SENT gallery show opens in LA July 10

The gallery show for SENT, the phonecam art project Xeni Jardin is co-curating with Sean Bonner and Caryn Coleman of sixspace, opens Saturday July 10 in LA.

Images from 25 invited artists, filmmakers and celebs will debut alongside digitally-displayed images submitted by the public

The SENT exhibition takes place in the Standard Hotel Downtown LA - who offers free WiFi throughout the hotel. Come all ye bloggers.

More details when and where here.

Writing down common sense

In the fast lane of the ever-emerging technological age, school districts such as Pearl River are right to address electronic privacy issues, reports TheJournalNews.com and they are doing it with common sense.

"To deal with the challenges that come with the Internet and other electronic means of communication, a 20-member committee of Pearl River parents, teachers, staff, students and community residents met this year to review policies and create a code of conduct with regard to privacy and harassment matters.

As reported by staff writer Nancy Cacioppo, the new "out of sight and off" policy bars the use of cellphones and camera phones during the school day, except with the teacher's prior permission for the purpose of recording assignments. It also prevents students and staff from communicating via e-mail or cell- phones without parental consent.

Text messaging or instant messaging, while permitted for homework or event posting, is limited to school-related activities and may not be made between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. The policy also outlines procedures for reporting violations. The policy will go into effect in the fall and will be reviewed by staff and students throughout the next year.

This is all common sense, and the new policy should make it easier to pursue the main task of schools, which is education, without electronic interruption, including the rude behavior of answering a cellphone during class."

Photoblogging London's Tube strike

The bloggers at london.metblogs.com have been doing an admirable job of covering the subway strike in London. [ boingboing ]

At the firm I work all staff have taxi's to get to work during the tube strike - the problem is the big cab firm we use are fully booked between 0630 - 0900, meaning the whole fleet are used and no more bookings can be made.

The result of this is people having to come to work at 0500 and some even earlier!  (Heaven forbid they should brave the buses!).

NZ to jail mobile phone peeping Toms

New Zealand will pass a law to jail people who secretly film others having sex or in other intimate situations without their consent, Justice Minister Phil Goff has said, reports The Age.

"Covert filming is becoming an increasing problem as new technology, such as cell phones with photographic capabilities, is developed," Goff said in a statement.

His comment followed publication of a Law Commission report calling for three-year jail sentences for those who make such films. It also recommended that those distributing and possessing covertly filmed images "of a very intimate nature" should receive a 12-month sentence. "

Photo-Me

Times Online has a market watch article on a company called Photo-Me which caught my eye.

This company is the world's largest photo-booth operator, as well as being a leading supplier of photo processing labs. Their long term plans are "to cash in on the emerging popularity of digital cameras and camera phones, by developing standalone processing kiosks, which allow people to develop pictures themselves.

Initial trials have gone well, generating gross average monthly revenues of £1,650, on a booth that costs £2,000 to make. The plan is eventually to roll out 300 to 400 units a month.

Stickpix Launches First U.K. Camera Phone Printing Service

Stickpix. has this week launched the U.K.'s first mobile phone only picture printing service, reports More Mobile.

"The new service enables users of camera phones to print out their pictures by simply MMSing the picture to the Stickpix phone number - no registration, no credit card details, no website subscription is needed. Users get the high-quality prints sent, first-class, to an address of their choice anywhere and anytime".

Your cellphone takes pictures. Now what?

Kodak recently introduced a service in Europe that lets customers send pictures and videos from certain camera phones, like Nokia's 6600, 7650 and 3650, to private albums on the Web, reports the IHT. Consumers also can order prints from Kodak directly from the phone.

"Kodak is installing Picture Maker kiosks equipped with Bluetooth, a short-range wireless technology, at Nokia stores in Britain, Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands. The kiosks are also being tested in other retail outlets, like Carphone Warehouse and Orange stores, and will eventually be installed in public places like train stations."

Camera phone is man's defense

In an other incident were a cell phone is used as evidence, the Belleville News reports on a Madison County man accused of rape, who was able to prove his innocence thanks to pictures taken that night with his camera phone.

"The photos he snapped convinced authorities Carrie Alesandrini wasn't being truthful when she reported a rape to Bethalto Police in January. Prosecutors ended up charging Alesandrini with disorderly conduct, and she recently pleaded guilty.

According to Assistant State's Attorney Jennifer Vucich, the pictures were of sex acts that were obviously consensual. Alesandrini had taken pictures of the man, and he took pictures of her,

"There were times when it was clear she had the camera. They weren't the kind of pictures that would be taken during a rape," Vucich said.

