Ringing Ceders

Apparently Japan has a problem with voyeurs using their phone’s camera to try and take dirty pictures of the view from under an unsuspecting schoolgirl’s skirt or down one’s blouse. It turned into such a problem that on nearly all phones available in Japan, snapping a picture will always make a conspicuous shutter sound, or sometimes even say "cheese".  Now this is some interesting iPhone News.

We thought that all iPhone 3Gs around the world were made equally, but it turns out we were wrong. With the original iPhone, putting the device in silent mode mutes all sound coming out of the device. The same is true for the iPhone 3Gs around the world, with the exception of one country. In Japan, the shutter noise of the Camera app cannot be muted completely. Strange, yes, but not nearly as strange as the reason for it.