MoMoMate.com launches the UK's first adult content service run by real UK girls

MoMo Mate, provides quality adult content to users Java mobile phones, according to a company press release.

There are five girls behind the service and each has their own gallery. The girls will update their galleries on a regular basis and all galleries are available for download at any time.

Users send an SMS to a short code number with the name of the girl and the gallery they want to see. The user is then sent one small file containing all five images which is automatically stored on the phone. Each gallery has a welcome message from the girl in question.

Sleeping Slideshow

. A sleeping slideshow on Flickr. (made up of all photos tagged with sleeping)

digital watermarking technology for use with camera phones

Japanese company Digimarc is launching the first commercial application of a new digital watermarking technology for use with camera phones on a product catalogue. But the same technology will also be applied to packaging in the future. By Piranet via near near future.

"Market trials for the new technology begin later this year in Japan and will run for two months. Product catalogues will be printed with all the digital images being watermarked to allow consumers to easily navigate the Internet with their camera-enabled mobile phones."

Religious edict bars camera phones in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority has issued an edict barring the use of cell phones with built-in cameras, blaming them for "spreading obscenity" — a final resort after a ban on their sale and import to the kingdom failed to dent their popularity, reports The Houston Chronicle.

"Sheik Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheik, Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority, announced the religious edict Tuesday in remarks to the al-Madina daily newspaper.

The devices, he said, are "spreading obscenity in Muslim society."

Mai Yamani, an analyst with the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, said the ban also had security implications.

"There is the social aspect, of course, but there must also be a security concern in a country where photography is generally banned," she said.

Related articles:

-- Saudi women beaten for mobile phone snapping - Two Saudi women were badly beaten by other female guests at a wedding party in the kingdom when they were seen using a mobile phone to photograph the segregated celebration

-- Mobile pictures spark violence - A wedding party in Saudi Arabia turned violent after a female guest was caught using her mobile phone to take digital photographs of other women at the celebration.

-- Footage of an assault in Saudi Arabia through cameraphones - A rape scandal broke after the two men reportedly circulated footage of the assault through mobile phones equipped with cameras.

-- Woman fired over mobile snapshots - A Saudi woman has been expelled from her university for taking pictures of unveiled colleagues with a camera-equipped mobile phone osting them on the Internet.

-- Saudi Arabia and phonecams When the Saudi people finally rise up in revolt and throw out the House of Saud," fellow Saudi blogger, Alhamedi Alanezi says, " it won't be for democratic reform, and it won't be for an islamic republic. It'll be about mobile phones".

-- Saudi Arabia enforces ban on camera phones - The Saudi government began enforcing a ban on the sale of camera-equipped mobile phones.

-- Banned Camera Phones Selling Like Hot Cakes in Jeddah's Black Market - Mobile camera phones are hot sellers this Eid season - a celebration to mark the end of Islam's holiest season - despite a Kingdomwide ban and a significant increase in retail price.

Also

- Kuwait: Three years jail proposed for misuse of Bluetooth - A senior member of parliament has proposed a draft law stipulating a jail term of between six months and three years for the misuse of the Bluetooth technology, especially in mobile phones, in invading personal privacy.

US bill aims to jail film pirates

Using video cameras to record films in cinemas would become a federal crime punishable by up to six years in prison under a proposed US bill, reports the BBC.

The Piracy Deterrence and Education Act urges the FBI to warn people whose web accounts are used for illegal activity.

Passed on Tuesday by the US House of Representatives, the Senate is expected to consider the proposal next week. Ten US states already prohibit people recording movies inside cinemas.

The bill would make the act a felony, which would permit local and state police to make arrests even when officers do not witness the illicit recording.

In the UK, Vue Cinemas chain equipped its staff with night vision goggles in May to enable them to detect film pirates."

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:

-- Military-style night-sights in cinemas for launch of "The Prisoner of Azkaban"

-- US cinema reward to stop piracy

-- 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

Everyone is talking about Flickr

Talk about hot! Everyone is blogging about Flickr, an online photo management and sharing application.

Cllick here for Gizmodo's guest editor Matthew C. Smith on Flickr who's given it a spin.

