A Candid Phone With A Camera Eye

S.C.Pandya*

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Calendars, especially the glossy ones, and wall clocks are still a craze for an average Indian household for checking the date or time besides displaying them as decorative wall hangings. But, both are conspicuous by their absence in the homes of phone-savvy Japanese, South Koreans and Taiwanese. Teenagers from these as well as many developed countries have already given a go-by even to the ubiquitous wristwatch. After all, with a mobile phone displaying day, date and time, who needs another contraption?

The latest fashion statement is a fantasy gizmo – a mobile phone with an integrated camera. Weighing around hundred rams, the camera-phone works both as a combination as well as independently i.e. either phone or a camera. All, because of the revolutionary novel technological feature, called multimedia-messaging service (MMS).

Besides normal conversation and sending messages, MMS enables camera-phone owners to unobtrusively click photographs through a digital camera attached to their mobile phone. These photographs can be sent anywhere, anytime to another mobile phone having MMS facility.

One can even store these photographs in the camera, and later download them at leisure, on a personal computer (PC) and send the same through e-mail. MMS-enabled phones can also receive and transmit pictures from Internet.

MMS, an advanced version of short messaging service (SMS), allows users to enhance the quality of their messages by incorporating images, photographs and sound, transforming it into an emotionally charged audio-visual message. In fact, just when SMS started making waves, and was about to break the glass ceiling, MMS arrived on the scene and played the spoilsport for SMS in India.

Though still in infancy, MMS has caught the imagination of the rich and the not-so-rich simply because it establishes an emotional link between the sender and the recipient.

By the end of October 2003, more than 19 million Indians had become the proud owners of a mobile phone. And those who fancy a cellular phone that can double up as a camera have already started making a niche for themselves. Going by the market study of Japan and South Korea, one in every five mobile phone owners, all over the world, are going to have a camera-phone in the coming four to five years. As of now, South Korea is breaking all records. During last year, three-quarters of its 48 million people lapped up more than four million camera-phones.

Realising its potential, three leading cellular operators in India have not only started providing MMS but also forged an alliance to route MMS through each other’s network. This means that nearly one lakh MMS subscribers are, now, able to send and receive video and audio messages through their mobile phones. For wooing potential subscribers, some cellular operators are even offering the service almost free, to begin with.

Globally, the scene is mind-boggling. More than 40 operators, worldwide, have launched MMS in the last six months alone. Industry analysts point out that by 2010, about eight out of every 10 handsets will be MMS-enabled. By 2006, MMS is expected to generate a revenue of $ 44 billion for these operators. In Europe alone, MMS growth will be worth $ 10 billion by the year 2006.

In just about two years, 20 billion MMS i.e., nearly 40 per cent of all messages are expected to be sent every month, across the world. In India, more than 50,000 users are already sending around two lakh MMS messages per month.

According to a study made by Strategy Analytics, an Anglo-US research agency, the surging demand in Japan and South Korea have resulted in a shipment of around 25 million handsets with built-in cameras, world-wide in the first half of the year 2003, by leading mobile phone manufactures. Unfortunately, this has crippled the international market of the conventional cameras that registered a sale much lower than camera-phones, for the first time since the simplest form of camera was invented in 1930.

That is why, most cellular operators in India are of the view that this is the right time for MMS to take off. In fact, mobile phones have become indispensable in the modern age. They are being used for location finding, Internet access, enjoying live TV shows and settling business transactions while one is still shopping or driving home.

Camera-phone is also emerging as an ideal diagnostic tool for surgeons, especially when they want to tender advice on an emergency basis by physically looking at the injury of a patient who has met with an accident many miles away and suffered multiple or even a minor fracture.

In the last one year or so, camera-phones have helped the police, in India as well as many other countries in crime fighting, as well. In a number of hold-ups, alert bystanders quietly captured the photograph of the gangster who had forced counter clerks and bank managers to part with cash and valuables. These photographs were later handed over to the police who could nab the criminal with utmost alacrity.

These cameras have also become highly prized tools for journalists to cover the assignment in the absence of a photographer. With the help of camera-phones they can photograph an event instantly and transmit the same to a newspaper in seconds.

But there also exists a negative side to the growing proliferation of camera-phones. With their arrival another chapter has been added to the art of spying. These tiny electronic balls attached to the camera, though look innocuous, have tremendous capacity for mischief making. In fact, these phones have already become a nasty tool in the hands of anti-social elements and criminals who are using them for surreptitiously taking voyeuristic photos, targeting celebrities in particular.

It is not only unethical but a blatant invasion on an individual’s privacy. Unscrupulous ladies are known to have taken photographs of their unsuspecting friends having a sauna bath, and selling them to equally unscrupulous web site operators for a hefty price. Therefore all leading health clubs in Britain and USA have banned these cameras. Overnight, the show-off piece has become an object of suspicion.

The most disastrous consequence, however, of this technology is its growing use for industrial espionage. In fact, the very Korean company which pioneered the technology of sticking a tiny lens on a small handset, has banned these cameras, not only on their factory floors, but even in office corridors. Scotland and Ireland have already banned these cameras in all government buildings.

Another Korean company engaged in hi-tech research and design of automobiles, has set up X-ray detectors at all entry points to block camera-phones and also to trace visitors possessing them if they have, somehow, sneaked inside undetected.

We all know that spying has been in vogue from times immemorial, and it has always been a dirty word. Punishment for spying has also been excessively harsh, including beheading and hanging till death. But, it has failed to serve as a deterrent. In fact, spying has become a flourishing profession, more so if it is related to industrial espionage.

Highly perturbed over its ramifications, legal experts are already drafting new set of laws to deal with this menace. Hopefully, individuals will have the right to sue the offenders for such infringements.(PIB Features)

*Freelance Writer