Sprint PCS will be the first cellular operator in the United States to introduce a two megapixel camera phone, according to an article in PC Magazine. (Check out more information and lots of photos from Engadget.)
The phone will be the Samsung SPH-A800 slider-type handset. The handset includes a 320 x 240 display, a removable TransFlash memory card (typically, TransFlash cards have been designed as semi-permanent storage, often under the battery -- not for easy access like SD and Compact Flash Cards), a flash and "business card scanning."
Perhaps TransFlash will be easier to use. From Camera Phone Zone I see that Motorola's V635 EDGE camera phone incorporates TransFlash and enables users to access the storage via a USB cable from computer.
More to come
CNET says about the business card scanning -- "which we find as strange as you do." I don't find it strange! A variety of efforts are underway to offer scanning capabilities in camera phones, including the ability to scan business cards.
This year you'll read much more about camera phone scanning software and related applications. On that subject...from "Camera Phone Zone" I found an article in Graphics IQ about scientists at Xerox Research Centre Europe developing software for camera phone document scanning and other applications.
The article says, "Xerox's patented mobile document imaging software enables camera phones to better manage the poor lighting, image distortion, and other challenges associated with processing images captured by digital cameras in hostile environments."
More Samsung phones
Samsung is introducing many more phones, including one megapixel camera phones and CDMA 1xEV-DO-capable phones. Verizon Wireless now offers a semi-nationwide 1xEV-DO network.
Sprint is busy installing 1xEV-DO across the country so look for a big push later this year. Once you've used 1xEV-DO -- with download speeds of, oh, 200K bps - 400K bps (real world) -- you won't want to go back to CDMA 1xRTT (with download speeds of about 40K bps - 60K bps).
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