Camera Phones and the Future of Digital Photography

"With the quality of the pictures improving, the bandwidth available to ship increasing and the prices continuing to drop, we expect sales of camera phones to rise significantly for the next few years," said Strother at InStat, which expects consumers to buy 102 million camera phones in 2004. [TechNewsWorld]

Third article about camera phones and identity theft

Alan Reiter is keeping taps on the latest (alarmist) articles warning shoppers that thieves could snap photos of shoppers' credit cards. I agree with Alan when he says "If you've read one article you've read them all. And none of the articles provides any proof that this is easily done. You can take a good enough photo but you have to get close to the card, the lighting has to be bright enough enough and neither the card nor the camera must move to ensure a sufficiently sharp photo".

One of Picturephoning's readers posted a comment after taking a picture of his own credit card and here is what he has to say: "Hah. You can't even tell what BRAND of credit card it is, much less the numbers. Distance was just out of arm distance to the credit card, since I assume I would be standing right behind the rightful owner.

Related article: Phones are criminal's paradise.

Cell Phone Cameras Become Popular, but Controversial Trend

Both Alan Reiter of Camera Phone Report and Alex Levine of Upoc.com are interviewed in this well written article by Ted Landphair for Voice of America on camera phones, rounding up the various privacy issues and interesting, how these new handsets are affecting concert promoters, theater managers, actors and musicians.

Mobile Veepers

In an article entitled "Look Who's Talking", Penelope Patsuris for Forbes writes about a new company called Pulse Entertainment.

Pulse has developed a software, dubbed Veepers, which can transform any digital image so that it appears to be speaking, allowing users to create virtual versions of themselves, friends and pets by uploading pictures.

And of interest to this column, mobile Veepers recently launched in Japan via KDDI, the country's second-biggest telecom.

"KDDI now offers what Pulse calls "face tones," which let subscribers choose the image and dialogue that they want to announce incoming phones calls on their camera phones.

The firm hopes for a hit on par with downloadable ring tones and is at work on technology to use cell-phone Veepers to deliver location-based ad messages".

See related article on Pulse Entertainment from PC magazine, Talking Heads on cell phones.

Gizmos that will change the way we work and play

Camera phones get a good review on Canada.com in an article entitled "Technology that's worth the hype: These gizmos will change the way we live".

"From all the statistics that have been published so far, camera phones are the single fastest-growing consumer product in history, more so than television, ordinary cellphones and the Internet," says telecommunications consultant Ian Angus. "This is a technology that isn't going away.

Watch for handset manufacturers to introduce improvements to the devices in 2004, including higher picture quality and battery life."

MobileWatch: How will MMS fare on New Year's Eve?

The mobile telecommunications industry will be closely watching the number of MMS and other higher-value messages sent on New Years Eve, as it will be an indicator of how successfully the technology has been accepted, according to ZDNet.

Cellphone Add-Ons Demand More Juice

Battery capacity just can't keep pace with all of the entertainment cellphone makers are cramming into handsets, reports the WSJ.

"Consider a phone appearing in Japan this month that can pick up TV broadcasts. It runs out of power after one hour of viewing, on average. That doesn't even get you halfway through a showing of "Seabiscuit."

Nokia's N-Gage phone lets you play serious videogames, such as Tomb Raider. But the fun can run out in as little as three hours on a single charge. And that's assuming you won't be making or receiving any phone calls during that time.

Over the next decade or so that will likely end, and researchers will need to come up with some new approaches to data storage and processing.

There is some hope that methanol-filled fuel cells, which can provide five to 10 times as much energy as the average rechargeable battery, will help solve the power crunch. But none of the manufacturers expects them on the mass market for a few years, and even then there are big questions about their price, size and safety".

Smile, we are all on "Candid Camera."

A thoughtful and well written article on today's world and the privacy infringements that occur with the advent of the Internet, videos, and digital cameras by Richard Cohen for The Washington Post.

Camera phones are not the essence of this article, but the role they are bound to play down the road in terms of our privacy is sure coming.

Cohen compares the "burglarizing" of both Paris Hilton and Michael Jackson personas, because their personal lives have been invidaded by tapes that exist -- or purportedly exist.

"The sense we all once had that we are secure in our own person is gone, probably irrevocably so. Espionage has been democratized."

And sadly with the prevelance of all these new technologies, "we could all be robbed of a commodity that we all value -- the face we think we show the world". Just like Paris Hilton and Michael Jackson.

Different looking pictures. Why not?

