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Mike Antoniak is a freelance journalist, who writes frequently on technology.
For More Info: To learn more about wireless phones and PDAs, visit the Communications/Wireless Technology Advisor. (For REALTOR.org subscribers.)
More Resources
Connectivity: Phase II , Michael Antoniak, June 2001.
How to Plug in to Wireless Technology , Michael Antoniak, September 2001.
Testing the Waters for Wireless , Michael Antoniak, June 2002.
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It's a Phone; No, It's a Camera
AT&T Wireless launches a solution for taking and sending pictures from a cell phone.
REPORTED BY MICHAEL ANTONIAK
Think you’ve seen it all in cellular communications?
How about a camera that clips onto your cell and lets you snap, store or send color photos with the phone?
That’s the latest option from AT&T Wireless for subscribers of its mMode" /> data service. With mMode Pix, subscribers can capture color images with a digital camera module, view them on the phone’s color LCD screen, save them to memory in the phone or camera, or send them as an attachment to a wireless e-mail. All in the field, all with the phone.
It’s the kind of convenience that should draw the interest of real estate practitioners who spend most of their day out of the office and don’t want to wait until they get back to base to get the photos ready for the latest listing or send those special home shots to an eager buyer. The mini-camera module is smaller than a traditional digital camera, meaning you’ll have less to carry as you move about.
The combination of the cell phone, camera, and support service are the latest example of the trend in both cell phones and PDAs toward an all in one multi-purpose device. AT&T is the first provider to offer this service option in the U.S., and at this point mMode Pix is only offered in 25 major markets. The company expects to make mMode Pix available in at least 100 markets by year’s end and to eventually make it a standard option throughout its coverage area. By then, other suppliers should be offering something comparable, although nothing definitive has yet been announced. In Europe, however, other “smart phone” phones/PDAs with camera functions are already in use.
To use the AT&T service, you must subscribe to one of the company’s wireless voice calling plans (prices vary widely) and to its mMode mobile Web service. The base price for mMode is $2.99 a month, plus usage fees based on the amount of data transferred with the service. Early adopters of mMode Pix are currently limited in their choice of phones. You’ll need the Sony Ericsson T68i phone, currently retailing for $199 and the $130 MCA-20 optional digital camera module to use the service. The phone can store both calendar and contact information and features voice-activated dialing and recording capabilities for voice memos you dictate to yourself.
To capture a digital photo image, just snap on the camera module and frame the picture using the phone’s color LCD screen as an electronic viewfinder. Images can be captured in any of four picture sizes and can be saved to the camera or phone’s internal memory. All images captured with the camera are stored as JPEG files. Depending on the size of images, there’s enough memory to store between 14 and 200 pictures.
Once captured, the JPEG files can be attached to e-mail messages transmitted from the phone over the mMode service. The phone has built-in infrared and Bluetooth transfer capabilities, allowing wireless transfer of images to other phones, PDAs, or laptops with compatible features. Since those images are captured as JPEGs, they are adequate for posting on your Web site or viewing on a computer screen , but not for making quality color prints. The real value to mMode Pix is in the convenience it introduces into the capturing and sharing of digital images.
If you’re in one of the hot markets where mMode Pix is available and you rely on email for keeping buyers up to date on the latest listings, it’s a new option you may want to employ for a competitive edge. | |
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