My GPS Camera Phone

I doubt it, but one representative from New York would like to see it. Pete King, R-N.Y., has introduced a bill that proposes making the annoying click sound a required feature on all camera phones. The ability to switch it off would be disabled. Enter a whole new realm of phone hacks. From the E-Week article:

Designed to protect children and adolescents who “have been exploited by photographs taken in dressing rooms and public places with the use of a camera phone,” the bill requires any camera phone manufactured in the United States to “sound a tone or other sound audible within a reasonable radius of the phone whenever a photograph is taken.”

If it passes, any mobile phone or handset manufactured a year after the bill passes would be required to have a clicking sound. Any silencing option would go the way of the dinosaurs: Extinction.

Yet another micromanaging bill written under the guise of child protection. While I am hardly condoning misconduct against children, I think this bill is way out of line. Will this really prevent crimes from occurring? No. What about digital cameras? Would they be silenced as well? What if I witness a murder and have a clear shot at the perpetrator, but the sound of my camera phone gives me away? What if I’m trying to photograph wildlife? One shot and they’re gone.

I certainly hope this bill is dumped for something more worthwhile. If child protection is really the issue, then silencing camera phones is not going to improve anything. Stiffer penalties for abusers might be a better place to start.

Camera Phone Predator Alert Act (HR 414)

You may or may not have wondered why there’s been such sporadic activity here lately. Some of that is due to holiday hangover, but a lot of it is due to a new social network that I’ve been helping to create. After months of preparation, I can finally say that Dad Blogs is here!

From the press release:

Dad Blogs, a new social networking site for dads and dad bloggers, launched today, providing dads and dad bloggers a place to share ideas among their peers. Through dad-related groups, forum threads and blog posts, Dad Blogs aims to provide a community and blog directory for dads looking to break traditional stereotypes while holding onto the best of what makes dads unique.

That pretty much sums it up. We are not exclusive, though, to only dads. We anticipate some traffic from the moms as well, since they are what make up a large portion of who the dads are. Without moms, there wouldn’t be dads. So if you’re a dad or a mom from expecting to grandparent, head over to http://dad-blogs.com and register!Don’t forget to check out The Dad Blog while you’re there.

Many thanks to my wife, who has tolerated my dadly stubbornness to the point of insanity all while guiding me in the right direction; my two daughters, who teach me something new every day; Joeprah, with whom I share credit for this brainchild; my friend Fred, who has inspired me to pursue the things that most people usually relegate to realm of dreams (even though he probably doesn’t really know it).

One of the Christmas gifts to the family was a pair of binoculars for each of us. We intend to use them on our trips to Paynes Prairie and other nature spots around town. We took them to a recent trip to the park to look at the birds and squirrels in the pine trees, when I was suddenly struck by the idea of shooting through them.

The process is simple. Point binoculars at subject. Focus on subject. Line up camera phone lens with either side of the binoculars and then shoot. The results are interesting and even a bit voyeuristic, but with a little more experimenting, I might be able to pull something worthwhile together. In the meantime, here’s a sample of the results.

See a complete photo gallery of the Nokia 6650 at the end of this post.

The Nokia 6650 GSM phone is loaded down with just about every feature you might need on a phone, and then some. This phone is supposed to be a crowd pleaser for the Symbian fans, but I’m not so sure that this goal was accomplished, at least with regard to usability.

After a few weeks with my hands on a 6650, I feel like the it is a square peg in a round hole. The features, aside from running the Symbian OS (3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2), include GPS navigation, a camera, radio, music player, web browsing, Bluetooth, Push-to-Talk (PTT), multi-tasking and much more. Unfortunately, all of this potential functionality is rendered useless due to an improbable design that the 6650 brings to the table.

The Nokia 6650 comes off as a desperate attempt to combine power and features into a sleek, brushed metal case that is reminiscent of my Kitchen Aid® coffee maker (or any stainless steel kitchen appliance). Blending in with my kitchen decor is about all the 6650 does well, aside from finding the nearest gas station.

