this is integrated well enough, just snap a picture and send it along... it's often not worth it to dig out the digital camera, snap a shot, hook it up to the PC, grab the pic, scale it, e-mail it, wait for the other person to get it, etc, etc...

    The key of course, would be wide-spread acceptance of this technology, combined with some sort of open standard so that you can avoid a "Let me send this picture... oh you have a Nokia? I have a Sprint... darn..." problem.
    • The problem is that the screen is too small to get a reasonably detailed look at the picture. Mobile phones aren't really the best medium to be viewing photos on.

      If you look at the size of the average developed photo, you could fit about ten mobile phones screens in there. So you are losing definition by a factor of ten.
      • Actually since photos are something like the equivalent to 3600 DPI, you are losing much more definition than that.

        What about a small projector in the phone then. Running a projection bulb off a cell phone battery could be a challenge though. Maybe it could do something clever with the Sun as a backlight for the projection. On the plus side you could start small fires by focusing the sun through your cell phone with a setup like that :)
        • I think I've quoted resolution when scanning the film itself for minimal loss of data. Oh well, you still get my point.
    • Okay, call me naive, but there might actually be uses for this phone that aren't sick and/or twisted.

      Your naive.

      It's only gonna be a matter of months before you hear your Nokia beep and see a picture of an advertisement for "Penis Enlargements", complete with glorious pictures.

    • I mean, how often have I wanted to describe something to someone else, but just can't seem to get the right words? Assuming this is integrated well enough, just snap a picture and send it along... it's often not worth it to dig out the digital camera, snap a shot, hook it up to the PC, grab the pic, scale it, e-mail it, wait for the other person to get it, etc, etc...

      I didn't even think about that, but that about makes it very useful.

      Imagine talking to some chick you've never seen before and want to know what she looks like; hey flash your phone!

      But seriously, it would be really convenient, as most people already keep cell phones on them all the time. I wouldn't mind have a camera -in- the phone.
    • "Hey Honey... can you drive over to the store and pick up something from the bakery?"

      "Uhhh. Sure. What?"

      "I dunno. Take the cell and send me a few pictures of what they've got."

      (grumble) Just great.

    • According to this article [digit-life.com] someone linked to below,
      "In the Bee Line network MMS messages were successfully transferred from one phone to another, also 7650, but an attempt to send an MMS to the SonyEricsson T68i failed, because the phones have different capabilities in displaying images, i.e. they are incompatible on this level."
      Now that really sucks :(

      Regards / ushac

    • Standards (Score:3, Informative)

      by Cato ( 8296 )
      There is an open standard for picture/video type messaging - it's called MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) and is supported by the 7650 and Ericsson T68i. This really only applies to the GSM world, but maybe it will extend out to CDMA etc as it is based on IETF/W3C standards such as SMTP, MIME, SMIL, etc (with a little WAP to present messages on handsets).

      For more information on MMS, see http://www.nokia.com/mms/
  • you know what? - i dont want.

    i always look terrible in photographs etc, amd many other people feel the same way. This is really useless. Text messaging is great here in europe, but this wont be so successful.
    • on top of that, the USA hardly uses text messages. In this case, it seems like having a gadget for the sake of having one (which is often good enough for me).

      That said, while I was in Japan, I actually saw people using phones w/ cameras as their cameras. I was at Nara Park and saw a couple taking a picture of themselves with their phone. It was quite odd. I also saw people using their phones to make a copy of what was written on a classroom board, instead of writing it down. Interesting use of technology, but, rather useless.

      -CPM

  • already hacked to do video (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    check it out... http://www.infosync.no/news/2002/n/2016.html

    a 3rd party company already hacked it to record video off the ccd..

  • P800 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by killa-b(a was taken) ( 554353 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @07:43PM (#3830624)
    look, this is the way all phones are going to be, due to MMS (multi media messaging) which allows you to send messages a "slide show" format, with pictures and music and text. shipping a MMS phone without a camera is just stupid, its like a car with no tires.

    this is a GSM 900/1800 phone so it will only work in europe, and Nokia is VERY slow to make their GSM products use the 1900 band with NA uses.

    the better alternative is the Sony Ericsson P800 wich is a world phone, and a camera and uses a newer version of the Symbian OS. Includes BlueTooth, and dang(Sony Memory Stick "Duo")

    anywho, 7650=garbage P800=great
    • Well I agree with you, partly...

