| The Camera Mobile |
| by: Ieuan Dolby |
|
Since I wrote the last article on mobile phones so much newness
and advancement has been made that I just have to write another
one. Of course there are thousands of lost souls still using
their phones as a form of escape from the outside world and many
others talking to a dialing tone, but now they can take
photographs of themselves as they do it.
The mini-camera phobia has now reared its ugly head and although
it has long been a futuristic novelty idea it is now with us for
real – phones with cameras in them. The James Bond life style
can be with us all! The cost of these phones is prohibitive to
all but the fashion conscious desperate, those with lots of
money and the Koreans. In Korea 4 million handsets have already
been sold to the gadget crazed population. Four million little
mobile phones with a camera lens in them have been purchased by
four million potential spies.
Allot of bad publicity has followed the development,
introduction and us200200age of these cameras worldwide. Most of
the bad press has focused on the possibility of spying on others
in a simple and effective manner – as highlighted by the woman
who used her new acquisition to photograph a poor innocent
bather in one of Koreas many public baths. The bathers were
naked: the young girls showing off their fine bodies and in the
corner was a crabby old lady talking on a mobile phone, ignored
by the crowd. Only she wasn’t talking on the phone she was
taking photographs of the nudity surrounding her. A few days
later this lady sold these photographs to Web Sites around the
world and made allot of money.
It is not all bad though. Recently a phone was used to
photograph a sex maniac on the prowl. A young lad snapped shots
of the driver and the license plate of a car and subsequently
submitted them to the police. The driver had followed the boy
making rude suggestions and innuendo but soon found himself
arrested: with the possibility of five years in prison.
Although the hype and media opinions have focused on the
negative side of these expensive gadgets it is not without
cause. Happy ending stories like the one above are far and few
between and even in the short lived history of these phones they
have been used illegally or for illegal purposes on numerous
occasions. It has been such a worry for the thirds largest
mobile phone manufacturer that they have banned them in their
office buildings to prevent spies from having an easy time.
Samsung the very company that pioneered the sticking of a lens
into a phone have banned them on the factory floors, the office
buildings and corridors and have even gone to the extent of
fitting X-ray machines that will sound warning if a person has
one on their person. A Samsung Official was asked about this
latest ruling and he stated that, “camera phones are handy and
the quality is so good it can be used for Industrial Espionage”.
So whilst trying to justify the ban from the very place that
they were invented he also got in a good bit of advertising.
At 400,000 Won (300 GBP), a third of a typical households
monthly income these phones are expensive. But it has not
prevented a country were 3/4 of the population possess a mobile
phone and were all have become crazed over them. Their
popularity is soaring, their uses are multiplying and their
dependency is increasing on a daily basis. Everybody must have
one; everybody will scrimp and save on food and clothes until
they have one and without which life is not worth getting up in
the morning for.
Since their introduction in 2001, one fifth of mobile phone
carriers now have a camera type one. It is not just the camera
that attracts such fervor and desperation to own one. As one
Korean housewife called Moon Ae-ran said, “I can turn on the
washing machine and other home appliances with my mobile phone
even when I am out shopping”. In fact she went on further to say
that, “How can I live without this thing?”
“A mobile phone can get you to your destination, for example,
the closet, gas station or whatever” said Lee Sang Chul. Mr Lee
is a thirty seven year old business man who spends 200GBP on his
phone bills every month. How he has survived without it is
anybodies guess and how he has ever managed to conduct business
when he doesn’t even know where his closet is even harder to
imagine but such is life in Korea. He went on to say that “it
has so many cool functions. It’s a part of my life”.
Back at Koreas majority phone producers’ headquarters workers
and visitors are trying to come to grips with a life without a
phone. Directors are desperately reading instruction manuals on
‘How to Use a Land Line Phone’ and workers are queuing up to use
coin phones that have been dusted off and re-installed.
|
|
| |
| |
Apple, HP, IBM, Lexmark, Canon, Epson, Xerox and
other manufacturer brand names and logos are registered trademarks
of their respective owners. Any use of a brand name or model
designation for a non-OEM cartridge is made solely for purposes of
demonstrating compatibility. Coupons are not valid for OEM
cartridges, solid ink, or media products. |
| |
