Ikea teases cardboard digital camera

Keep away from fire.

(Credit: Screenshot by Christopher MacManus/CNET)

Forget smartphones, tablets, and digital cameras. What about capturing that special moment with a cardboard cam from Ikea? Bonus: Looks like there's no assembly required.

Last week, Ikea included a cardboard camera in press kits for those attending the Fuorisalone design expo in Milan. The "disposable" device shoots 40 pictures, uses two AA batteries, and features a thin built-in USB port.

Gizmodo Italy reports that the cheap camera will soon go up for sale, but doesn't have information on a worldwide release (we assume it won't only be available in Strand East, Ikea's upcoming London neighborhood).

A trailer floating around from last month, courtesy of Ikea UK, offers some amusing details about the cardboard shooter.

'iDisorder' takes a critical look at the overuse of digital devices (very good article)

"iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming its Hold on Us" by Larry D. Rosen; Palgrave/Macmillan ($25)

No matter where we go - to a restaurant, a movie, a public restroom, and yes, even a funeral - people are seen clutching and using a slim device that allows them to do just about anything they can do from an Internet-enabled computer at home. Who hasn't attended a so-called business meeting in which every person is staring at a MacBookPro and talking on a cellphone simultaneously (while someone else plays a PowerPoint)?

Called a "wireless mobile device" (WMD - how ironic is that?), this object has for many become an obsession, something they check endlessly regardless of where they are or who they are with.

These obsessed zombies think nothing of fondling their device (like a rosary or Arabic worry bead) or sending a text while "conversing" with another person. Not only have the hitherto common rules of etiquette and privacy gone out the window, but WMDs have become a danger to individual physical and emotional health. Even more than that, these devices threaten the safety of roads, intrude into the focus of study, destroy meetings at work and dominate home life.

Rosen, a noted research psychologist and author of "Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way they Learn," brings together a wealth of new research (some of which he's done himself with colleagues) to examine the over-reliance on gadgets and websites that can produce or mimic common psychological maladies like depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, ADHD, narcissistic personality disorder, body dysmorphism, voyeurism and addiction.

Who can't be impressed by the objective similarity of Facebook rants and constant message-checking (and the concomitant feelings of anxiety) that go with perpetual enslavement to WMDs? In a study Rosen conducted of more than 750 WMD-obsessed individuals in 2011, he found clear links between the screen technology and a person's poor emotional health.

For example, cognitive psychologists have derived theoretical explanations for the link between media and depression, a link somehow related (though the cause is in dispute) to continual "relationships" with disembodied people who exist only behind a screen.

And the similarity of ADHD symptoms to those of a person who tries to "multi-task" while clutching a mini-screen is obvious - careless mistakes in homework, work and driving, trouble with attention, failing to follow instructions, being easily distracted, forgetting, hyperactivity and impulsiveness.

Studies on focused attention show that even experienced computer users are distracted while trying to read online or in hypertext documents. Other detriments: poor sleep patterns, information overload, lack of depth in materials read, and overuse of caffeine. Result: WMDs are changing the neuron circuits in our brains and making us crazy.

This useful book compares screen-technology overuse with classic symptoms of mental illness and gives practical tips on how to reduce one's reliance, addiction or obsession. It also makes practical suggestions on improving sleep, physical fitness, mindfulness and quality of life, most of which have to do with re-connecting to nature and other people. But really, one doesn't have to be a Ph.D. to know that talking on a cellphone during a funeral (or while in a public restroom) is sick.

Our job is clear - revere the natural world and clear our heads, walk outside a lot, turn off all the screens around you, read a book, meditate, have dinner with friends, drive quietly with the windows down, meditate like a Zen monk, make love frequently and groom the dog. Go hear a string quartet. Get out of town and study the night sky. Take the iPod out of your ears and listen to the wind in the trees. Look people in the eye when they're talking to you.

This ran in our local newspaper yesterday.

I just enjoyed watching "Hugo" on DVD. Recommended.

http://is.gd/1JPuI3

From imdb.com:

"After a screening that James Cameron attended, he called the film a "masterpiece" and told Martin Scorsese it was the best use of 3D he had seen, including his own films."

The opening track shot of the city ending at the train station was the very first shot designed and it took one year to complete. It required 1000 computers to render each frame required for the shot.