Careful where you use your new cellphone
I skip the gym for a month or two and the whole world changes. We were already not allowed to use cellphones in most areas of this fancy health club I belong to in the 'burbs. But this week I walked in to find that cellphones are now also banned in the locker rooms. Huh? Can we still use 'em underwater? Probably not. Seems like this is a policy showing up everywhere.
Why this new rule? Because members have complained that they're at risk of being photographed surreptitiously by a cameraphone-wielding pervert. Uh, have most of the members looked at themselves recently? We need to get much more buffed up before we'll be getting broadcast on the Internet -- we're no Paris. Hilton or France. ;)
Glad we bought a 4.0 megapixel digital camera since 3.2 will soon be so passe with even phones having 2.0 megapixel resolutions now. Sheesh. It call keeps getting better so fast. You blink and you've missed a whole generation of gadgets. According to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required):
Casio has brought out camera phones with a resolution of two megapixels, only slightly inferior to a digital camera. Phone carriers are still charging too much for sending this kind of data over their networks, but prices will come down, and speeds will get faster. Camera phones will become a visual aid to ordinary phone conversations or text messages: "This is what I look like now." Or, "Should I buy this dress?" Or, "This is who I am dating. Is he a hunk or am I inebriated?" But it won't stop there.
Yes, there are downsides. Security and privacy are serious issues, and they need to be addressed. Companies and government departments fear the loss of secrets or sensitive information, so much so they're pressuring manufacturers to offer units with the camera disabled, or with it removed altogether. Verizon Wireless Inc., for example, is working with Samsung to create a disabled-camera version of Samsung's i700 phone.