Read why Esther Dyson has invested in the company and why Joi Ito, an investor too, is addicted.

Filmmakers, advertisers rush to create content for cell phone screens

Not surprisingly, there are film festivals dedicated to movies made for cell phones. Later this month, World's Smallest Film Festival in London will be the latest put-on by BigDigit, a Los Angeles-based aggregator and distributor of mobile entertainment, reports the Chicago Tribune.

"In December, Atlanta film producer ZoieFilms will launch its Cellular Cinema Festival.

It's not just movies on the smallest screen. TV sitcoms, news shows and sports highlights already are being beamed to cell phones. And there's more to come.

Click here to view short film "Speedos" (64 seconds).

On the surface, cell phone cinema and shows resemble the media they descend from: movies and television. You see and hear people delivering dialogue. But while those screens try to involve you in a world that's as big as life, mobile movies are quick diversions. Who's in the mood to watch Dostoyevsky during the morning commute?

No time to develop character. No room for special effects. Not enough screen resolution for moody shadows or shades of meaning. When it comes to making films for the 2-inch cell phone screen, filmmakers have to think inside the box.

"In this medium, we rely on more static shots, very much on movement within the frame, as opposed to quick-cutting shots: the opposite of an MTV video.

Further constricting the medium are the mobile phones and the networks they operate on. They aren't all ready to stream video at a broadcast-quality 24 frames per second.

For instance, MobiTV, which provides television content to Sprint PCS phones that have MobiTV subscriptions, broadcasts at one to two frames a second, coming across much like a slide show with a seamless audio track.

Sprint recently unveiled its Samsung-manufactured A700 multimedia phone that can pump out MobiTV video at six to eight frames per second, showing that handset makers are gearing up for video.

Related articles and short film festivals:

-- Lights, Mobile Phone, Action

-- Zoie Films sponsors it's first annual "Cellular Cinema Festival"

-- 10 Second Film Festival announces "Call for Entries"

-- World's Shortest Film Competition

-- 15-second films for Nokia 3650s entered in The Raindance Film Festival

-- World's Smallest Film Festival Showcased

Japan schools tracking students by radio

Cutting class just got harder but schools are safer thanks to computer chips that help track students, Japanese officials say, reports The Associated Press.

School officials say rising concerns about student safety prompted the idea.

On Monday, electronic giant Fujitsu teamed up with suburban Tokyo's private Rikkyo Elementary School to launch a trial in which the tracking chips were attached to 40 students' backpacks, a school official said.

In Rikkyo's system, messages can be sent to parents' cell phones so they know what time their children left the school, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said Tuesday.

The school hopes to have all 717 of its students using the system by next April, the newspaper said.

PR Threats and Opportunities in Moblogs

Steve Rubel for Micro Persuasion writes an interesting piece on how Moblogging will have a bigger impact on the public relations industry than any other technological change in the past five years. Excerpts:

Moblogging's Threats to PR

"- Corporate/Intellectual Property Secrets will Leak onto the Internet. It will increasingly become difficult for corporate America to stop some employees from using their camera phones to mobile blog photos of source code, secret products in development, planned advertising/marketing campaigns, legal documents, pending patent filings and more.

- Soft-launches" and "test marketing" are oft-used phrases in corporate marketing. Companies often roll out new products and services in stages to make sure they're fully baked and ready for primetime. Typically the PR team will wait to begin its full court press until a soft launch has completed. The reason is simple – you don't want to "hype" a product before it is widely available and functional. With millions consumers moblogging, the soft launch is dead folks".

Moblogging's PR Opportunities

"- Moblogs Will Become a Valuable Crisis Communications Tool

- Moblogs can also be used to build early hype for a product/service before it's even out on the market."

Joi Ito's moblog

via [Joi Ito]

"I just got my picture taken with my second cousin Keigo. Keigo is aka Cornelius and is a pretty well known musician. The picture for a magazine called Brutus and the series is about cool people and their relationship with someone else. So I was the "someone else" for this article.

The photo was taken by Kishin Shinoyama who is well known for his portraits. cool.

TV over Internet protocol (TVIP) talking root in Europe

A new breed of TV -- featuring on-demand programs and choose-your-own music video channels -- is delivered over phones lines that are equipped with a high speed Internet connection, reports Reuters.

