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Toys Wireless Networking Hardware

Nikon Releases WiFi Digital Camera 144

Posted by Zonk from the click-upload dept.
LegendOfLink writes "Nikon just revealed the world's first WiFi-enabled camera! It runs 802.11b/g and allows users to send files over a network. From the blurb: "Wireless shooting automatically transfers each picture to a selected computer as soon as it is shot. Pictures can then be viewed with Nikon's powerful yet fun-to-use and easy PictureProject software. And wireless printing delivers the convenience of cable-free direct printing to PictBridge-compatible printers. All these functions are easy to implement, too. Just set them up with the Wizard utility to enjoy easy wireless capabilities that add outstanding flexibility to the digital photography experience. "
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Nikon Releases WiFi Digital Camera More

Nikon Releases WiFi Digital Camera

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  • Straight from the Camera to 0dayporn.com! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02, 2005 @07:49PM (#13467666)
    Anything that makes porn easier to make is alright in my book.

  • Um... (Score:4, Funny)

    by PunkOfLinux ( 870955 ) <mewshi@mewshi.com> on Friday September 02, 2005 @07:52PM (#13467679) Homepage
    This sounds more like an advertisement than anything actually useful... generally, if it includes the words 'powerful' 'fun-to-use' and 'easy' it's an advertisement. Might also be in an ad for a hooker >.>

    • Re:Um... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by EnderWigginsXenocide ( 852478 )
      Great! Now instead of hauling out a 15 bag full of camera gear I now need to add a wifi enabled computer to my kit. Oh my poor back aches at the thought of it! I'll take a camera that just records to CF media thankyou much.
      • Huh? I'm sure it has built-in memory like any other camera.

        The only difference would be now you don't need a standalone cable or card reader to transfer the photos. Seems like a pretty good, obvious idea to me.

    • Yet another bad article by Zonk (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I think Slashdot has slid down hill more in the past 2 weeks than it has in the past 2 years. This has to be the 5th "advertisement" article that I've seen in 3 or 4 days. And it isn't even new technology as many posters have already noted.
    • Exactly what I was thinking...
      The summary was mostly a short introduction of the plucked-out marketing talk from the article - which itself probably was a WSOGMM of the original press release... Has anyone else ever heard of http://physorg.com/ [physorg.com] before? Anyone?

    • Re:Um... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by captaincucumber ( 450913 ) *
      Exactly. And can someone please clarify this part:

      Pictures can then be viewed with Nikon's powerful yet fun-to-use and easy PictureProject software

      can? or must? I'm sure Nikon thinks their software is "powerful" and "fun-to-use" but I've never ever liked the software included with any peripheral I've ever bought - scanners, cameras, printers, etc.

  • World's First? (Score:5, Informative)

    by cmoney ( 216557 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @07:52PM (#13467681)
    Isn't this a WiFi enabled camera from Kodak?

    http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-pa th=6434&pq-locale=en_US [kodak.com]
    • Kodak "announced" it like more then a year ago. but you can't buy it yet. Plus the wifi part needs a add-on card. Nice job, Kodak.

    • Kodak not first... Nikon D2h and WT-1 (Score:5, Informative)

      by i22y ( 10479 ) <mike@@@islerphoto...com> on Friday September 02, 2005 @08:17PM (#13467792) Homepage
      Nikon was the first to come out with a camera that was WiFi-capable. Nikon's D2H [nikonusa.com], which came out in Q3 2003, was also introduced with the Nikon WT-1 (and WT-1A in America) [dpreview.com], which attached to the camera and provided 802.11b transmission right from the camera. Nikon's latest offerings, the D2Hs and the D2x, are compatible with the new WT-2 and WT-2A, which support 802.11g and some new features. While the camera itself does not have internal WiFi support, it was designed with that function in mind and the optional accessory enabled that. Canon also offers the WFT-E1 transmitter for the EOS-1Dmk2 cameras as well as the EOS-20D. This was introduced after Nikon, however it supports WiFi as well as Ethernet. Mike Isler
    • What's great is: while the story submission is factually incorrect, as well as including market-speak (ah, slashvertising!), I didn't see it because I've started ignoring articles posted by Zonk!

      Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), RSS doesn't honor your "homepage" preferences. Maybe when the slashcode developers get some time away from their day jobs they can add in that feature!

      Back on topic: If the "editors" (they don't edit, why do they call themselves that?) had done a couple seconds of research this st
      • What would be nicer, oh exalted Slashdot elder, is if they had included the actual name of the camera(s). Sure, TFA gives you all the info, but if I would have known that it was a point & shoot rather than a DSLR, I wouldn't have bothered even reading this. Honestly, this submission was as well thought-out as "Sony Releases Wi-Fi Computer" and then a description about how nifty Wi-Fi computers are (without bothering to list any specs), and how wonderful Sony is.
        • What would be nicer [...] is if they had included the actual name of the camera(s). [...] if I would have known that it was a point & shoot rather than a DSLR, I wouldn't have bothered even reading this. Honestly, this submission was as well thought-out as "Sony Releases Wi-Fi Computer" and then a description about how nifty Wi-Fi computers are (without bothering to list any specs), and how wonderful Sony is.

          Right on. I'm not completely against "slashvertising" but c'mon, give us the meat. I might not m
      • Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), RSS doesn't honor your "homepage" preferences. Maybe when the slashcode developers get some time away from their day jobs they can add in that feature!

        The code can be found here [slashcode.com]. Go scratch your itch.
        • The feature in question is already implemented for subscribers. I don't think /. will adopt changes to slashcode that undermine their income incentives. Thanks for the snappy, yet uninformed response!
      • Unless the RSS requests your login credentials, it can't offer anything specialized.

        The benefit of publishing the RSS feed, for large sites, is that it's largely static, undifferentiated, and doesn't chew up massive CPU when it gets hammered like mad by autorefreshing clients. That would go out the window if they made it login-able (pardon the mangled english).

        I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice - I've been surprised by items in the RSS feed too - but I never expected the RSS to be personalized like my logi

    • Re:World's First? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Gudlyf ( 544445 )
      Yep, and apparently they get it right [dpguru.com].

  • Battery life? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Friday September 02, 2005 @07:52PM (#13467684) Homepage Journal
    I can't help but think that adding wifi will seriously hurt battery life.

    • Re:Battery life? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mikael ( 484 )
      Would this be any different from writing to/from flashcard memory or a microdrive card?

      802.11g has speed of 20 - 54 Mbits/second, or around 2.5 - 7 Mbytes/second.

      Since a compressed JPEG image is around 400Kbytes, you could easy take and send a picture within a second. Even an uncompressed image might only take a second. Compare that speed to a flashcard which takes several seconds to save a compressed JPEG image.
      • Yeah, but do you really think a second of memory card writing takes the same amount of power as a second of 802.11 broadcasting?

      • Re:Battery life? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by BobPaul ( 710574 ) *
        Since a compressed JPEG image is around 400Kbytes, you could easy take and send a picture within a second. Even an uncompressed image might only take a second. Compare that speed to a flashcard which takes several seconds to save a compressed JPEG image.

        Don't forget that you still need to locate a wireless access point, associate with that wireless accespoint, and then encapulsate the data for transmission over a network. Oh, and provide some 20-30mW of transmission power to achieve the normal range seen by

  • Forget the download hacks... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jarich ( 733129 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @07:52PM (#13467685) Homepage Journal
    What happens when someone figures out to upload pictures to it?

    Honest honey! I don't know where ~those~ pictures came from!!! Honey?? Let me back in the house....

