SimpleSi Posted November 25, 2011 Posted November 25, 2011 I'm experimenting using Android phones as "smart" cameras. At the moment I'm uploading to my tech dropbox account (Which runs on all my servers) but I want a separate service so I can still use my dropbox account on my servers but set up school phones to send to another service that offers the same functionality. (Actually it could just handle video and images) Anyway - I need something like dropbox but not dropbox e.g take picture - select share - select dropbox like service - aa few mins later, image has whizzed from phone up to cloud and back down to server. Any ideas? Si
SimpleSi Posted November 25, 2011 Author Posted November 25, 2011 Picasa Just downloaded it to a server - not sure how to make it auto sync or even whether it does at all? Si
dhicks Posted November 25, 2011 Posted November 25, 2011 Any ideas? Yes: I think image management in schools is an under-developed area, which you really notice in a nursery / primary school - in nursery, especially, lots of pupil assesement involves taking pictures of a child doing an activity. What schools could do with is a dedicated server that handles images and videos, taking care of indexing them, resizing to useful sizes for various applications, converting between formats, printing and so on. The basis of such a server could actually be very simple - a file server with a de-duplicated file system, letting people simply shovel pictures on to it and have the server sort out indexing. As a central, networked server it could be used with your Android smartphones or something like the Eye-Fi wireless card, with pictures being taken by a camera and going straight to the server, no fiddling around with memory cards and file systems needed. Idealy, it'd be possible to have a completly sealed camera, waterproof and resistant to generqal knocks - quite handy in a junior classroom with water and sand trays around. Kodak have a waterproof camera on the market at the moment that looks pretty good, the only problem being that close-up performance seems poor - a problem in a small classroom where pretty much every shot is going to wind up being a closeup. I'd love to have the time to develope this system, and I think it would be a project that could grow into a useful tool for many schools. There'd be the potential to make this into a decent business selling servers, cameras and developing applications and features that process and use th images on the server.
K.C.Leblanc Posted November 25, 2011 Posted November 25, 2011 (edited) Have you bought the cameras, you could look at using traditional cameras with eye fi cards. Eye-Fi Connect X2 4GB Wireless SDHC memory card - back up and share photos & videos automatically | Eye-Fi UK EDIT: DOH, should have read the last post more carefully. Edited November 25, 2011 by K.C.Leblanc
dhicks Posted November 25, 2011 Posted November 25, 2011 DOH, should have read the last post more carefully. Ah, but you actually included a proper link and everything :-) The camera I was looking at was the Kodak Easyshare Sport C123: KODAK EASYSHARE SPORT Underwater Digital Camera C123 This seems to be available for around £50 or under, which when coupled with an Eye-Fi card gives you a classroom camera that should, hopefully, be robust enough to last for around £100. Oddly, no one seems to make cameras to fit handy docking stations any more. I think the ideal camera for a junior classroom would be something completly sealed that charged via an inductive charging system like an electric toothbrush uses. It need only be fixed-focus, no need for a zoom lense, which should make it both cheaper and less prone to damage. It'd be ready to go as soon as you picked it up off its charging dock and would pretty much just have a shutter button and that would be it. Interestingly, the Raspberry Pi single-board computer seems to be capable of having a camera attached, so I could possibly look at building my own self-contained camera. I'd have to figure out how to attach a camera and an LCD display to a Raspberry Pi board and figure out a case with a shutter button. I figure I can use the inductive charger from an electric toothbrush if nothing else.
Jollity Posted November 25, 2011 Posted November 25, 2011 I think dhicks might be on to something, but until he gets his service off the ground... If the problem at the moment was just about sharing your tech dropbox accounts with the phones, you could run a separate instance of dropbox in a different Windows account on the server. However that would not work very well because you only want to sync one way - you don't want everyone's photos ending up on all the phones. You could maybe do something about that with a separate folder for each phone. Do you need to go via the cloud at all? What about just having something to automatically upload from an android phone to a windows folder when possible? Something like this perhaps? I suppose that wouldn't work if you want uploads to continue while the phone is off-site.
edutech4schools Posted November 26, 2011 Posted November 26, 2011 Picasa, but the online version, not the desktop one. On this page Picasa 3: Free download from Google just under download is the picasa web albums. I have my phone auto upload to a private folder every time I take a pic. 1
edutech4schools Posted November 26, 2011 Posted November 26, 2011 Some of my schools use Picasa Desktop as it has face recognition. It gets used in the Reception class to automatically tag and name students as they are uploaded.
