To the legions of Internet photo-bloggers who make a habit of snapping and circulating digital pictures of everyday life, the unofficial images of Iraqi prisoner abuse appearing in news reports recently may be shocking, but the fact of their existence is unremarkable. "People just capture whatever goes on in front of their eyes, and then it's on the Internet two minutes later.That's the whole ethos of this technology." That ethos - made possible by the plummeting cost of digital cameras and instant Internet distribution - is forcing a major shift in the expectation of what can be kept private, experts say, and may ultimately hold everyone more accountable for his or her actions, whether those actions take place in military prisons or on public streets. For Brandon Stone, 27, the creator of the Web site www.photoblogs.org, merely browsing through pictures that are submitted to the site can be overwhelming. During one recent day the shots' subjects ranged from a pretty pile of leaves to a charred remnant of a foot in Baghdad to the eerie images posted by a Russian woman who took a motorcycle trip to Chernobyl. Some of them are taken with standard digital cameras, other with cameras built into cellphones or pens. "It's just going to be more and more, because so many things are happening in the world right now, and people don't have to develop film in order to capture it - there is no film," Stone said. This new technology has become so pervasive making several unimaginable things happen in the world - setting of a series of changes - speed, societal change, transparency etc.. |
Sadagopan's Weblog on Emerging Technologies, Trends,Thoughts, Ideas & Cyberworld "All views expressed are my personal views are not related in any way to my employer"