Michael Tippett from BlueHereNow made a very interesting comment on a recent post, Turn your picture into a pencil sketch drawing, where I described some wonderful tone control features offered by Samsung's E700 camera phone, which allows users to change a picture into for instance, a pencil ketch drawing.

"This is an interesting development for a non-obvious reason. One of the problems with camera phones is the images they produce don't print very well. By changing the image (as Samsung is doing) you can often create a format that looks good when printed (or even enlarged). We have been using this kind of conversion for some time for people that want to print large formats of their digital prints and we've got some interesting results. We have a gallery of some selected works if you're interested on Phrint XL".

The quality of pictures from cameraphones improve with each new model out on the market, so dpi resolution some day soon should no longer be an issue. But who's to say that these wonderful options, sepia, embossed, sketching of a picture could not bring about a new and more versatile look for ordinary printed publications - newspapers or magazines. Because it's immediate.

Picturephones are set to bring out a brand new world, in more ways than one (and not just at the gym!).

Bluejacking In Style

TagTxt offers free characters to attach to contact details when Bluejacking, reports Mike Grenville on 160characters.org.

"As well as sending messages to other phones, pictures can also be attached to the contact details stored in a phone. This picture is then included in the message that is sent via Bluetooth to another phone".

TagTxt have made a collecion of characters available to include when Bluejacking your neighbours. All you need to do is download the Tags on their site on to your phone.

For more on Bluejacking, cf Cell Phone Messaging Turns Mischievous .

Why have camera phones entered the picture?

A very entertaining article by Jim Sollisch for The Straits Times on how camera phones may just right some of the bad habits brought on by cell phones. Pointing out that cellphones have blurred the nature of time, erasing the meaning of late - as people believe that if they call to change the plan, they're able to change being late to being on time. "Now, armed with our camera phones, we can ask for proof. And maybe the fear of being caught in a lie will lead us back to punctuality".

Cell Phone Messaging Turns Mischievous

A good article in Silicon Valley.com on Bluejacking, a new fad briefly posted about
last week which is rapidly spreading. It allows someone to surreptitiously surprise a total stranger on his cell phone with a text message, sent using a short-range wireless technology called Bluetooth.

Of note to this column and a piece of information I had not picked up on before: "A bluejacker could even send someone a photo taken with a camera phone using Bluetooth. It doesn't cost a thing since the message isn't being routed through any phone company".

Camera Phones Destined to Shake Up Society

Some people have described the cameraphone trend as a disruptive technology that is changing social attitudes and actions; but it's more of an integrated technology, says Jorge Gamez, vice president of Marketing and Sales for Photofinishing News. Gamez explains that digital cameras were the disruptive technology, not cameraphones. "It's an integration of two technologies that have been in the market for a long time," he says. [BlueHereNow]

Removing the camera from the phone

Found this on Gizmodo. Alan Reiter on Reiter's Camera Phone Report, brings up an eWeek study on an interesting new trend: cellphone carriers asking manufacturers to start offering versions of their phones without the digital cameras built-in.

Why? Because for security reasons their business customers don't want to issue their employees cellphones that can potentially snap pictures of sensitive company material and documents. Verizon has already asked Samsung to develop a camera-free version of the i700 and Sprint is talking to Handspring/palmOne/whoever about doing the same thing for the Treo 60.

Flash animation for mobile phones

Nazomi Communications and Digital Aria have announced that Digital Aria's Mobile Flash Animation engine has been adapted to mobile...this will result in Mobile Flash Animation frame rates of 15 frames per second, reports Moco News.

Talking Heads on cell phones

Bill Howard for PC Magazine magazine has a fun article on «Talking Heads», or photo real avators for cell phones, thanks to technology allowing to change still photos into animated pictures.

"Several companies are working on bringing cartoonish characters and photo images to life. U.K.-based Anthropics with FaceWav and Pulse Entertainment with Veepers (virtual personalties) can animate human, animal, or cartoon faces and lip-sync spoken or synthesized phrases.

Think of the possibilities... "So along with cell-phone avatars advising you of traffic jams and a sepia-toned picture of grandmother reading a letter from long ago, you'll have the same animation technology aiding and abetting the unclothing of our public figures"

Howard concludes "The seamier aspects aside, avatar technology holds promise for plenty of legitimate uses, too. I expect we'll see both kinds of usage as this technology comes of age".

An MMS revolution from a service perspective

An interesting post from Gerrit Visser on Smart Mobs, on an article published by Dan O'Shea for Telephony Online entitled "Beyond Photoplay: An MMS Revolution".