      The problem with both these phones is that they are 1st generation camphones, which means they are just to get the markets ready for these sort of products. Both of them are big and heavy. Both of them have crappy plastic lens in the camera (corners of the picture are distorted and out of focus. So as for myself, you wont find me carrying one around...

      As for differences between these two? Well the p800 is closer to a PDA, but still short of real PDA. While 7650 is closer to a phone, but still too big. They BOTH have Bluetooth, while only p800 has Memory Stick slot (although Sony's Memory Stick pricing s*cks big time!)

      And as for sending these MMS messages? As long as the price of GPRS is at rip-off x Euro / MB rate, I see no future for it. Gimme a flat rate GPRS, and I'll reconsider...
  • No word on how the software works, and what features are available for automatically uploading photos as you take them.

    I'd like this to automatically beam photos to a server or to my mailbox, as I shoot them. Sort of like iphoto/idisk, but not requiring me to keep my photos on someone else's server. Just an easy way to batch download them later, so I don't have to carry around flash cards.

    640x480 is a bummer though. This is too expensive for a "toy" camera, and too low-res to replace the Nikon digital camera I'd take on vacation.

    Also with flash cards large enough to store hundreds of high-quality photos, and IP-over-cell-phone costing a zillion per KB, it's hard to see how this would ever be worth it without a revolution in cell phone pricing.
  • if they put it in a StarTac style flip-phone, i'm there.
  • Last year Nokia originally scheduled this for a Q1 (March) release where as now it will be September before the shops see stock (6 months late!)

    Why don't nokia just give a release date and stick to it?

    The funny thing is the same thing happened when trying to get my 7110 when I had to wait several months after they were supposed to be available (and I was one of the first 150 in the UK to get one).

    On the 7110 the then 'next big thing' WAP was the most unusable bug infested piece of crap and they sent me two new phones over the next few months before it would even start to connect reliably.

    I'm dying to get one of the new 7650's but with a new OS, GUI and camera features I wonder whether as an early adopter I face receiving a irritatingly crippled piece of hardware just so nokia can be first to market.

    - dopeghost
    • but the T68i beat it to market. We had one in at work and, although ugly (what happened ericsson? your phones used to be the most stylish) it's a fucking wonderful device. You can match pictures to people so that when they call their face appears on your screen! cool!
  • ...in the wrong hands (or the wrong office) the Nokia 7650 imaging phone will become the ultimate weapon of shame and mortification, on hand to record and send moments that were probably best forgotten to your boss/ friends/lover/spouse...

    can you imagine; a walking army armed with cameras *and* the ability to deliver the picture instantaneously to the place where you don't want it most. this is scary people -- forget Big Brother Survallence (sp?) -- this is the scariest of all, you never know where ppl are looking / taking pictures;

    picking your nose in the car on the highway? ha! forget it.
    forgot to zip up after going to the bathroom b/c you are hung-over? watch it haunt you
    smiled at the bank teller when depositing a check? wait for the divorce...

    this is going to be a scary world. before you know it, *you* will be in one of thoes mock-up internet chain letter "caught on camera cheating? priceless" emails

  • Review with pictures (Score:5, Informative)

    by dracvl ( 541254 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @08:27PM (#3830741) Homepage
    A review with lots of great pictures can be found here [digit-life.com].
    • They've had phones like the J-T06 [toshiba.co.jp] in Japan for a while (last year?)
      Warning: site's in Japanese
    • I wonder if his wife [ixbt.com] knows there's a picture of her only in underwear?
    • Thanks for the link. I noticed further down the page that Nokia 7650 has a built-in Sound Recorder. Is there any info on what format this records in and whether or not you can attach those files to an e-mail sent wirelessly? Could you attach both sound and pictures?

      I don't know anything about J2ME, the version of Java for mobile devices that the 7650 uses, but might it be possible to hack the camera into recording video, too?
    • Um. Maybe I'm just stupid, but something looks a little odd to me. On the second image on the page they have pictures from five different views. That includes on looking at the bottom and one at the top of the phone. The silhouettes in those two pictures are completely different! How did they do that?! Or isn't it the top and bottom? This is the image [ixbt.com] by the way.

