A Months worth of Cell Phone Pictures

In Japan they have cell phones with digital cameras built in. They promote them either for sending a photo to your friends cell phone, like instead of a true blind date you can send your pictures first.  Or, you can catch a politician in the latest scandal and instantly send it to the news.

So, here's is about a month's worth of pictures.  Of course I'd probably take more if I didn't always have my regular digital camera with me but then this is slightly less conspicuous.

It will be interesting to see how things progress because taking it all to an extreme you could (1) have a video camera in every cell phone (2) have a GPS in every cell phone for navigation (3) put the two together and at any crime scene, pull up the cell phone records and know everybody that possibly saw the crime and/or possibly filmed it.

My phone right now with out GPS will give me a list of generally where I've been.  It can do this because the phone company knows which cell antenna the phone is talking to at any point in time.  In fact there was a story that some wife thought her husband was cheating on her so she slipped a cell phone in his suit (note, they are small enough that you wouldn't notice).  Then she checked where it at been when he got home.  I don't know what she found out.
All images not copyright me copyright their respective companies. Everything else copyright me.
Comments:

Netscape 6 Test [ e ]

... passed, although I agree with you that N6 sux big time. Page takes forever to load (I usually launch both IE5 and N6 to test browser compatibility) - overall the "advantages" and extra features they put in end up being gigantic overheads to your OS.

posted by schlaulauFebruary 25, 2001 at 19:12

can Japanese cell phones be modified to be used in the US? [ e ]

posted by delnateApril 8, 2001 at 11:48

Can't use but [ e ]

As far as I know they cannot be used in the U.S. There are a few models that do work in the U.S. but most of those have no features.

There is some hope though.

(1) supposedly the world is supposed to switch to the W-CDMA standard so maybe then all the phones will work anywhere. Don't hold your breath though, I think the various cellphone companies like forcing you to choose by making there services incompatible.

(2) NTT DoCoMo bought a 10% stake in ATT Wireless so maybe they are planning on bringing their phones to the U.S. market.

The strange thing is the service providors don't make the phones. Electronic companies do (Toshiba, Sony, Sharp, etc.) so it's in their best interest to sell to as many people as possible. You'd think that therefore those companies would have approached the various cell phone service providers in the U.S (ATT, Sprint, Verison) and offered to produce phones for them and you'd think that one company would see an advantage in offering cooler phones than the competition. All I can think of is that either there is some illegal collusion going on between the U.S. service providers OR the current cell phone makers handling the U.S (Nokia, Ericcson, Motorola) have managed to keep the other compaines out through some kind of tax or law.

I suppose another reason might be that they don't think US consumers care what their cell phones are like.

posted by greggmanApril 8, 2001 at 14:04

[ e ]

American spending habits tend to be different. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" seems to prevail. So, I don't think the American consumers have been all that excited about the newest features. It would be an expensive proposal to roll out a product that consumers didn't buy.
Culturally, I don't think Americans are willing to pay the cost for the newer phones. Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese, on the other hand, are willing to spend more for upgrading their wireless phones.

posted by scottvJuly 24, 2001 at 11:24

Justin Hall's Site - http://www.links.net [ e ]

If you're going to take inspiration from his site, you might as well be decent enough to provide a link to it.

http://www.links.net/

Some of the best writing you'll find about a young American male's impressions and experiences in Japan.  

Gregg.  Please give credit where it is due.  You're not one of those lame, attention-hoarding, "I'm the best gaijin in Japan" lamers, are you?

BTW, I am not Justin.

posted by anon_anonymousApril 30, 2002 at 15:47

I owe you a big apology. [ e ]

It just occured to me that you couldn't possibly have copied Justin.  I'm very, very sorry.  Boy, I'm an idiot.

Kind regards,
An idiot

posted by anon_anonymousApril 30, 2002 at 19:14

Phonepiks, the phone camera gallery! [ e ]

Hi,

Check out http://phonepiks.wristpiks.c
om for a free gallery where you can upload pictures from a camera phone!

Fully

posted by anon_FullyJuly 23, 2003 at 7:09

//Anime Yume\\ [ e ]

Wow! Nice pics! =^.^= Nyaa!!

posted by anon_XOtaku89July 25, 2003 at 9:58

Phonepiks [ e ]

Hi all,

The Phonepiks camera phone gallery is now www.phonepiks.com.

Thanks.

posted by FullyAugust 14, 2003 at 2:36

One of the first moblogs? :) [ e ]

This post dated in 2001 must be one of the first "moblogs" - now becoming ever popular with camera phones available to everyone. Fun to look back in the days where it began :)

posted by JonasFebruary 20, 2004 at 19:24

[ e ]

Hi.  I took some pictures with my cell phone.  If you would like to see them please click on one of the links below.

Thank you and have a nice day.

http://www.cameraphoneart.co
m/

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/p
h/eorielle/my_photos

http://www.cameraphonecontes
t.com/

posted by blackgreywhiteSeptember 9, 2005 at 20:42

[ e ]

I really like your site. I stumbled upon it looking for Wells Fargo Bank. I am a realtor and I don't like them either. Anyway, your site has great ingormation. I will forward your site to some of my friends.

posted by KimberlyMarch 29, 2006 at 17:08