    ;)

    • Re:Forget the download hacks... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @10:02PM (#13468243)
      Well, my digital camera just maps in as a R/W USB drive. I took pictures at my company picnic a couple years ago, edited them all in Photoshop to give some of my coworkers glowing red/orange Terminator-style eyes, and then copied them back to the camera. When I showed off the pictures on the built-in display, I feigned ignorance (of course) and let everyone try to figure out how it could have happened. Some of the explanations were pretty funny ... the Sun coming in at a funny angle, a problem with the compression algorithm in the camera, gee, maybe so-and-so really is some kind of creature. Finally I owned up to it and explained that my camera was the new model with an on-board demon detector mode. Got a few laughs.

  • Not quite the first ever.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by lcampagn ( 842601 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @07:54PM (#13467691)
    We've seen plenty of wifi-enabled cameras before (such as the Canon EOS-1Ds), but this appears to be the first _consumer_ camera with wifi.
    • The 1Ds is not a 'wifi-enabled' camera. There's a wifi-adapter sold seperately by canon that works with various canon professional cameras. Actually I'm not even sure it works with the 1Ds...it might only work with the 1D Mark II and the 1Ds Mark II.
    • Nope, Kodak did the first consumer camera with wifi (send karma here [slashdot.org]).

      Some nokia phones can work as a webcam and connect over bluetooth, which is wifi-esque -- not too mention wifi-enabled IP web/securitycameras, like the ones from axis. Doesn't really fit the bill, but a wifi/ip-enabled security camera actually makes more sense than a wified digital camera. To me, at least.

    • Re:Not quite the first ever.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Andy Smith ( 55346 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @08:53PM (#13467916)
      The Canon 1Ds isn't wifi-enabled. You might be thinking of the Nikon D2h which has a wifi add-on and is approximately the same generation, although a little more recent. The newer generation of Canon DSLRs also have wifi add-ons available.
    • first _consumer_ camera with wifi ...Which largely defeats the value of it.

      Wifi is a huge thing in pro level cameras because it means you can shoot effectively infinitely without having to stop to change out cards (including the down time of waiting to write to them before you can safely power off). Accepting being tethered by a power cable, your shoot can last as long as you want without needing to stop. When you're paying for model, make up artist and assistant time, that's huge.

      The downside being that th
      • And next to useless for the average consumer who takes shots over a long day out at the zoo, no wifi access point in sight, no laptop with them


        Perhaps it could upload to the hard drive of the iPod (or iPod-like device) that the consumer is carrying in his pocket. (of course, something like Bluetooth might be a better way to do that, and better still might be just putting the hard drive into the camera)

        • Belkin makes a card reader, the part number is F8E461. It hooks into the dock port and writes from a bunch of memory card formats to the iPod HD. Not a direct cable, but close to the next best thing and works without modifying your camera choice or your iPod. I found them for about $84 without searching too hard.
      • Wifi is a huge thing in pro level cameras because it means you can shoot effectively infinitely without having to stop to change out cards (including the down time of waiting to write to them before you can safely power off). Accepting being tethered by a power cable, your shoot can last as long as you want without needing to stop. When you're paying for model, make up artist and assistant time, that's huge.

        True enough, but this camera is just a consumer level POS (point ond shoot) camera. You know, where

    • Yep, I was talking with a wedding photographer early this summer talking about his wireless camera. They take so many photos in such a short time that a computer receiving all of the pictures is the best solution.
      • I am a wedding photographer [korphoto.com]. That's ridiculous. In all the seminars and conventions I've been to, in all the magazines and websites I read, I've never heard of any wedding photographer advocating WiFi for this reason, or any other, really. Yes, you take a lot of images (my wife and I typically shoot 2000-2500 at a wedding, RAW), but a 2GB flash card can hold 225 RAW images or 450 JPEGs from an 8MP DSLR like a Canon 1D Mark II, and can store them a lot faster than a 55Mbps 802.11g transmitter can offload
        • These devices are meant for commercial shooters who need to show large images to art directors immediately, or event photographers who transmit action shots from little league or high school football games to a central locations for viewing and purchasing by parents.

