I was just informed that Froyo 2.2 has removed an important setting from our phones, the ability to turn off geotagging of pictures taken with the Captivate. Read about the dangers here:
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2010/10/07/gps-on-cell-phone-photos-can-put-you-in-danger/
This basically renders the camera useless for posting pics to social networking sites like facebook without making those pics vulnerable to disclosing personal info. This is unacceptable and Samsung should immediately release an update to fix this. I suggest we contact Samsung and let them know about this potentially dangerous issue and insist they rectify it ASAP. Start by going here:
https://contactus.samsung.com/customer/contactus/formmail/mail/MailQuestionProduct.jsp?SITE_ID=1
Here's the message I sent them, you can copy and paste it.
The recent update of the Captivate to Froyo 2.2 has apparently removed the ability to stop photos taken with the device from being geotagged. This option is important for those of us who upload photos taken with the phone to social networking sites from being vulnerable to giving out personal information. This is a very real danger and Samsung should immediately provide an update that will restore this ability to Captivate users.
Link to modified camera.apk for rooted and custom ROM users:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=949566
In the meantime, how about turning off the GPS as a workaround when about to take a pic
fldude99 said:
In the meantime, how about turning off the GPS as a workaround when about to take a pic
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You would have to turn off GPS and location services and then remember to turn them both back on, which is a pain. I found a solution for those of us on custom Froyo ROMs here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=949566
I'm going to try it, but this does not help those on unrooted stock Froyo. Samsung needs to fix this.
EDIT: Installed the zip from the above link and it works fine. Still, Samsung should not have removed this feature.
BTW, airplane mode does not, in my experience, disable geotagging for some reason. My only thought is that the phone is storing the last known location. The only thing that stopped the geotag was disabling location services.
I installed the modded camera.apk and it's working great on my rooted stock 2.2.
One thing I've found is that my battery is happier with location services turned off. I'd love to figure out how to use Tasker to turn location services on when I'm in Maps or Navigation or at some regular interval so my weather widget can update.
lactardjosh said:
BTW, airplane mode does not, in my experience, disable geotagging for some reason. My only thought is that the phone is storing the last known location. The only thing that stopped the geotag was disabling location services.
I installed the modded camera.apk and it's working great on my rooted stock 2.2.
One thing I've found is that my battery is happier with location services turned off. I'd love to figure out how to use Tasker to turn location services on when I'm in Maps or Navigation or at some regular interval so my weather widget can update.
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Can u post the camera apk here please.
Found it
now that is some useful info. thank you
Sometimes I like to geotag..however the other day I took a picture and the correct location showed up.....later on when I looked at the picture the geotag info changed.....any ideas why this would happen?
I kill coneys, not phones.
Thanks for the heads up, I never noticed this either... I gotta give this info to a few friends who are still using the official Froyo rom on their Captivates... I hope Samsung pushes out a fix for this ASAP (yea, I'm not holding my breath), it really is a huge privacy concern.
Miami_Son said:
You would have to turn off GPS and location services and then remember to turn them both back on, which is a pain. I found a solution for those of us on custom Froyo ROMs here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=949566
I'm going to try it, but this does not help those on unrooted stock Froyo. Samsung needs to fix this.
EDIT: Installed the zip from the above link and it works fine. Still, Samsung should not have removed this feature.
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Maybe add this link to the OP, too, so it's right there when people start reading the thread?
Facebook in share option is still there in camera app. I dont need that geotagging thing.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Well, ya installed that camera - now we need to remove Flash option
nice catch
BTW, GPS is not the only way the Captivate geolocates the pics. Mine is almost always turned off and all the pics I took lately were indoors; still, they were geotaged. It appears to be using cell towers as the position on the map was a bit off and exactly located where the towers are in my neighborhood.
