Philips Demos Keychain-sized Camcorder

mateub writes "Philips gave PC Magazine an exclusive demo of the KEY019 USB camera/camcorder etc. Sez PCMag: 'You can use the 128MB of internal memory for 2.0-megapixel still shots, digital video, MP3 files, and document storage.' How long before we read the first story of some, um, inappropriate footage captured with one of these?"

how much video can the camera hold?

[tsunamifirestorm]

128Megs doesnt seem like much. or if it is, the video is probably lo-fi

Already happened.

[domodude]

This sure does top the JB1 camera that ThinkGeek sells.

As per the "choice" footage and pictures, this has already happened with the new camera phones. Mobileasses.com or something to that order.

Re:how much video can the camera hold?

[Anarcho-Goth]

I wonder if they could make it 2-3 times as big, which would still be pocket sized, and hold 10 times as much memory?

And does the sound record in stereo?
At that size two microphones would probably be too close together to make much of a difference.
It would still be great for recording concerts.

And how much do these things cost?

I wouldn't worry

[Mia'cova]

Cameras are getting smaller and smaller anyways. I don't know what advantage having it on your keychain does for any kind of voyeurism. Just turn on your TV and you'll bump into one of those hidden-camera comedy shows. How long before we're getting all of those in HDTV? It's really not hard to film without being noticed.

We all just have to get used to it. We're going to be recorded everywhere we go in public and our friends are going to get thousands of horrible photos of us.

I just have a regular 3 megapixel camera and already have something like 10,000 photos saved. My friends have cameras too and take just as many photos. I know there must be bad / 'compromising' (lol) photos of me I haven't seen but really it's no big deal. We all just finally need to get used to it and stop being so fricken camera shy!

Smile :)

Inappropriate?

[colinramsay]

See, the thing I always wonder when people bring up this topic is this - the technology to record people without their permission has been here for a while. Be it photographic, video, or audio, there have been accessible means to invade someone's privacy for quite a number of years.

What devices like this represent are a proliferation of this technology. And the uses to which it is put is not a problem of the technology, it's a problem of society.

But what?

[baudilus]

2 megapixels is sufficient for most applications. Remember, the digital camera on the Mars Rover is only 1 megapixel. If you need to take higher quality picture / movies, buy a higher quality piece of hardware. Something tells me that the truly useful applications for this type of device (e.g. clandestine) do not cry out for super-high quality photos.

It's also good for getting that quick shot of your buddy spewing chunks because who carries around a big digital camera everywhere they go? This you can keep with you at all times.

Re:how much video can the camera hold?

[stienman]

MPEG4. They recorded at least 20 minutes of it. Since they didn't mention quality, and they stressed (repeatedly) that it doesn't replace current camcorders then we can safely assume that the image quality is, at best, standard tv quality. Still, that's much better than the old CIF stuff most digital cameras do, and the convenience factor (carry it everywhere, whip it out at a moment's notice) is worth it for some people.

I expect low-budget proctology offices everywhere buying them in droves... Hope you've got good healthcare.

-Adam

Why must..

[dj245]

Why must companies create these silly devices that they call "camcorders" that really have little or no storage space to speak of? It isn't a proper camcorder, it is a gimmick. 128mb of space is not a lot of space. Not only that but the firmware of the thing means you don't get the whole 128mb. Add in a lossy (lousy?) mpeg codec, and you'll be lucky to get five minutes at any kind of watchable quality. I hope people don't actually buy these things expecting a halfway decent recording device. The image sensor must be terrible (being so small and cheap) Good thing its a camera too, because its a pathetic camcorder.

I hope we don't see more of these things in the future. Do these companies have focus groups? What focus group with any sanity decided they wanted a camcorder with 5 or so minutes of storage? More likely they wanted a camera that could record a video (maybe) but that isn't the way this thing is being marketed. Just because you can easilly and cheaply add features to existing products doesn't mean you have to promote them and market them as primary functions. (Camera phones anyone?)

Re:Great But...

[winsk]

This is great and all but who wants 2 megapixel anything? Camera phones, this device are create for getting quick shots, but honestly do you want to archive them? They simply don't look good, because the color is off, usually they're fuzzy etc...