O'Shea claims that the growing popularity of moblogging - an application that may not have been imagined by the carriers themselves - could turn into a monster headache for operators in the coming years, as "it has the potential to wreak havoc on everything from their marketing plans to their billing systems".

"Mobile blogging can create a lot of new service options," said Eric Anderson, vice president of practice development at Ericsson USA. "It's almost like the network operator is not 100% in control of what hits their network anymore. Blogging users can use the phone in ways we hadn't thought about, allowing those small groups of users to be great influences."

The shape of things to come: on-the-fly manipulation of photos from camphones

Alan Reiter, who I have (shamefully) belateldy just dicovered, outlines the shape of things to come and looks at how camera phones will spark a revolution on his blog Reiter's Wireless Data.

"I believe camera phones will spark -- are sparking -- an "ecosystem" of opportunities on multiple levels for providing hardware, software, accessories and services.  These opportunities include electronic picture frames, jewelry, postcards, photo printing kiosks and many others.

One of the "many others" is enhancement and manipulation of photos. I believe these capabilities should be available to camera phone users, and it appears they could be".

Reiter writes about a computer programmer who has created a server-based program that offers Photoshop-like effects, Reiter has tested it and posted retouched photos on his blog. The effects are dramatic.

"This program is not, however, ready for prime time.  It requires additional work for compatibility with different camera phones, billing software, developing user interfaces, etc.  This is an "imaging engine," as the developer calls it.  It's the heart of a service offering, but it isn't ready to be rolled out for immediate plug-and-play commercial use".

Anyone interested in learning more about this product, is welcome to contact Alain Reiter at reiter@wirelessinternet.com. 

Picture Imperfect

A wonderful essay by Steven Shaviro, professor of cinema studies at the University of Washington, Seattle, posted on artforum which I found linked on Buzznet.

Here is a quote from a favorite passage, as I dare not republish the whole article, describing the spirit of camphone picture taking, it's low-resolution snaps and other shortcomings, way-outweighed by instant gratification.

""The street finds its own uses for things," to borrow a phrase from science-fiction writer William Gibson. Camera phones are now being used for a purpose the manufacturers never anticipated: less for person-to-person messaging than for posting instant photos on the Web.

Moblogs do not bear witness to epiphanies or significant memories. Rather, they are entrenched in the ebb and flow of everyday life, in our routines, in the little incidents that we notice for a moment and then forget. These pictures are, in their very essence, inessential. They do not strive to perpetuate the fleeting present so much as they underscore its very ephemerality".

Mind if I take our picture?

A sign of things to come and something celebs can look forward to, or most likely dread. Anonymous citizens easily taking pictures of themselves along side a celebrity. Here an unidentified man used his cellphone camera to take a photo of himself with ex-California gubernatorial hopeful and porn star Mary Carey, illustrating an article on cell phone sales worldwide on MSNBC.

In Japan, One trend is the declining use of SMS in favor of newer formats such as MMS

I've posted this under MMS in Textually.org, but it obviously belongs here too.

This is a very interesting and surprising report on the Japanese market, claiming that text messaging (SMS) is declining in favor of Multi Media Messaging (MMS).

"Japan is a pioneer in the use of mobile messaging, and is closely watched by the rest of the world to discover emerging wireless trends.  One trend is the declining use of SMS in favor of newer formats such as MMS, whose emergence has been driven by the high adoption of camera phones.

"In-StatMDR expects that SMS will lose ground to both Multi-Message Services (MMS), e-mail, and, eventually, to Instant Messaging (IM).

The Asian Pacific region as a whole will see explosive growth in messaging volumes throughout the forecast period from 2003 through 2007.  While SMS will generate the highest volume of messages of any format, MMS will generate nearly twice as much revenue, due to the higher tariffs charged for MMS", reports In-StatMDR via Smart Mobs.

Private eyes

Will Evans for the The Sacramento Bee has a round-up on camera phone privacy issues and some interesting new cases where camera phones have come in handy, so to speak:

- Adrian Contreras of San Mateo, says he saved himself a San Francisco parking ticket by "phone-ographing" his correctly placed wheels after receiving a citation for not turning them toward the curb. (Apparently, the city accepted the photo as proof.)

- Daniel Welz of Roseville could prove to his friends that he won a $1,200 jackpot at Thunder Valley Casino recently by capturing the moment and e-mailing it.

Digital era 'a threat to memories'

This interesting article from The Age, brings up concerns about the digital revolution's effect on photographic posterity.

