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CNN Live Today

The "Negatives" of Camera Phones

Aired October 22, 2003 - 11:48   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: By now you've seen these cell phones. They can take and transmit pictures. You might even have one. Sounds like a good idea, but reality is proving to be a bit more of a problem.
Speaking of problems, our technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg is joining us with the negatives about picture phones.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: At least the concerns, Daryn. We're talking about these cameras and PDAs that have cell phones in them. Millions have these digital cameras. Makes it easy to take a picture seriptiously without people knowing when you're out in the public.

That's where the concerns are. There are privacy concerns. You could be in a locker room, in a party. You could be somewhere where someone doesn't want their picture taken. We're going beyond just having a bad hair day. People may not...

KAGAN: Which is bad enough.

SIEBERG: Which is bad enough. Not your flattering side. You may just not want to have your picture taken at all. So there are concerns here that may make some laws put into place where these cameras are banned in certain places or if someone is taking a picture, you are aware so there's a sound, so you know a person has just take a picture of you.

KAGAN: Well like this one, if I take a picture of you right now, I thought this was fun. Smile. I'm going to do it close to my microphone so people can hear it. You can hear the shutter sound.

SIEBERG: Right, the shutter sound. But the thing right now with a lot of these cameras is it's very easy to disable that and turn it off. It's so easy that I took this picture earlier of you where you may not have heard me take the picture. We have one that I took even earlier in the day. There it is. We spent the morning trying to take pictures of you seriptiously.

And it was harder than we thought it would be. You do have to hold the phone up in front of you. The lens is on the front here. You may not be able to get a great shot. Lot of cameras don't have a flash or zoom. The resolution isn't always that great.

(CROSSTALK) SIEBERG: We do have another example, if we cn show people, of Jen Marnozski (ph), the executive producer. I was wandering around the control room earlier. And usually I'm not in there. In this case I was in there. There's the control room.

KAGAN: Probably yelling at me, wrap up that interview.

(CROSSTALK)

SIEBERG: There we are. She's working away.

You have to be rather subtle about it. It's not something where you can hold it up into someone's face. This is meant to share with your family and friends. There's lots of good things. There are positives as well but some privacy concerns.

KAGAN: On the privacy thing, that gets my attention, if you see a big thing, you can tell it has a screen. How you tell which ones have cameras and which don't?

SIEBERG: Well you can't really. Certainly not to the average person just looking at it. It's not going to seem all that obvious. If it has a camera, the front of it will have a lens. There's somebody maybe taking a picture of it. If they're holding it up they may be taking a picture.

Again it's people becoming aware of those motions. Seeing people hold it up. Knowing they could be taking a picture of me and I may not want them to.

KAGAN: So here we are, one way to teach people good cell phone etiquette.

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: Now there will be a whole other chapter. When to photo and when not to photo. Daniel, thank you.

SIEBERG: All right.

KAGAN: And kill those pictures out, OK?

SIEBERG: For a fee.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired October 22, 2003 - 11:48   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: By now you've seen these cell phones. They can take and transmit pictures. You might even have one. Sounds like a good idea, but reality is proving to be a bit more of a problem.
Speaking of problems, our technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg is joining us with the negatives about picture phones.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: At least the concerns, Daryn. We're talking about these cameras and PDAs that have cell phones in them. Millions have these digital cameras. Makes it easy to take a picture seriptiously without people knowing when you're out in the public.

That's where the concerns are. There are privacy concerns. You could be in a locker room, in a party. You could be somewhere where someone doesn't want their picture taken. We're going beyond just having a bad hair day. People may not...

KAGAN: Which is bad enough.

SIEBERG: Which is bad enough. Not your flattering side. You may just not want to have your picture taken at all. So there are concerns here that may make some laws put into place where these cameras are banned in certain places or if someone is taking a picture, you are aware so there's a sound, so you know a person has just take a picture of you.

KAGAN: Well like this one, if I take a picture of you right now, I thought this was fun. Smile. I'm going to do it close to my microphone so people can hear it. You can hear the shutter sound.

SIEBERG: Right, the shutter sound. But the thing right now with a lot of these cameras is it's very easy to disable that and turn it off. It's so easy that I took this picture earlier of you where you may not have heard me take the picture. We have one that I took even earlier in the day. There it is. We spent the morning trying to take pictures of you seriptiously.

And it was harder than we thought it would be. You do have to hold the phone up in front of you. The lens is on the front here. You may not be able to get a great shot. Lot of cameras don't have a flash or zoom. The resolution isn't always that great.

(CROSSTALK) SIEBERG: We do have another example, if we cn show people, of Jen Marnozski (ph), the executive producer. I was wandering around the control room earlier. And usually I'm not in there. In this case I was in there. There's the control room.

KAGAN: Probably yelling at me, wrap up that interview.

(CROSSTALK)

SIEBERG: There we are. She's working away.

You have to be rather subtle about it. It's not something where you can hold it up into someone's face. This is meant to share with your family and friends. There's lots of good things. There are positives as well but some privacy concerns.

KAGAN: On the privacy thing, that gets my attention, if you see a big thing, you can tell it has a screen. How you tell which ones have cameras and which don't?

SIEBERG: Well you can't really. Certainly not to the average person just looking at it. It's not going to seem all that obvious. If it has a camera, the front of it will have a lens. There's somebody maybe taking a picture of it. If they're holding it up they may be taking a picture.

Again it's people becoming aware of those motions. Seeing people hold it up. Knowing they could be taking a picture of me and I may not want them to.

KAGAN: So here we are, one way to teach people good cell phone etiquette.

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: Now there will be a whole other chapter. When to photo and when not to photo. Daniel, thank you.

SIEBERG: All right.

KAGAN: And kill those pictures out, OK?

SIEBERG: For a fee.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com