Camera

Not much to be excited about here. The 2 mega-pixel camera does just about what you would expect it to do, which is take barely acceptable photos. Using the 4x digital zoom is a sure way to instantly ruin the quality of the picture, so I wonder why it’s there in the first place. Attempting to record video is not recommended, but if you do, take solace in the fact that you can record up to 60 minutes (depending on storage availability). Image resolutions for the phone run high at 1600×1200, but it doesn’t help the image quality that much. Major image size reductions improve the quality, but you shouldn’t have to resort to that.

GPS

I enjoyed playing around with the mobile GPS via AT&T Navigator. Most of the time, the directions were spot on and almost as if a local resident supplied it with the shortcuts around town. However, I did notice two occasions where the GPS locked up after losing the mobile signal and then re-entering the coverage area. A complete phone restart was required in order to get things back on track. Finding anything in town – I mean ANYTHING – is easy, however, due to the easy search and “what’s nearby” feature. Like I said before, I found a gas station with no problem, and I even found a few that I didn’t know existed. If you plan on using this feature a lot, I highly recommend getting a dashboard mount – you’ll thank me later.

Mobile web

In a nutshell, don’t bother browsing the web on the 6650. Slow data transfer, repeated stalls/failures and a clunky browser interface. It’s everything mobile browsing shouldn’t be.

Design

It’s unfortunate that such a promising phone would be undermined by such poorly thought out design. Given a few physical tweaks, this phone could be much better. Read on for some high(low?)lights.

The keypad: The smooth surface of the keypad makes dialing, navigating or anything else extremely difficult. I often found myself hitting the wrong key or multiple keys due to the lack of an obvious tactile indicator between keys. There were tiny bumps that I assumed would serve this purpose, but they failed to do so. Additionally, the GPS key is located directly below the main selector, which caused me to unintentionally activate the mobile GPS program at least 50% of the time. While the keypad looks slick, it is an obvious and unfortunate form-over-function design decision made to sell phones.

User interface: The UI is typical of a Nokia mobile phone but not incredibly intuitive. I found myself flipping through menu after menu just to find simple settings. Even when I did find them, it seemed like there was a multitude of sub-menus and extraneous clicking to accomplish a simple task. On the bright side, the AT&T Navigator interface was easy to understand and offers little resistance for even a novice user.

Touchscreen: The 6650 makes use of a tiny touchscreen on the front of the phone when it is in the closed position. It allows for quick access to things like the camera and music player without having to open the phone. This is a great idea, but I think it needs to be revisited. The screen is tiny and the sensitivity was unpredictable. To avoid any false input, you have to lock the phone, which seems to negate the purpose of the touchscreen to begin with. It’s a great concept with a flawed execution.

Phone body: The body itself is a solid design with nice lines and a modern, brushed metal finish accented with flat black trim. Unfortunately, this makes the phone look like a kitchen appliance. The smooth lines may look nice, but they pose a problem when trying to open the phone – it is a two-handed operation every time. The volume buttons were a bit too narrow and in an odd position, but it was something I got used to. The winner of worst button location goes to the PTT button, which was inadvertently pressed many times when opening the phone. Overall, the ideas are good (again), but it seems like there was no real-life testing associated with the final design decisions.

A sad ending

While I dislike bashing a phone completely, I have to say that I couldn’t find anything worth speaking positively about, aside from the GPS. In my opinion, this phone could have been so much more than the placation that it is. A little more effort and thought into usability would have put this phone into the first-tier, but short-sighted design choices completely eliminated that possibility. Additionally, if you’re going to cram so many great features into a phone, why tack on a measly 2 mega-pixel camera? Maybe Nokia will revisit this one in the near future and come up with something that properly showcases the technology rather than miring it in thoughtless and unoriginal design.

One of the biggest issues with camera phones is the rigidity of the lens. In some cases (like the Nokia 5610), you can get a mechanical zoom or macro, but that’s about it. Well, here’s some good news for the iPhone and G1 photographers.

I found a great feature on Gadget Venue that discusses magnetic camera phone lenses! Seriously, this is huge for photo enthusiasts like myself. Choose from wide-angle, fish-eye and telephoto lenses. The best part is that you can get this incredible upgrade for under $20.

You can save your money and try using some binoculars, but I wouldn’t recommend it. How do I know? You’ll have to come back later and find out the rest of the story.

USB Fever.com lens catalog