"TV over phone lines, also known as TV over Internet protocol (TVIP), is already taking root in Europe, with offerings from France Telecom, Italy's FastWeb, Britain's HomeChoice and others. There are many more on the way, with Britain's top fixed-line phone company BT Group in talks with content companies as it prepares to launch its own service.

In Washington, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell said on Sept. 15 that almost every major U.S. phone company he has talked with is working to develop TVIP offering.

TVIP takes advantage of the increasing popularity and prevalence of broadband Internet, plus improved technology for delivering customized video and compressing it to a manageable size without hurting quality.

For many of the TVIP companies it is still early days, but there is ambition to spare. Britain's HomeChoice has a mere handful of subscribers, though it plans to hit 20,000 by year-end, thanks to a heavy marketing campaign."

Water makes camera phones zoom and focus better

Singapore scientists are now using water to make camera phones zoom and focus better, according to The Electric New Paper.

"Researchers from the Institute of Materials Research (IMRE) in Singapore may have the solution to enable camera phones to have better zooming and focusing capabilities, by using special water lens.

Using the eye principle, IMRE's lead researcher, Dr Saman Dharmatilleke, said they created the FluidLens technology to mimic the way the human eye focuses.

It consists of a reservoir of water (or even other fluids) housed in a polycarbonate material.

One end of the reservoir has a tiny hole which acts as the camera lens while the other is connected to a small device which controls the water pressure.

When pressure is increased, the water moves away from the tiny hole. This has the same effect is rounding off the lens and decreasing the focal length (for near images).

When the pressure is decreased, the water moves into the hole and the 'lens' stretches, thus increasing the focal length and adjusting for far images.

Because of surface tension, the water does not fall out of the tiny hole, although a thin membrane may be added, just to be safe."

Hey! Stop changing the channel with your phone!

An entry from Keitai Log on how Japanese teenagers use the infrared device of their keita - mostly as a remote control to change TV channels.

"Infrared communication is contributing even more to the immersion of keitai into our daily lives. In the morning, we wake up with an alarm built into our keitai. We make phone calls or send e-mails and data during the day. Then at night, we go to bed and turn off the TV with our keitai, leave it on the bedside table, and sleep. This remote control function might have come from the basic concept of keitai (which actually means "portable" in Japanese). It's all about bringing it anywhere we go."

Camera phones used to ensure TB therapy protocol is being followed

The Whidbey News Times reports on a rising rate of Tuberculosis and the burden of treatment, interesting camera phones are being used by the health department of Island County (Washington State) to ensure proper therapy protocol is being followed.

"Once a case is confirmed, the patient is placed on a regimen of four different antibiotics developed specifically for the treatment of TB. McDonnell personally watches each patient take the drugs via camera phones or in person. "

The Samsung 'Experience'

Samsung unveiled its new high-tech showroom Wednesday to a select group of media and analysts. Located in New York's swanky Time Warner Center, the "Samsung Experience" follows in the footsteps of Sony's popular Style stores, located in New York and San Francisco.

"According to MIT Media Center Director Nicholas Negroponte, who was digitally beamed into the launch event via video tape, Samsung's new showroom focuses on device convergence and personal convergence. Negroponte envisioned a world where devices do multiduty, morphing into digital Swiss Army knives of voice, music, video, home security and more.

But it's more than just a touchy-feely geek paradise. Samsung hopes to entice tourists to visit the store by offering to loan out its hard-disk video cameras. By simply plunking down a credit card, visitors can borrow a camera for a few days to record their New York experiences. Samsung also offers kiosks where, after they return the cameras, visitors can burn videos onto DVD to take home. "

The store also offers MP3 downloads via the Napster service, and free ring-tone downloads to cell phones. "It's all about the digital lifestyle now and in the future", said Samsung's Electronics America CEO DJ Oh.

Sexual predator caught thanks to camphone

Authorities say a Connecticut woman used her cell phone to help catch a sexual predator by taking his picture, reports WIStv via Mobile Technology WeblogTV via Engadget.

