Removing Cameras from Phones a Futile Gesture

"Sprint has announced that it will start selling camera-less Treo 600 smart phones from PalmOne, the Milpitas maker of the popular handheld devices. Why? To satisfy customers fearful of corporate espionage inside their businesses.

I suppose it's always better to sell what the customer wants. But I have bad news for Sprint's worried customers: This won't help much, because the pace of technology means cameras will soon disappear from view, embedded in clothing and eyeglasses, not just phones.

Sprint's move highlights one more set of issues we have to confront in a world of digital information. Whether we're talking about photos or videos or documents or just about anything else that can be converted into zeroes and ones, we're entering a changed world.

Tiny, even microscopic, cameras, deployed ubiquitously, should worry us in any number of ways. Individuals will lose even more of their privacy. Companies will find it difficult to maintain traditional notions of trade secrets. And governments will confront a world in which, to some extent, people will spy on the official snoops, not just the other way around.

Technology has already led to some of these changes in what for the most part are relatively small ways compared with what's coming.

How can we respond appropriately?..." [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

Treo 600: Schneider's Review

"The Treo has already changed my life, and largely for the better. I have checked an airline's Web site en route to the airport, pulled news headlines while waiting to buy groceries, checked e-mail while walking down the street, and dialed dozens of phone numbers from my Palm Contacts list using three clicks from the tip of one thumb." [Free Range Librarian]

Library Service

"Often I hear the mantra that libraries should be more like businesses. While it is true that we can learn things from the public sector, they have much to learn from us. I wish my local Blockbuster worked as well as my local library. I wanted a DVD that was out. At the library I'd just place it on hold. I could have checked the status from home and have placed the hold from there. I had to go to the store to find it was out and then discover they have no method of placing me on a waiting list for the item. It is simply up to luck. I asked about another video and found it was only available for sale, not rent. There was no alternative. My local library can get any item via ILL. Blockbuster should be looking at how libraries operate for some ideas." [Catalogablog]