Video virals go mobile with 'viewtooth'

Forbidden technologies has launched a new video viral marketing solution for mobile phones, reports Netimperative.

"The service, called 'FORmobile', enables video marketing campaigns to be passed between the mobile phones via wireless bluetooth connections for free.

Forbidden has coined the phrase 'viewtoothing' to highlight the process of sending video directly between mobile phones via bluetooth, which requires no network connection so users can send video to one another for free."

Viral campaigns take advantage of the rapid spread of messages on online social networks, such as e-mail, chat rooms, Instant Messaging, and file-sharing networks, to advertise their products. This offers companies a cheaper alternative to commercial media channels, and can help endorse a brand among like-minded consumers".

Let students keep phone-cams

Jac Wilder VerSteeg in an Editorial for the Palm Beach Post, bets on cool technology, in the case of Cool Technology vs. the Palm Beach County School Board.

"Next month, board members could vote to ban cellphones with cameras from campus and school events.

Faced with those potential problems, the school board that this year will open a state-of-the-art technology middle school in Boca Raton is close to deciding that it must take a stand against state-of-the-art cellphones."

According to VerSteeg, the cheating scenario is a stretch from the get-go. Cellphones used that way would be too conspicuous in any classroom where the teacher is paying even minimal attention. Besides, the camera function isn't a key to that kind of cheating. Current phone screens display text, and — though it would take a little more stealth — a cheater could message the questions.

Rather than outright cheating, it seems more likely that students might snap a quick photo of the FCAT tests and perhaps post the questions on the Web. I'm not sure that having a ban makes that kind of espionage less likely. In fact, I'll bet it happens soon, if for no other reason than to protest Gov. Bush's refusal to make FCAT tests from previous years public.

The limited threat of cheating is no reason to ban the phones. It's already the case that students can't have phones out and on during class. Just enforce the policy, and camera phones aren't an issue." hear hear

Safety got cellphones accepted on campus to begin with. Parents want to be able to get in touch with their children in an emergency.

Students might as well learn to deal with camera phones on campus, because they certainly will have to deal with them in real life. As in school, safety and invasion of privacy compete."

Looking at You Looking at Me

Since the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq began, the nature and meaning of war photography have dramatically changed. With so many soldiers disseminating digital images, the major news media outlets are no longer necessarily the most useful source for visual information. [ via rhizome.org/ ]

"Camera/Iraq, is a project by Carleton College's Cinema & Media Studies Department to gather news and commentary about public and personal photographic image practices associated with the War of Images in the Middle East.

"Addressing everything from the depictions of the Abu Ghraib torture to the televised U.S. congressional hearings to the censored videos of American soldiers' coffins to photographic technique, it's a forum for posting links, essays, thoughts, and pictures."

In Japan, Microsoft gives (mo)blogging a try

Microsoft is turning to Japan to launch its first blog service and aims to have 1 million users in the first year, according to News.com.

"Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, said Wednesday that it plans to start a trial service on Aug. 10 in cooperation with unlisted Japanese contents provider TOS, followed by an official launch later this year.

It has yet to be decided when Microsoft will launch a blog service in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

"We are offering a service that can be used from both personal computers and mobile terminals in a seamless manner. That differentiates our service from others," MSN Japan general manager Yoshie Tsukamoto told reporters.

Microsoft said its new service, which enables blog writers to update their entries and visitors to have access to blog sites from mobile phones, not just PCs, was well suited for Japan, where nearly 90 percent of cell phones have Internet capability."

Saudi Arabia will confiscate camera phones at the airport

If you're planning a trip to Saudi Arabia, leave your camera phone at home! According to Alan Reiter, who called the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C, camera phones are confiscated from visitors flying into Saudi Arabia as part of the customs process and won't be returned when visitors leave the country.

Barcode standardization issues

Alan Reiter for Cameraphone Report, reports on an interesting article by Dennis Hettema on barcode standardization issues.

"In this article he discusses whether whether existing barcode technology or new barcode technology should be used for camera phone e-commerce applications."

Kodak: Print Wireless Pics At Home

Eastman Kodak is hoping to spur more printing of camera phone pictures with the introduction of its EasyShare Printer Doc Plus, reports Wireless Week.

"The printer doc enables photos to be wirelessly transmitted from a mobile phone and printed at home without the need for a computer.

Imperfections in the camera phone photos can be corrected, including dark spots."

Cellphone auctions

Yahoo! Japan, which rules the roost for online auctions in Japan, is adding a logical extra feature that snips the last shackle binding budding auctioners to a PC.

You can now upload product snaps from your cameraphone along with the details of the junk—sorry, treasure—you're trying to shift, meaning that schoolgirls of an enterprising bent can start disposing of that latest present from their sugar daddies without delay.

You can also use all the other auction features, too, so “down-to-the-wire bidding frenzy” now joins the list of surreptitious cellphone activities you can use to while away tedious meetings.

