In the days of cell phones and video chat, there's not much of a reason to keep a rotary telephone around other than its vintage good looks. A new project called the Rotobooth is repurposing those antique devices of yore in a way that is so 2012: a text message-sending photo booth.
Rotobooth users dial their mobile numbers the old-school way with long winds around the rotary phone located below the camera lens. Creators of Rotobooth hacked the phone with an Arduino microcontroller, so that once a photo is taken, it's sent to Flickr, and the user then receives a text message link to that photo on whatever number was dialed on the rotary phone.
This retro take on a modern digital photo booth was actually part of a hacking session at Twilio, a cloud-based texting company, and was used to send text message photo links to those smiling for the Rotobooth camera. Go, hackers!
Photo: Flickr User mauxfaux
I remember using a rotary phone at my grandmother's when I was a little kid; in fact, I'm pretty sure she still has one in her home! Now that we're all fully loaded with cell phones, BlackBerrys, iPhones, and the like, I'm feeling a little nostalgic for the look, and the ritual, of dialing a rotary phone. Plus, they look so much better than your standard cordless. 