On the Internet, this picture of the child is often called the first photo shot using a mobile phone. We decided to check if this statement is correct.

A photograph of a newborn baby with a signature that this is the first picture taken on a mobile phone, you can find on many entertainment And Information Portals. It is often included in Collections "Photos that changed the world", calling The first picture taken on a smartphone. With similar comments, photos are published by social networks (Telegram, X) And Platform blog. In some sources Approvedthat the picture was taken in the maternity hospital of the American city of Santa Cruz by the father of the child Philippe Kan in 1997.

Although today to take a selfie or just a photo on a mobile thing is a common thing, and finding a smartphone without a built -in camera is more difficult than with it, such a function was far from always in phones. Visualphone VP210, the world's first phone accessible to the mass consumer with the possibility of photo and video, was released in 1999 by the Japanese company KyoCera. The device weighing 155 g could store up to 20 photos and transfer them by e -mail. The camera was located on the front surface, so that, we can say, the phone anticipated the fashion for a selfie. “Verified” failed to find the first photo taken using this gadget.

Visualphone VP210. Source: The Board of Trustes of the Science Museum, CC by-NC-SA 4.0 Licence

If the phone with a built-in camera was released only in 1999, how could someone in 1997 could shoot a photo on a mobile? Despite this inconsistency, the story with a revolutionary picture is not an invention, although after 27 years some sources distort it.

Philip Kan, taking a disassembled photo, is an engineer, an inventor and founder of several technological companies. He wanted to create a device with which people could instantly share photos with their friends on the Internet as it happens now on social networks. In 1997, there were still no smartphones with cameras, nor the widespread Wi-Fi technology, and for access to the Internet it was necessary either to connect via cable or cellular communications. In the short film, published 20 years after the invention of the Kan and reconstructing those events in detail, the engineer tells how he managed to get around the then technological restrictions in his innovative solution.

According to the engineer, to share the photo of his child with acquaintances, he had to literally on his knee in the maternity ward of his wife to assemble a hybrid from several devices: he connected a camera, a mobile phone and a laptop to each other. The necessary spare parts were not enough, and the inventor even cut the wire from the phone in the car and used it in his installation. The photo taken on the camera was uploaded to a laptop, and then, using a mobile Internet, from a cell phone went to the server on the home computer. He wrote a program code on this server in advance, which ensured the sending of a link to the uploaded picture to these Internet users-then more than 2000 addressees received it. That is, the phone was used not as a camera, but as an analogue of a Wi-Fi-Rooter, which provided an Internet connection for data transfer.

Thus, the disclosed photo of the baby can hardly be called the first to be made on a mobile phone, because he was not involved directly in photographing. However, this does not diminish the significance of the achievement of the Canal, because, apparently, this is the first picture that managed to share with Internet users a click of one button, which for 1997 was truly revolutionary.

Photo on the cover: Philippe Kahn, CC0, Via Wikimedia Commons