      Nice review though!

      Regards / ushac
  • Think of it:

    Corporate Espionage will never be the same

    Those Upskirt Web Sites will have a new, subtle way of sneaking a photo

    When you are lost and asking a friend for directions, you could simply take a picture of where you really are to help them out.

    Two Words: Strip Clubs

  • It runs Java too (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wal9000 ( 302320 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @08:34PM (#3830767)
    That's what I think is cool about this phone. It's got J2ME onboard and runs it really really fast (having seen it demoed at JavaOne).

  • I believe this is the first mobile phone to come out which has a digital camera that doesn't require an add- on.

    I've been eyeing this phone for almost a year-- no, make that I had been eyeing it for almost a year, until I realized that I'd never be able to afford it in a million years.

    That said, a phone with a truly integrated digital camera is an extremely powerful concept: how often we find ourselves without a camera during crucial events, yet people tend to carry their mobile phones with them everywhere they go. In other words, with the 7650, you wouldn't have to worry about not being able to take that candid shot at least once in a while!

  • My first question... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @08:40PM (#3830787)
    The first thing I asked myself after reading about putting a camera in a cellphone is "Why would people want to send out photos of their ears?"
  • I loved the 7650 when it first arrived at Nokia's website, but since then I acquired a Sony Cybershot and a Sony Clié. Know what? I can take pictures whenever I want, and if I need to post them, All I need to do is remove the Memory Stick from the Camera, stick it in the Clié, and dial my ISP (thanks heaven for TDMA mobile phones with data services).

    With a stantard TCP/IP connection, I can FTP, mail-attach or post the pictures, edit HTML files to comment the images, you name it.

    Not so integrated? OK, but overall, I have much more quality and flexibility. The 7650 took to long to arrive.

    Of course, when in deep geek mode, the best thing to do is start ICQ and tease your friends about the beer. People hate the "I'm at the bar, where are you?" line ;)
  • Is it just me or do all these tiny cameras that would be great for taking pictures where you arent supposed all lack a flash? You almost cant tak a picture indoors without one and thats whats been keeping me from getting any of these spycams. Would it be that cost prohibitive to just add one and double the places you can take pictures? This is something a lot of people seem to overlook about these gadgets. You cant take pictures in a dark bar without a flash!
    • Yeah - exactly! I mean, perhaps they figure nobody wants a flash on this type of device, because they know much of the attraction is the ability to take discreet photos of the unsuspecting.

      Still, when you've got these low-quality (sometimes plastic, not even real glass) optics and cheap digital CCD's, you're simply not going to get a decent picture without bright background lighting.

      Even with my $900 Sony digital 8 camcorder, taking still photos to the memory stick is troublesome indoors. Sometimes, you can load the photo into Photoshop and adjust the brightness/contrast and end up with something usable - but by default, it's too dark. I guess I need to buy the light attachment for it.

      The other alternative would be attaching an infra-red light, and letting these devices take those photos with a greenish cast, similar to the "night-shot" mode on the camcorders. (The "Blair Witch Project" film effect, basically.)

  • 7650 review (Score:3, Informative)

    by halk ( 139476 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @08:51PM (#3830813)
    A more informative review [my-communicator.com]
  • ...picture phones are being plastered all over TV advertisements.

    VodaFone [vodafone.co.nz] are marketing a service called PXT [vodafone.co.nz] (like txt messages, but pictures, haha). It uses the Sony Ericsson T68i mobile, but apart from that seems pretty similar.

    Granted, I don't think any of these are of sufficient quality to grace the pages of National Geographic magazine anytime soon, but they do seem pretty useful for a quick "hey, look at this!". I only hope that carriers can agree on an decent interoperability protocol, and don't charge high data rates for transmitting pictures, which would really shoot this in the foot.