Yes the only way to turn off geotagging is if all location settings (gps and wireless networks) are turned off. Wonder why this hasn't made news sites like phandroid etc...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
I was looking through a few pictures in my gallery, and for a phone with a non-functional GPS system, the geotags are surprisingly accurate. In the gallery there is an option to view each picture on the map, and Google translates the latitude and longitude into street addresses. A picture taken in my office (no possibility of GPS location, and tower location is only accurate to 1700m) shows a tag right in front of my building. A picture taken in my friend's house (a house apparently made of lead, as no one can get cellular service there) has the next door neighbor's address on it.
However, pictures taken at a time when I had the app Bluetooth GPS Provider running show no coordinate information at all, instead displaying "location unavailable" or something to that effect. I use an external GPS receiver with my phone, and Bluetooth GPS Provider feeds the data from the receiver to the Captivate. Apparently, this service prevents the camera from geotagging whatsoever. If anyone is incredibly concerned about geotagging, toggling this app on could be a workaround.
Unfortunately, I can't read the pages linked in the OP right at the moment, and it's possible this question is answered somewhere in one of those articles. But I'm guessing the geotag coordinates are saved in a picture's EXIF information. Does all of that really persist through Facebook's image conversion process? When you upload a file, it's resized, recompressed, and renamed. I'm surprised that the EXIF metadata is saved after all that. I really had no idea!
Perception 10.2 | SpeedMod K13C | I9000ZSJPG
Ikonomi said:
Unfortunately, I can't read the pages linked in the OP right at the moment, and it's possible this question is answered somewhere in one of those articles. But I'm guessing the geotag coordinates are saved in a picture's EXIF information. Does all of that really persist through Facebook's image conversion process? When you upload a file, it's resized, recompressed, and renamed. I'm surprised that the EXIF metadata is saved after all that. I really had no idea!
Perception 10.2 | SpeedMod K13C | I9000ZSJPG
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Generally it does. I use 'picsay pro', and find that the location info is preserved when I change the image size.
The EXIF data is preserved, in most cases, and not just on facebook. It happens with Photobucket, Flickr, Kodak and almost all photo sharing sites. I saw a news report where Adam Savage of the TV show Mythbusters had innocently posted a pic of his vehicle onto a social networking site. Unbeknownst to him it had GPS info in it, which turned out to be right in front of his house where the pic was taken. A fan drew his attention to it and he was astonished to realize that he could have had some deranged stalker show up on his doorstep (ala My Sister Sam actress Rebecca Schaefer) because of an innocent photo he posted on a website. While this is not being reported much in the mainstream news, it is not a secret. The DOD is so concerned that it requires that servicemen on active duty not use these phone features while deployed or while on base due to the risk of giving away confidential information. Check out the pdf file at this website to see how our military is being informed about this.
http://redcloud.korea.army.mil/Web-Security/Downloads
Miami_Son said:
The EXIF data is preserved, in most cases, and not just on facebook.
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This is not true. No facebook photo has metadata in it, it's stripped out in the upload process. I am using firefox right now and I have an add-on called EXIF Viewer, and I have tested this. Same goes for photobucket and Imgur. Most photo upload sites like photobucket and flickr(the feature is optional here) scramble the metadata when they are uploaded. The lady in the story used twitpic, which clearly doesn't erase exif data on upload, but there are some nice little bits of software that do. If you save a photo in photoshop, for example, you have the opportunity to set the metadata setting to 'none'. Then when you save it, it does not contain any of the identifying tags.
The point is to be responsible for your own data and information that you share on the net or in any pseudo-public setting. Ignorance is no excuse.
I have several pictures taken over the last few weeks. I keep GPS off, but locations using WiFi or Wireless Networks on, and all of my pictures show location unknown.
Also, I installed the modified camera.apk from SGSTools, can anyone confirm which version it is?
clemmie said:
This is not true. No facebook photo has metadata in it, it's stripped out in the upload process. I am using firefox right now and I have an add-on called EXIF Viewer, and I have tested this. Same goes for photobucket and Imgur. Most photo upload sites like photobucket and flickr(the feature is optional here) scramble the metadata when they are uploaded. The lady in the story used twitpic, which clearly doesn't erase exif data on upload, but there are some nice little bits of software that do. If you save a photo in photoshop, for example, you have the opportunity to set the metadata setting to 'none'. Then when you save it, it does not contain any of the identifying tags.
