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The Camera Mobile
By Ieuan Dolby, Fri Dec 9th
Since I wrote the last article on mobile phones so much newnessand advancement has been made that I just have to write anotherone. Of course there are thousands of lost souls still usingtheir phones as a form of escape from the outside world and manyothers talking to a dialing tone, but now they can takephotographs of themselves as they do it. The mini-camera phobia has now reared its ugly head and althoughit has long been a futuristic novelty idea it is now with us forreal – phones with cameras in them. The James Bond life stylecan be with us all! The cost of these phones is prohibitive toall but the fashion conscious desperate, those with lots ofmoney and the Koreans. In 4 million handsets have alreadybeen sold to the gadget crazed population. Four million littlemobile phones with a camera lens in them have been purchased byfour million potential spies. Allot of bad publicity has followed the development,introduction and us200200age of these cameras worldwide. Most ofthe bad press has focused on the possibility of spying on othersin a simple and effective manner – as highlighted by the womanwho used her new acquisition to photograph a poor innocentbather in one of Koreas many public baths. The bathers werenaked: the young girls showing off their fine bodies and in thecorner was a crabby old lady talking on a mobile phone, ignoredby the crowd. Only she wasn’t talking on the phone she wastaking photographs of the nudity surrounding her. A few dayslater this lady sold these photographs to Web Sites around theworld and made allot of money.
It is not all bad though. Recently a phone was used tophotograph a sex maniac on the prowl. A young lad snapped shotsof the driver and the license plate of a car and subsequentlysubmitted them to the police. The driver had followed the boymaking rude suggestions and innuendo but soon found himselfarrested: with the possibility of five years in prison. Although the hype and media opinions have focused on thenegative side of these expensive gadgets it is not withoutcause. Happy ending stories like the one above are far and fewbetween and even in the short lived history of these phones theyhave been used illegally or for illegal purposes on numerousoccasions. It has been such a worry for the thirds largestmobile phone manufacturer that they have banned them in theiroffice buildings to prevent spies from having an easy time.Samsung
the very company that pioneered the sticking of a lensinto a phone have banned them on the factory floors, the officebuildings and corridors and have even gone to the extent offitting X-ray machines that will sound warning if a person hasone on their person. A Samsung Official was asked about thislatest ruling and he stated that, “camera phones are handy andthe quality is so good it can be used for Industrial Espionage”.So whilst trying to justify the ban from the very place thatthey were invented he also got in a good bit of advertising. At 400,000 Won (300 GBP), a third of a typical householdsmonthly income these phones are expensive. But it has notprevented a country were 3/4 of the population possess a mobilephone and were all have become crazed over them. Theirpopularity is soaring, their uses are multiplying and theirdependency is increasing on a daily basis. Everybody must haveone; everybody will scrimp and save on food and clothes untilthey have one and without which life is not worth getting up inthe morning for. Since their introduction in 2001, one fifth of mobile phonecarriers now have a camera type one. It is not just the camerathat attracts such fervor and desperation to own one. As oneKorean housewife called Moon Ae-ran said, “I can turn on thewashing machine and other home appliances with my mobile phoneeven when I am out shopping”. In fact she went on further to saythat, “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 Leeis a thirty seven year old business man who spends 200GBP on hisphone bills every month. How he has survived without it isanybodies guess and how he has ever managed to conduct businesswhen he doesn’t even know where his closet is even harder toimagine but such is life in Korea. He went on to say that “ithas so many cool functions. It’s a part of my life”. Back at Koreas majority phone producers’ headquarters workersand visitors are trying to come to grips with a life without aphone. Directors are desperately reading instruction manuals on‘How to Use a Land Line Phone’ and workers are queuing up to usecoin phones that have been dusted off and re-installed. About the author:Ieuan Dolby is the Author and Webmaster of Seamania . As a ChiefEngineer in the Merchant Navy he has sailed the world forfifteen years. Now living in Taiwan he writes about culturesacross the globe and life as he sees it.
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