Blame Sony for enabling your facebook-obsessed friends with the Cybershot DSC G3—the world’s first camera that can log on to the net.
The slim, 10 megapixel camera wirelessly connects to any public hotspot, including hotels, restaurants, coffee shops and airports. Ahh, the camera has come a long, long way since the days of pin-hole boxes. Like a computer, the camera can connect to free or fee-based hotspots, as well as to secure and unsecured access points. The new DSC-G3 model comes with complimentary AT&T Wi-Fi access to Sony’s Easy Upload Home Page until Jan. 31, 2012. It includes Wi-Fi access at thousands of AT&T hotspots across the United States.
You won’t quite be checking the news or shopping for pants on this camera’s internet. It’s set up primarily so you can upload photos to popular sites like picasa, facebook, shutterfly, photobucket, ect.
Our favorite feature is that you can now share photos you’ve previously posted on the net through the camera’s 3.5-inch, high resolution (higher than most, actually) LCD screen. (Finally, you can erase your memory cards and still share photos!) But hark! The G3 already comes with 4GB of built in memory - so you can also choose to store thousands of photos right there, on your camera.
The camera also supports DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) guidelines. By connecting to such DLNA-compatible televisions and monitors, photos in the camera can be played back with high-definition quality.
And as far as the camera’s actual picture taking capabilities? Top tier. Its got a 4X optical zoom Carl Zeiss® Vario-Tessar lens, intelligent scene recognition, face detection, anti-blink functions (it automatically takes 2 photos and then determines which one is better), dynamic range optimizer (determines best exposure and contrast settings), and our favorite, for those times when you just don’t want a flash, it has an anti-blur feature.
Our only question to Sony is why stop there? Why not just throw a phone feature in for good measure?
Anyway, the good news is that it is already for sale. The bad news is that it’s $500.
January 15th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
First? Maybe not… read on:
http://tech.brianwestbrook.com/2009/01/worlds-first-wifi-camera-err-not-so.html
January 15th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
The cybershot isn’t the first with the ability to utilize wifi, but it is the first to come fully equipped with a user friendly and intuitive web browser. Praise the masses! ; ]