Tuesday July 29
 
00:12
 
Up-Skirt

From Times Online:

Here is one from the creep-ware department. Japanese tech reporter Nobuyuki Hayashi reports that Apple is equipping the new iPhone 3G models for the Japan market with a country-specific feature to stop local perverts from snapping so-called “up-skirt” or “down-blouse” photos of unsuspecting women.

Evidently, this form of “gotcha!” amateur photography is becoming an increasing problem in some public places in Japan, like on the escalators of Tokyo subway stops, Cult of Mac reports. As a result, camera phone manufacturers have been selling handsets that make a distinctive shutter sound to warn women (or, anyone nearby for that matter) that someone is taking a photo with their mobile. The first generation iPhones, however, had a silence mode that disabled this warning function. The new models, now on sale in Japan, however, “do make a sound if you take picture even when it is set to silent mode,” Hayashi writes.

In the UK and USA no sound is required because the iPhone doesn’t have a wide angle lens – the arses are just TOO GOD DAMN FAT to be captured with an iPhone.

But this is not new. In Korea and Japan all cell phones need to make a noise when taking photos. It has not been possible to up-skirt or down-blouse in Japan or Korea for a long time… not that you need to in Japan, the skirts are so damn short that no “upping” is required.

The iPhone is not available in Korea, so that is probably why it is country specific to Japan – the only country where the arses are small and sexy enough for people to WANT to photograph them secretly.

By the way, “hayashi” is “chopsticks” in Japan – so this man is called Mr Chopsticks. Lovely.