Showing posts with label Apps Adult. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apps Adult. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

eMBMS: Naughty after 11pm ;)


I have blogged about MBMS in past about how it didn't take off even though it was a promising technology. Now you may probably be aware that eMBMS is part of Release-9. I heard some interest in this feature.

The expectation is that the demand for data drops off later in the night after around 10pm. The operators may start some channels say after 11pm because the network will have lots of spare capacity that could be used for television channels. You could have late night movies, sports channels and adult channels.

An advantage of going eMBMS way would mean that even if you are roaming, you can have pay per view kind of approach as long as the other network is Release-9 compliant.

Interesting idea, not sure if it will take off.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

'Sexting' craze catching on in UK as US teen hangs herself



Eighteen-year-old Jessica Logan had it all. She was bright, pretty and popular. Her mum Cynthia describes her: "She was vivacious, she was artistic, she was fun, she was a good kid."
She was completely in love with her boyfriend but one day she sent him a text, a nude photo of herself, to show him how much she cared.

When they broke up he sent the picture to hundreds of teenagers in their town in Ohio to get back at her.
Jessica's friend Lauren Taylor told reporters: "She was being attacked and tortured. "When she would come to school, she would always hear, 'Oh, that's the girl who sent the picture'.''

The bullying spiralled out of control and Jessica began skiving off school. In June last year she couldn't take it any more and killed herself.

I wrote about 'Sexting' some months back and sure its become much more popular and dangerous since then.

According to the charity Beatbullying, one in three 11-18 year olds has received a "sext" – a sexually explicit message sent by phone or email – and girls are regularly being bullied into taking and sharing explicit photos of themselves. There is also a fear that these images may be falling into the hands of sex offenders. It is time for this private practice taking place on the tiny screens of children's mobile phones to be brought to light in the public domain.

The schools minister (UK), Diana Johnson, said children who were facing sexual bullying should tell a teacher. "We are committed to tackling all forms of bullying – including bullying using the internet and mobile phones, and sexual bullying," she said. "It is important that young people being bullied know that they can report it and that it can be stopped.

Maybe in couple of years we may have 'Minister for Mobile Communications' in UK or US to handle such problems :-)

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

"Upskirting" with mobiles

First there was Sexting and now I came across Upskirting. Apparently hundreds of thousands of photographs taken up unsuspecting women's skirts being posted online, the practice of 'upskirting' is clearly on the rise.

It is impossible to judge how many women have been victims of upskirting, though a quick internet search yields hundreds of sites with hundreds of thousands of images. And there may be millions more pictures on phones and laptops that have never been shared. They have been taken in the street, on escalators in shopping centres, on trains, at bus stops and in supermarkets, schools, offices and nightclubs.

Upskirt photography is also routinely used by paparazzi photographers. Usually taken as a woman steps out of a car, "crotch shots" are prized by newspapers such as the Daily Sport and countless gossip and porn websites. While it is often assumed that a handful of celebrities, such as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, actively encourage upskirt shots, many famous women are deeply upset by the prospect. In a recent interview, the Harry Potter actor Emma Watson described how, on a night out to celebrate her 18th birthday, "I realised that overnight I'd become fair game." (The rules that govern photographs of people under 18 are stricter than those for adults.) "One photographer lay down on the floor to get a shot up my skirt ... The night it was legal for them to do it, they did it. I woke up the next day and felt completely violated by it all."

There are endless web forums where "amateur" upskirters can exchange tips on how to get the "best" pictures. One was posted by a man who had made a "cam-bag" - a holdall with a specially made pocket with a hole in it for a digital video camera lens. Another writes: "Never forget to shoot their faces before or after to know which girls the ass belongs to ... After the first 50 asses, they look very similar and you lose most of the fun. After upskirting them, either step back and wait for them to turn or step by them and shoot direckly [sic] sidewise." Another poster, who says he operates "mostly at theme parks and tourist hotspots, or really anywhere that draws a large crowd of spectators and cameras", walks around until he finds "an attractive young lady, preferably a teen for my tastes, and then I evaluate the situation." He will often sit down next to a young woman and surreptitiously film her while pretending to fumble for new camera batteries in his bag.

