Tone Mobile, a Japan-based smartphone company, has recently released a new smartphone product that aims to stop teenagers and young people from taking naked photos of themselves and sending them to other people. How does it work?
No more send nudes! This Japanese smartphone won't let you take and send nude photos
Tone Mobile's budget phone called Tone e20 device has a 6.2-inch screen display, Helio P22 processor that powers Android 9.0, a set of rear cameras that has 13-megapixels, fingerprint sensor on the back, 64 GB storage, and a 3,900 mAh battery. Though the specs of the device look nothing extraordinary, this smartphone can censor its content to the extent that you cannot send nor take nude or 'inappropriate' photos of yourself.
"The error screen, with text saying "Photo not taken due to inappropriate content."
Tone e20 has a standard price of $180 that can be bought online on the Tone Mobile store. This smartphone has a "smartphone protection" feature that is artificial intelligence-powered and can only be used using Tone's products.
According to a report from the Japanese website Sora News 24, the feature helps the smartphone analyze the pictures or videos that are taken by the owner. Once the camera detects nudity in the photo taken, the owner will receive an error message saying that the recent photo taken cannot be saved nor sent by anyone-- which will then be deleted by the device.
Not only that, but parents can also easily monitor their children's devices with Tone Mobile's app that can be linked to their own smartphones-- which also "contains the date and time of the attempted photo, GPS information for where the attempt took place, and a pixelated thumbnail of the photo."
For parents or adults that might not need the censorship feature on their new Tone e20, you can also edit out its settings in order to take some photographs that contain your sexy pictures.
Sending nude photos is now being 'normalized'
According to a survey in 2014 made by Cosmopolitan magazine, 9 out of 10 millennial women had already taken a photograph of them being naked.
Tone Smartphone That Prohibits Taking Nude Photos is Now Available in Japan For Only $180
"99% female, with an average age of 21 - about taking naked pics. 88% have taken nude photos of themselves at some point. And of those readers, only 14% regretted taking the pics, and 82% would do it again," written in the magazine.
As also reported via The Guardian, generation nowadays usually relies on photographs that allow nude photos to be 'normalized' since most of the youth communicate visually.
"Selfies can be a diary, or a dialogue, or communication like, 'Hey, thinking of you, here's a picture,' or they can be entirely for self-reflection," said an associate professor at the University of New South Wales Kath Albury. "If you are of a culture where taking a picture to say hi or 'I'm thinking of you' is a valid form of everyday communication, then why would that not also be part of a flirtation or sexual relationship?"