"Hartford Police arrested 25-year-old Kywan Gunn on Tuesday. They say a woman used her camera phone to take a picture of Gunn's car, then sent the photo to police. She allegedly recognized him as the man who attacked her in a residential area just days earlier. "

Tre Italy produces own football TV show for mobiles

Italian 3G mobile operator, Tre, has launched 93° Minuto - - what the company claims to be the first TV format fully produced by a mobile operator, reprts DMEurope.

"93° Minuto will offer videos of the Italian Championship football goals, match highlights, football commentary and interviews with players.

The show will be on air, live via videophones, every Sunday at 17.45 at the end of the afternoon matches and prior to television sports show broadcasts. With a length of six to ten minutes, 93° Minuto will be broadcast as a night-time edition at 22.45, right after the end of night matches, with a resume of the whole day's soccer. "

Orange To Launch Star Wars Film Content On Mobiles

France's mobile operator Orange, said Friday it has signed a deal with Lucasfilm to launch science-fiction saga Star Wars content onto mobile phones, according to Cellular News.

"The 15-month deal is exclusive and will result in Orange Star Wars marketing initiatives early next year. The content will be made available to over 40 million Orange customers in seven countries.

Content will include ring tones, images, characters and film clips as well as competitions."

Kuwait: Three years jail proposed for misuse of Bluetooth

Kuwait Times via Blueserker reports that a senior member of parliament has proposed a draft law stipulating a jail term of between six months and three years for the misuse of the Bluetooth technology, especially in mobile phones, in invading personal privacy.

"MP Mohammad Al-Khalifa suggested to add a new article to a 1976 law that governs the misuse of telephones to tease and abuse people.

He said certain people have been using the new technology to send audio-video recordings of "unwanted positions" of other people, especially women, which constitutes an invasion on personal privacy.

He said that the ease with which the Bluetooth technology is used has enabled persons with bad intentions to commit serious defamation crimes against innocent families and to spread "vice and immoral practices in the society".

Khalifa is a tribal MP from Jahra constituency where men and women are not allowed to mix at wedding parties and other social events."

Nokia adds antivirus protection to new smart phone

Nokia will offer mobile antivirus software through F-Secure as one of the features in its new Nokia 6670 megapixel camera phone when it is released in October, the companies announced on Thursday, reports PC Advisor.

"The Symbian OS (operating system) smart phones will provide on-device protection, similar in fashion to antivirus protection programs for PCs, with automatic over-the-air antivirus updates for a monthly fee.

The software will not come loaded into the device, but can be downloaded from the F-Secure Web site, according to Nokia spokeswoman Karoliina Lehmusvirta."

Nokia to sell 200 million camphones this year

Within 3 years after mobile phones started coming with a built- in camera, more than 200 million camera phones will be sold this year. This projection was shared by Juha Putkiranta, Senior VP of the Multimedia division of Nokia, reports CIOL

Nokia Launches New Phone And Remote Camera Device

Nokia Thursday launched a new mobile phone with a megapixel camera and a separate remote camera device for wireless home monitoring, reports Cellular News.

"Nokia's remote camera device an integrated motion detector and has the ability to capture megapixel-quality images and video clips with sound, even in low-light and outdoor conditions, the company said.

The new mobile phone, Nokia 6670, is expected to be available in early October 2004, and will be available in two versions, one for the U.S. and one for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia."

Click here for picture of phone.

Related articles:

-- Nokia breaks into home security market

-- Nokia Remote Camera for Series 60 Smartphones

House approves video voyeurism crackdown

Calling video voyeurism the new frontier of stalking, the House on Tuesday approved legislation to make it a crime to secretly photograph or videotape people, often for lascivious purposes, reports CNN.

"Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the issue of surreptitious videotaping has become "a huge privacy concern" with the miniaturization of technology and the proliferation of cell phone cameras.

People have used these devices for purposes like secretly taking pictures beneath women's skirts in such places as school locker rooms, department store dressing rooms and private homes.

Under the legislation passed by voice vote, video voyeurism on federal lands would be punishable by a fine of not more than $100,000 or imprisonment for up to one year, or both."

KTF provides the world first caption service for MP3 phones

Telecoms Korea is alway announcing the most amazing new phones to launch in Korea. The latest, by KTF, offers a mobile caption service which displays lyrics of the song played on MP3 phones in real time.