And though the article refers only to digital cameras, camera phones are definitely part of the equasion (cf Picture Phones Surpass Sales of Digital Cameras).

"With digital cameras now outselling their film predecessors, Australians are taking more photos than ever before - but few of them are being printed.

Historical records as well as family albums may suffer, with less than 20 per cent of pictures making it into print, says the Photographic Imaging Council of Australia.

But instead of printing pictures when memory cards fill up, most digital camera owners store them on hard drives, which are at risk of being lost in computer crashes or virus attacks, or may not be printable in years to come due to technological changes.

And those photographs that are printed at home are often not on photographic-quality paper and are therefore destined to fade.

Concerns about the digital revolution's effect on photographic posterity echoes earlier concerns about the advent of email and SMS messaging. Although they led to increased correspondence, most of the writing was doomed to disappear under the delete key, leaving future biographers and historians lacking in written accounts of our daily lives".

"The tragedy is we may well look back on this period as a time when very few photographs were printed," - Managing director Rob Tolmie of Digital Photoworks.

The next big thing in mobile land

According to an article in The Guardian written by Brad Rees who works for T-Mobile, picture messaging is catching on and the next big thing will be personalised multimedia content delivered directly to these phones.

"Since T-Mobile introduced viral-style alerts (pictures, sound and stuff you get automatically once you've signed up) they have seen a 15% rise in person-to-person usage, which suggests folks who subscribe to these new services like the idea of it and are replicating that viral instinct of sending on pictures of hamsters breakdancing, plate-spinning, etc. "

It's early days yet but help is at hand with the vibes from the networks looking promising. For instance every day, T-Mobile is launching a fresh picture alert in five far-reaching categories with a selection of content providers offering Football, Gossip, Babes, Hunks and a viral offbeat cousin called Wildcard. The service will only be relayed to customers who actively use or seek picture messaging. Customers will receive a teaser, inviting them to try before-they-buy, free for a limited period".

Putting Faces to Names

Eric Lin has an interesting piece for TheFeature.com on how in an effort to humanize technology, or maybe just as a form of self expression, faces are replacing names on mobile phones and on the internet.

Pictures are emerging as a method allowing us to identify each other, it kind of makes you wonder what will be next. It used to be that caller ID was enough, then custom ring tones, and now pictures.

And in an interesting comment on this article from purenergy: "The camera phone has definitely made it easier to capture these identities. What's also really cool is the fact that we can all have different pictures for the same person. I might have a picture of my friend when we were on vacation, but another friend may have a picture of a monkey for the same person. Whatever it is that reminds us of them in such a way that we'll know just who's calling when we see the image appear on our phone.

How camera phones are changing the definition of picture-worthy

Japan Media Review has an interesting article on how camera phones are changing the definition of picture-worthy. "It's unlike the traditional camera, as it's ubiquitous presence invites a new kind of personal awareness, a persistent alertness to the visually newsworthy that makes amateur photojournalists out of its users".

DoCoMo House research lab at KeioUniversity has been been conducting detailed case studies of camera phone users. "Their goal has been to capture the actual photos and contexts in which the photos were taken to understand how camera phones are being used in everyday life in Tokyo".

"What counts as newsworthy, noteworthy and photo-worthy spans a broad spectrum from personally noteworthy moments that are never shared (a scene from an escalator) to intimately newsworthy moments to be shared with a spouse or lover (a new haircut, a child riding a bike). It also includes neta* to be shared among family or peers (a friend captured in an embarrassing moment, a cute pet shot) and microcontent uploaded to blogs and online journals. The transformation of journalism through camera phones is as much about these everyday exchanges as it is about the latest headline".

*In Japanese, "material" for news and stories is called "neta."

New age devices

NEC, a leading company in broadband networking and the mobile Internet, is looking to breathe new life into the industry with new age devices, reports Mobilemag via favorite Gizmodo.

Wacca : A tech accessory bracelet will supposedly incorporate sensors, allowing the device to capture appropriate angles for its snap shots, despite being worn on the wrist.

Nave: Is an attempt to replace current video phones and web cameras. Instead of having an incriminating lenses pointing directly towards you, this nifty little device has a 360 degree viewing capability, allowing for an involved conversation session.

snapping your locker

Young Japanese users take pictures of the lockers with their camera-equipped phones before they leave. cf Cell phones open lockers.

Why the same pictures?

As a part of our research project, we hear from people around us about their use of picture phones, according to Kunikazu Amagasa in a recent entry in Keitai Log -- an occasional Web diary by a group of Tokyo college students who are researching the changing role of cell phones -- keitai -- in Japanese society. One of the uses is particularly intriguing.