On yet another site, one man posts: "I've been upskirting chicks, mostly at clubs, for almost two years. The club I go to is a great spot, real crowded, strobe lights going, loud music, so no one notices me sitting near the edge of the dance floor and if a woman in a skirt ends up by me I stick the cam under and snap."

In this country (UK), there is no specific legislation against upskirt photography, though it is covered by other laws. "If the person being photographed is in a place which would reasonably be expected to provide privacy in the circumstances, it may amount to the offence of voyeurism under the Sexual Offences Act 2003," says Linda Macpherson, a lecturer on law and expert on legal aspects of photography. "A person convicted of this offence may also be placed on the sex offenders register."

It could also come under the criminal offence of "outraging public decency". Macpherson cites the 2007 case of Simon Hamilton, a barrister, who was convicted after secretly filming up the skirts of women in supermarkets. "He appealed on the basis that, as none of the victims had been aware of the filming and no one else had seen it, public decency could not have been outraged. However, the court of appeal held that it was sufficient that the lewd act had occurred in a public place, and that there were at least two persons present capable of seeing it even if they had not actually seen it."

Repeat offender Andrew Mackie was this month jailed for one year for taking photographs of women in Sunderland and Durham city centres, and breaching a sexual offences prevention order which forbade him from owning a camera after he was convicted of similar offences in 2006.

A lesser sentence, however, was given to Guy Knight, a former chartered accountant from Seaford in East Sussex. He took photographs up women's skirts on trains over a five-month period while commuting to work. He was caught after suspicious passengers reported him to the police. More than 200 illicit images were found on his phone and laptop. Ten of the women in the pictures were traced by police, none of whom were aware they'd been photographed. Last year, he was fined £500 and ordered to pay £500 costs. Detective Constable Bob Cager was reported to have been "extremely disappointed - we thought he would have received a heavier sentence".

While the image of the "Peeping Tom" may seem quintessentially British, upskirting is not confined to the UK. In the US, where many of the images posted on the internet were taken, a recent incident led to a change in one state's law. In Oklahoma in 2007, charges against a 34-year-old man, who had been arrested for kneeling behind a 16-year-old girl in a shop, placing a camera under her skirt and taking a photograph, were dismissed after an appeals court concluded that "the person photographed was not in a place where she had a reasonable expectation of privacy". But in response to local outrage, the law was extended, making the photography of another person without their consent for "prurient, lewd or lascivious purposes" illegal.

In Japan, upskirting is so rife that all mobile phones sold now make a sound that cannot be turned off when a photograph is taken. And several Australian states have specific laws banning upskirt or down-blouse photography.

For women who have become aware of such pictures being taken of them, "it can be extremely distressing," says a spokesperson from Victim Support. "The sense of violation can be the same as with other forms of sexual assault. We would encourage anyone who has been a victim to contact us." Parkinson says of her experience, "I felt unsettled, targeted, and helpless; there was nothing that could be done about what had happened, and nothing I could do to prevent it from happening again."

The "defence" used by some upskirters is that since the majority of shots are taken without the woman's knowledge, and there is usually no way she can be identified to the wider public, there is no "victim". But Sasha Rakoff, director of Object, a group that campaigns against the objectification of women, says it is symptomatic of the perceived notion that women's bodies are public property. "You see upskirt shots on the front of the Sport newspaper and lads' mags, which consistently promote Peeping Toms by printing pictures of readers' girlfriends, and glamour models in "private" settings, such as the shower. Is it any wonder that men - equipped with the latest, cheap and readily-available 'mobile spyware' - then enact real-life voyeurism?