          I wonder about the utility even in those situations. A WiFi-enabled laptop would seem more advantageous given that you could fill up a card, pop the card into the laptop, start the picture dump and put a fresh card in. If desired, and a conn

          • Whenever you're working with an art director (which I absolutely hate...) they need to see the images big, and immediately, to change what they don't like before you take the next frame. In the days of film, you used a Polarid back on your medium format camera. Take a frame, show it to the art director, make changes, wash rinse repeat until she's satisfied, then make her SIGN THE POLAROID, then put your film back on the camera, take your 12 shots, and you're done.

            These days, digital commercial and fashion

  • Marketing (Score:5, Funny)

    by jo_ham ( 604554 ) <joham999@gmail.cTIGERom minus cat> on Friday September 02, 2005 @07:54PM (#13467692)
    Will they market it like those Centrino laptops that magically allow you to share your photos and do full screen, perfect quality video messaging over the internet while you're in the middle of nowhere with nary a cellphone tower, wireless access point or sign of civilization to be seen anywhere?

  • Obviously people don't like having to trail wires and connect peripherals to their PC every time they want to get data from them. Bluetooth solved this problem for PDA's, phones and the like and WiFi seems like the sensible choice for the kind of volume data transfer required for todays digital cameras. If they've equipped this thing with a good enough battery that it can make standard camera running times, it should be a useful step forward for consumers. If they haven't managed to overcome that problem, i

  • Useful for demonstration pictures, etc. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ph33r th3 g(O)at ( 592622 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @08:00PM (#13467718)
    The gendarmes can confiscate the camera, but the photos are already on a server outside the country's jurisdiction. This should be handy for journalists, demonstrators, etc.
    • This should be handy for journalists, demonstrators, etc.

      Or corperate espionage. I work in a secure building, Cameras are not allowed. However, with a small camera and wifi, what's to stop someone from connecting to an AP in their car? Of course, the flip-side, this isn't new. My PDA has both wifi and a camera...
    • that's a really clever idea. Even to have one guy with a laptop in his backpack next to another guy taking pictures would solve the problem of seizure. A voice (metaphorically) would be much harder to silence with instant media transfer.

  • uhm. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mindwar ( 708277 )
    should we start calling this place $lashdot alredy?
  • While you are correct in that Nikon made the first wlan addon to a camera, that was years ago. All the major brands have them now.

    What may be new is actually shooting from a distant location using wlan.

    • Re:Almost correct (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not quite right, this ( http://www.wi-pics.com/ [wi-pics.com]) is actually the first Commercial WiFi add on, and it supports pretty much any camera that has a CF slot

  • Whoopti Do. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by L0C0loco ( 320848 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @08:08PM (#13467749) Homepage
    News will be made when they nolonger encrypt the white balance information in their RAW format. Wake me up then.

    • Only AWB is encrypted on the new cameras(post D2X) otherwise ACR has no problem reading it.
    • I'm glad someone mentioned this!

    • Who cares! REAL issues instead? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Hardly an issue really. Most software can do entirely without it anyways - and that is only the case with ONE single body - every other body is fine.

      If you want to pick issues about Nikon's stuff, there's lots of REAL ones to pick...

      I, for one, didn't buy a Nikon DSLR body to replace my old Nikon SLRs. I went with a Fuji DSLR instead. The flash system is just a mess. Not that it doesn't work. But why change the flash gear like 3 times in a row? From *real* TTL to eTTL/iTTL oddball stuff. So you had to ditch

