Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Legitimate use for a camera phone
But then today I see, via Lucianne, this interesting story from The Telegraph:
Mobile phone picture saves spider bite man
By Richard Savill
Doctors were able to treat a chef bitten by a poisonous South American spider because he had photographed it on his mobile phone. Matthew Stevens, 23, was cleaning behind the freezer in the Quantock Gateway pub in Bridgwater, Somerset, when he was bitten by the Brazilian Wandering Spider, which had apparently found its way into Britain in a crate of bananas.The five-inch long spider, normally found in the Amazonian forest, is one of the world's most poisonous. After collapsing at home, he was taken by ambulance to Musgrave Park Hospital, Taunton, and placed on a saline drip. "I thought I wasn't going to make it," he said yesterday. "My chest was so tight I could hardly breathe. My blood pressure was going through the roof and my heart was beating so hard I could feel it hit my chest.
"The doctors didn't know what type of spider it was, but I'd got a picture of it on my phone and they faxed it to Bristol Zoo to identify it. "When the spider bit me, it was like a thorn going really deep into my hand. My hand went up like a balloon." The poison was counteracted and he was discharged the next day. The spider itself has now been captured by Defra for analysis.
Ok, I now concede that there are legitimate uses for a camera phone.
3 Comments:
By 
TigerHawk, at
Wed Apr 27, 09:13:00 AM:
What the 'Villain did not report is that he is a chronically late adapter of new consumer electronics gizmos. He came late to the cell phone party, and (at least as of Christmas this year) did not own a DVD player.
That having been said, I myself am waiting until camera phones become more capable. Right now I travel with both the phone and the little digital camera, but one day I do not doubt that will change.
By Charlottesvillain, at
Wed Apr 27, 09:37:00 AM:
Indeed, I am a very late adapter. The household is still without DVD player (although DVDs are proliferating nonetheless). We finally got a digital camera this Christmas and I am still not entirely on board. I think the only technology I jumped on quickly was the audio CD, which made intuitive sense to me. (Plus I owned no vinyl at the time but wanted to build a huge collection of music, which I have since done).
By fester, at
Wed Apr 27, 04:05:00 PM:
Another legit use that is starting to occur in the construction industry is for an on-site construction worker to photograph an area that does not conform to the blueprints, send it to the engineer/site foreman, and resolve the problem by speaking on the phone instead of a site visit which typically can save 3-6 manhours that bill out at $75-$100/hour per problem. (Disclosure: This is one of the major competitive edges that my father's electrical contracting company has --- they are not scared of info-tech)
