Philippe Kahn foresees a global society transformed by mobile phones with integrated digital cameras.
As industry analysts predict the vast majority all mobile phones will include cameras in the next few years, Kahn expects the ramifications of such a picture-capable culture to be extensive and myriad.
“The notion of `instant visual communications’ anytime, anywhere makes for a better personal and professional world,” Kahn said. “That is because a world better connected is a world perfected. A picture is many times worth a thousand words. You could say that camera phones are to cell phones what television is to radio.”
Indeed, Kahn-Wall Street luminary and founder of Borland and Starfish Software-has bet his future on such a world. His new endeavor is picture software company Lightsurf Technologies Inc., which manages Sprint PCS’ picture-sharing service.
With camera phones, “you get the instant ability to post photographs,” said Alan Reiter, president of the Wireless Internet & Mobile Computing consulting firm.
Reiter, a longtime wireless analyst, has written extensively on the potential for camera phones. He too foresees camera phones creating a major new dynamic in modern society.
And it seems the changes have begun.
In Britain, camera phones have been banned in areas surrounding courts due to the risk of users taking pictures of key witnesses and police, according to local reports. Courts in the Australian state of Victoria are considering a similar move, following allegations that a camera phone was used to photograph a jailed stockbroker. The pictures were sent to a Sydney newspaper.
Other camera-phone bans address more vulgar situations. Australia’s Victoria state imposed a ban on camera phones in swimming pools and recreational centers after a man pleaded guilty to taking pictures of young girls in a pool changing room in Melbourne, according to local reports. Other areas across the world have taken similar steps, including fitness and recreation centers in parts of Britain, New Zealand and Hong Kong. In fact, Saudi Arabia’s Commission for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice has banned the use of camera phones throughout the country to stem what it calls inappropriate pictures of women.
Such fears may be founded; a newspaper delivery man in Singapore has been accused of attempting to secretly photograph women in public toilets using his camera phone, according to local reports. He was charged with breaking into a women’s restroom and taking pictures by placing his phone on the toilet’s false ceiling.
Camera phones have also popped up on the right side of the law. An Italian shop owner used his camera phone to photograph two people outside his store he considered suspicious. He sent the pictures to local police, who discovered the two were wanted for robbery. They were arrested, according to reports. In Osaka, Japan, local police said they get dozens of camera phone pictures every month of crime scenes, stolen cars and suspects. And in perhaps the worst and most well-known camera phone incident, onlookers allegedly recorded the rape of a woman in a public restroom using their camera phones in Sussex, United Kingdom. Police said the photographers may not have known they were witnessing a rape and asked that anyone with recorded images to step forward.
Further, camera phones soon may play a major role in newsgathering. The BBC news channel in Europe encouraged viewers to take their camera phones to local protests and then send in the photos.
“It’s turning citizens into reporters, in the literal sense of the word,” Reiter said.
Such documentation is not limited to news events, however. Several Web sites, like Photoblogs.org and Fotolog.net, have sprung up to support camera phone Web logs, or Internet-style diaries detailing users’ daily lives through camera phone pictures.
“Remember how the Rodney King tapes impacted the whole country?” asked Lightsurf’s Kahn. “That may give us a taste of how a solution such as Sprint PictureMail is going to change some of the ways in which law enforcement, justice and other important social and political events in our lives are handled.”
So far it seems there have not been any major camera-phone incidents in the United States, aside from several notable marketing campaigns. But research firm IDC predicts that 1.9 million camera phones will be sold in the United States this year, and that the number will grow to 4.9 million next year-which means it’s likely just a matter of time.
“The wireless industry has to begin thinking about policy for camera phones,” Reiter said.
The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association said camera phones must be used responsibly, and they should be banned wherever other picture-taking devices are prohibited.
But aside from privacy and legal concerns, those in the industry make sure to point out the potential benefits of a camera-phone society. Doctors could instantly view patient injuries or x-rays, construction managers could preview work projects, real estate professionals could transmit images to interested buyers-and the list goes on.
“Like any powerful tool that is going to transform our lives the way that radio, television, e-mail and the Web did, camera phones also come with some slight drawbacks.” Kahn said. “These drawbacks pale compared to the upsides.”
But the extent of the cultural effects of camera phones has not yet been imagined, Reiter argued.
“These are just things we can think about now,” Reiter commented. “This is really just the beginning.”