  • But the real question is (Score:3, Funny)

    by hakr89 ( 719001 ) <8329650d-c1bd-41 ... 928@f a k u . me> on Friday September 02, 2005 @08:08PM (#13467752)
    Does it run Linux?
    • better yet: Could you imagine what we could do with a beowulf cluster of these? slo motion hi res pics of hot grits being poured down a petrified natalie portman's pants as she buys another commercial .. errr submits another story to /.
    • Does it work on Linux? Or does it require some slow, fugly piece of shit windows only program?
      • "Nikon's powerful yet fun-to-use and easy PictureProject software." Sure sounds like a "fugly piece of shit windows only program." The only way i would buy this would be if I were sure it used something simple like FTP. But then Nikon wouldn't be able to make money selling crappy software that we shouldn't need.
  • Imagine it: four guys sitting in a room, playing deathmatch on their cameras. Screw PSP: cameras are the new gaming rigs!
  • I'm pretty sure Ricoh had this a few years ago.. like in 2001. I think its the RDC-i700.
    • Yes, that Ricoh. I think rather than built-in wireless it had a TCP/IP stack, an FTP client and a PC Card slot for whatever kind of compatible network card you wanted to put in: Ethernet, wireless, whatever.

      And it was definitely a consumer camera. It had a tiny lens and was designed as a flattish bar similar to old 110-film Instamatics.

  • Allow me to translate (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tim Browse ( 9263 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @08:15PM (#13467784)

    This...

    Pictures can then be viewed with Nikon's powerful yet fun-to-use and easy PictureProject software.

    ...actually means:

    The camera comes with some POS software that installs a load of annoying icons all over the place that you can't get rid of, has the look and feel of an explosion in a Winamp skin factory, and will crash and burn more often than Windows Movie Maker. Oh, and if you don't install this piece of crap, you can't use the camera.

    I can see it now...

    "Check out my cool wifi camera!"
    "Cool, let's download some pictures onto my PC!"
    "Ok, first you have to install this piece of shit called PictureProject on your system."
    "Dude! Totally fuck off! Give me your SD card, and I'll put it in my $8 card reader that makes the card look like a standard drive, so you can use any software you like."
    "Good point. Well made."
    "Plus, we won't have to type in any WEP keys."
    "Excellent! I don't have the PictureProject CD with me anyway."

    Honestly, I could write a book.

  • oh man (Score:3, Funny)

    by dioscaido ( 541037 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @08:17PM (#13467789)
    Does this mean i'll have to install an anti-virus on my camera, too?

  • hotspot... where? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by toucci ( 834101 ) *
    and thus, the internet was flooded with pictures of trinkets in people's bedrooms

  • Huh? (Score:4, Informative)

    by dennism ( 13667 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @08:39PM (#13467856) Homepage
    First WiFi digital camera? Then what is this [axis.com] supposed to be?

  • Am I the only person that is sick and tired of what Addot has become? That "editor" Zonk has been relentlessly plugging for company after corp, and after this latest non-story in the annals of $lashdot, I'm starting to wish there were more folks on Technocrat.

  • Wonderful Idea... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LEX LETHAL ( 859141 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @09:03PM (#13467952)
    I was just recently wondering if there were wi-fi digital cameras available. I was shopping at Target when I saw one of those Kodak 'do-it-yourself' digital photocenters with half a dozen slots for almost every type of portable storage media. Mounted on the side was a design afterthought - a bubble of plastic that housed an infared sensor. I would never use the Kodak photocenter simply because bored checkstand onlookers would be able to view my my most private pictures while I crop and edit them. However, the wi-fi add-on seemed like a natural feature.

    Then I had another thought: with the advent of protable digtal cams being used to feed a modern culture of voyeurs, it's just a matter of time before there are voyeurs with protable wi-fi cam sniffers, lingering nearby to leech onto an unsuspecting data transfer. I read a few months ago about how some guys had built a bluetooth sniper rifle; unnoticed, they would stand atop tall downtown buildings and digitally eavesdrop on nearby blackberries and other pdas.

    It seems the more freedom we embrace, the more we surrender.

