The Future of Digital Cameras?
I was just reading stuff on slashdot.org and ran into this article:
Pixel counting joins film in obsolete binIt is an interesting read for those of you that are interested in taking pictures. As for me, I like to take pictures of anything and almost everything. Pictures are important to me, since they represent my past and memories. In this age of technology, if you aren't taking advantage of digital cameras, you are really going to be left with less memories that other people.
Some of the things that interest me the most about the article is the battery life using hydrogren fuel cells to power the camera. In actual fact, they even have ways to extract energy from your urine or just water from the tap, very weird. Since hydrogren is everywhere, this is definitely a good way to go.
For me, screen size after 2.5" is really not needed, since a large screen really eats up on batteries. At the same time, increasing the resolution of the screen on the camera is definitely not necessary because the more pixels you are outputting to the screen, the more processing is needed (waste of battery).
The better addition though in recent cameras is the touch screen. I for sure know one thing that would really be a great innovation especially in Asia is to include software on the camera that allows you to maniuplate the photos right from you camera with the touch screen. Asians just love making pictures cute or funny in anyway. Remember those cards or sticker pictures that you pay $5+ for in Metrotown or in Richmond? Well, it would not be difficult to place the same type of software into a camera seeing that such software doesn't require a lot of processing power, since it is just adding clips art on top of the original picture.
For those people that want to edit their photos for red eye or lighting can do it right away, however, at the cost of more processing power needed. Sharpening or actual modifcations to the original picture that requires the changing of colours is quite expensive on the processing. But this would definitely be a good innovation that goes along with the previous Asian cute drawing software addition to a camera.
Another addition to on camera picture editing that would be great would be the ability to supply comments to the picture right away so you don't have to think again later. There could be two options:
- Speak into the Microphone of the camera and the camera will translate the voice into text that can be placed as part of the picture's metadata with the date
- Use the touch screen to type in the comment right away
One more final thing that I think would be a big hit is the ability to have fun pictures. This camera might have the idea:
Kodak's V570 camera. Think about putting several lenses onto one camera so that you can use each in a slightly different fashion to obtain a fun picture. Sam (my roomate) has a camera that has 8 lenses on it, it is quite good and fun too. Its not super hip now, but I can see its potential especially for people that are interested in taking film like shots.
That is it for cameras of the future. If you think of other types of innovations, just leave a comment.
New Fido agreement - crappy retention plan but good price on phone
So this goes along with the post from yesterday.
Believing that there be someone else at Fido to try to bug for more was partially wrong. I was right about talking to someone different, but I didn't get my 2 year free caller ID, which SUCKS!!! Before taking any offers this is what I had:
- regular fido to fido (100 any time minutes, 1000 eve+weekends)
- System Access Fee (6.95) waived for 6 months
- Call Display and Voice mail for free 1 year
- Extended Fido Coverage free for 2 years
- 6-months unlimited local calling and receiving
- Extra 50 minutes for 6 months ($5 value for each month)
- $75 for a black RAZR V3 (old phone now)
- All the above for $25 for 2 year agreement
The above isn't anything special if you read yesterday's entry, but it isn't too bad at all since I am just paying $25/month. I told Clem about this yesterday as well and he helped me notice something really dumb and good at the same time. He said that it didn't make sense for me to have an extra 50 minutes for 6 months if I am already getting free unlimited local calling for six months. This is sorta the good part.
Originally I was going to just use my accumulated fido dollars ($41) on the Razr to bring it down to about $34 dollars. But today, the person at Fido Retention, called Simon (coincidence), was alright with deducting $5 dollars from my bill for 6 months because I didn't want the extra 50 minutes for 6 months with a total value of $30. So basically, after all the deductions tot he $75 dollar phone, I will probably get the RAZR for $4 dollars. The coolest thing is that normally, the RAZR is $200 dollars with an agreement, bringing it down to $4 dollars is
98% off!!!!!
So I saved on a phone upgrade, not bad. And I got an expensive one too. So finally I got the following deal, but still not the best:
- regular fido to fido (100 any time minutes, 1000 eve+weekends)
- System Access Fee (6.95) waived for 6 months
- Call Display and Voice mail for free 1 year
- Extended Fido Coverage free for 2 years
- 6-months unlimited local calling and receiving
- $5 credit towards my bill for 6 months ($30 credit in total)
- $75 (will be $4 after applying the $30 from the previous point and the $41 fido dollars) for a black RAZR V3
- All the above for $25 for 2 year agreement
So I accepted the agreement. After this, I am for sure leaving Fido unless they are for sure able to give me free call display all the time and more daytime minutes, probably want 250 minutes for daytime.
