Sony working with Canon...

[David Kilpatrick]

"On September 24 at 12:15 pm Central European Time at Photokina in Cologne, Germany, Adobe, Apple, Canon, Microsoft, Nokia and Sony will conduct a press conference to announce news that is relevant to everyone in the digital photography industry."

I will have left photokina by that time, on my way home. Anyone going there want to use my press invitation to this conference?

David

[PhotoTraveler]

If it wasn't for the Nokia I would think maybe a DNG push of some sort. As is, there is a definite "which one of these is not like the other ones" aspect to this with Nokia.

Though, aside from Canon and Adobe, there is a bit of a Cell Phone look to this, and even Adobe with flash and pdf is a bit of a Cell phone player.

[01af]

... and even Adobe with Flash and PDF is a bit of a cell phone player.

Ever had a look at Adobe Device Central CS3?

-- Olaf

[mike2008]

Interesting. Cannot possibly be anything to do with telephones imo, not with Microsoft Nokia and Apple all up there.

Must be a new format for digital imagery, either for raw or perhaps an improved jpeg?

[PhotoTraveler]

Apple makes phones, microsoft software powers a lot of smart phones and they are going to bring out a phone before long.

Interesting. Cannot possibly be anything to do with telephones imo, not with Microsoft Nokia and Apple all up there.

Must be a new format for digital imagery, either for raw or perhaps an improved jpeg?

[KevinBarrett]

Could it be a new recording medium? I'm trying guys, I got nothin'.

[HUM469]

Because of the inclusion of Nokia, but the lack of any other "camera" company like Nikon, Oly, Pentax, etc. my guess would be for something to do with mobile technology and imaging. As other have pointed out, the majority of smart phones are powered by Windows mobile and those devices are getting powerful enough to store and manipulate a great many images at once. Nokia is by far the biggest phone producer, and they have been constantly working on their answer to Windows mobile, and even their 'non-smart phone' Symbian platforms have become rather complex and capable of some interesting things, in no small part thanks to Adobe Flash. While the I-Phone is no where near as flexible as the other two, it does contain third party software and could certainly have a new feature added over the I-Phone update system. Sony fits in there because next to Nokia, SonyEricson has the highest number of 'specialty' phones out there (i.e. music playing phones, video playing phones..) so it would be on my short list for being one of the first to add an imaging phone. Canon, as creator of Pictbridge and a number of other mobile printing features might fit into this too.

What am I guessing at? Well I have been saying for a couple years that it would be great to offload images into my Windows Mobile phone. I am guessing that these companies have worked together to make some very light weight version of Photoshop or Lightroom for the mobile enviroment allowing a mobile device to store, upload content to the net, and or edit and print out in the feild. Until recently this wouldn't have worked because of several reasons; memory was too expensive in small enough sizes, screens were too low resolution and innacurate in color, mobile processors were not powerful enough and wireless internet connection speeds over cell networks were too slow. All of these issues are addressed and/or are soon to be worked out. Many Pocket PC phones have gone to VGA or higher screens, my own Eten X500+ has fantastic clarity and color reproduction. Memory in phones is regularly getting up into the gigs, and with all but the I-phone, can accept $20 2 gig SDMicro cards. I know I spent $100 and have at least 10GB of storage in my wallet at any one time. My phone can also be a USB host to offload camera images, but I haven't had anything to do with them yet. T-Mobile in my area is still working on it's 3G high speed data network, but in many places around the globe, it would be possible not only to store images captured, but upload them to an online storage in full resolution fairly quickly. My current phone has a 400MHz processor, though it is overclocked to near 500. Many of the newly announced units are running 600MHz units or higher, and some have a second graphics processor. Who knows, it might even be possible for Sony and or Canon to make mobile versions of their Bionz and Digic chips hard programmed with some sort of Adobe Mobile software.

Therefor, these companies all together leads me to believe that they are going to annouce some sort of mobile imaging standard. Afterall, the old photo storage vaults have been around almost as long as digital cameras. The technology finally exists to do more than just dump an image off onto another device. On phone editing might not be ideal for the consumate pro, but I know on some of my travels where I do not want a lap top, the ability to dump off my images onto the phone, upload them to the net for safe keeping, and possibly even print out a shot or two could be fun. Heck, maybe photojournalists and others on very short deadlines and not needing massively detailed results might even appreciate the basic adjustments possible on a modern VGA screen (like cropping, DRO+ type lighting adjustments, GPS tagging since many phones now have GPS chips, etc). Of course this is my best guess based on the companies listed and my recent reading of the smart phone forums as well. I suppose we will know one way or the other at the end of September.

[bossel]

Adobe, Apple, Canon, Microsoft, Nokia and Sony

That's a tough one. In my opinion not related to photography alone (What about Nikon, Oly, Pentax?).