A group of friends visiting Nagoya castle all decided to take the same picture with their camera phones, alowing them to share "the memory of the trip". "Literally, they cut out the same picture for the frame and share the same experience. It could be considered, therefore, that the uniqueness of cell phone camera contributes to people's desire of sharing experiences with others, another way for young people, who detest loneliness, to make sure of their identity at the moment".

Consumers go mad for camera phones

From MMS Memo: "Smartphone sales have increased by almost 250 per cent since last year as people upgrade to handsets featuring digital cameras.

People have upgraded their handsets because manufacturers have found a "killer application" - the digital camera, according to research firm Canalys."

And in Bloomberg today: "Japan's mobile phone sales rose for a second consecutive quarter, increasing 34 percent as demand for new phones and upgrades to new models with built-in cameras increased, according to Gartner Japan Ltd., the market researcher's Tokyo- based unit." [...] "And camera phones rose to 74.5 percent of total handsets in Japan in the three months ended March 31, compared with 57.3 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31".

The future of digital cameras

From Gizmodo: Greg Elin has some smart observations on the future of digital cameras. Among them, that the rise of digital signifies a paradigm shift in the use of cameras away from being image capturing devices and towards data gathering devices.

How camera phones will affect print and digital cameras

By 2005, sales of camera-phones are likely to outsell film and digital cameras put together, according to market research firm IDC, reports The Economist in an article wondering if camera-phones are good or bad news for the photography industry.

"Camera-phones might also hasten the decline of printed photos. As handsets improve, viewing images on-screen could become the norm, whether on phones, PCs, televisions, or even by beaming photos to a wireless-enabled picture frame next to Grandma's chair".

I'm not sure about this last point as the Economist does not take into account the many Cell Phone Printer projects by company greats such as Kodak and HP, allowing to print directly from a handset, not over the Internet but in physical locations such as shopping malls or selected outlets. But I do go along with the the author of this article when he says that no one knows where this is going. That's for sure.

Camera phone usage roundup

Daithi O Hanluain for New York Times writes a long and thorough essay on camera phone usage (good and bad).

... Used for celebrity spotting, camera phones are sure to become powerful as witnesses to news events or crime and are finding uses in medicine, firefighting and crime prevention. The entertainment industry has already adopted them. In the US, photoblogs proliferate, websites where users can post their photocam shots from the web or on the fly, from their cell phones.

Hanluain covers the privacy issues; phone bans in locker rooms around the world, the Press angle; fashion webzine Showstudio scopping the Paris fashion shows, BBC's accepting photographs of news events from readers...

Nothing you haven't read uh, in picturephoning before.

Cell phones save long-distance relationships

In an entry by Joko Taniguchi in Keitai Log - an occasional Web diary by a group of Tokyo college students who are researching the changing role of cell phones - "cell phones give people in a long-distance relationship the illusion of closeness, no matter how far they are actually apart. In addition, the recent developments in camera-equipped cell phones and television phones help them feel even closer to each other. Seeing what a significant other is doing and seeing through photo e-mails allow people to feel more connected to their boyfriend or girlfriend."

Mobile Cameras and the Nature of Snapshots

A fun phone phone shot on Dan Gillmore's weblog, of a workshop group, where everyone is taking a picture of Dan Gillmore, taking a picture of the group. And they are all doing it with camera-phones.

"I'm beginning to understand the difference one of these makes. The camera-phone is a device for snapshots. My "real" camera, which certainly needs upgrading, takes photographs. The lower quality of the camera in the phone is not necessarily a permanent condition, but the one-handed click-and-done way you take pictures may continue to divide the realms to some degree."

Phonecam Culture

Dont miss Xeni Jardin's essay in Wired relayed by Howard Rheingold on Smart Mobs, on a global phonecam revolution which has begun to emerge, in which everyone is an embedded reporter thanks to camera phones.

"As phonecams proliferate - more than 13 million were sold in Japan in 2002, and US buyers will snap up 2 million this year - you'll never know when someone out there might snap your photo, then upload it for the world to see. The cams will instantly capture and disseminate scenes of crimes in progress or police brutality as it happens (think Rodney King or Lizzie Grubman slamming into her four-wheeled prey). Like TV's addictive, blurry-jerky live videophone footage from Mideast war zones, device portability makes up for image quality."

Camera Phones used for butt-rating site

From boingboing, "People are using cameraphones to take pictures of other people's butts and and submitting them to a hot-or-not style site called Mobile Asses". Update In the same spirit, see also Photocide.