2 megapixels is perfectly fine unless you want to make large prints. The color being off, or the picture being fuzzy has more to do with the quality of the optics, the CCDs, etc.

Re:how much video can the camera hold?

[SmackCrackandPot]

For comparison, one of the latest digital cameras can record colour video with sound, but there usually is a maximum video clip limit size of 8 Mbytes (or around 60 seconds), and the resolution is limited to 320x200 during this time. And it takes around 30 seconds to compress the video. So maybe this video camera could store around 10 minutes of video with video at 320x200.

Re:Great But...

[odie_q]

5 megapixels is overkill for a lot of applications. For ordinary 15cm (~6") photo paper printouts of vacation photos, 3 Mpixels is enough. For web use I'd say 1Mpixel is plenty good enough.

Bad quality is more often due to crappy lenses and ultra-low quality CCD's than low resolution. If a 2Mpixel CCD is cheaper than an equivalent 4Mpixel one, it has a place in the market.

Re:I wouldn't worry

[oberondarksoul]

I'm not entirely sure it'll be too easy to not be 'camera shy' with the knowledge that the Powers That Be could very easily be on the other end of those cameras, being the ones who record us "everywhere we go in public". I, for one, wouldn't be too comfortable with that.

Oh Great

[esac17]

Does that mean we won't be able to have our keys out in the gym anymore? Last night my fiancée called me as I was dressing and the locker room attendant politely asked me to put my cell phone away because people were afraid of getting their pictures taken with the camera phones. Now will there be a reason to limit, if not to start searching our bags everywhere we go.

Keep governments on their toes

[t_allardyce]

Ok i know the world needs more food and medicine than anything else but we should send loads of these things to countries like china, iraq, america & cuba etc where there are oppressive regiemes in oparation, they could be used to capture countless numbers of human rights atrocities! Yes i know they're all made in china.

Re:Why must..

[aussersterne]

25 minutes of MPEG-4 is what they claim on the Web site. That's not bad. I personally think any more than ten minutes of home video at any particular event begins to enter boring city. I certainly don't want to see a full two hours of little Jimmy's birthday or even Our Excellent Spring Break. A few minutes of footage is all that's required to get the gist of most events.

Re:Why must..

[Frennzy]

I think it's more of a 'because we can' attitude. I am actually quite pleased with convergence in data storage devices...the video is just another input.

I DON'T like the fact that I had to buy a 'camera phone' to get the other phone features I wanted.

However, this would be a real handy gadget to have. (And it's just that...a gadget...+1 Karma to whomever can identify the origin of that word...specifically, whose name it came from and what they are most famous (in the US) for...no googling, you cheaters).

As a cheap and easy way to move over a hundred megs of data from place to place, I like it. The fact that if you happened to see something noteworthy, like, say, a hostage situation or a plane going down and you could just pull out your keys and record it (in poor quality, yes) for posterity, is just a bonus.

Plus, if it gets people interested in buying technology again, so much the better. We need tech jobs growth (in all sectors)

Come to think of it, I have a great idea for this...do new video projectors have USB inputs and file translation capabililites? If they don't, they soon will. Now those marketing droids won't need laptops...they can put together their PowerPoint presentations and them load them onto their keyring, and just jack that into the projector.

This is a nice idea for novelty use and the like..

[phaetonic]

but for the people who sport tin foil, realize that certain government agencies have had much better mini video cameras for quiet a while...

Sort of like Mind Reading

[serutan]

One of the topics that came up late one night in college was what life would be like if everybody was highly telepathic. You would have little if any privacy, and it would be impossible to lie to anybody. So politics and personal relationships would be radically different from what they are. It strikes me that the potential to be recorded in detail at any time might have a big impact on society. People could carry these things around to cover their asses or gather blackmail material. Crooked politicians would be unable to trust anybody, which might be a good thing. In fact, the degree to which our lawmakers freak out about this particular technology being in the public's hands is probably a good indicator of how dirty they are.

How long until

[ErichTheWebGuy]

How long before we read the first story of some, um, inappropriate footage captured with one of these?

No, the real question is, "How long until I don't get to carry around my keychain flash drive because someone thinks it's a camera?"