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Re: [OM] Polaroid's Android-powered, 16-megapixel Smart Camera

Subject: Re: [OM] Polaroid's Android-powered, 16-megapixel Smart Camera
From: Nathan Wajsman <photo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2012 06:08:19 +0100
First, I don't work with patents, but that is neither here nor there. The point 
is that you can already have remote triggering, video surveillance etc. etc., 
so the addition to Android makes very little difference. Secondly, I think that 
you are losing sight of the fact that (at least I would hope so in a 
photography group like this one) the important part is image quality and not 
some silly gimmick feature. You may be a good communications technologist, but 
you statement that a company would sell "millions" of cameras just because they 
included features (that most people probably would not even know how to use) is 
plainly absurd.

Cheers,
Nathan

Nathan Wajsman
Alicante, Spain
http://www.frozenlight.eu
http://www.greatpix.eu
http://www.nathanfoto.com
PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/


YNWA



On Feb 7, 2012, at 1:02 AM, Ken Norton wrote:

>> I'm with you, Chris. I think this is a solution looking for a problem.
> 
> HOLD ON! This? From somebody who works with patents?
> 
> The application of technology rarely occurs to the purpose it was invented.
> 
> This is like telling Gutenberg that after printing up the Bible for a few
> rich people, what else would he ever need the printing press for? Did
> Alexander Graham Bell foresee 900 chat lines for guys with no life? Did Al
> Gore envision that the Internet would someday result in Facebook? (Yes,
> since Al Gore will be a millionaire again as a result). Would Edison have
> invented the light bulb if he knew that Motel-6 was going to leave the
> light on for you?
> 
> I'm pretty sure that in 1966 when NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle created the
> Super Bowl, he wasn't expecting a Madonna half-time show.
> 
> I can think of a bunch of applications of this technology based on my
> experience with live video streaming, surveillance, bird photography and
> keeping track of teenage daughters.
> 
> Some of you might recall my mentioning having a camera that is aware of its
> location and direction it is pointed. The ability to trace the sun or
> moon's route across the display so you can better plan how to place the
> camera for sunrise/sunsets. Come to think of it, my Android phone/camera
> already does this. Shame the camera isn't all that good. The apps are
> already there to do all of the things I've mentioned with a cellphone or
> iPAD2 or Samsung tablet. iOS and Android apps exist today. Shoot, I can
> point my phone at the sky and it tells me what satellite that is flying
> overhead.
> 
> It's not that I'm inventing any of these applications, yet. Others, yes,
> these, no. Give me a bunch of black boxes and I'll give you something that
> serves a purpose. Sometimes useful, sometimes not so useful.
> 
> Not to get too long-winded here (OK, I am, but you asked for it, so sit
> down, buckle up and enjoy the ride)...
> 
> A few years back (probably 15 or so), the company I worked for a leading
> company that made stuff for the radio broadcast industry. We had a digital
> audio systems, mixers, transmitters and a myriad of other things--including
> silence sensors. One day we got contacted by a mining company looking for a
> solution to a rather unique problem. They wanted to play safety messages
> over the 2-way radio systems at certain times of day to reduce accidents.
> Things like "Use your brakes, not the berm to stop." Of course, to make
> things even more unique, they had dozens of sites with dozens of channels
> around the world with thousands of employees, but this system was to be
> controlled out of an office building in Idaho. As the applications
> engineer, I inherited this project. Within a couple of days I had a fully
> working prototype system made out of two-way radios, silence sensors, a
> digital audio machine with a playlist and a really cool program running on
> it that would trigger the announcement at the planned time, unless the
> radio was currently in use. It would then reset to wait 30 seconds to not
> interrupt something important. If the radio was still in use after 30
> seconds, it would delay again until eventually falling into a backup
> program. The safety spots all were in a nice rotation so people wouldn't
> get bored of them and tune them out. Everything was remotely programmed and
> the audio files recorded in Idaho. We sold hundreds of these things. My
> prototype system worked out of the box and needed little code adjustment,
> BTW. Two other companies have since done the same thing through reverse
> engineering this system. I worked in the exact same building as some of the
> guys that literally invented some of the technology used and they would
> just scratch their heads in amazement.
> 
> Then there were a couple companies that had the brilliant idea to
> rebroadcast radio stations on a satellite which could be listened to with
> subscription-based radio receivers. The head-end equipment would
> automatically track the stations to turn to at the appropriate times,
> control the audio switchers, and the rest of the day would either repeat
> the broadcast for different time zones (Howard Stern 24 hours a day) and in
> between times would play an original set of programming. This, of course,
> was a variation of a system developed for AFRTS, BBC and NPR. Oh, wait. I
> wonder who created that? All this was done with equipment originally
> intended to just replace the venerable cart machine. Those of you in the
> USA suffering through the homogenization of radio thanks to all the group
> ownerships--they use an application of technology invented by, um, me in
> 1989 (when groups were limited to a dozen stations), that allowed for the
> remote recording, scheduling, upload and playback of customized radio
> channels from one location to multiple locations with unique adjustments
> for each location. Oh, and the black-box that sat with the satellite
> receiver to interrupt the national news broadcast with commercials in the
> breaks which were sold by the national broadcaster but insert on a more
> localized or regionalized basis? Commercials which were automatically
> downloaded in the minutes before the top of the hour through a production
> channel, but only to certain units. Mine.
> 
> Then there is the Olympus Rings Musical Fountain in Atlanta, Georgia. Ever
> wonder how the audio and the fountains are synchronized? Yup. You guessed
> it. SOMEBODY had to figure out how to take all those black boxes and
> assemble them in a new and unique manner. I really doubt that the inventor
> of SMPTE Time Code figured that it would be used in a vault 45 feet under
> the street occasionally controlled by a secretary several blocks away on
> the 12th floor of some non-descript office building over a phone line. Nah,
> he was just trying to sync video and audio together in an editing suite of
> a television studio.
> 
> More recently, SOMEBODY had to figure out how to build a new Layer-2
> switching network to support all those LTE cell tower deployments. A
> solution which in about 9 months has been adopted industry-wide by the four
> largest carriers in the USA. A solution which the original inventor of the
> technology had no clue would ever be used.
> 
> OK, so maybe I've gone over the top here, but what really overcooks my
> grits is when somebody minimizes a new technology because they can't think
> of any applications for it. These are just the things I can allude to
> without breaking NDAs.
> 
> Hey, did you know that you can get surround sound out of two speakers?  A
> feature that we had to stop teaching people how to use because of the
> problem with automobile accidents. Let's not go down the dark alley of
> audio production tools... Somebody had to invent those editing techniques
> which everybody uses today. Ever wonder who did the first multi-track
> digital audio system for live theatre fully synced to the lighting and midi
> gear? (actually the first three such systems). Or stacked some speakers on
> the roof of the parked tour bus late at night and had his boss do dog in
> heat sounds at 3 in the morning in St. Catherines, Ontario? The howling
> could be heard from miles away. Several thousand watts of
> "arrrooorrrooouuuoooo"
> 
> This is why I get a bit overheated when I see a camera manufacturer too
> tightly define the application of the camera. Panasonic's attempting to
> make the GH2 unhackable is a perfect example of this. If I was the product
> manager of this new OM-D series of cameras, I'd make the SDK freely
> available.
> 
> Trust me, if Olympus did that, they would sell millions of additional units
> until the other manufacturers caught on.
> 
> AG "arrrooorrrooouuuoooo" Schnozz
> -- 
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> 
> 

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