OnePlus to disable camera colour feature with pervy tendencies in latest flagship smartphone
- Reference: 1589903106
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/19/oneplus_x_ray_camera_filter/
- Source link:
In a (Google-translated) [1]post to its Weibo page , the Chinese smartphone giant acknowledged the issue and apologised, saying: "Recently, based on user feedback, we found that under very specific environmental conditions, the filter lens may have a slight perspective effect on special materials at very close distances.
"In order to eliminate the impact on user privacy under possible extreme circumstances and eliminate everyone's concerns, we [have] decided to temporarily disable the filter function through software upgrades."
OnePlus is expected to release this update to Chinese users later this week. So far there's no word on an update for those outside the Middle Kingdom, but we've asked that very question.
OnePlus said the colour filter camera will eventually be enabled once engineers have managed to mitigate its slightly voyeuristic tendencies.
The mea culpa concludes somewhat unusually by threatening legal action against those who use the feature to poke fun at OnePlus.
"At present, there are a lot of descriptions about the perspective ability of this lens on Weibo that are not in line with the facts," the firm said. Anyone posting fake pictures is liable for a knock on the door from local authorities, OnePlus warned.
It's not clear whether this episode will dent sales of the OnePlus 8 Pro. By disabling the colour filter camera, it's effectively a triple-lens shooter – just like its cheaper sibling, the bog-standard OnePlus 8.
And while there are other points of differentiation (for starters, the OnePlus 8 Pro has a bigger, faster display, as well as wireless charging), people often buy phones based primarily on the capabilities of the camera.
Regardless, OnePlus should be commended for breaking barriers in the often stagnant smartphone space, even if they didn't intend to. The release of an X-ray phone is a world-first, though now it will hopefully appeal less to the "upskirters and assorted perverts" niche. ®
[1] https://www.weibo.com/3871046669/J2z9UgzY7?type=comment
In case anyone else was wondering ...
.. what this "color filter camera" was, here's [1]a description . Seems to me like not a great deal is being lost by disabling it. I'm surprised that the (intended) effects can't be reasonably well duplicated with the regular camera and some software, but what do I know.
[1] https://www.androidauthority.com/oneplus-8-pro-color-camera-1105842/
Much ado about nothing
So far I've seen nothing approaching NSFW demoz of this "flaw", just males in black t-shirts with something solid underneath. Given the internet, I assume the lack of bra or nipple photos means that this is no more effective than x-ray specs.
True pervs will still need a readily available but expensive IR camera. Note that this is the same technology that is or will be used for mass body temperature screening.
Re: Much ado about nothing
You can convert old DSLRs to "infra red" by nobbling the filter.
It's a whole field of photography in itself
Sounds like the Sony camera bug of several years ago : in that case it was iirc the disabling of the camera's IR filter (usually only done when used with IR illumination) in daylight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpWBIt2gjzY