The prosecutor said Alesandrini apparently made up the allegation because her boyfriend was suspicious about her being gone all night.

Industry officials say the case is an example of how the growth of camera phones is helping police get to the bottom of cases".

Related articles on how cameraphones have helped nab criminals:

-- Camera phones as a new crime-solving tool

-- Cellphone snapshot exposes flasher

-- Camphone snap as evidence in police investigation

-- Teen abduction foiled thanks to camera phone

-- Pictures from camera phones used as evidence to catch criminals

-- Young robber caught on cell phone camera

-- Robbers caught on cell phone camera

Ming Mong

Australia's The Age reports on an original and very successful mobile marketing campaign by Virgin, based on a game called Ming Mong.

The object of the game is to outwit your opponent with photo messages and in mini ming mong with text messages.

"It is essentially mobile ping-pong, a fictitious sport devised to encourage high-volume MMS usage. Customers message one another a picture with a phrase underneath - for example, a picture of a toilet brush with the phrase: "I found your toothbrush."

The challenge is to come up with an equally funny (or catty) comeback. A website (mingmong.com.au) was developed, including an elaborately fabricated history with specific rules and details of state Ming Mong championships. Shops sell Ming Mong packs, including a phone, Ming Mong Mischief Guide and sweatbands.

DialaCard

Milwaukee based DialACard allows camera phone users to take a picture, type in a text message and send it off to them. Within 24 hours they will professionally print a postcard and mail it out anywhere in the world. Check out the company's splash page showing the product, which should launch next month.

Click here for related article on MMS postcard services that launched previously in Europe.

muvee Brings Video Auto-Editing to Phones

muvee Technologies this week announced muveeStyles, themed templates for automatically creating video messages on a mobile phone, reports Phone Scoop.

"muvee allows phone users to quickly and easily convert long video clips in short, fun video clips suitable for sending via MMS. The software intelligently identifies "highlights" in raw video and edits clips accordingly. muveeStyles work with the company's muvee software, initially available for Nokia's 7610 smartphone. The downloadable themes - available for $3 each - include unique effects, transitions, graphics, music and editable text messages that are applied to the video."

MMS Soap on Spanish Telefónica Móviles

Spanish Telefónica Móviles has launched FanTESStic, an interactive series with real actors created exclusively for MMS, reports near near future.

"Each week, subscribers get three chapters of the mobile soap opera. Each chapter includes one MMS with five images, a text of the plot and music.

The series was imagined by Endemol and produced in Holland using blue screen / photoshop. The soap is about DJ Tess' last appearance on the island of Ibiza, where she falls victim to a strange crime." It was a dark and stormy night...

Related articles:

-- Launched on the Internet and closed in the late nineties, the Internet's first Soap, «The Spot» is back - on (Sprint) mobile phone.

-- Holland, the country who brought to television the first "Big Brother" reality show in 1999, innovated with the first picture soap opera in 2003, called Jong-Zuid.

Nokia ships first GSM 'push to talk' camera phone

Nokia has announced that the long-awaited Nokia 5140 - a rugged camera phone for sports inspired lifestyles - has started shipping in Europe and around the world, according to PCPro,

The phone is also Nokia's first GSM 'push to talk' handset. The service allows users to send spoken messages to others in their 'group' in real time by holding down a button, much like the old days of CB radios.

The phone also has an integrated digital compass.

Samsung stays focused on camera phone sales

Samsung isn't letting the Saudi clampdown on camera phones affect its plans for the region. The vendor said this week that market demand is strong for colour camera phones, according to ITP Technology via Cameraphone Report.

Camera phones have always been subject to a ban in Saudi Arabia, however publicity generated by a number of incidents earlier in the year has seen it enforced much more rigorously this year.

Related articles:

-- Saudi Arabia and phonecams

-- Saudi Arabia enforces ban on camera phones

-- Oppressive Regimes Hate Camera Phones

-- Banned Camera Phones Selling Like Hot Cakes in Jeddah's Black Market

Telia offers live mobile broadcasts of Olympics for free

Swedish mobile operator Telia is to offer live broadcasts of SVT, the Swedish public service television company, from the Summer Olympics in Athens, according to DMeurope.

"Telia will also offer subscribers a news archive of information in text, image and video clip form, and a subscription service to the latest Olympic game news via SMS or MMS. Telia will provide all these Olympic services free of charge to its mobile customers."

Norwegians try out TV on mobiles

The service from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) allows people to watch television on their mobiles 24 hours a day, reports the BBC.

