Sony Ericsson’s new ROB-1 would have to be one of the oddest releases by Sony this year. Its a remote controlled camera that can move around freely, controlled by your Bluetooth enabled mobile phone. The ROB-1 beams back streaming images so that you can see what you’re looking at. One has to wonder what the point is – and also how many ways that such a device will end up being abused when put in the hands of those wanting to exploit it. I can just see the raft of ROB-1 ‘up skirt’ and voyeur websites that will appear a few days after this device gets released.

‘The ROB-1 can rove around for a distance of up to 50 meters from the user, streaming video to the phone’s display. The device’s three wheels and spherical shape combined with clever camera technology to make it agile and flexible with a wide field of vision. Eleven centimetres in diameter, ROB-1 can move forwards, backwards, look around corners, pivot on the spot or tilt the camera 70 degrees upwards and 20 degrees downwards. An ultra bright light on the front leads the way and allows shots to be taken in dark spaces. Ample onboard memory enables you to snap away for some time before either storing pictures in your phone, or transferring them to a PC via the supplied USB cable.’
Steered wireless
ly by the joystick or keypad on a mobile phone or a touch screen (as with the P900 and P910), users can see on the phone screen exactly what ROB-1 is looking at. Consumers can then capture these images using their phone just as they would a normal photo.

With ROB-1 Sony Ericsson has produced another fun and innovative ‘first’ for Bluetooth technology pushing the boundaries and firing consumer’s imagination. The company’s Bluetooth Car CAR-100, first seen in the Sony Ericsson stand at CeBIT 2003, pioneered the concept of using mobile phone Bluetooth capability for entertainment purposes rather than practical applications. Now ROB-1, the first device to combines the CAR-100′s steering capabilities with video streaming, continues this tradition.

Specs
• Weight: 1 kg/2,2 pounds
• Diameter: 110 mm
• Runs forwards & backwards, turns “on the spot”
• Maximum speed: 0.2 m/sec. Hardware
• Processor: 200 MHz, ARM-9, Dragonball
• User memory size: 2MB
• High intensity LEDs: four LEDs à 1000 mcd Software
• Operating system: Linux OS Compatibility
• Sony Ericsson Bluetooth™ Symbian phones P900 and P910
• Any phone that has a Java platform with Bluetooth™ API JSR-82
• Most Sony Ericsson Bluetooth™ phones, but without video streaming functionality Camera
• Camera resolution: VGA
• Camera tilts 70° upwards and 20º downwards Bluetooth™/USB
• File transfer of still pictures: via Bluetooth™ or USB (incl. upload of the pre-stored controlling application to the phone).
• Supports: Bluetooth™ profiles Object Push (OPP) and File Transfer (FTP)