Hassling Fido for more (still unsuccessful)
Have you ever been unhappy about your fido plan? I have been with Fido in the Fido-to-Fido plan ($25), which is just cheap and really nothing special. I started in 2003 and basically haven't seen anything special happen to my account. For me, the main feature I really need is Caller ID, which has increased from $3 to $5 since 2003, probably because of the Roger take over.
Recently, I have been reading posts from this forum thread:
http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111887&page=1&pp=15
This is a very very very very good forum thread that talks about getting the BEST deals from Rogers wireless and basic tips on what you can do to get more from your provider. You are probably can eligible for these deals if you have already been with Roger's for more than 1 year. You can even still be in your contract (preferrably closer to the end of the contract) when you do this. Basically, people on this forum believe that they can get more for their money from Rogers and at the same time want a phone upgrade (not saying that Rogers has the best phone but hear me out).
A lot of these people on this forum have been able to get crazy deals like the following:
- 200 daytime minutes
- Unlimited Evenings 6pm-8am
- Unlimited Weekends
- Per Second Billing
- Call Display
- Voicemail
- Call waiting , Call Forwarding , Call Conference
- 2,500 Received Text Messaging per month
- Detailed Billing"
for 2 or 3 year contract for a total of $23/month + SAF + 911 fees + tax = $35
Some have been able to get the above package with Rogers-to-Rogers option as well to make it $25/month, or even add 1000 long distance for $25. You don't normally get these types of deals. The above deals would normally cost atleast $35 dollars with extra services and earlier evenings that are unlimited. On top of that, you can even bargain for a very expensive phone and probably get it for less than $100 dollars. If you are good enough, you can even get them to not charge you for the System Access Fee (SAF).
You are probably wondering, how the heck would I even get something like this? Well, see, businesses try to get as much money out of your pockets and don't tell you about things they can offer you. All businesses want to make sure is that they can keep their customers and prevent them from going to another competitor. You can "threaten" them by telling them that you are thinking about going to another carrier like Telus or Bell because they are offering a better plan and a new phone for a very very good price with no charge for activation or administrative fees. Usually when they hear this, they will try to transfer you to what I would call a Retention Associate.
Here, the person will try to offer you more services like more daytime minutes, free call display and good voice mail, free rogers to rogers. But the key to success is not to just take what they give you the first time, because they will try to attract you with words that are just part of some existing plans that have been slightly modified. What you need to do is to tell them that some of those extra services are not enough to meet the offer of Telus or Bell. Don't be afraid to say no for now and say you will think about it and give you some time to think of another plan of attack on the Retention guys.
Call back either later in the day or 1 or 2 days later to ask for the same things again, but this time, tell them that you have been talking with Telus or Bell (a lie most likely!) about the offer to clarify what they are offering you and you basically tell them that they need to match certain extras but providing the same amount of value. In such a case, you can even start about getting phone upgrades for a very good price. What could have been a $300 phone could go down to $100 or even $75. Once again, if things don't seem to be doing so well, tell them that you will continue to think about it, rethink you plan of attack.
Once you have gotten the deal that you want, tell them to repeat eveerything they are offering so you know they aren't cheating you. Hopefully the above works.
As for me, I called Fido 3 times today to try to get a phone upgrade by "saying" that I Telus is offering me a new phone for a cheap price of $49.99 with a lot of neat features for free over a 3 year contract (I would never take a 3 year contract though). They wouldn't give me anything good, the would give me the following after 3 calls:
- 100 mins (regular)
- fido 2 fido (regular)
- 1000 eve-weekends
- free extended coverage for 2 years
- free caller ID for 1 year
- 6 months unlimited local calling
- 6 months free extra 50 mins
- 6 months of the SAF
- $75 Razr (black) for 2 year agreement
Really crappy compared to what Rogers can offer for sure. I don't know if I should take it yet. I think I can swap the extended coverage with the Caller ID, caller ID is so much more useful. The phone isn't the best, but it is one of the best that Fido is even offering. Probably going to even tell them to take off the 6 months free of 50mins and decrease the price of the Razr by $25 to make it $50. Overall, my goals are the following:
- Get a phone upgrade
- Get free Caller ID
- Maybe longer evenings and weekends
- get the SAF $6.95 charge waived for the entire agreement
Everything else isn't that interesting to me. Going to make a few more calls until I get what I really want. Hopefully I get it.
NOTE: don't ask for too much at a time, go slowly or they may just say no and you can't do anything about it.