"Whatever barriers might exist to being a Peeping Tom have been comprehensively eroded by the male-orientated media, while men who already had no qualms over this form of sexual invasion are routinely vindicated in their belief that such behaviour is acceptable."

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Mobile dating to get big by 2013

In Sep 2007, Juniper Research proudly claimed, "Mobile dating revenues to reach $1bn by 2012, according to a new study from Juniper Research ". Most of the predictions are for the next 5 years as its safe to predict that much in future.

Now their latest report claims, "Mobile Dating Revenues to Approach $1.4bn by 2013 as Event-based Charging Models Proliferate, says Juniper Research":

A new Juniper Research report has found that new revenue streams from event-based charging and advertising will help to push the value of the mobile dating and chatroom market to nearly $1.4 billion by 2013, part of a burgeoning user-generated content (UGC) market that will reach $7.3 billion by the same time.

The report says that while subscription revenues will continue to contribute the bulk of service revenues over the next five years, an increasing number of dating companies have now switched to offering event-based charging, through products which offer free registration but levy charges when end-users wish to contact one another, or else offer virtual gifts for subscribers to send to other users.

The Juniper report also observed that while the initial impetus for dating services was provided off-portal, network operators have become increasingly keen to offer services on-portal as part of their entertainment portfolios: Vodafone offers Dating Direct, while 3 UK has partnered with Flirtomatic.

Other findings from the report include:
• Less than 30% of mobile dating customers will be on flat-rate subscriptions by 2011
• The Far East & China region is currently the largest region in terms of subscriber numbers, primarily due to the success of dating services in Japan
• Advertising will provide the majority of mobile social networking revenues but less than one-third of all UGC revenues by 2013

Its just matter of time when Location Based Services (LBS) will combine with these and offer 'instantaneous flirting' and 'speedy dating' ;)

Sunday, January 18, 2009

'Sexting' is dangerous for teens



It's a popular trend among teens called "sexting."Middle and high schoolers are texting racey nude pictures back and forth, and it's causing an uproar across the country.

According to a recent study, one out of five teens have done it. The study also shows that teen girls are not the only ones sharing sexually explicit content. Almost one in five teen boys said they have sent or posted nude/semi nude images of themselves. One-third of young adults -- 36% of women and 31% of men ages 20-26—say they have sent or posted such images.

A year ago, a 19-year-old cheerleading coach was charged and prosecuted for taking a topless photo of herself and a 15-year-old girl.

And a boy was taken to juvenile court last year for taking explicit photos of his girlfriend.

Mr Brown, who is also resource officer at the areas primary school, said of the 14-year-old boy's mobile phone photos: "They were as graphic as you would see in any Penthouse magazine."

In the latest case, three teenage girls in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, who sent nude self portraits, and the three male classmates who received the images, have all been served with child pornography charges.


The girls have been charged with manufacturing and disseminating child pornography while the boys are accused of possessing it.

In Wisconsin, a 17-year-old was charged with child pornography after posting naked pictures of his girlfriend, who is a year younger, on the internet. In Rochester, New York, a boy aged 16 faces seven years in jail for circulating an image of a girlfriend to friends.

"Sexting" is fast becoming a moral and legal headache for school heads and police throughout America. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy last month published a study suggesting one in five teens had sent or posted images of themselves in various stages of undress.

Jim Brown, an official at Glen Este high school in the Ohio town of Cincinnati, told the Cincinnati Enquirer: "If I were to go through the cell phones in this building right now, of 1,500 students I would venture to say that half to two- thirds have indecent photos, either of themselves or somebody else in school."

Prosecutors are facing increasing dilemmas because case law has not kept up with the impact of digital media on teenage behaviour. Young adults can face lengthy sentences resulting from relationships with younger teenagers, with penalties varying state by state.

Federal law also requires hefty punishment for teenaged relationships that span the legal start of adulthood at 17. An 18-year-old in their last year of high school who dates a 14-year-old in the first year faces up to 30 years in jail for a first offence.