Hasn't there been a new technology for near distance (like 10cm) datatransfer? Like you pose your camera/cell phone next to your windows/macos system and it automaticall connects and downloads your pics? Might be related to this!

[01af]

Dylan,

your phone is overclocked?

Wonder if I can do this to my Nokia 5110, too ...

-- Olaf

[HUM469]

Dylan,

your phone is overclocked?

Wonder if I can do this to my Nokia 5110, too ...

-- Olaf

Yes, and apparently it is really easy to do with Windows Mobile devices. I don't know because I did not write the program that allowed me to do it, but there are some amazing things being written by forum members on a couple of different forums out there. The widest knowledge base seems to be the guys over at Howard Forums, though there is also pocketpcaddict, etenuserforums, htcuser, a section on programmersheaven, etc. I know it wasn't possible a few years ago because early versions of Windows Mobile were more closely tied to particular processors, and even their type made a difference on what software would run (X-scale wouldn't run on ARM processors, MIPS or whatever, wouldn't run on anything), but with WM5 and even moreso with WM6 which I have, it's much more like a PC enviroment with software able to master just about any hardware and enable or disable features based on computing power. Your Nokia I don't think can be overclocked because Symbian is still, as far as I know, very hardware dependent and not nearly so flexable. That makes it more stable than a modified Windows Mobile unit, but more limited too.

Back on topic, in so far as my guess, I know that for a couple years now, independant programmers have been rewriting all sorts of control stacks for Windows Mobile devices to do all sorts of things not in the origional specs. My Eten X500+ for example did not come with SDHC support. It has everything else that was latest and greatest at the time, so it seemed odd. One person on Howard Forums was good enough to take the SDHC command lines out of a HTC Rom for one of their devices, fit it in place of the Eten's SD command and I have had no problem using the full 8GB of an SDHC micro card to great effect. The majority of devices so far have not had USB host capabilities, but I know plenty who have had no problems. I have the code saved on one of my computers right now, but have no loaded it on to my phone simply because I cannot yet find a Micro to Mini USB cable to allow me to dump A700 files to my phone yet. I also know of people who have rebuilt their bluetooth stacks to allow for wireless printing from portable printers with color management (HP and Canon 4X6's both have BT dongle options), remote PC control, even to have their devices act as WII video game controllers. Ever since the phones first started having cameras and internet connections, I thought it was only a matter of time before some company (or companies) got around to doing something more than just storing and viewing photos on pocket sized portable devices.

[mike2008]

As I mentioned above, I believe that there is no way that Nokia, Apple and Sony are collaborating on the mobile front. They are in direct competition. I don't know what will be announced, but I do not believe it has anything directly to do with mobile telephony.

[HUM469]

They are in competition, that is true, but it hasn't stopped them from all using the same Adobe Flash, JAVA (well I don't know if they I-Phone can use JAVA). It also hasn't stopped them from using the same CMOS camera modules, the same processors, and offering the same features even if they are implemented differently. As I said, it's my guess, but my guess is based on the only thing that these companies have in common together with the whole point point of Photokina. While mobile platforms are getting more and more open ended (except I-Phone), mobile image management/editing from Adobe would still take direct colaboration with the three operating system makers, possibly with special hardware too, and I can't see one opting to be left behind just because the others will have it. The I-Phone didn't say no thanks to an on-board camera simply because Nokia already had camera phones. Being fully aware of the fact that they are all competitors in most things, I can see nothing else that Nokia would be involved in that makes sense to announce at a photography convention, particularly since all the other major players are involved with a software maker. I would be interested to hear what others guess could possibly tie Nokia to Microsoft and Apple.

[Jonathan K]

Too bad, I planned to go on the 26th...
But who knows, I might reconsider. I could go on the 24th if my two colleagues can join me... We would drive there together.

Maybe some kind of live view via your phone?? Compose your picture on the phone screen and release the shutter by phone??
I can see the advertisements: "Trigger your camera anywhere in the world from anywhere in the world!!". Like no other...


Cheers Jonathan

[Greg Beetham]

I agree with you Dylan, when I saw DK's post I thought it's all very phone-ish and most likely image centric as well, Microsoft down through the ages are renowned for getting industry heavyweights assembled together for a cosy little co-operation on a new standard that's benificial too all, so I suspect that is what it is, (it's a wonder IBM isn't in there somewhere as well)
But the key here is the involvement of Microsoft I think, I'll bet they are heavily involved in the possible new standard whatever it is, compression, storage or transmission protocol who knows, and altuistically of course.
There is I think, a push for phone cameras with more ability from various sources, there are places in the world where it is dangerous too carry a camera, (the bad guys like to do their dirty work unexposed), unexposed get it, but who takes much notice of someone carrying a phone?
Also I can see the day when our camera (mounted remotely) has a phone no as well, for internet dial/remote control/download etc.
Greg

[Birma]

Mystery solved - thanks Sonalta.