Tiny Pictures aims to bring utility to camera phone pictures

PHOENIX--If you're one of the millions of people with camera phones and no clear sense of how to make them useful in your life, a start-up called Tiny Pictures thinks it has an answer.

At the Demo '06 conference here, the San Francisco company showed off its software platform, known as Radar, which it says can bring order and ease of use to photos taken from the devices.

The idea is that with the push of a single button, a user can shoot a picture, and with a second push, can publish the photo to a channel that can be broadcast to almost any other cell phone user you want. But because of its privacy settings, you get to choose who sees your photos.

In addition, the software allows you to subscribe to others' channels (so long as they invite you) and then display, on your cell phone, your own channel as well as that of others. It also gives the option of showing a chronological stream of photos and to add comments to your own and others' pictures.

It's unclear how many people would use Radar, but if it can bring some real utility to the camera phone, then it's likely to be a big hit. Time will tell.