Cameraphones starting to cause real problems for real people
We hadn't noticed, but apparently cameraphones are starting to cause real problems for real people, as opposed to hypothetical problems for hypothetical people — and we're not talking about them being used to take sneaky pictures of other people at the gym. Since there are plenty of workplaces and government buildings don't allow the use of cameras of any kind (including both cameraphones and PDAs with built-in digital cameras), they're actually starting to inconvenience the owners of the cameraphones themselves, who are finding that they can't bring their brand new expensive gadgets with them to work or when they have jury duty.
Rob Enderle over at eWeek suggests some kind of modular system where users would be able to pop the cameras out of their phones and PDAs (sorry, but that is never going to happen) or (somewhat more plausibly) that people abandon their all-in-one gadgets. The easiest solution (at least for us) would be for manufacturers to just make two versions of each smartphone and PDA, one with a camera, and one without. PalmOne is already supposed to be coming out with cameraless version of the Treo 600.