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Rumor: Front Facing Cameras on BlackBerrys Next Year? I Could Care Less…

by Ronen Halevy on Aug 3rd, 2009 at 12:58 am EST
17 Comments »
 

videocalling The latest new rumor to hit the web courtesy of TinyComb is that next years BlackBerrys may have videoconferencing front facing cameras. Personally I think there is a reason that video conferencing has not taken off especially on mobile phones. Who wants to look up your nose while you are talking to them and I cannot really think of any situation where it would really be necessary. The only exception is when you are away from family and just want to see their faces. Just imagine your boss being able to tell you just woke up when you call in sick…

Jason Wilk of TinyComb supposedly spoke to an unnamed RIM executive and found that:

  • RIM admits that the App World is not a “rocket success” (anybody surprised)
  • The exec says that they are not worried about the iPhone having video conferencing since they also have something in the works
  • They also said “video conferencing is something that could completely change the mobile landscape and it is something we have been thinking about and working on for quite some time. You will start seeing something early next year”.

There is a pretty good argument on the Nokia conversations blog about why video calling is just a bad idea. At least for the time being.

Thanks to everybody who sent this one in!

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2009 and is filed under News.
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17 Comments to “Rumor: Front Facing Cameras on BlackBerrys Next Year? I Could Care Less…”

  1. Posted by: Sean
    August 3, 2009 at 1:31 am EST

    I’ll tell you what RIM needs to implement into 5.0 is Text re-flow in the browser. That should be a top priority. Whenever you zoom in far enough to make the sentences big enough to read, the sentences get cut off and you have to scroll left and right. Even Column view isn’t quite big enough. Think about zooming in to make the words nice and big and the text automatically re-flows to the size of the screen. That would improve blackberry’s browser 100%. My eyes start to kill me after a little browsing and its awkward trying to scroll around to read sentences.

  2. Posted by: Brandon
    August 3, 2009 at 3:10 am EST

    I completely agree. Video conferencing in the mobile world has been handily taken care of by things we like to call Picture and Video Messaging. Something to which the iPhone is very new to. If anything, I’d want RIM to remove or increase the download and upload size limits when sending an email/MMS.

  3. Posted by: Amir Saad
    August 3, 2009 at 4:00 am EST

    Thinking about being seen everytime I make a call makes me sick…
    What if I don’t want to be seen? would it sound RUDE to reject video calls?
    Would it be strange to block all video calls? am I hiding something?
    Video calling doesn’t sound right to me at this point in time.
    Maybe in the future, but not today….

  4. Posted by: todd male
    August 3, 2009 at 7:20 am EST

    I think this has a place in the future, just not immediate future. Oh and +1 on the ridiculous download/upload limits. We’re close to 2010, 2.9mb is rather small.

  5. Posted by: DavidB
    August 3, 2009 at 7:34 am EST

    So everyone has to buy an adjustable stand for their ‘berry, or like you said they’ll be looking up your nose! Lol!
    I am sure if it was built in, RIM would give ability to enable and disable on a per call basis. Some sort of popup when a call comes in to allow answering as video+voice, voice only, or “ignore call”.
    They’d have to. Either that or no call is answered with video on and you have to enable it on a per call basis from the menu.

  6. Posted by: Ronen Halevy
    August 3, 2009 at 7:55 am EST

    I actually saw a place it might be useful for yesterday. Weddings and birthdays. Say you have a family member who can’t make it and you want to stream it for them…
    Though you could easily video tape it and email or ftp it for free…

  7. Posted by: vhato
    August 3, 2009 at 8:27 am EST

    In the world i work in, this July was a big let down. Rumors around the web stating Apple was bring a front facing camera had our entire Judicial System eager to drop their Blackberrys and get on the iPhone bandwagon.

    Instead of watching your neighbors deal drugs because it takes too long for police to get a warrant to kick down the door, video conferencing would allow that officer to be sworn in and the entire process archived and the warrant approved electronically (which we pushed along in the Legislature this year in La…the only state in the nation). Immediate arrest made instead of the possible 4 hour process of tracking down a judge.

    Judges could then use their cell phone to do the attorney appointment from anywhere once the arrest was made, instead of dragging a laptop and waiting for it too boot. He could be in a meeting, excuse himself into a corner, and bam done. Instead of a 3 year Judicial Process from arrest to conviction to can substantially cut that, reduce prison overcrowding giving us room for the worst offenders and convict criminals faster. Saving tax payers money.

    During a hurricane our troops on the street can both actively deal with the storm aftermath while being part of our daily meetings and allowing us to see LIVE what is happening and make better, more accurate decisions. These decisions save lives and allows life to return to our citizens faster.

    Our vendor http://www.vidatainc.com already updated their apps to support our needs. We just need manufacturers to support them. Kudos to RIM for being the first to finally give us what we need.

    And yall are only interested in looking at boogers and nose hairs. Maybe a Motorola Razor is better suited for your jobs. ha ha ha

  8. Posted by: cj100570
    August 3, 2009 at 3:36 pm EST

    The correct terminology is “I couldn’t care less.”

  9. Posted by: Ronen Halevy
    August 3, 2009 at 3:51 pm EST

    @CJ
    I sometimes get caught into the new york yiddish style slang. More of a sarcastic spin but sarcasm does not translate… In short I should be so lucky to remember not to write “I could care less” :)

  10. Posted by: Bob
    August 3, 2009 at 4:20 pm EST

    App World is not rocket success because its lousy. The most sluggish app I’ve ever used. It would take a day to browse.

  11. Posted by: Ronen Halevy
    August 3, 2009 at 4:33 pm EST

    Yeah they need to put the developers that made the Google Talk and new BBIM app on the App World

  12. Posted by: papped
    August 3, 2009 at 6:08 pm EST

    Front facing isn’t a necessity for most, but it would be an addition that would put them on par with other phones that already have it (and any video calling uses it obviously).

    I don’t really think it’s a negative thing though, so …