Bluetooth Camera Phones Coming

Posted on December 26, 2005

New Scientist reports on a bluetooth camera phone that not only takes a picture but can record the time and place the picture was taken as well as whether there were any other bluetooth cameras in the area taking pictures.

Knowing where you are, what time it is and who you are with is obviously a huge help when it comes to filing a photograph in your collection. It also happens to be information that can now be compiled by any Bluetooth-enabled camera cellphone.
The phone will allow the growing number of camera phone users to organise their digital photo albums by automatically identifying and labelling the people and places within each snap, as they are taken.
The concept, being developed by Marc Davis of Yahoo's Berkeley research lab in California, is based on a central server that registers details sent by the phone when the photo is taken. These include the nearest cellphone mast, the strength of the call signal and the time the photo was taken.
The system also identifies the other Bluetooth-enabled cellphones within range of the photographer and combines this with the time and place information to create a shortlist of people who might be in the picture. This can then be combined with facial-recognition algorithms to identify the subjects from the shortlist.

B2Day points out the creepy side of the new device.

I guess the way this works is that the phone taking the picture reports what other Bluetooth phones are within range. A clever approach, but it is exactly this sort of application that would make me want to turn off the Bluetooth on my phone.
Obviously, such a system could also be used by the police or other government agents for surveillance. Imagine them using such techniques to identify all the Bluetooth-phone-carrying protesters at a political rally. Or, just as creepy, imagine camera-phone toting marketers taking pictures of people at, say, retail stores for market research.

The time and location stamping technology sounds like a great addition for picture sorting but finding other cameras in the area does sound a little too instrusive.

TECH