I wish I had a Social Camera…

Dave Winer has a great idea today: social cameras. My camera has Bluetooth. Wifi. And is a cell phone. So, why is it so stupid in terms of knowing who else is nearby? I’d love to interchange photos with other people. Imagine if iPhones could do this? Too bad that iPhones only have HTML and JavaScript cause it’s really hard to make an app that does this (not to mention an iPhone doesn’t have GPS built in like my Nokia N95 does so you can’t use that to figure out who else was taking pictures near you).

29 thoughts on “I wish I had a Social Camera…

  1. What if Twitter could handle photos? … The Sprint PictureMail service lets you upload pics and flix from your phone and send these to other phones … how about this?

    If anyone wants to start a business that is Twitter for mobile photos (upload from mobile and share to mobile) just let me know. I can help make it happen.

    Erik

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  2. What if Twitter could handle photos? … The Sprint PictureMail service lets you upload pics and flix from your phone and send these to other phones … how about this?

    If anyone wants to start a business that is Twitter for mobile photos (upload from mobile and share to mobile) just let me know. I can help make it happen.

    Erik

    Like

  3. I believe the problem is that your phone’s battery would die very quickly if it was always in bluetooth discovery mode or an equivalent “anyone out there, I’m here” protocol over wifi.

    There are other ways to do this, but the phones would need GPS or a similar system 😉

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  4. I believe the problem is that your phone’s battery would die very quickly if it was always in bluetooth discovery mode or an equivalent “anyone out there, I’m here” protocol over wifi.

    There are other ways to do this, but the phones would need GPS or a similar system 😉

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  5. Why does everybody make such a big deal about the iPhone not having a GPS receiver?

    Fact is the FCC mandates all cell phone handsets be capable of providing their location to within 50 to 100 meters. This functionality is required by law for purposes of E911 service (i.e. the 911 dispatcher will know your location).

    Whether location is provided via a built-in GPS receiver or via carrier derived techniques is insignificant. It’s up to the handset manufacturer as to whether they permit applications access to this information. The iPhone clearly knows where it’s at and therefore can provide map/location specific information as demonstrated in the “Seafood” iPhone commercial.

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  6. Why does everybody make such a big deal about the iPhone not having a GPS receiver?

    Fact is the FCC mandates all cell phone handsets be capable of providing their location to within 50 to 100 meters. This functionality is required by law for purposes of E911 service (i.e. the 911 dispatcher will know your location).

    Whether location is provided via a built-in GPS receiver or via carrier derived techniques is insignificant. It’s up to the handset manufacturer as to whether they permit applications access to this information. The iPhone clearly knows where it’s at and therefore can provide map/location specific information as demonstrated in the “Seafood” iPhone commercial.

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  7. This is/would be a very good application of meshed networks. But people still have to figure out how to efficiently/fairly share bandwidth, power and other resources in these wireless networks. And there is also the big issue of security and so forth. SocCams are definitely a great idea, but a bit premature I would say for now.

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  8. This is/would be a very good application of meshed networks. But people still have to figure out how to efficiently/fairly share bandwidth, power and other resources in these wireless networks. And there is also the big issue of security and so forth. SocCams are definitely a great idea, but a bit premature I would say for now.

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  9. Hi,

    My company, Novel Interactions Ltd. just released a Zeroconf (Bonjour) framework for Symbian OS yesterday, and this is one of the products we’re working on that builds on it.

    So, if you keep your N95, would you like to be a beta tester when we have something useful to release?

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  10. Hi,

    My company, Novel Interactions Ltd. just released a Zeroconf (Bonjour) framework for Symbian OS yesterday, and this is one of the products we’re working on that builds on it.

    So, if you keep your N95, would you like to be a beta tester when we have something useful to release?

    Like

  11. Sometimes, when sat bored in airport lounges or railway stations, I like to bluetooth photos to random people nearby. Okay, so it’s not so organised as you might like, Robert, but at least I get to share my angletastic MySpace-esque shots with dreary businesspeople.

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  12. Sometimes, when sat bored in airport lounges or railway stations, I like to bluetooth photos to random people nearby. Okay, so it’s not so organised as you might like, Robert, but at least I get to share my angletastic MySpace-esque shots with dreary businesspeople.

    Like

  13. Yes, great idea. We could also triangulate photos and start to create 3D models of videos. I know MS started that project.

    You’ll need at least 2 GPS type devices in each camera to tell where the camera is aiming, then it will become easier.

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  14. Yes, great idea. We could also triangulate photos and start to create 3D models of videos. I know MS started that project.

    You’ll need at least 2 GPS type devices in each camera to tell where the camera is aiming, then it will become easier.

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  15. John, the difference is significant from a commercial standpoint because using an onboard device means just API availability and compatibility (with a standard GPS api on WM5 for example) whereas carrer-provided location-based services means working with carrers which can be a use pain-in-the-cooling-fan and can increase costs.

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  16. John, the difference is significant from a commercial standpoint because using an onboard device means just API availability and compatibility (with a standard GPS api on WM5 for example) whereas carrer-provided location-based services means working with carrers which can be a use pain-in-the-cooling-fan and can increase costs.

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  17. One old lady says:
    – I want to go to France again…”
    Another old lady questions:
    – When have you been there?
    And the first replies:
    – Never… But the last time I wanted to go was 1 year ago…

    Same with your social camera.

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  18. One old lady says:
    – I want to go to France again…”
    Another old lady questions:
    – When have you been there?
    And the first replies:
    – Never… But the last time I wanted to go was 1 year ago…

    Same with your social camera.

    Like

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