[Photo Removed]
Sample Photo from Danger Zante, originally uploaded by s4xton.
Browsing around Flickr I noticed that two Danger, Inc. employees (larf, Rubin 110) were posting photos that contained EXIF tags saying the device taking the photo was a “Danger Zante.” While various rumor sites and mobile device blogs have been speculating about a new device from Danger, there was almost zero evidence that one even existed.
I quickly inquired with my friend who runs hiptop3.com and he seemed really surprised that I knew anything about the Zante. He posted my findings and then within a few hours I’m on Gizmodo as “a bored Sidekick fan by the name of Aaron Landry.” Ha. I’m certainly not a Sidekick fan anymore and while they linked everything else they didn’t link my name to my site. I wasn’t really bored either. The story also showed up on übergizmo without any links at all. Silly.
UPDATE: Now also on Engadget… Now also on Mobile Guerilla.
Either way, the Danger employees promptly pulled the photos they leaked, but not before I nabbed two of them.
UPDATE: They asked me to remove them, and I complied.
So now we have two pieces of information about a forthcoming device from Danger, Inc.: It is currently named “Zante” and the camera sucks.
UPDATE: Danger employee obviously not happy with me (aka Internet Drama).
UPDATE: Danger employee removes photo of me from Flickr and immediately I get anonymous comments calling me out on “bullshit.” God bless the internets.
Comments 20
I was certainly not impressed. My Sidekick 3 is currently having a sticky menu button. I’m probably going to end up sending it back right before my year is up so I can get a device to last another few months.
I’ve been really disappointed in the lack of serious updates to the device and it appears that the Zante isn’t going to be any better.
Lame.
Posted 10 Apr 2007 at 15:35 ¶What is that internets drama all about? I’m enjoying the irony, though.
Posted 10 Apr 2007 at 17:25 ¶Ang-
I don’t know where to begin. The small detail is that URL used to be the location of one of the leaked photos, posted by a Danger employee. I know the guy through a couple different circles. He doesn’t like me very much. I just found out he is a recent employee of Danger yesterday in QA. It’s fairly ironic for me because I’ve been very critical of Danger’s QA in the past. As well, I think I know the Danger, Inc. NDA better than he does. The big picture is that the world is way too small sometimes and it’s amazing how one small event or decision can be enough to alter the course of many people’s lives, hopefully for the better. I’ll bore you with the long version of the story some other time.
Posted 10 Apr 2007 at 17:40 ¶Explain to us how that “story” and link indicate Rubin is mad at you at all? I call bullshit.
Posted 10 Apr 2007 at 20:45 ¶Anonymous California Comcast User-
I said “He doesn’t like me very much” and “not happy with me.” Perhaps before you try to call bullshit you can ask Rubin himself. He doesn’t return my emails and he blocked me on his Flickr account.
Ang- See what I mean?
Posted 10 Apr 2007 at 20:52 ¶Wow, you can use tracert/ping.
Anyway, my point was more… why is a danger employee mad at you? Your link makes no sense.
Posted 10 Apr 2007 at 20:59 ¶No more anonymous comments from the drama club.
Posted 10 Apr 2007 at 21:07 ¶I think it’s funny that the employees themselves were responsible for putting the pictures on flickr… public setting, mind you, and you’re the one taking some heat for writing about it.
AND THEN, you’re called out on ‘having too much time on your hands.’
Craptastic.
Posted 11 Apr 2007 at 07:53 ¶Personally I think either Danger did this on purpose or their employees are not so bright. I’m hoping they did it on purpose though. I think this because the exact same thing happened before the SK2 was released. Andy Rubin posted a picture on Hiptop Nation taken with the SK2. Everyone realized it was taken by the SK2 and freaked out a little. Andy asked it to be taken down but not before I saved it and hosted it on my site.
Posted 11 Apr 2007 at 11:27 ¶From what I’ve been told, they did not do this on purpose.
I also remember when Andy posted that photo on hN on one of his flights to or from France. Man, the good old days.
There were also SK3 photos leaked well before launch that contained EXIF data.
Posted 11 Apr 2007 at 11:34 ¶Yes, god bless the Internets http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:LNktXSqVvdwJ:www.flickr.com/photos/rubin110/449199264/+http://www.flickr.com/photos/rubin110/449199264/&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
Posted 11 Apr 2007 at 14:10 ¶See, what I don’t understand about that last one, is why was Andy Rubin taking pictures of Aaron? What’s the deal there?
Posted 11 Apr 2007 at 18:09 ¶Andy Rubin is at robot.net and has his own photo gallery. The photos you are referring to were posted by Rubin Abdi who is not related to Andy Rubin.
Posted 11 Apr 2007 at 18:13 ¶Gotcha, so why was Rubin Abdi taking pictures of you with a Danger Zante?
Posted 11 Apr 2007 at 19:48 ¶He wasn’t. He replaced the photo taken with the Danger Zante with a photo of me after the Flickr URL started getting a ton of hits.
Posted 11 Apr 2007 at 19:51 ¶Now it’s all coming together…
Posted 11 Apr 2007 at 20:58 ¶sorensilk Says:
s4xton Says:
Ahh, for a good Lessons Learned.
Posted 12 Apr 2007 at 21:49 ¶I agree with sorensilk’s comment that they did it on purpose or the employees aren’t that bright.. I’m leaning toward the latter.
The fact of the matter is that they hide under a blanket of secrecy, but intentionally leak things out then deny that it’s the actual device. I love the devices danger puts out but I hate the fact that they’re consistantly three years behind the times with each instance of the device.
I could rant all day about the shortcommings of the device. but I won’t. *Sigh*
Posted 13 Apr 2007 at 11:58 ¶Why are the phones so limited! Agh. They can’t make the perfect phone. Or even close. Eh.
Posted 05 Jun 2007 at 21:50 ¶did anyone save the pictures before they were deleted. haha I sound lame but, I want to see what it looks like before I go out and get myself a sk3. if anybody has the pictures my aim is applerawks and my msn is krazymunkeezz@hotmail.com
Posted 15 Jun 2007 at 14:19 ¶Post a Comment