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A camera phone is a mobile phone which has a camera built in. Philippe Kahn invented the camera phone in June 1997. The first commercial camera phone was the J-SH04, made by Sharp Corporation and marketed by J-Phone (Vodafone) in Japan in November 2000.
The cameras typically use CMOS image sensors. This is due largely to reduced power consumption compared to CCD type cameras, which are also used. The lower power consumption prevents the camera from quickly depleting the phone's battery.
Major manufacturers include Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, and LG Electronics. As of 2006, the resolution is typically in the megapixel range. Samsung Electronics, as of 2006, has an 8.0 megapixel camera phone, the WCDMA SPH-V8200.
Social impact
As a network-connected device, megapixel camera phones are starting to play significant roles such as crime prevention, journalism and business applications as well as individual uses. On the other hand, they are prone to abuse such as voyeurism, invasion of privacy, and copyright infringement.
Some organizations and places have started to ban camera phones because of the privacy and security issues they raise. Such places include the Pentagon, schools, or local fitness clubs. One country, Saudi Arabia, banned the sale of camera phones nationwide for a time before reallowing their sale in 2004 (although pilgrims on the Hajj were allowed to bring in camera phones). In South Korea and Japan, all camera phones sold in the country have to make a clearly audible sound whenever a picture is taken. In Singapore camera phones are banned at companies or facilities that have an association with national security. In Europe, some BDSM conventions and play parties ban cellphones altogether to prevent of camera phone abuse.
Camera equipped mobile phones have been linked to industrial espionage and paparazzi activity. During much of 2004, a black hat hacker named Nicolas Jacobsen had illegal access to the backbone of T-Online USA mobile network. Besides stealing classified US Secret Service documents and selling them on IRC, he amused himself and friends by finding out celebrity phone numbers (including that of Paris Hilton, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher). Then he siphoned off recently made photos from their handsets and circulated some of the pictures.
Camera phones have also been used to discreetly take photographs in museums, performance halls, and other places where photography is prohibited.
Some newer camera phones are also videophones, and can transmit videos and videocalls. Camera phone video and photographs taken in the immediate aftermath of the 2005 London bombings was featured worldwide. CNN executive Jonathan Klein predicts camera phone footage will be increasingly used by news organizations.
History
The Camera Phone was invented on June 11, 1997, by Philippe Kahn when his daughter Sophie was born.Parks Kahn integrated a miniature camera into a Motorola cell phone and, as his wife Sonia Lee Kahn was in labor, broadcast pictures of the newborn baby around the world. The camera phone became the founding vision for LightSurf Technologies, now owned by Verisign. In Japan the first camera phones were developed for working professionals who wanted to keep an image of their children with them wherever they went and as they worked. The user interface was designed to be simple so that novices and children could also use the feature. The designers felt it was important to have the child's photograph displayed on the cellphone as accurately as possible.
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See also
"Camera phone"