"Alongside the live streaming, people can pick more specialised content such as a news bulletin every hour and a Top Gear style motoring show.

For the moment NRK is simply testing whether consumers will want and use TV on their phones. So far the feedback has been encouraging.

"In the first eight hours of launching, 2,000 clips were downloaded," said Bjarne Andre Myklebust, a spokesman for NRK.

He expects the service to become more popular as video phones become more common.

"Usage will go up and up. Mobile networks are getting faster and better and by next year 80% of handsets will have a media player," he told BBC News Online.

Related articles:

-- Norwegian broadcaster launches mobile TV

-- Roundup on how MMS is being used on Television

SnapMedia Moves Camera Phone Pics To PCs

Wireless developer FutureDial on Wednesday updated its Snap Media software, giving workers who rely on camera-equipped cell phones -- insurance adjustors, for instance -- to move images straight to a PC without using plan minutes to transmit the pics, reports TechWeb.

"SnapMedia, which supports 35 multimedia phones and 12 camera phones from the likes of Sanyo, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Hitachi, now lets users move photos to a PC via a cable link, freeing up phone memory and avoiding the fees most carriers charge for transmitting images."

CVS and Nokia Launch Camera Phone Marketing Alliance

CVS/pharmacy and Nokia announced today that they have entered into
an agreement for the cross-promotion of Nokia's camera phones and CVS' in-store camera phone printing technology in a variety of marketing and advertising programs.

As part of the agreement CVS and Nokia have launched a co-branded Website at www.cvsandnokia.com.

Camphone shots viewed on TV show

Requestec announces launch of the UK's first user-interactive MMS service enabling viewers to send pictures into live television broadcasts from the comfort of their living rooms.

On June 23, the UK's first 'mobile to TV' application will be launched on Sky Channel 172 on the Game Network. It will enable viewers to send their pictures into screen using their mobile phones and, subject to a moderation process, their picture will be posted directly to the television screen.

It will also appear on screen whenever the viewer subsequently texts an SMS message into the live on-screen chat application. In addition to being a novel and compelling addition to the show's current format, this new service also opens up a completely new revenue stream via the combined use of SMS reverse-billing. See Company Press Release.

US cinema reward to stop piracy

In an article related to Hollywood's piracy-paranoia, the BBC reports that cinema staffers in the US are being offered up to $500 to catch people recording movies on camcorders.

"The reward scheme is being run by film studios and movie theatres in a bid to stop piracy, which costs the industry billions of dollars each year.

[ "The MPAA estimated in 2003 that the movie industry loses $3 billion annually to piracy, and that's not even counting Internet downloads of bootleg films, by far the fastest-growing segment". ]

Other anti-piracy moves include staff wearing night-vision goggles to see if customers are recording films."

Camera phones and video phones aren't doing much harm at this point - you can only view short clips. But still, the potential for ill use exists and can only get worse as technology improves.

Related articles:

-- Harry Potter and the wizard idea to foil cinema pirates

-- Crackdown In Cinemas

-- Will You Be Arrested The Next Time You Bring Your Camera Phone To The Movies?

-- Five Years In Jail For Putting A Movie Online

-- Leave your picture phone outside the movie theater

-- Bag and body searches at screenings

PhotoAcute features

Red Ferret says: "I'm not quite sure how this is supposed to work in real life (as opposed to marketing life) but it looks quite interesting. Interpolation heaven?"

Ferret is referring to PhotoAcute, a killer-application, which allows to significantly improve the quality of pictures snapped by the phone built-in camera.

In their own words "Photos have 4-times more pixels than the standard photos, thus giving you 4-times more details. Small, thin and far objects, traceries, textures and inscriptions become recognizable."

Camphone for narcissists

From near near future

"The A5502K from Kyocera has two - yes, two! - built-in cameras, one in the front like any "vulgar" camera, and another next to the LCD to snap pictures of yourself.

Does it come with a mirror and a lipgloss?"

The march of the mobiles

New breakthroughs aimed at boosting phones' power and storage capacity could herald the technology's next great leap forward, writes Ashley Norris in The Guardian.

What prevents cell phones from becoming the über-gadget of the decade is small storage, the size of the screen (an option would be to separate the screen from the phone) and battery power (good news here, Nokia has announced it's testing fuel cells which could more than triple the life of existing mobile phone batteries.)

But hard disk storage on mobile phones is on it's way and this should drive TV viewing on cell phones. In Japan, the first phone with integrated hard disk storage will launch this year and should hit Europe sometime in 2005.