Jollity Posted November 26, 2011 Posted November 26, 2011 I have my phone auto upload to a private folder every time I take a pic. Sounds good. If the version of Picasa you are using is entirely web-based, what is it on your phone that actually does the uploading?
edutech4schools Posted November 26, 2011 Posted November 26, 2011 I have an Android phone (as in original post) which you can set to send the pics to Picasa. I believe that Google have a utility to do this for all smartphones (i-phone, blackberry) but I have not used these other phones. On my Android I do have the choice to upload to other storage companies like drop box, but Picasa is such a good photo/video solution, similar to flicker, I have not had a need to try other storage solutions. 1
SimpleSi Posted November 26, 2011 Author Posted November 26, 2011 Sorry if I've missed the answer but will Picasa sync the uploaded pictures back down to the server without a manual refresh (a la dropbox)? Si
CyberNerd Posted November 26, 2011 Posted November 26, 2011 not sure, we leave them on the picasa server as everyone has their own account and can share from there once they've uploaded. you could use the api if your feeling adventurous http://code.google.com/apis/picasaweb/overview.html
SimpleSi Posted November 26, 2011 Author Posted November 26, 2011 (edited) I think the answer is no So back to orig question - is there another service like dropbox that I can upload pictures/videos from smartphone to cloud and have them synced automagically back to a server? Si PS Would rather use smartphone than a plain camera with wi-fi as so many other possibilities to use smartphone for other things as well Edited November 26, 2011 by SimpleSi
Arthur Posted November 27, 2011 Posted November 27, 2011 is there another service like Dropbox that I can upload pictures/videos from smartphone to cloud and have them synced automagically back to a server? Probably not what you are looking for, but Cloudless and SweetHome both allow you to sync files saved on an Android smartphone to a server on your network. No clouds involved.
Jollity Posted November 27, 2011 Posted November 27, 2011 So back to orig question - is there another service like dropbox that I can upload pictures/videos from smartphone to cloud and have them synced automagically back to a server? If like-Dropbox is what you need, why not the real thing? Why not just use a different Dropbox account?
dhicks Posted November 27, 2011 Posted November 27, 2011 Anyway - I need something like dropbox but not dropbox e.g take picture - select share - select dropbox like service - aa few mins later, image has whizzed from phone up to cloud and back down to server. Turns out Eye-Fi cards support the Gallery3 API: Announcing the Developer Program | Eye-Fi Also, they support a bunch of online services: How does the Eye-Fi card work? | Eye-Fi If nothing else, that should give you a decent list of sites to try. You could install Gallery on a server somewhere in school and get an Android app that writes to that - does Gallery already have a photo-taking app, or could you simply write your own?
SimpleSi Posted November 27, 2011 Author Posted November 27, 2011 Why not just use a different Dropbox account? As I said, I'm already using a dropbox account as my own technical tool and although I can run multiple dropbox accounts on my servers, I don't have a way of quickly changing which one I can upload to from my 'droid without logging out and logging in again. Si
Arthur Posted November 27, 2011 Posted November 27, 2011 Do the photos and videos have to be uploaded to the Internet?
SimpleSi Posted November 28, 2011 Author Posted November 28, 2011 Do the photos and videos have to be uploaded to the Internet? No - sorry Arthur - didn't see your previous answer Will give Cloudless a go - looks perfect if it works Si
edutech4schools Posted November 28, 2011 Posted November 28, 2011 Will give Cloudless a go - looks perfect if it works In your first post I got the impression you needed to upload over a carrier, if you have wireless in the school that changes everything as their are a tone of apps like cloudless that can copy files from an Android device over an internal network. Sorry for my misunderstanding.
edutech4schools Posted November 28, 2011 Posted November 28, 2011 does Gallery already have a photo-taking app Gallery 2 does but not noticed a V3 app 1
SimpleSi Posted November 28, 2011 Author Posted November 28, 2011 In your first post I got the impression you needed to upload over a carrier, if you have wireless in the school that changes everything as their are a tone of apps like cloudless that can copy files from an Android device over an internal network. Its just that dropbox just works and I wanted the same functionality so I could easily run 2 seperate systems without having to juggle accounts. In practice , all I need is phone->server auto (or semi-auto) uploading Just tried cloudless out - it uploaded all my existing photos but is not uploading a new one I took an hour ago If you could name another one you've tried and is a bit more reliable I'd be grateful Si PS its just come through - picture taken 10:27 - arrived at server 11:01 (and thats having pressed all the sync buttons I could find even though its on automatic
Jollity Posted December 5, 2011 Posted December 5, 2011 although I can run multiple dropbox accounts on my servers, I don't have a way of quickly changing which one I can upload to from my 'droid without logging out and logging in again. Fair enough. I was thinking you meant to use different android phones for the children using the setup in practice.
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