61–70 of 76 posts
>Nikon tells PetaPixel that this is to evaluate potential market demand for similar products moving forward. Yes, evaluate market demand by making it more expensive and doing 0 marketing. /s Am I crazy in thinking that doing it this way is close to meaningless?
I understand it's probably because the GPS functionality is integrated into the same RF chipset that's handling wifi/bluetooth, but it would be possible to make a "no transmit capability" camera that still has GPS metadata functionality, with GPS receiver chip and an antenna tuned for 1400-1600 MHz, since ordinary consumer grade GPS is a receive-only technology. But that would still possibly present a problem for ser…
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But the short wires in a Nikon camera are not long enough to be a useful antenna. In fact, I doubt there's really anything one would consider a wire in a camera body. Everything is probably just traces on a PCB.
Am I missing something? Most IoT devices use trace antennae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstrip_antenna
You’re right that traces can emit and receive RF, hence why things like FCC limits and testing exist even for unintentional emitters, but even failing devices which greatly exceed the limits have traces which are many orders of magnitude worse at being antennas than a typical trace antenna.
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I don't think it's impossible. We aren't talking RTK here, you should be able to get a usable fix quickly. You also have some other advantages. For starters, the GPS coordinate doesn't need to be taken at the exact instant the photo is taken. If it takes a second to get the coordinate, that can be done in the background while the photographer continues to do their thing. Another advantage is that people never hold th…
> people never hold their cameras upside down I'm not to sure about that. I rarely keep my camera (close to) fully horizontal.
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I don't think it's impossible. We aren't talking RTK here, you should be able to get a usable fix quickly. You also have some other advantages. For starters, the GPS coordinate doesn't need to be taken at the exact instant the photo is taken. If it takes a second to get the coordinate, that can be done in the background while the photographer continues to do their thing. Another advantage is that people never hold th…
Getting a GPS fix from the satellites alone with no internet connection or stored data takes a few hours, not seconds. First you have to listen to the very slow data channel that tells you where the satellites are that takes a few hours to transmit the complete set before repeating.
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> people never hold their cameras upside down I'm not to sure about that. I rarely keep my camera (close to) fully horizontal.
Turning your camera upside down is an old trick to see over crowds, since the viewfinder is now at the bottom.
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>Can't have an antenna of any form in it. All wires are antennas...
But the short wires in a Nikon camera are not long enough to be a useful antenna. In fact, I doubt there's really anything one would consider a wire in a camera body. Everything is probably just traces on a PCB.
Anyone who's had to get newly developed hardware through EMI certification in recent times can tell you that it's quite easy to accidentally make PCB trace work as an antenna. Not necessarily a great antenna but enough to emit some random signal and fail certification. 3 GHz is 100mm in wavelength, and a quarter wavelength makes one of the simplest antennas… that's only 25mm. The whole story is much more complicated but the thing is that the scales are in range.
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The article also explains that retailers have had customers ask for this, which is why Nikon is trialing selling this through those channels instead of direct, as usual. You don't really have to market something like this. There is a VERY small subset of users that NEED this feature, and they will seek it out. The kind of user that wants this is not as price sensitive as a consumer. A few hundred extra dollars doesn'…
I won't claim to NEED the feature (I'm not a 3 letter agency or anything) but I'd like to have it on general principle, and I'd pay extra for it, though probably not $400 extra. This never gets old: https://biggaybunny.tumblr.com/post/166787080920/tech-enthus... Will someone really pay me $1000 to remove the camera module from an 2020 iPhone SE? Are there some huge obstacles to that? I've disassembled the 2016 model…
These devices are sold to large institutions. If I need to give 30 employees at, say, a nuclear plant phones without cameras that they can take near classified/confidential equipment, I don't want a guy with a drill, I need a company that can provide 30 phones, a regular supply of replacements and a trustable piece of paper for the security auditors saying these devices are compliant. I need a phone that our security can glance at and know that it is ok. A phone with a drilled out camera is not the same as a phone with no camera for these purposes.
If I need to take photos inside that plant, and make sure that the photos will not be exfiltrated without going through a security audit, I need that camera.
At the scale that these institutions operate paying an extra $1k for a phone or camera that has security compliance outsourced is a no-brainer. Your sourcing team will spend more money investigating if the DIY route is possible than they will just buying from a trustable vendor.
>Nikon tells PetaPixel that this is to evaluate potential market demand for similar products moving forward. Yes, evaluate market demand by making it more expensive and doing 0 marketing. /s Am I crazy in thinking that doing it this way is close to meaningless?
The article also explains that retailers have had customers ask for this, which is why Nikon is trialing selling this through those channels instead of direct, as usual. You don't really have to market something like this. There is a VERY small subset of users that NEED this feature, and they will seek it out. The kind of user that wants this is not as price sensitive as a consumer. A few hundred extra dollars doesn'…
I don't know how you can say with confidence that a few hundred dollars and not marketing this wouldn't have an effect on sales.
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The original iPod shuffle was essentially a USB stick with an audio port and some buttons, and I used it in just the same way as this. I think it was only £20 or £30 in price, a great product.
The original Shuffle really was excellent. Amazing audio quality for the time, about as much UI as you needed for a day or two's music, good battery life, and a configurable amount of file storage space if you needed it. And it even managed to look a sort of abstract cool. Really pure product design.