  • I got one of these (Score:5, Informative)

    by QoluB ( 524782 ) <hermo@@@dmz...fi> on Friday July 05, 2002 @09:06PM (#3830871) Homepage
    I got a 7650 this afternoon from work (whee me make MMS-messages, me get nice phone :) ) and I've gotta say that this thing just rocks. I saw the phone on a mobile communications fair a few months ago and it was slow and buggy but the final version seems to be fast and reliable, no glitches yet... just came back from the bar where I snapped a nice bunch of photos which I can later use to embarass my friends ;) The screen is big (176x208), bright and clear, at least the same level as a good PDA.
    The phone can hold almost a hundred pics with the default quality setting which seems adequate, I only managed to snap a bit over 40 pics this evening although I had the phone in my hand to use / show to the curious for nearly the whole evening. Btw, gotta love the polyphonic ringtones, no more crappy beep-beep sounds, the midi tunes on this baby sound really really nice! I guess I'll have to grab the starwars theme midi or something to use as a ringtone, just to hear how good it sounds compared to the oldskool-phones :)

    On the whole, the 7650 is a really nice gadget when disregarding the hefty price tag (about 800EUR in Finland) and the weight (154g). It sure as hell kicks the SonyEricsson T68i:s ass big time in speed, image quality, usability and of course in overall coolness.
    A definite must-have for any gagdet freak with enough dough.

    Can't wait til Hantro [hantro.com] publishes their MPEG-4 player/encoder for this baby.
  • Matrix style dropdown keypad...
    • Speaking of the matrix style dropdown keyboard, some people may wonder why the European Nokia phones (i.e. 7110) have a spring-loaded mechanism to eject the keypad, while the U.S. versions (i.e. 7160) are pull-down. The reason, if you haven't guessed it yet, are the potential for lawsuits. The U.S., being a lawsuit-happy country, wouldn't hesitate to sue Nokia if one person hits their jaw while ejecting the keypad. Just a little insight from a Noki-ite.
  • In Hong Kong, it is about US$320.
    http://www.orangehk.com/eng/eshop/prod_de sc.jsp?Pr odID=DP9N7650

    I have a chance to play with it for a while, and this thing is cool albeit too bulky and heavy. However, I am amazed on the battery life of this phone, I could play around with the camera, talking on the phone, sending emails and MMS all day without seeing the battery indicator dropped one mark.

    One thing I found interesting was when you have the Keypad slide down, set the phone to silent mode, then pretend you are talking on the phone; because of the camera's position, no one will be suspicious of you taking pictures of them!

    This is actually cool (and somewhat worrisome). I did an experiment and found that one could managed to sneak into some perfect positions and took pictures of anyone without them knowing it. (And of course those are friends that won't mind me doing this experimentally and I did told them later about what I have done :-)

    ---
    Sic? What sic?
  • I'll bet the feds are chomping at the bit for the terrorists to go get a few of these babies. Not only can we listen in on their calls, but now we can "see" where they are, and who is around them.

    Smile for the CIA/NSA/FBI/MIB! ;-)
  • My cousin has had a phone with a camera that she got from Japan for at least 18 months... I wonder if a local provider can hook it up to the cellular network here... It also has a cool programmable ring tone that has a music staff and a bunch of different musical instruments... I bet that Nokia isn't a MIDI machine ;)
    • Yes, it can play midi and has its own synth. However, the 7650 only has 24 chords, compared with those Japanese phones capable of 40 chords or 64 chords, it is still relatively primitive.

      Even feature-wise and user-friendliness, the 7650 is still far behind those Japanese phones.

      ---
      Sic? What sic?

  • Official Details (Score:3, Informative)

    by martyb ( 196687 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @10:21PM (#3831107)

    Here are the Full Specifications [nokia.com] as well as a link to the official 7650 page [nokia.com] at Nokia.

  • I love the trend of making devices kill batteries at an even faster rate.

  • can someone please explain underlying technlogy? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @10:37PM (#3831155)
    Fine, they added a camera to a phone. What I want to know is, with the mumbo-jumbo of different technologies we have deployed in the US, and lots of competing wireless telcos doing different things, will this phone easily integrate with all or most of them, a few of them, or (as I fear) none at all? Perhaps a more general question would be how can a non-industry insider keep up with the basic technology used in cell phones so that I would not have even bothered to ask this question?
    • Unfortunately the Nokia phone only supports the two frequency bands used in Europe (800MHz and 1800MHz). In North America GSM is using the 1900MHz band, so this phone will NOT work in the US.

      The Sony-Ericsson P800 phone is a so called tripple-band phone, supporting 800/1800/1900. This means it will work in Europe and the US with any GSM network.

