Copyright (c) 2008: Derek Clontz/4-Page Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
A JAPANESE electronics firm has unveiled a futuristic new digital camera that unveils and photographs “the inner you.”
And that means drop-dead hunks and beauties who are mean and nasty on the inside will look, in pictures taken by the camera, ”ugly and deformed” while homely men and women with hearts of gold will photograph “like supermodels and movie stars,” a spokesman for the firm says.
“We call it the Soul Camera – and it’s long overdue,” Takiro Nakamura, of Sonaco Electronics, which introduced the camera at an international trade show in Tokyo, told me exclusively.
“Since the advent of film photography in the 19th century, unattractive men and women with wonderful and loving personalities have been made to suffer as objects of scorn because they weren’t photogenic like beautiful people who often are stupid, shallow and mean-spirited their behavior.
“The Soul Camera is the ‘great equalizer.’ Thanks to this new technology, ugly men and women who are good and decent people have a chance to be seen for what they are – beautiful on the inside.
“Of course, there are ugly people who also are ugly on the inside, but there’s nothing we can do to enhance their images short of ‘doctoring’ their photos by retouching them on a computer.
“The Soul Camera is a machine – it doesn’t know how to lie.”
Nakamura refuses to say exactly how the Soul Camera works but acknowledges that it relies on technology similar to what is used in cameras that photograph “auras” that are invisible to the naked eye.
And in a demonstration that left many trade-show visitors speechless, a dozen professional photographers outfitted with Soul Cameras invited all comers to sit for a picture.
“It’s me – it’s really me,” New York technology writer Patricia Marleson gushed before she broke into tears. “All my life people have made fun of me because I’m not pretty like other women, and I’m fat.
“But the Soul Camera shows me for what I am. Look at me in the picture. I’m beautiful.”
Not everyone was so pleased with the result. A well-built and attractive Chicago computer salesman who declined to give his name sat for his picture – and he came out looking like a skid row bum.
“This is a bunch of bull,” he fumed. “What’s this all about? This is some kind of a joke.”
Not so, says Nakamura, who cites queries from police departments, intelligence agencies and even courts and judges from around the world who are interested in using the Soul Camera to help in the evaluation of criminals and suspects, including possible terrorists.
In fact, the FBI has already placed orders for 20 of the cameras that one agent says “could change the way we gather intelligence forever.”
“These things aren’t truth detectors, but anything that can help us ‘get inside’ a suspect’s head is a tool we want in our arsenal. Think about it. You’ve got a respected and beloved college professor who may be a terrorist, and you have no evidence that would warrant shaking him down in an arrest.
“Snap this guy’s picture with a Soul Camera and you might find out something very interesting about him. You might find him looking like Tom Cruise on the outside and Joan Rivers or Phyllis Diller on the inside.
“If that’s not enough to justify a little interrogation, I don’t know what would be.”
The cameras are available only in Japan at the moment, but Nakamura says U.S. versions will hit stores later this year. They come in three styles, including basic, deluxe and professional trims.
Suggested price for the base version will be around $6,000. Top-of-the-line models will go for at least $18,000, Nakamura says.