  • Not even close. The Nikon D2X came out in Feb (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The $4999 Nikon D2X has wifi:

    http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?cat=1&grp=2&p roductNr=25215 [nikonusa.com]

    Ever hear of this thing called Google?

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nikon+wifi&bt nG=Google+Search [google.com]
  • OK so its FRIDAY night and here I am commenting about pr0n making accessories, instead of getting some.
    sheesh!

    I have to akxs, cause maybe I am missing something, but how is a journalist in the field, going to be able to upload to a remote server, when you have to first instal client software on whatever machine you are downloading to?

    Also what initiates the downloads?
    The camera or the desktop?
    If its the camera I cannot wait to see the tiny interface for connecting.
    first a list of access points, then

  • shoot remotely (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It doesn't say anywhere whether you will be able to operate the camera remotely from the software provided...

    Does anyone know if it supports this feature?

    Their previous protocol WT-2 did...

    "I agree. The Remote Camera Control function offers PC control over various settings and operations, including focus and exposure adjustment, through USB cable connection of a PC installed with "Nikon Capture 4 (version 4.2)" and camera. The WT-2, however, lets you use this function without the USB cable connection, makin
  • Here's a New York Times video review of the camera [nytimes.com].

    Summary: It would be better if it could connect to the Internet.

  • pretty useless. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @09:34PM (#13468118) Homepage
    Come on a wifi digital camera.. what a waste of good ideas. how about something that everyone would want. a laptop hard drive in a nice small pack that has a battery and wifi.

    it sits there as a wifi share either set it to join any network it finds when turned on or make it default to adhoc mode.

    that would rock. " Hey I need those files, just a second, I'll download them from my backpack."

    there are gobs of really cool stuff that could be done with wifi or bluetooth, yet we get useless crap like wifi enabled digital cameras.

    • Re:pretty useless. (Score:2, Informative)

      by Peligro ( 912239 )
      Pro cameras like D2X do have a need for wifi network - that is if you work in s studio enviroment or have a laptop on location with total control over your camera via wifi. Consumer cameras with wifi are more about conveniance when you enter a photo store with wifi equipped terminals, than uber-cool-must-have, useless feature on a camera.
  • WI-FI just seems to me to be pointless on a camera. It's not like I'm going to be out taking photos near hotspots all the time (for example, backpacking through Costa Rica) What I really want to see is a GPS-enabled camera that records not only time and date in the metadata, but also latitude and longitude. I always seem to have a hard time recalling where it was I took my photos once I have all of them on my hard drive. Imagine being able to integrate these photos with, say, Google Earth (a satellite flyov

    • What I really want to see is a GPS-enabled camera that records not only time and date in the metadata, but also latitude and longitude.

      That's a fantastic idea! Since Google Earth came out I've been visiting a few places I've backpacked in the past to match photos to a location. Too may trails ... not enough coordinates!

    • > What I really want to see is a GPS-enabled camera that records not only time and date in the metadata, but also latitude and longitude

      That's far too useful for the corporate marketing suits to think of...but it needs one other thing: a compass. Being able to work out from the GPS coords that I was on top of Mt Smoky is fine, but which way was I looking?

  • isn't that what nikon + orb (www.orb.com) gets you?

    anyone know whether this camera shoots MPEG-1 video?

  • '68 Democrat Convention reports in people's hands (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @11:29PM (#13468530) Journal
    In 1968 Mayor Daily tried to suppress a crowd protesting the war and what they perceived as the theft of the primary elections and Democratic presidential nomination by the party elite.

    He did this by ordering his police to smash the newsies' cameras.

    This had always worked before.

    He also has his pet union bosses block the stringing of much of the TV cabling into the convention center, hotels, and surrounds that would have carried the pictures. That was expected to work, too.

    But the newsies were trying out a new technology: The "minicam". This was enormous. A "miniatureized" TV camera about as big as your torso, shoulder mounted. Hooked to a backpack full of electronics and batteries, with a big antenna sticking out. About all a strong man could carry. But just barely enough to get the signal to the next stage: A semitruck full of electronics, located within a block, terminating in a microwave dish to pipe the signal to a nearby studio.