Horticulture West managers carry camera phones

The Arizona Republic reports on the success of a landscape company, Horticulture West, located in Phoenix, Arizona.

The Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce last week gave Horticulture West II its small-business innovation award.

"The chamber noted that the company president Steve Ceballes developed a "report card" that helps clients keep track of their landscape project's progress. Ceballes' managers carry camera phones to take pictures of landscape work, which are posted online via a secure Web site for clients."

In a related article, Heroman Services, a plant company based in Baton Rouge, Lousiana, has equipped their field representatives with Sanyo 8100 camera phones to gain expert second opinions from supervising horticulturists.

Heroman technicians take pictures of sick, damaged or newly installed plants and e-mail them to the corporate office. After examining the photos, treatment recommendations or design changes can be made on the spot, without needing to send someone out on location.

More on how businesses are using cameraphones.

Call for tighter controls to stop camera phone perverts

The use of mobile phone cameras to take peeping tom photos that can be posted on the internet has prompted a call for tighter regulations and clearer guidelines for consumers, reports smh.com

"The Australian Computer Society, which represents more than 16,000 IT professionals, will ask phone manufacturers to do more to alert consumers to changes in the law and to discourage rogue users from taking photos up women's skirts. Known as "upskirting", the practice is becoming increasingly prevalent.

Anyone found to have taken a photo or filmed someone without their consent in a state of undress or engaged in a private act such as bathing or having sex faces two years in jail. Manufacturers Samsung and Sony Ericsson are considering putting information on phone packs to alert people to the change."

How do we adjust when cameras are everywhere?

Dan Gillmore has a thoughtful piece on Sprint's move to sell camera-less smart phones, to satisfy customers fearful of corporate espionage inside their businesses and how these new technological trends should make governement and private citizens think in new ways.

"Sprint's move highlights one more set of issues we have to confront in a world of digital information. Whether we're talking about photos or videos or documents or just about anything else that can be converted into zeroes and ones, we're entering a changed world".

"Metroblogging" regional group weblogs launch

Jason DeFillippo and Sean Bonner have launched Metroblogging, the first step of global expansion of their LA blog, Blogging.la. [ via boingboing ]

In their own words:

metblogs are a hyper-local look at what's going on in the city. A group of regional bloggers give each site a new perspective on daily life. Less calendar listing, more friendly advice.

We're currently looking for bloggers in the "soon" cities noted to the right. if you live there and want to tell us about it, please apply below.

Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco

And coming soon: Atlanta, Boston, DC, Miami, Orange County, Seattle, Dublin, London, Tokyo, Toronto.

Camphone flashlight

Alan Reiter for Cameraphone Report writes about a new phone from Siemens ( CFX65), that can be used as a flashlight.

Alan doesn't think the feature is worth advertising, but I do. I think it's great, for fitting the key in your house or car door at night, walking through a dark alley, for reading way past bedtime if you're a kid, and for all of us, when the lights go out.

Did Denver Deliberately Endanger Citizen Journalists?

Jeff Jarvis writes about a blogger's concern - which he shares - about the media encouraging citizens to send in photos of tornadoes.

A blog called WOlves writes:

"Because I have a satellite dish, I happened to be watching an evening newscast of a Denver station, KCNC Channel 4. Early this week, the Denver area experienced a spate of tornadoes. They included in their coverage a number of photos taken by citizens with digital cameras or cell phones. As you can imagine, many of these were very well done, close up and quite dramatic.

The newscasters also encouraged viewers to send in their pictures of the event, which is where this kind of citizen journalism stopped being a positive thing.

I can't imagine what they were thinking. They were actually suggesting their viewers go out, put themselves in harm's way, and take pictures of tornadoes.

This action is at best irresponsible. At worst, KCNC is deliberately eschewing caution in order to somehow appear “cutting edge,” or “responsive to consumer needs.

[...] As far as I know, no matter what the fragmentation of market or decline in ratings, has any station or media outlet here in the low desert ever suggested its viewers do something so dangerous for so little return."

Color Identifier

I had a coffee this morning with my friend Anil de Mello, he lives in Madrid and it's always such a pleasure when he comes through Geneva. He demonstrated this new mobile ap he has downloaded onto his Nokia 6600 cameraphone, called vOICe, developed by wireless technology company, SeeingwithSound - which was actually written up by the BBC a while ago.

Anil aimed his cameraphone onto the tablecloth and the color name was spoken. It wasn't really audible, there was too much noise all around. But it was pretty cool.

"vOICe works by translating images from a camera on-the-fly into highly complex soundscapes, which are then transmitted to the user over headphones. (BBC)