Japan's camera phone craze spreads to funerals

Japan's obsession with camera-equipped mobile phones has taken a bizarre twist, with mourners at funerals now using the devices to capture a final picture of the deceased. Reuters reports.

"I get the sense that people no longer respect the dead. It's disturbing," a funeral director told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.

At one ceremony several people gathered round the coffin and took out their phones to photograph the corpse as preparations were made to begin a cremation, she was quoted as saying.

"I'm sure the deceased would never want their faces photographed," she said.

But others called it a form of a memento in the modern age.

"Some can't grasp 'reality' unless they take a photo and share it with others ... It comes from a desire to keep a strong bond with the deceased," social commentator Toru Takeda told the paper. "

Other cell-phone-to-the-grave related stories:

-- Irish are taking their cell phones with them to the grave

-- In Ghana, you can take your Nokia with you

-- Dead people in Slovakia are buried with their mobile phones

-- Mobile phone started ringing inside coffin

emily | 2:38 PM | How people and businesses are using cameraphones |
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