The point is to be responsible for your own data and information that you share on the net or in any pseudo-public setting. Ignorance is no excuse.
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+1. Most responsible photo sharing sites strip out the location data. But you are responsible for the content you share. So even if the Captivate no longer supports the option, there are likely other ways to keep your data safe. Also, sounds like an opportunity for someone to make an app that automatically cleanses EXIF data according to your preferences.
Hello,
I just discoverd that my Nexus S is sorting the pictures in the Android gallery in a very strange way.
I have pictures without geo-tag and some with geo-tag. All the pictures with geo-tag are somehow sorted under a wrong date. That means they are on the wrong place in the gallery. But when I check the details of the picture there is the right date in the file information.
This problem seem to apply only to geo-tagged pictures.
It's a little bit hard to describe. Here an example.
I took a picture on the 24th APRIL WITH a geo-tag. When I scroll now through the gallery the picture appears among the pictures I took on the 24th MARCH. When I check the details of the picture it still says "taken on 24th April".
Did anybody experience the same behaviour or do you have any idea what causes it and how it can be fixed?
Thanks!
Same thing here, I think it's a known bug though along with some pictures disappearing from the gallery and the gallery not displaying photos at full resolution. Try quickpic if you want an alternative. https://market.android.com/details?id=com.alensw.PicFolder
I'd love it if someone would just fix the stock gallery though and repost it to the market - it's a pretty photo viewer!
i would just like to add that i'm experiencing similar issues as well
the stock gallery app doesn't sort my pictures correctly after a while (it may seem ok at first.. but take some shots and videos everyday, you'll see the order beginning to mess up..)
this is pathetic considering the maturity of android (this never happen on my iphone 3gs)
Same here since two days
So I have been thinking, in a few years, when everyone gets new phones, with new features. How are we going to edit the pictures taken with Wide Aperture mode (fake bokeh)? The only app able to change the depth of field of the picture is the stock gallery app by Huawei/honor that came with the phone.
Google photos DOES save the information to be edited later (but there is no way to edit them on Google photos app as far as I can tell).
So if a year later you restore photos to this phone and try to edit them, you can, but only with the stock gallery app.
Anyone here know of any 3rd party software on Windows desktop, and or on the web or android that can do this? So we don't have to be reliant on the Gallery app from Huawei in case we change phones later on.
Thanks.
You can't really change the aperture on phones as the aperture is fixed to f2 or bit more. What Google and Huawei and all the other do, is to approximate the behaviour by blurring the background in a postprocessing step. The better they detect foreground and background, the better this illusion works. But it's never a real bokeh.
faeArai said:
You can't really change the aperture on phones as the aperture is fixed to f2 or bit more. What Google and Huawei and all the other do, is to approximate the behaviour by blurring the background in a postprocessing step. The better they detect foreground and background, the better this illusion works. But it's never a real bokeh.
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I am well aware how this camera works, i am a part time photographer, This was not my question! my question was if there is an external source or app that allows us to edit these kinds of photos as the gallery app does, to refocus after we take the pics using the wide aperture mode.
I think that what Huawei does with their gallery app is a bit proprietary.
faeArai said:
I think that what Huawei does with their gallery app is a bit proprietary.
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So basically after a few years if we want to edit these pictures it would either be impossible with another brand of phone, or might perhaps be possible if we keep buying huawei phones, with this feature, which is not a sure thing.
Yes I think so. But I didn't investigate on this topic. At least one can still open the Jpeg as the depth information is somewhat in it.
Unfortunately no third party apps that can do this.
Maybe if someone can port the gallery app, that will work!
