The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Camera Phones - for the bookshelf Major Keary |
Paraglyph Press doesn't have a big list, but what it does is always interesting; their recent Camera Phone Obsession is the only title I know of that is dedicated to phone cameras.
Misuse of the technology - at present mainly to do with privacy - gives rise to misgivings about the technology's potential for more serious abuse. Of course, misuse is in the eye of the beholder: following exposure of abuses in Abu Ghraib prison Donald Rumsfeld banned phone cameras in U.S. Army installations in Iraq.
An interesting application that is - or was at the time of the book's writing -
under development in Japan and Finland is bar code scanning. One of the
suggested applications is placing bar codes on bus stop signs; scanning the bar
code returns information about the bus timetable.
Fujitsu Labs is said to be developing a facility that automatically embeds data
into a photograph; I suspect it is to deter invasion of privacy by using
steganography to embed a watermark that identifies the phone-camera.
Well, enough of what might be. This book is about taking pictures with a
phone-camera and all that it entails: technique, image manipulation, sending
image files, transferring files using wireless, finding the right service
provider, using moblogs (a mobile phone blog), and so on. The first chapter
provides an overview of the phone camera, what you can do, and the culture.
The second chapter discusses hardware, service providers, and technical
matters. Chapter 3 deals with technique for phone cameras.
Chapters 4 - 6 cover processing, printing, and sharing photos. Chapters 7 - 8
explains moblogs (the mobile phone version of blogging) and moblog ISPs; much of
the information is America-oriented, but it helps local users find suitable
resources. Chapter 9 is about legal concerns and etiquette; once again, the
discussion of legal issues is in an American context. An appendix contains a
useful list of URLs.
An interesting book about an activity that is rapidly growing. Even though
largely recreational - although some real-world uses are described in the book -
phone photography has the potential for commercial, medical, and other serious
applications. If you want an overview of the technology and the state of the
culture, this is the book to read.
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Peter Aitken: Camera Phone Obsession ISBN 1-932111-96-4 Published by Paraglyph Press, 252 pp., RRP $39.95 incl. GST |
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Reprinted from the June 2005 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
