Well, this is a damning indictment of our society. In a relatively short stretch of time, we’ve gone from wearing cameras to record cool action-sports stunts, to wearing cameras for security purposes. The PhoneCam, by Dutch product design and development company SlimDesign, is billed as “a breakthrough solution for individuals and businesses seeking accessibility to safety.”
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As a jaded American I can see certain situations where this might be useful, but I find the thinking behind the PhoneCam’s UI to be naïve. The idea is that you press the button once to put the camera in standby mode, which illuminates the white racetrack-shaped light. This is meant to notify whoever’s facing you that they’re about to be recorded.
Pressing it a second time turns the light red, at which point it begins recording, uploading footage to the cloud, and simultaneously sends a request for help to your nearby contacts, along with your location. In other words it goes straight to Call the Cavalry.
This all perhaps makes sense for European mores, but I just can’t see this going well in the ‘States. We’ve got a combination of trigger-happy vigilantes, a tendency to needlessly escalate conflicts and, as you can see on any “viral videos” website, people who have no problem behaving badly even if they know they’re being filmed.
That aside, the PhoneCam apparently is coming to market; it’s set to debut at CES next week.
Here’s how it works:
Source: core77