X-ray Mobile Phone

Every schoolboy's dream comes true with the new x-ray mobile phone...

Remember those ads? See through clothes, see through hands, guys with googley eyes? X-ray goggles in 1977 Marvel comics? Well now it's actually happened and it's not April 1st.

Right now, in Japan, where else, there is actually a £100 add-on ’x-ray' camera, the latest mobile phone accessory. Primarily intended for night shots, owners of the infra-red mobile phone camera have found other uses. Because infra-red picks up on heat, bodies are warmer than clothes and the mobile phone accessory effectively shows bodies without clothes!

Made by Fukui-based Japanese company Yamada Denshi, the camera can be bought online and is compatible with top mobile phones such as the Vodafone V602-SH (only available in Japan) Yamada Denshi deny their gadget was designed for clandestine photography. This sounds all too familiar to the Sony video camera that was pulled from public sale just a few years ago...

Although the mobile phone accessory itself is not actually illegal, its potential uses are. That’s what concerns Vodafone, who deny responsibility and have condemned such blatant abuse of mobile phone camera technology. They are also keen to point out that Yamada are not an approved 3rd party technology provider.

In Japan, the gadget has been exploited by obsessive voyeurs and already there have been numerous arrests and court cases including prominent university professors and a network of pervs.

It's these illegal activities that have earned the mobile phone camera the dubious reputation of the "perv filter" with it been particularly effective with dark bikinis.

In Korea, the Government has demanded that from next year all new phones are to make shutter sounds or clicks to indicate picture-taking. It has been recommended that the sounds are to be 65 decibels, where conversation is around the 50-60 mark. Can you just imagine that?