Camera Restricta stops users taking sub-par photos
Bar nipples, you can post pretty much anything on Instagram. The possibilities are, quite literally, endless. So why does your feed look always look the same?

Designer Phillipp Schmitt is on the case with Camera Restricta, a device that prevents the user from even taking clichéd photographs, let alone uploading them.

The camera works by locating the user via GPS, and uses geotags to search online in real time. If too many photos are found of a particular landmark, then it does you and all your friends a favour by retracting the shutter and blocking the viewfinder, giving you and that Banksy mural and big nope.

Currently just a speculative project for Schmitt’s BA, the technology is housed in a 3D printed body but could just as well be programmed as an app. And, though it might feel like a welcome addition to your social media, Schmitt points out that it could just as well be used for the slightly less savoury cause of government censorship.

New technologies and changing attitudes towards technology mean that designers are seeking out ways to combine the online with the physical. Take a look at HTTPrint, a project that turns your browser history into a newspaper, and send emails in your own handwriting with Lazy Pen.