Forget privacy. These prescient words came from a Sun Microsystems executive in the late 1990s, when commenting on the social impact of emerging communications technologies. But all is not lost. While recent patent applications show new types of digital camera will indeed make it easier to invade privacy, some firms are dreaming up ways to offer a degree of protection.
Hewlett-Packard is developing a camera that you wear like a badge and which can take a picture of someone without their knowledge (US 2004/0208496). The user wears a clip-on earring or stud containing an accelerometer that detects a flick of…