"The mobile carrier is planning to add caption to all MP3 phones or PDA ‘s released through KTF in the future".

And related to this column, this phone is also equipped with a 3-megapixel camera and TV receiver.

Teachers Union in Ireland wants camera phone ban for schools

The Union for secondary school teachers in Ireland have demanded a ban on picture message mobile phones in schools, reports Ireland Online.

"The TUI is calling on the Department of Education to issue a directive preventing their use during school hours.

The union has said the phones may be used to compromise the personal integrity of students or teachers or for bullying and intimidation and could transmit pornography."

RadioShack, Sprint in Mall Kiosk Venture

RadioShack on Tuesday said it has signed a deal with Sprint Corp. to open wireless kiosks at malls nationwide, reports Reuters.

"Both companies, which have been working together since 1996 via a store-within-a-store concept, plan to complete the roll-out of the multiyear kiosk arrangement to nearly 500 malls over the next three years.

RadioShack, with nearly 7,000 stores, is already the nation's leading seller of wireless phones and accessories, a segment that now accounts for a third of its sales as growth in its other key products lags."

Picture messaging loses its appeal

Yet another article, this time by the MediaGuardian, on the declining number of picture messages sent over UK networks.

"Research shows that the frequency with which camera phone owners are sending picture messages is decreasing as the overall user base grows. A year ago 8% of early adopters were sending a photo message once a day, which has dropped to 3%.

More than one in three users admit to never using their camera-enabled phone to send pictures, up from a quarter a year ago.

The average number of photo messages sent per user per month has dropped
from 6.1 to 3.7, although the decrease can be partly explained by the fact that more recent converts are as unlikely to be enthusiastic as early adopters.

Figures from Continental Research show that there are now more than 7.5 million handsets in circulation capable of taking pictures, up from 3 million a year ago."

PXT messaging grew 1000 per cent

Where most operators are complaining about the slow growth of MMS, Vodafone Australia seems to have the right idea, according to this article in Australian IT. They allow their customers to send pictures over their network for free.

"Vodafone live! Recently extended its free PXT service to January 31, after good results in the offer's first three months.

"PXT messaging grew 1000 per cent," Vodafone spokesperson Kelly Smith says.

"The free service is aimed at removing price as a barrier to new users trying out picture messaging, she says.

"We recognise that this is a new technology, and at 75c a message, some people may be too worried about making a mistake," she says.

"Offering free picture messaging is intended to create a comfort zone, to make PXT just a normal part of mobile phone use. "

New online pornographic live shows cause alarm

The Internet Café Association of Cebu (Philippines) has discovered a new kind of online pornography which Internet users can pay to gain access to private rooms with naked women through their mobile phones, according to The Manila Bulletin Online.

"In the"load-per-view" online live show, a woman opens a chat room account then turns on her web camera to entice other online chatters.

When a number of male users start to chat with the woman, she will then ask them to send her cellphone load (i.e. transfer money onto her cellphone) so she can start undressing and do lewd shows.

"Most of the women doing live shows are college or high school students," said ICAC president Felix Cogal, adding that the show is often performed in dormitories, boarding houses or private chat rooms where the woman can freely go naked.

He said that ICAC is now monitoring at least five online accounts of women who go naked online in exchange of cellphone loads.

Cogal said the woman gets loads worth hundreds of pesos for just one show. When the woman asks for R100 load from her viewers, who could number 40 persons at one time, she would get R4,000 worth of load in just a matter of minutes.

This is alarming, Cogal said, because some students would skip classes and use their allowance to buy load in order to view online "load-per-view" shows. "

Camera phone shot leads to plane turning around and landing

A chartered Belair plane on it's way from Zurich to the Dominican Republic, turned around after 4 hours of flight time, after someone from the ground took a picture with a camera phone of a piece of metal falling from the plane as it took off from the airport.

The incident was confirmed by Zurich's Kloten airport, and was reported in the Sunday print version of the Swiss daily Le Matin.

After the plane landed and was inspected, the technicians found nothing amiss and a metal piece was not found on the ground either. The passengers spent the night in a hotel before flying out again the next day.