      /Daniel
      • OK, there is the band issue. That brings up another question, I thought I had seen a US advertisement that some cell phone offering required a tripple band (or perhaps a tripple mode) phone. If we don't use 1800 mhz, what were they talking about? But even if the phone is on the right band, does that mean that the protocols used to pass these pictures from one phone to another would pass cleanly through the clular network? It seems to me (a complete outsider) that what one can build into a celular phone is greatly limited by the underlying network, unless there is a well defined low level protocol that this information can travel on top of. I'm trying to understand the basics of celular communication at a level that would allow things like this camera phone, as well as services like GM's On-Star and phones incorporating GPS devices to play well with other equipment.
        • Tripple band and tripple mode are two different things. In Europe we generally don't have multi-mode phones because the only network available is GSM. Eventually UMTS will become available, but the current downturn in the economy has put the brakes on that development.

          UMTS is the new WCDMA-based 3G network in Europe, with many similarities to the Japanese 3G network (which is already operational).

          In the US you have multiple networks: AMPS, D-AMPS, GSM, CDMA-2000. A tripple-mode phone probably supports AMPS, D-AMPS and CDMA-2000.

          The SMS and MMS "protocols" are well specified, making it possible to pass data between different handsets. Both SMS and MMS were developed for GSM networks as far as I know. I don't know if they are available in other networks, and if they can cross network boundaries.

          • Re:can someone please explain underlying technlogy (Score:1, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Daniel is on the money, with the exception that the UMTS breaks are on. =)

            I'm a SW development manager at a very large data/telecom equipment provider (think top 5) and the UMTS market is going on hot and heavy for those vendors that are still in the wireless market. In fact it is one of the only areas that is experiencing some internal expansion given the current status of the sector overall.

            To answer some of your questions, there are well defined sets of standards (typically ITU-T for Europe) for the underlying protocols between the mobile, the radio, and the core networks which eventually connect to a PSTN. Vendors strive to both define and comply to these standards. In a multivendor network there are seemingly endless interoperability tests that occur prior to bringing the network online. Once the network becomes available, the operator will typically push a preferred selection of mobiles that have been proven to work in their network.

            If you're interested in some of the details, I'd suggest browsing around the ITU-T website. They publish the standards that outline GSM, GPRS and UMTS technologies. In particular the H-series covers Audio visual and Multimedia systems, unfortunately the standards cost $$$.
            Check it out here: http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/

  • Hmm...
    I think I'll just wait for Sony/Ericsson to finish their P800.
    Seems very promising.
    Nice size, good screen and it's gui seems to work pretty well.
    But, as usual when it comes to cool gadgets, it will probably be out of my pricerange. :-(

    And they *have* to release it in other colours than baby-blue. x-p *brrr*

  • They've had this (Score:4, Informative)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @11:28PM (#3831333) Homepage Journal
    in Japan for quite awhile now. Why not in the US? Oh yeah, there was a slashdot article about that a few days ago. For the latest and greatest in cell phone technology go where I go. http://www.nokia.co.jp
    duh.
  • Maybe I'm simply not "geek enough", but this "Digital Camera" add-on just doesn't seem practial to me. Yes, it would be nice to have a camera in my pocket. But don't the people your sending to have to have this type of phone to read it? Or even to recieve it? And plus, I like having my cameras, phones, PDA's, and what not seperate. Stop trying to combine them, and concentrate on what's important - the damn phone!

    What are wrong with these cell phone manufactuers? I've e-mailed, snailmailed for all these feature requests to Nokia [nokia.com] to no avail.

    So, here, if any cell-phone manufactuers are listening, are my upmost feature requests for phones:
    • Sync with my PC: Okay, those Nokia OS menu's aren't that bad. But, it would be really really nice if I could sync it with my PC and edit my address book, prefrences, settings, voice mail options etc.

      Instead of clicking those little buttons with your hand while staring into a small little screen, how about dragging and dropping icons for your phone, or downloading voice tones and uploading them to your phone?
    • A better alert system: Maybe I haven't looked hard enough on my nokia phone, but I can't find away to have personal alerts. I'm really bad with times, and I don't wear a watch. Actually, I hate watches. And there are many people who use the phone instead of watches. I've been going to community college, and I can easily loose track of the time. I wanted my phone to vibrate 5 or 10 minutes before my class started so I can depart from socializing with friends to my classroom.

