Digital reality easily manipulated

It's interesting to think how digital technologies affect our lives. Digital means information is recorded, stored, and transmitted in easy-to-manage digital bits--one's and zero's, actually. The "real world" is analog, which means information is recorded, stored, and transmitted in a continuum of values rather than discreet numbers.

The takeaway from this is that digital reality is easy to manipulate with the help of computers. CNET News.com has an article talking about new digital cameras that provide push-button slimming functions:

HP's recently released in-camera editing feature that makes a person appear more svelte. The tool, called "Slimming Mode," is part of HP's Design Gallery software, which is included on some of its Photosmart M and R series cameras. It compresses the center of a photo and stretches the edges to fix the aspect ratio, said Linda Kennedy, a product manager for digital photography at HP.

The slimming tool doesn't target people specifically; it will elongate any object centered in the photo, with three degrees of slimness. Like most digital cameras with editing tools, the changed photo is saved as a copy, and the original image remains on the camera intact.

Kennedy, one of the proponents of the feature while it was in development, said the idea came from the many people HP surveyed who said they hated having their picture taken.

The article goes on to talk about how people have less trust in images nowadays (and rightly so) and what easily manipulated images means for society in general. It's quite an interesting read for those interested in how technology is changing our world.