Wifi Camera Uploads without Computer 134
* * Beatles-Beatles writes to tell us NewsDay is reporting that Kodak has released the first "computer-free wireless camera." The new widget can connect directly to the Internet wherever there's Wi-Fi available to download and e-mail pictures. Users can even use the camera to view photos stored in Internet photo albums via Kodak's Easyshare Gallery service.
clever maneuver (Score:5, Interesting)
No FTP upload? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ahh, businesses always thinking about the users, by leaving out obvious features so that they can sell services that provide those missing features.
And... (Score:2, Interesting)
A sensible realization of Web Services (Score:1, Interesting)
I think that this camera would have two 'partitions' (not literally, but you can think of it as such) one for its photos and another for read-only firmware. Aside from the software for image rendering, the software on the client need only do http GET and/or POST. I'd think probably POST for entering the user's Kodak account credentials, GET for grabbing the data for display but, of course, the two can be interchangeable. My point is that the camera need not require a full-fledged browser. Just an implementation of something like 'httplib' - the server knows what data to give it on account of the collected 'User Agent'. For browsing online collections, the server can give these User Agents a list of URIs (file names) and the camera can use up/down buttons to make a selection or select an appropriate form action (e.g. 'upload', 'download and save', 'delete'). This is the REST way to do it.
I think this is sensible and simple enough. Many agree that REST is as far as services need go. Sure, XML interchange is a good idea in this problem domain, I was reading something at lesscode.org about the Kid XSLT templating engine and how it actually came about because the developer was reasoning about web services. Sorry - Web Services
http://lesscode.org/2005/09/24/web-services-infra
What I'm getting at with this is that with those simple REST actions (POST, GET) are enough for a server to identify the camera's User Agent, prepare XSLT transformations on the content that the camera will understand and interchange with one another a suitable XML vocabulary for the problem domain. Straightforward, right?
This I think is where comments such as those in that lesscode.org article find justification. SOAP adds layer after layer when we should be simplifying, simplifying. My favourite quote from lesscode:
Re:Good for demonstrations (Score:3, Interesting)
Post-PC world (Score:4, Interesting)
With a camera that can email or post photos to a website, its just another reason not to get a PC (for some people).
NOT INSIGHTFUL. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not "simpler" not "equally effective" to have "runners" getting memory cards. Supposedly a wi-fi camera has the option to upload immediately each foto after taken.
Re:Tactical possibilities in conflict situations (Score:2, Interesting)
Let me clarify. A civil society organisation or an NGO or a news gathering organisation could easily put in place combos of wifi hubs with cheap UPS battery backup during conflict situations since the worst violence is often orchestrated and happens a few days after the initial flareup. That would allow it's reporters / photographers / videographers to capture events and constantly keep on uploading them to base camp, from where they could be dumped/mirrored onto the 'net.
And if there were, no doubt you'd have to stand quite still while your pics were uploaded which wouldn't necessarily be convenient at the time.
I'm not sure I understand. I've managed get WiFi net access from a laptop while riding in a cycle-rickshaw. I would assume that the camera, since it's WiFi didn't expect me to remain stock still while the images were uploading.
If that weren't unlikely enough a totalitarian state is likely to have little internet access or extremely restricted access.
The point is not to get the cameras to upload to the Internet - but to upload to someone's laptop back in base camp. from there, an org could burn VCDs, use various (stega/ssh/proxies/tor/freenet) methods to put the material onto the net.
On top of that is Kodak itself. Their site probably pitches itself as "family friendly" so you can bet that any civil disobediance pics would be wiped off their site without a second's thought.
Well, the article talks about how the camera can be used to view pics from Kodak's site..and that it can email (or otherwise transfer) the pics FROM the camera. There're a number of places that are more hospitable to civil disobedience pics than familyroom.kodak.com
I wouldn't diss the idea completely - after all if your camera would connect to an ad-hoc network you could perhaps arrange for someone with a PDA or small laptop to shadow you at some distance and broadcast the pics back to them, but it would still be an awkward arrangement.
Why ? that would be perfect. The camera would only need batteries. F'rex, a minority area is being threatened by a majority area. Place cameras on rooftops/overlooking approach roads, have them constantly take pics and mail them. Even if the cams were found and destroyed in the subsequent violence, they'd have done their jobs.
Perhaps it's simpler and equally effective to use redundancy - multiple photographers, with each passing their filled memory cards to runners.
That's the point. You can block/kill the runners and smash the cameras. Once you do that, no more coverage. Imagine if you could film a policeman trying to smash your camera up, and have the satisfaction of knowing that while he may be able to smash your camera, the images of that act will live on...
cheers,
Aniruddha "Karim" Shankar
Security (Score:2, Interesting)