Friday, December 17, 2004

Phone Cameras Hit Headlines

It happened recently in Delhi.In the Delhi Public School.A male student had oral sex with his girlfriend and had it photographed by another friend in his mobile phone camera.Some time later the video clip moved to IIT Kharagpur,was on the LAN for sometime and a net savvy student who happened to get hold of the footage auctioned it on bazee.com and earned some money.
The story of DPS was in circulation for some time though.But the bombshell came last night when the CEO of bazee.com,Avinash Bajaj, was arrested for assisting in the sale of porno on the net.The IIT student also has been arrested and so has the DPS student.The girl is missing but it is learnt that she has gone abroad.Delhi police are investigating into this cyber crime.
Almost simultaneously the Kareena-Shahid PDA(Public Display of Affection),got splashed allover.The TV news channels ran it ad nasueum.Both were seen kissing in a restaurant and the Mumbai tabloid Mid-Day turned it into frontpage news.The picture was taken using a camera phone.Both denied the incident and said the images were morphed and that they had never visited that restaurant where they were supposedly shot while they were very intimate.Kareena has sued Miday for Rs 20 crores for damage to her reputation.Mid-Day is sticking to its story.The papparazi have done it again.
A furious debate has started.Whether public figures should not be discreet and keep their emotions for the private.Also whether camera phones should not be banned in certain public places.The marketing chief in India of Samsung who was interviewed on this subject,said that their cell phone is designed in such a manner that there is an audible click when the cellphone is used for taking pictures.It can alert the people around.
The question really is the downside to techonolgy.While on the one hand a cellphone is a mustmust for everyone considering the convenience it imparts,the dangers of misuse like the above examples as well as the effects of radiation on the brain due to overuse is frightening.
For some time,I have been windowshopping for a PDA.Only yesterday afternoon I walked over to Abdul's shop at Flora Fountain.The bloke sells entertaiment electronics stuff and when I asked him for his suggestion for a PDA he tried to convince me of how superior Sony P 910 i is to the PalmOne Treo 600.He was so well informed that he knew about the DPS incident as well as the IIT KGP student Ravi Raj's road to fame!.He said that when he reached home last night his children and wife were discussing the DPS incident as well as the kareena-shahid affair.
The camera phone is becoming omnipresent and omnipotent.Global sales are expected to be around 50 million by 2007. Surely,in future, these camera phones will have to carry warning signs like 'It is injurious to health' as well as 'It can click your privacy away'.

3 comments:

lulu said...

i knew that it would not be too long before these camera phones caused scandal! they're pretty deadly and quite invasive of privacy. i'm all for technology but you'll always have these idiots who will misuse.

it will be so fun to see abdul again. i'm so impressed that he's so up on the latest and greatest technology. kudos to him. i'm actually surprised that a smartie panmts like him never made it to the middle east. i'll have to ask him why he never immigrated when i see him next.

see you very soooooooooooooooooooooooooon.

rums said...

in a way it's good that this MMS thing concerning the DPS kids is being taken very seriously. delhi kids need some serious discipline. in fact delhi school kids are a good study of a generation in transition. most of these kids are products of parents who are not just first generation consumers but rich consumers who take great pride in flashing expensive stuff. the kids imbibe this loudness from their parents and peers. this problem is so serious that even kids with 'normal' upbringing get influenced. just the other day, my friend and her 6-year old was visiting us and she commented to her mom how our CD collection was larger than theirs!
and lulu, all smart people needn't immigrate. i feel there is a sense of belonging in your own country that you don't get anywhere. at least that's how i feel. i have travelled extensively all over, and i must say even though sometimes i do envy the higher standards of living it's nothing like home. i always end up feeling like the outsider.
and why would any person in his/her right mind immigrate to the middle east? indians are treated like third-class citizens there, i'm told. all my friends who live there point out that racism is rampant and there is a strict hierarchy there, first come the arabs, then white-skinned individuals, then other muslims and then indians and other dark/olive-skinned people. an ex-ET colleague whose husband is a banker moved to dubai and her husband invited his colleagues for their house warming. apparently they turned him down. later an indian colleague told him that if they had accepted his invitation they, in turn would have had to invite him which they didn't want.

gs said...

a few 5 star hotels in mumbai have banned carrying cameraphones to the swimming pool area due to several complaints that they had received.yes,we must be careful of the flip side of technology.techonolgy must be used intelligently and for the larger benefit of society and not for vicarious pleasures of the rich.

last night we watched an interesting debate on prannoy roy's ndtv channel.it is a weekly show conducted by rajdeep sardesai called the 'big fight'.participating in the debate were 3 persons-a lady principal of a famous delhi school,a senior police official and a psychologist.who are to be blamed for the deterioration in moral values among children.children themselves,parents or schools.rumy hit the nail on the head writing about the delhi school children.each one of them comes in a honda city or a flashier car,the latest mobilephone in hand,and with an attitude.the blame rests majorly on the parents,that was more or less the consensus.pampering their children,one-upmanship over neighbours,no time to spend with them,no inculcation of strong moral values.

the current generation of children are more intelligent than our generation,very techsavvy and great achievers.but then what is the use if they lack in imbibing a moral value system.

schools should play a proactive role and encourage sex education so that the pros and cons of indulging in early sex is properly understood by the kids.a survey on the sex habits of school children in delhi which was discussed was quite frightening.

a minister recently suggested that condoms should be distributed among school children.times have changed and prevention is better than cure. and cure there may not be.