I'm having a super grainy camera in WhatsApp. Might be other 3rd party programs as well but haven't tries yet. Pic attached.
And yes, I'm sitting on the toilet whilst typing this.
Don't use WhatsApp but if it's anything like telegram I wouldn't use the built in camera app if you want a good shot.
Take a photo and then send it with WhatsApp. Don't take it from within.
What @ItzMar said is correct. WhatsApp isn't concerned about picture quality. Their camera mode has not changed since....ever. No one cares because that's not why they use WhatsApp.
I am also facing the same issue in my op7. Please let me know if your issue resolves/
All apps in Android that have a camera built in are just screen shotting the viewfinder and not actually taking pictures. Take pictures with the OEM Camera/Gcam and then share the pics/videos on the apps you're using.
My Dad is in a care home without WiFi available. Visiting is difficult due to distance and health restrictions.
I would like to set him up with some sort of "digital photo frame" that my siblings and I can add photos to. I have an older Tab A with LTE that I figured I could rig up with Google Photos and a shared album we can all add photos to.
Unfortunately that doesn't work quite as seamlessly as I'd hoped. I can make the screensaver run a slideshow from a Google Photos album, which does what I need, but I have to actually go into the album and add the shared photos to it before the screensaver picks them up.
I've found a few digital frame apps that claim to be able to use a Google Photos album but so far no luck making them work, and the visiting problems means I can't regularly update photos in person.
My Nest Hub nicely does what we need (running a slideshow from a shared Photos album), but with no WiFi, it can't connect to that.
I figured if I could remote into the thing, I could force those updates, or just upload photos into a proper digital frame app... but this is too old (Android 5.0.2) for TeamViewer, and so far the only other thing I've found that claims to do what I need is Rescue+, which requires the tablet user to enter a code.
Can anyone suggest either another digital frame app that can pull photos from a shared online album, OR some kind of remote-access app that will work with this older device?
Yes, I've also thought of some kind of WiFi hotspot to provide internet for a proper digital frame, but I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible on-site and keep the equipment count down.
Soundy106 said:
My Dad is in a care home without WiFi available. Visiting is difficult due to distance and health restrictions.
I would like to set him up with some sort of "digital photo frame" that my siblings and I can add photos to. I have an older Tab A with LTE that I figured I could rig up with Google Photos and a shared album we can all add photos to.
Unfortunately that doesn't work quite as seamlessly as I'd hoped. I can make the screensaver run a slideshow from a Google Photos album, which does what I need, but I have to actually go into the album and add the shared photos to it before the screensaver picks them up.
I've found a few digital frame apps that claim to be able to use a Google Photos album but so far no luck making them work, and the visiting problems means I can't regularly update photos in person.
My Nest Hub nicely does what we need (running a slideshow from a shared Photos album), but with no WiFi, it can't connect to that.
I figured if I could remote into the thing, I could force those updates, or just upload photos into a proper digital frame app... but this is too old (Android 5.0.2) for TeamViewer, and so far the only other thing I've found that claims to do what I need is Rescue+, which requires the tablet user to enter a code.
Can anyone suggest either another digital frame app that can pull photos from a shared online album, OR some kind of remote-access app that will work with this older device?
Yes, I've also thought of some kind of WiFi hotspot to provide internet for a proper digital frame, but I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible on-site and keep the equipment count down.
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The simple solution is to just buy a digital frame that is already made for that purpose, otherwise, more than likely you won't be pleased with the results you get with what you are currently trying.
Droidriven said:
The simple solution is to just buy a digital frame that is already made for that purpose, otherwise, more than likely you won't be pleased with the results you get with what you are currently trying.
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Okay... do you know of one with LTE?
If not, it's still not a "simple solution."
Soundy106 said:
Okay... do you know of one with LTE?
If not, it's still not a "simple solution."
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True. If it is a tablet that can be activated on a mobile plan/prepaid network, that would reduce the amount of hardware and it could be set up to access remotely to update or add photos.