Picture Messaging language: Trend or mobile operator hype?

According to Dave McGlade, president of British mobile operator MM02 and interviewed in eWeek and picked up on favorite bookmark SMS: Business Gets the Message, "MMS users have started a trend called "Celebing," which entails sending a picture of a celebrity to a friend in lieu of a text message. For example, a picture of Britney Spears means "fancy a few beers?" and a picture of guitarist Hank Marvin means "I'm starvin'".

Hmmm... One wonders if this is not a) simply wishful thinking on the part of mobile operators or b), a push to create a trend which will never happen. Sounds like a very expensive way to communicate... Would anyone understand what I'm saying if I send a picture of Bill Gates? ("Do something to make Outlook more secure!")

A similar statement was made in recent months by a Vodafone spokesman: "Another language will grow up around picture messaging as it did around text messaging" and 02 encourages it's subscribers online to "invent their own language" by sending multiple pictures to form a sentence... (click on demo to take a look). Dream On is what I say.

Pimps go hi-tech

A novel way of exploting camera phones has appeared recently in Hong Kong according to an article in News24.com via Gizmodo, where pimps lure customers by sending hi-tech digital images of prostitutes to potential clients over their cellphones. So far no one has been arrested for soliciting by cellphone.

SARS a "double edged sword" for Tech Sector

According to an article in PCWorld, the SARS outbreak in Taiwan has led to a decrease in travel from IT buyers and thus fewer orders for hardware manufacturers, but it turns out that sales have increased for video conferencing products and one company, Leadtek Research, reports sales of video phones have soared.

Phone camera online Gallery

There is much written about the unauthorized use of picture phones by perverts, but in this insightful article by Aloysius Choong for C/Net Asia, there is, he thinks, "a lot of good to camera-phones and their effects could be wider and subtler than getting advice from friends about a new dress or showing off your new sweetheart." Already, Choong points out, you can find online galleries of photographs taken with phone-cameras, such as this one, called Morii's Keitai Cam. Very cool.

The ringtone market remains a surprise to many

In an interesting article entitled «Remixing Ringtones» dated April 23 in TheFeature.com, Steve Wallage writes about the ringtone market and how difficult it is to measure as it is so fragmented by a multitude of small suppliers. And though it is still very much dominated by the music charts, new applications are emerging.

In the US, Moviso TruTones offers ringtones with the voices of more than 70 celebrities of current and legendary stars of movie, television, sports, music and comedy. And Moviso's FXTones, offers more than 60,000 different sound effects for downloading on cell phones.

Innovative idea have emerged, such as karaoke applications offered by Japanese ringtone providers, allowing subscribers to 'practice' songs. This service has been widened to include images, and users can send up to four photos which can be 'watched' while the audio clip is playing.

The ringtone market will also be helped by new distribution opportunities such as mobile prepaid cards for ringtones to be sold in the US by Moviso, through more than 6,000 stores including 7-Eleven, Wherehouse Music, and other regional retailers and leading wireless operators.

Cell phone firms in resolution race

NTT DoCoMo plans to launch new cell phone models equipped with digital cameras capable of picture resolution of 1.3 megapixels (1.3 million pixels).

The new models to be launched in May, are expected to record images that are four times clearer than those currently provided by camera-equipped cell phones, of which highest resolution is 0.3 megapixels.

If the technology keeps developing at this pace, camera-equipped cell phones may someday offer the same level of image quality as regular digital cameras, according to an article in The Daily Yumiuri

Picture Phones mark a change in social record-keeping

According to Daniel Palmer, a photography historian, picture phones will mark as big a change as did the introduction of the first affordable Box Brownie camera for social record-keeping in 1888. Until now, popular interest in photography was more centered on the long-term preservation of memories in family albums. But with camera phones, the focus is more on sharing than storing, as reported by smh.com [photo from Photography Collections online]

Camera phones, the 'next big thing' for paedophiles?

Mobile camera phones have sparked such privacy fears in Britain and other countries that bans on their use at swimming pools, fitness centres and night clubs have been enforced. In Italy, the country's Data Protection Commission has published strict rules governing the use of picture messaging and video cell phones.

But what British officials really fear, is that camera phones could be the 'next big thing' for paedophiles

"This technology is the next big thing for paedophiles, and it's only a matter of time before it's abused on a massive scale," Ray Wyre, a British child sex offences expert, told The Observer earlier this year, according to an article in Canada.com