      Think of how cool I will look! "How does he know he has to be in class all the time?!"
    • Website Control: Well, this might not be for the cell-phone makers, but the service providers (Cellular, ATT etc.). It would be nice if I could check my voice mail online, or check my SMS messages (or send them!), or sign up for additional services?

      Voice mail Messages -> .wav can't be that difficult.
    Well, I probably have more. But there you go. That's three easy things they could work on instead of a "Digital Camera". God, what a collossal waste of time!
    • I've been using TrueSync from StarFish [starfish.com] for a couple years now to handle synchronization between my Startac/PDA/Exchange and or Outlook contact databases. The outdated version I use even allows for minor phone preferences settings without having to fumble with the cumbersome menus on the phone itself. While it may not be something provided for free from the phone manufactuer, it is a start.
    • So, here, if any cell-phone manufactuers are listening, are my upmost feature requests for phones: Sync with my PC: They have it. my Nokia can sync with my computer - even via the infrared port on my laptop. A better alert system: They have it. Ever hear of alarms? You can also set task reminders and calendar events on my Nokia phone. Website Control: They have it. I can browse the web, get email and even play online games from my Nokia phone. Voice mail Messages -> .wav can't be that difficult. They have it. I can get my voicemail via web or phone. In short - you need a new phone. Get with the times!
    • Go check their website, dude. Nokia DOES sync. They've got almost a dozen different softwares. I did it with my 7160, I do it with my 3320, and if you manage to find the right cable you can do it with all the recent models.
    • Syncing is already there with SyncML (works well on the Ericsson T68 to sync with PCs), and alerts are there too in most modern phones such as this one.

      As for web interfaces - wireless operators are planning to roll out 'unified messaging' in which you have a single mailbox to send/receive voicemail, email, SMS, MMS, etc. And quite a few already let you sign up for new services online (at least in Europe).

  • The Future Of Journalism (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Effugas ( 2378 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @01:07AM (#3831629) Homepage
    Cory Doctorow [boingboing.net] was talking about the Journalism 3.0 talk at the Emerging Technologies conference sometime back, and mentioned something insanely significant:

    Eventually, when a major event happens, the first imagery of it won't be from government-released photos or even freelance photographers. It'll be anyone in the area with their cell phones, sending images of the disaster/situation off to their friends. Dozens upon dozens of individual, low quality but zero-hour latency images, sent over data networks to remote archives.

    That's the future of journalism -- or at least part of it.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky, CISSP
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com

    • This has already happened. Many really major, really spontaneous news events are now caught by amateur photographers, tourists, or anyone who happened to be in range of any kind of camera as a news event was breaking nearby.

      I think of the Concorde crash in France, for which most of the really spectacular (albeit morbid) images of the event were captured by people passing by in cars. By the time the professionals got there, they managed to capture the "huge blackened crater" shots that are all we see from most plane crashes. (I do not mean to minimalize the loss of life from this event - plane crashes are very tragic and horrific in nature. I know, because I had to attend a closed casket funeral for a personal role model as a result of one)

      The World Trade Center disaster pretty much cemented this phenomenon. As a direct witness of that horror, I think it was very important that there were hundreds of thousands of still and video images taken from countless angles of the destruction of the Twin Towers. This was a disaster affecting many people, and it was quite symbolic that the disaster was witnessed, captured, and expressed by common people through modern photography - alongside the shots that the major news groups and nearby professionals obtained.

      Photography is expression, and group expression can be a powerful thing. The proliferation of cameras throughout the world - with all combinations of small, cheap, fast, disposable, easy to use, flexible, high quality, and accurate - is something that contributes to humanity much in the way the printing press did. Or as we hope the Internet does.

      There will still be room for professionals. For one thing, we don't want random tourists in the White House or at the Kremlin to take pictures of important meetings and speeches. Also, we don't want the only pics of someone's 74th home run coming from a 640x480 cellphone shot. Finally, future brides-to-be will probably not let you cheap out and have Uncle Mort take the wedding pics.

      (I can see Rob Malda talking in a whiny voice: "But Kathleen, honey, it's a 4 megapixel! And it has a timer! Please?")
    • In the old days, when you had a breaking news event, you'd have a rider on a motorbike waiting at the venue, once the pixman has the pictures taken of the said event, he hand it over to the rider where he'd rush it back to HQ and the photolab would have it out intime for the evening edition..

