Many locations which allow cell phones forbid cameras and thus forbid camera phones. Consequently, while such phones can be useful at times, the camera can often be a significant nuisance.
I would suggest a simple way to solve this issue would be to provide a means by which the camera could be removed from the phone without damage and left in a car or other secure location until such time as it could be retrieved.-- supercat, Feb 03 2004 Some of the earlier Motorola camera phones had cameras that attached to the data contacts on the bottom, but the new ones are built-in.-- Baker^-1, Feb 03 2004 These abound. There are tons of models of phones with camera snap-ons. For PDAs, too.-- waugsqueke, Feb 03 2004 It's a shame, though, because as the technology is becoming cheaper, smaller and more accepted, the cameras are becoming built-in.
*I* want a cellphone that will connect to my digital camera, so I can send images from that.-- Baker^-1, Feb 03 2004 Perhaps I should have written my idea somewhat better since Baker et al are quite right that cameras as an ad-on have existed for some time. What I'd like, though, would be something that would combine the sleek appearance of a built-in camera with the ability to remove it and have such removal be easily demonstrable. Not sure how best to do that mechanically, but probably a recessed area of the phone into which a camera could fit quite nicely would be good.-- supercat, Feb 03 2004 I think the camera phone fad has a death date of maybe two or three years tops. It'll pass.-- waugsqueke, Feb 03 2004 Absolutely excellent idea (I was just about to post it - Except it would allow the camera to still display on the phone (something which isn't stated above). i.e. use the phone as a display to a remote camera.
Imagine how handy it'd be, when looking for something that's lost under a couch, or checking for oil leaks in an engine.
[waugsqueke] - I am speaking to you from the future - "Erm, nope".
{puts a little BluTack on his shoe}-- Dub, Apr 19 2007 Where do you live, where there are locations where cameras are forbidden? In the UK, some private (and a very few public) locations forbid you to use your camera, but I've never been anywhere where they've forbidden me to carry one. Do they frisk you to check for a phone, or a miniature camera in your pocket?-- Cosh i Pi, Apr 19 2007 I work as a consultant for banks. Cameras of any sort are NOT allowed in the research department. Too much sensitive customer data.
Basically anywhere with secret or sensitive data is not going to allow cameras in.-- Galbinus_Caeli, Apr 19 2007 I'm surprised they allow phones in - you could read data quietly over the phone to a friend. I suppose that would be harder to do without anyone noticing, and you couldn't transfer as much info.
That's rather a specialist sort of problem, though - the general public simply aren't allowed into such places at all, presumably.-- Cosh i Pi, Apr 21 2007 You can text message data and info almost silently.-- BJS, Apr 21 2007 What in the name of burning kittens is the point of a security system which revolves around asking people not to bring in their camera phones? "Can I have your camera phone so you don't photograph billions of pounds worth of data?" "Sure." "Do you have any other miniature camera concealed about your person?" "Nope" "OK, there you go."-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 21 2007 [waugsqueke]: I actually think as the installed base grows, it will become more and more difficult to buy a phone that doesn't have a camera. In fact, here we are three and a half years from your posting, and the camera phone is showing no signs of going away.
[Cosh i Pi]: Military bases, data centers, factories of every description: there are LOTS of places where cell phones are OK but cameras are not. I don't own a camera phone for this very reason. Vendors and contractors who do business with these facilities who would line up 'round the block for the phone proposed here. Sign me up!
[MaxwellBuchanan]: Use of a cameraphone is pretty easy to disguise. Lots of people have them. Miniature cameras are pretty rare. And the facilities we are talking about here sometime have more invasive means of determining your compliance with their security rules.-- gardnertoo, Apr 21 2007 [gardnertoo] Point taken. I was thinking of public places, really. Didn't think about places of work.
Not being a mobile phone user at all, I'm not very conscious of them and their issues.-- Cosh i Pi, Apr 23 2007 Funny - all the places I've been which have some kind of restriction have prohibited the carrying of *any* phone, camer-enabled or not. E.g. the US Embassy in London.-- hippo, Apr 23 2007 random, halfbakery