Transferring of digital images

#This application is a National Stage of International Application No. PCT/US2006/045371, filed Nov. 24, 2006, which claims priority from European Patent Application No. 05257464.7, filed on Dec. 5, 2005. Both applications are incorporated herein by reference.

#Over the last few years, the use of digital cameras has increased enormously, with digital cameras now commonly being incorporated into other portable electronic equipment, particularly mobile telephones. Over the same period, the resolution of those digital cameras has also increased considerably, with mobile telephones now having 2 Megapixel cameras integrated into them and digital cameras with upwards of 6 million effective pixels being widely available. Digital cameras allow users to take large numbers of photographs, knowing that they can be selective about which and how many images they may subsequently choose to print and/or keep. This results in a large number of images files being created and stored on a digital camera, where the file size for each image may be large. Digital cameras are therefore commonly designed to accept removable media, such as an SD card or compact flash card, into a slot in the camera, with most, if not all, of the image files being stored on this removable media.

#SenseCam is a wearable camera developed by Microsoft Research, one use of which is to assist with memory recall by enabling a user to rewind through the recent events experienced by the wearer of the device. This may be particularly useful for memory-impaired individuals, or where an individual has experienced a traumatic event (e.g. an elderly person's fall resulting in injury).

#The present description will be better understood from the following detailed description read in light of the accompanying drawings, wherein:

#FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a photographic apparatus;

#FIG. 2 is an example flow diagram of a method of transferring images;

#Like reference numerals are used to designate like parts in the accompanying drawings.

#The detailed description provided below in connection with the appended drawings is intended as a description of the present examples and is not intended to represent the only forms in which the present example may be constructed or utilized. The description sets forth the functions of the example and the sequence of steps for constructing and operating the example. However, the same or equivalent functions and sequences may be accomplished by different examples.

#FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a photographic apparatus 100 which comprises a camera 101, a processor 102 and a memory 103 for storing the captured digital images. The memory may comprise multiple memory types e.g. SRAM, FLASH, EEPROM. The memory may also be used to store program instructions (to be run on the processor 102) and other information. Data (including the images) can be transferred off the camera over a wireless connection to a computer (or other device) using a wireless transmitter 104, or alternatively over a wired connection using a wired interface 105 (for example a serial interface such as USB, RS-232 or FireWire). Some examples of photographic apparatus may have only a wireless transmitter 104 (e.g. some mobile telephones) or only a wired interface (e.g. some digital cameras). Some examples of apparatus may be capable of communicating using more than one wireless technology (e.g. Bluetooth and GPRS) and in this case the apparatus may have more than one wireless transmitter 104 or may alternatively have a wireless transmitter 104 which is capable of operating in several different modes. The apparatus 100 is powered by a battery 106. The apparatus 100 may take photographs automatically (for example, like the SenseCam) or may only take photographs when initiated by a user.