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Comment by keyle | Hacker News Reader

This is rather expensive for what looks like a home 3D printed toy with some cute software.

Other than that it's a 16MP Sony CMOS, I'd expect a pretty noisy picture...

    How do I get my photos off the camera?
    
    Coming soon. We're working on export functionality to get your photos off the camera.

It would be more interesting if the software was open source.

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Simple, you remove the sdcard and mount it on linux, the security of a Pi is a joke.

I wouldn't mind if it was 3D printed if it wasn't done with like a layer height of 0.28, half transparent so it looks weird, and intended for outdoor use where 3D prints are porous and water will seep through. The housing needs at the very least some spray painting and a clearcoat.

What I do mind is the cheapest off the shelf diy button lmao. They are like cents a piece, just add a fucking metal one that are like a few cents more if you're selling a $400 camera, cheapass. I wouldn't be surprised if the software side with the "proof" being a similarly haphazardly brittle implementation as the construction.

> This is rather expensive for what looks like a home 3D printed toy with some cute software.

This attitude really rubs me the wrong way, especially on a site called Hacker News.

I think we absolutely should be supporting projects like this (if you think they're worth supporting), else all we're left with is giant corporation monoculture. Hardware startups are incredibly difficult, and by their nature new hardware products from small companies will always cost more than products produced by huge companies that have economies of scale and can afford billions of losses on new products.

So yes, I'm all for people taking risks with new hardware, and even if it doesn't have the most polished design, if it's doing something new and interesting I think it's kinda shitty to just dismiss it as looking like "a 3D printed toy with some cute software".

Hey it's fine to make a 3d printed camera and cool stuff like that. But it's another thing to make it a product, that isn't shipping yet and asking $399 with a shiny website and with closed source software.

I don't mean to disregard the technical feat, but I question the intent.

Couldn't agree more!

This literally looks like someone made a closed source hardware kit out of mostly open parts and software then shipped it preassembled.

I support it but I recognize it is a 3D printed toy with some cute software... toys can be interesting too. Not everything needs to be a startup.

Check Ali for "shitty" minature key-ring C-thru packaged cameras that look just like this "3D printed toy with some cute software", going for $4.00, not $400!

Please, stop!

I've been strugling to fight the urge to by a "Kodak Charmera" for a month now, don't tempt me again!

If you buy one, you won't be tempted anymore.

The BoM is ~$150 MSRP. I doubt the ZKP Rube Goldberg contraption will survive a day of reverse engineering once it gets into the wild.

You literally can't even export the photos...

It would be cool if this was open source because looking at the pictured this is all off the shelf hardware. I am guessing only bespoke thing here is the stl for the case

>This attitude really rubs me the wrong way, especially on a site called Hacker News.

It's just that even in the realm of hardware by small teams built upon Pi boards this is very overprice and poor construction and cheap components for what it is.

Selling for $400 there are case solutions other than a cheap 3D print, and button choices other than the cheapest button on the market.

This isn't a hardware start-up, it's a software start-up using off the shelf consumer hardware to give their software product a home.

If it was a hardware start-up, the camera would be $80 built with custom purpose made hardware.

Once you decide to launch a hardware product composed of completed consumer hardware products, you are already dead. All the margin is already accounted for.

It wouldn't work at all as open source since you could just modify the source to sign your AI generated pictures.

This is patently incorrect. Just remember the whole TiVo affair and reasons why GPLv3 was born. Source code availability does not guarantee ability to run it on the particular device.

The Software Freedom Conservancy thinks the GPLv2 guarantees the ability to modify existing GPLv2 software on a device, but does not guarantee the ability to still use the proprietary software running on top of that, and that the same applies with GPLv3. Reading the preamble of the GPLv2, I'm inclined to agree with them. Hasn't been tested in court yet though I think.

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t... https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017...

it would. it would just require pki and a secure enclave that lives directly on the imaging chip to support it.

Is that possible with the chip used here?

> What are the camera's specs?

> The camera has a 16MP resolution, 4656 x 3496 pixels. It uses a Sony IMX519 CMOS sensor.

Seems like a pretty generic part available as a module https://thepihut.com/products/arducam-imx519-autofocus-camer...

Uses the standard MIPI/CSI interface, which is not authenticated or anything of the sort.

You can also buy HDMI-to-CSI adapters https://thepihut.com/products/hdmi-to-csi-adapter-for-raspbe... - should be easy enough to pipe your own video feed in as a substitute.

One could design a toolchain that posts a hashed signed version of the source used to produce a signed binary. Build and deploy what you want and if you want people to trust it and opt in then it is publicly available.

In this case you get the signature and it confirms the device and links to a tamper proof snapshot of the code used to build its firmware.

Okay. What prevents you from printing out a AI generated picture and taking a photo of that with the camera?

46 chromosomes

You sure you are running the correct number yourself?

Nothing. But I know it's you and not the New York Times publishing that photo. Now you get it?

So why would I buy this if you still wouldn’t trust my photos? And why would NYT when you already trust them? Who is the target audience?

I didn't say that I didn't trust yours. It's that I trust the NYTimes more.

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