      Now, with digital cameras, photos are taken, uploaded into a laptop, photoshopped by the pixman and Telnet-ed via cell networks into a pix server at HQ.

      Now i see how we can just take teh pix and skop the laptop alltogather.
    • This is distinctly different from old cameras. Film and digital cameras typically store their pictures on local storage media. Consider that you are witnessing police/criminal/etc. brutality, and manage to snap a picture. On a conventional camera, you would most probably have to give up the film/memory card at gunpoint. If you have a camera phone, the pics are already on a remote server, possibly on another continent.

      Obviously, after camera phones become more commonplace, you will be barred from taking phones to places where there might be something suspicious going on, either by participants or authorities (countries with a bad human rights record, demonstrations, bars and restaurants, parties, etc.)

      Currently the problem is that some users tend not to put their phone in a silent mode even when attending a wedding or a classical concert. Later on phone users have also to be educated on where they're allowed to take photos.

      The difference in this is that a ringing phone in a concert just makes you look stupid. A camera phone in certain situations may actually kill you.

  • The Nokia 7650 Cell Phone w/ Integrated Camera (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This could be really handy if someone were to try to mug you. Just turn the phone on them as they chase you saying smile, you're live at the local precinct!

    Or as you stand there in the shop you can say do you prefer this one or this one? I like this idea better than the inevitable bar shots... Or, Officer see how erratic he/she drives! Will it be useable in court as evidence? Practical joke (expensive) you tape a taperecorder to it and throw it off the roof of your office building...

  • I'm sorry if this has been covered, but how is the battery life on these things?

    I'd imagine browsing the images on the phone's display would really hinder the cellphone's available battery power.

  • Take a Handspring Treo (with full browser, Palm O/S on it) and add the following:

    1) LED Flashlight - doesn't need to be terribly bright, but bright enough to be useful. On a high density cell phone battery, you'd be able to run for hours w/o running out. (My bike light, plenty bright, burns for weeks on a AA)

    2) Infrared universal remote control - Push a "magic button" and you have a programmable, universal remote control. Make an easy overlay-based system so you just key in the manufacturer and model number (SMS style) and you have an instant Remote Control!

    You could even base it on a DSP, and just download the codes from your phone company, rather than keep all that crap on your phone! That way it could always be up to date.

    THIS WOULD BE FREAKIN' AWESOME!

    -Ben

  • I can finally ditch my Samsung A300 and go back to a Nokia phone.. does any one know how much this phone would retail for on contract? I really like the look of it.. and to own a proper next gen phone would be cool :)
  • Ok, can anyone think of a use for this? lets see:

    - From the bar/club/party - thats just going to be sad, and i'm not trying to troll here :)

    - Help im being mugged - Not that its much help, since the police probably don't have a nokia to see you with and the mugger will have all the more reason to run off with it when he sees how expensive it is lol

    - Hey, I miss you - More like, "hey, i miss you honey... whos that guy with his arm around you!?!"

    Maybe nokia should concentrate on making phones that dont crash :)
  • I think I would actually wait for the nokia 6610 [nokia.com], and update to the Nokia 6510, which in itself was an update on the 8310 which I currently own (suppose I could wait for the 8410).

    No camera though, but then again I would prefer to use the money saved to buy a separate digital camera.

  • Size (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @10:42AM (#3832883)
    I've played with one for a while and it's a very nice phone. Lovely interface and the camera picture quality is better than the T68i and Camera attachment.

    My only complaint is that it's rather heavy and bulky. You could put it in your jeans pocket but you wouldn't have much room for anything else.

    Personally, I'm not going to buy one as I like my phones small and light, I already have a Cannon Digital IXUS v for photos and my Palm Vx suits most of my needs. I'm not really in the need of something that does everything in one quite yet ...

  • This Post about the Simputer article [slashdot.org] made me think.

    Would a phone with picture taking capabilities be useful for emergency medicine? Maybe a team of surgeons could plan for a specific surgury while a patient is in transit. Maybe they already do this. (Fortunately I've never had to ride in an ambulance)

  • "In short, me want."
    Very mischief-making device indeed.

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