[ via Engadget ]

Cameraphones and Corporate IT

Camera phones have been a huge success—IDC estimates that more than 600 million will be in use by 2007—because people can easily send and receive snapshots, reports Computer World.

"What does this have to do with corporate IT? Plenty, according to an article in Accenture Ltd.'s online journal Outlook: Point of View. Researchers Andrew Fano and Anatole Gershman at Accenture Technology Labs say that as people grow comfortable using camera phones, they'll begin to use them to interact with businesses. So customer contact centers will need to be able to handle incoming instant photos.

"Instead of trying to describe an object using words, consumers will send snapshots," the authors say, which will give a service agent a better idea of the customer's needs. A customer can send a picture of the environment in which the product will be used, such as a yard, room, office or workshop, which can help the service agent sell the right products. A series of photos (or a short video) could even capture how a customer is using or assembling a product, so the agent could correct or train the customer on the proper procedure. Consumers could also use camera phones to document damage or repairs.

But managing this influx of images will require "a substantial redesign of customer service processes and systems," the researchers predict. "

Camera phone targeted to women

The Straits Times reports that Samsung Electronics last week launched the petite SGH-E600C, a tri-band camera phone targeted at women.

"The phone is a lightweight (85g) clamshell number that has a silver sheen.

Samsung Asia's general manager for telecommunications products, Mr Ng Long Shyang, explained the thinking behind the phone: 'We are seeing an increasing demand for small, fashionable and technology-laden camera phones, particularly among today's women.'

Camera phones talk to one another

MIT Lab Director, Michael Bove, an expert in visual media and self-described Media Lab "lifer," describes for PC World, what's cooking in its new Consumer Electronics Lab, the emergence of electronic ecosystems, and just exactly what will be left for PCs to do. This caught my eye:

"It may well be the case that in the future we wouldn't have a videoconferencing system. Everyone comes in with a camera phone, and you flip open the lid and you put it on the table in front of you. The camera phones talk to one another, they figure out who's speaking, they get the picture of the person who's speaking, and the microphones get together and find the best copy of the voice of whoever's speaking, or in fact collaboratively process the voice they're picking up and produce a better version of the voice than any one of them could do.

And that's what gets transmitted somewhere else. There isn't a computer that's managing it. It's all being done by these individual devices acting in concert."

LG Electronics holds Summer Festival

Another camera phone promotion at the beach story, this time in Korea.

Telecom's Korea reports that LG Electronics announced the opening of Cool Summer Festival with CYON camera phones on Haeundae beach in Busan, the second largest city in Korea.

"During the festival, the company runs Photo Studio Zone where visitors to the booth on board or Haeundae Aquarium can have their picture taken and printed. In MP3 Zone, visitors can download and listen to commercial songs and other summer music.

Related article:

-- Vodafone to use holiday locations for marketing - People enjoying a quiet day at the beach are to be disturbed by a team from Vodafone trying to flog them the Vodafone Live service.

Soap opera FanTESStic comes to UK

near near future reports that the interactive series, FanTESStic, produced by Endemol, with real actors created exclusively for MMS - initially launched by Spanish Telefónica Móviles - is coming to the UK.

Entertainment to mobile phones is going to come thick and fast in the next six to 12 months with the arrival of 3G,' said Peter Cowley, Endemol UK director of interactive media. 'We're testing the water to see how this content works in the market.'

Related articles:

-- MMS Soap on Spanish Telefónica Móviles.

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

-- 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.

Strobes for Phone Cams

Look for strobe flash in your cell phone's camera soon, based on a design from Linear TechnologyLinear Technology, reports PC World.

"Jim Williams, Linear's staff scientist, says that most current camera cell phones use LED-based lighting, which gives "not a lot of light over not a lot of distance."

His company's photoflash capacitor charger system can efficiently recharge a very small xenon flash lamp in as little as 1 second, producing "light hundreds of times brighter than LEDs," Williams says.

Vodafone to use holiday locations for marketing

People enjoying a quiet day at the beach are to be disturbed by a team from Vodafone trying to flog them the Vodafone Live service, according to Cellular News via Techdirt.

"The campaign will run until 26 August at over 1000 beaches ranging from Caminha to Monte Gordo in Portugal.

During this period, a crew of demonstrators will tour the beaches, offering to photograph bathers with a mobile phone and printing out the photos on portable printers.

Helped by the demonstrators, who will work in two groups of four to each beach, bathers will be able to send their photo instantly to another mobile phone, an e-mail address or as an ordinary postcard.

Nerve's Photoblog : "Daily Siege"

Nerve, the smart magazine on Sex, has opened a photoblog, "The Daily Siege".

Subscribers have access to "hotter galleries from Nerve's best photographers", "uncensored entries to Nerve's amateur photo contests", a look behind the scenes at Nerve's photo shoots and more...

[ via buzzmachine ]