    And this was Chicago. Where all three major networks had a studio there, along with the major facilities for their cross-country video landline.

    What was brand new about it the "mini"cam: It was real-time. By the time the billyclub smashed the lens the image of the billyclub had come zooming at the faces of a country full of TV watchers.

    Oops!

    For the next three days the crowd chants "The Whole World Is Watching" as the process repeats. The country is treated to video of the National Guard and the 101st Airborne shoving crowds around with assault rifles, jeeps mounting machine guns and others mounting barbed-wire barriers, and enough teargas to fog the center of a city, plus enough repeats of police people bashing that instant replay is redundant.

    And a once-well-liked Democratic party functionary's nomination is totally discredited. And the Republican wins the race.

    Fast forward to near the end of the century. Video cameras that record on tape are now a consumer item. And a citizen tapes the interaction between the LA Police and Rodney King. Regardless of whether the cops were acting rightly or out of control, the scene makes for riots once it hits the news - and again when the cops are acquitted.

    So is the reaction of the California governments to clean up the LA cops? Of course not! (Their gang task forces are left to run wild until their pattern of evidence-faking and perjury leads to legal challenges of their previous cases and the release nearly everybody they ever busted.) Instead they pass a law to BAN recording government functionaries (such as police) performing their functions. And the police use this to sieze any videotape made of their actions.

    Videocams are in the same position that film cameras were BEFORE the Democratic Convention of '68.

    Until now.

    Cellphone cameras were a start. But this looks like a system that will put publication-quality radio-linked realtime news photography in the hands of the general population.

    Granted it's just stills so far. But it looks to me like John Q Public just got his hands on the class of technological tool that only the network newsies have had for the last 35 years.

    Just in time for the next step in the replacement of the the news establishment with the Internet-based open media. B-)

  • GPS (Score:2)

    by RichiP ( 18379 )
    If Pentax (or Nikon or any camera manufacturer) integrates a GPS receiver or, at the very least, allows one to connect a GPS receiver to the camera, then I'll be happy as a clam in sand.

    At least with wifi, cameras can now send pics directly to computers or PDAs. Now if their protocols are open (like PictBridge), one can write opensource software that would stamp the camera's location onto EXIF.
    • Nikon's D1x and D1h cameras allowed for connection of a GPS. Possibly the Nikon D1 as well. IIRC, the Kodak DCS720 and 760 supported it too. Nikon's current flagship model, the D2x, supports this feature. It allows for embedding of GPS data in the image header.
  • Kodak announced their Kodak Easysahre One back in January 2005 [geekzone.co.nz]. The model was planned for June 2005, but delayed to October. It is coming to the market at the same time as this Nikon model - which was announced a couple of days after the Kodak announcement.

  • Nikon D2X is the world first WiFi camera that shot Bill G's foot during CES :)

    Part II: Behind the Scenes at the CES Keynote [seanalexander.com]

  • questions... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cahiha ( 873942 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @06:15AM (#13469576)
    Is the protocol open? (My guess based on current information is: NO)

    Can you send commands to the camera through WiFi? (No hint that it is, so probably NO).

    Can the camera be run off a power supply? (Probably YES)

    If you could do all those things, the camera would make a great web cam and Nikon could sell huge numbers of it. But probably it won't work again.

    It is truly frustrating that there is so much great camera hardware out there and camera manufacturers screw up on the software, the protocols, and openness. I have yet to see even a working, fairly complete PTP implementation over USB.
  • Disney (and other theme parks) will love this. The photo snipers that want to take your picture in front of the castle could do away with running around with memory cards to get the photos to locations where people can see them and buy them. Many of these parks are aleady wired for WiFi. Just snap the photos and they are ready for purchase nearly instantly.

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