This, from CNET, sounds like a potentially good thing for privacy and a potentially bad thing for photojournalists:
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have come up with an inexpensive way to prevent digital cameras and digital video cameras from capturing that secret shot.
The technology they’ve devised detects the presence of a digital camera up to 33 feet away and can then shoot a targeted beam of light at the lens, according to Shwetak Patel, a grad student at the university and one of the lead researchers on the project.
~snip~
The Georgia Tech researchers aren’t alone in their pursuit. Tech giant Hewlett-Packard, for one, has applied for a patent on technology that could remotely cause blurry pictures in digital cameras, but it requires putting additional circuitry inside the camera.
The most obvious use is to “disable” cellphone cameras that are being used surreptiously at private meetings, during business tours, in stores, etc., but it’s not hard to imagine small devices that could interfere with security cameras, stop paparazzi and even control photo ops.
TAGS: TECHNOLOGY, PHOTOJOURNALISM
[...] Notes from a Teacher, this little development in the War On Photography, as reported by CNET: Researchers at the Georgia [...]
Camera-zapping could be next blue-light special
Via Notes from a Teacher, this little development in the War On Photography, as reported by CNET:
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have come up with an inexpensive way to prevent digital cameras and digital video cameras from captu…
Or prevent photography inside, say, stores or restaurants.
Back in the days when our dog was our substitute child — and his life was documented meticulously, photographically and obsessively by his neurotic humans — we took him with us to a local Petcetera while we shopped for various items.
Naturally, we took pictures… until an employee gently but firmly whacked us on the nose with a rolled-up paper and informed us that photography in the store was forbidden.
Since then, I’ve seen more and more signs in stores — especially large chains — banning photography. The goal, apparently, is to prevent the theft of “retail concepts” and the unauthorized reproduction of their branding. (Will Pate discovered this when he had coffee and a camera at a McDonald’s McCafe.)