The cost of watermelon in Japan is very high so you have to make sure your product stands out to get some of that market.

This would have been such a fantastic and popular mass market item.

Also some movies (at least Cinemascope) are shot through an special lens and require a special lens to project.

And DVDs that are created for widescreen. If you play such a DVD on a normal DVD and tell the DVD player your television is widescreen (16:9) then the image looks compressed horizontally.

If you are determined you can use the absolute most holy item for sin. So I don't think cars need to be singled out. ;)

Left over water in the keyboard when you plug it in is the real danger. I think popping off keys on some keyboards will result in more potential problems than washing the keyboard in the dishwasher. If you let it dry completely before you use it I can't see it being damaged unless water hides in some place that won't dry.

I would expect it would be easier to setup another simpler timer mechanism than a micro-controller that you have to program. I don't know that much about the chip but the LM555 timer chip will operate at the 3.3v DC that is available in that camera and would be less work. Though probably a lot less accurate for timing the photographs.