Levi Ships RFID-Tagged Jeans, Dockers

The next pair of Levi Strauss & Co. jeans bought in a retail store could have a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag attached, the company confirmed Friday, reports TechWeb.

"Levi Strauss & Co. spokesman Jeffrey Beckman confirms that the clothing maker began shipping men's jeans, excluding the infamous button-up fly 501s, to one retail location in the United States. The trial uses RFID tags clipped to the outside of the garment to focus on inventory management.

"The tags have information similar to bar codes, such as product, style, size and color," Beckman said. "Having this information will allow the retail store to replenish stock quickly, so customers are frustrating when they can't find the style and size. That's the ultimate goal."

[via Smart Mobs]

Motorola patents Feng Shui phone

According to Unwired View via Gizmodo, Motorola has a patent application for a Feng Shui measuring cameraphone.

"In an application published on April 20, Motorola wants to patent “Method and apparatus for evaluating locations according to Feng Shui principles“. In this application they describe a camera phone or PDA with some additional sensors and clever software that is able to evaluate environment according to Feng Shui principles.

-- Three-dimensional Hall-effect sensor for measuring the strength of electromagnetic fields and to form a compass to determine the geographic direction in which the main wall of the house faces.

-- Digital camera to determine color saturation, order and balance of the surroundings.

72 Hour Mobile Video Contest

For the next 72 hours (less by the time you read this) video mixing community eyespot is running a contest for the best short movie shot exclusively with a mobile phone and mixed on eyespot.

They will pick a winner on Monday and give him or her $500 cash. The goal here is to be as creative as you can and show them what you can do with mobile phone video + the eyespot Mixer.

To get started join the72 Hour Mobile Video Contest group. Then get creative...interview strangers about the high price of gas, write a script and act it out in your backyard, ask your friends to tell their favorite joke, etc.

If you don't have a phone that shoots video yet, go buy one! Maybe you'll win $500 to cover the cost. :)

Your Cellphone's Inner Spielberg

Mobile phones with video-recording capabilities have come of age, but but how many people make movies with their mobiles? The WSJ says not many so far but gives some interesting stats on the US cell phone market.

-- Mobile-phone sales in the U.S. are projected to reach $16 billion this year, up from $13.5 billion in 2005, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.

-- Verizon Wireless customers sent 7.4 billion text messages during fourth quarter 2005

-- The percentage of cellphones that can record video is climbing: making up about 30% of those shipped world-wide in 2005.

UK army uses mobile video to recruit

To entice new recruits into signing up, the British army is publishing the latest videos of an expedition of Army mountaineers attempting to conquer Everest, onto the mobile phones of interested parties and potential recruits. [Press release]

This expedition is an amazing feat for the army, and publishing video updates onto peoples mobile phones is a great way to publicise the event.

In addition to the climb, the teams will also be raising money for charity and assisting medical teams in researching cures into cystic fibrosis and the affects of altitude on the human body. For updates on the expedition, visit www.armyoneverest.mod.uk.

Other military related mobile phone campaign: - Text Messaging to become recruiting tool for US army

Poor user experience puts consumers off mobile TV in droves

Consumers want mobile television but are being put off by poor design and user experience according to research released today by user centred design and research consultancy Amberlight. Weaknesses include:

-- Poor quality reception - patchy 3G coverage with interruptions

-- Slow start up speed - The time taken to access the service through menu structures and connection time was between two and five minutes

-- Cost - flat rate vs pay-as-you-go issues were raised in the study

-- Usability -Many aspects of the service were simply considered unnecessarily complicated to use

-- On screen displays - such as details of current show and channel were considered important

-- Programme guides - not easily available

This research proves that there is a demand for mobile TV but that it‚s currently being stifled by poor design and implementation. If operators could make their services easy to use and competitively priced then there is a real opportunity to become a valuable tool for people with time to kill.

For more information or to receive a full version of the report: contact Patrick Herridge Parys Communications. pherridge@parys.com

Daem Interactive

DAEM Interactive is a software company based in Barcelona which develops "augmented reality" technologies for camera-phones.

They are launching an image recognition platform focused on mobile marketing and advertisement campaigns. Their technology identifies advertisements photographed by users and sends back related multimedia contents.

Brands and advertising agencies get to boost their marketing campaigns and promotions without having to make special developments or changes, maximizing their budget.

And for users, it's as easy as taking a picture. Users can interact with brands in a non intrusive way, where and when they want to, by simply pointing their cameraphones at an ad (magazine or billboard) and clicking. DAEM software enables them to interact directly with the information and access the contents they are looking for.

Click here for demo

Red-eye age checker and Camera Fingerprints

Two amazing technologies with regard to cameras. And there is no reason to believe why either won't apply to cameraphones.

Red-eye age checker

This is another fabulous patent dug up by Barry Fox for New Scientist:

"Camera maker Kodak is adapting the technology used to automatically correct flash-induced "red-eye" in digital images to determine a person's age.

... Kodak's patent mentions previous research suggesting a correlation between age and the way pupils react to light. As a person gets older, their pupils have greater difficulty widening to cope with dim light, it says.

The company suggests that an age-verification system could take mug shots of a person from a set distance in controlled lighting, using a flash. Software would then measure the size of their red-eye dots to determine how wide their pupils are and make an estimate of their age".

Camera Fingerprints

In this fascinating new technique developed by New York University and reported on Scoopt, "researchers found that every camera has a unique "fingerprint", which makes it possible to tie an image to a particular camera or tell whether a picture has been faked". [Press Release in tech speak]

Software Enables Video Broadcasts From Phones

According to The Web To Go "ComVu has announced what it claims is the world’s first-ever software, called PocketCaster, that enables live, streaming video to up to a “few thousand” viewers from a 3G camera phone.

[ via Engadget Mobile ]

Pics of Swiss President vacationing jolt Swiss into awareness of the new snaparazzi

We're a little slow here. Yesterday Swiss daily newspaper Blick published a series of pictures of Switzerland's president, Moritz Leuenberger with his partner Gret Loewensberg, in their bathings suits on a beach in Oman. The picture was taken by a Blick reader who forwarded his snapshots to the daily and has created quite a stir, according to Lunch over IP.

Picking up the story, Le Temps commented "on the unstoppable evolution of citizen reporters camera phones and the Internet."

"Swiss president Leuenberger's spokesman said that the president may consider suing the newspaper; another daily, Tages-Anzeiger, suggested that he could bring up the issue in the next government meeting", writes Lunch over IP

Other than catching on (belatedly) to cameraphone reporters and the new snaparazzi, what is really at issue here is the violation of a public figure's private life - generally respected until now - brought on by new technology.

Toupix

Toupix - a project by Chris Blunt, a final stage student of the BSc (Hons) MediaLab Arts course at the University of Plymouth, UK - is a photography application that runs on your mobile phone. When you take a photo with Toupix, it looks for other users nearby, and tags that photograph with their details.

The photos can then be browsed through the Toupix website, where they are grouped by who was nearby at the time.

If someone takes a photo near you with Toupix, that photo will be tagged with your presence - even when you don't take any photos of your own! When you login to Toupix, you'll see those photos in your account because you were there.

Flickr Integrated into Nokia NSeries

The new Nokia NSeries devices will all have built-in support for Yahoo's! Flickr service, according to All About Symbian.

"Nokia and Yahoo! announced that they are making it easy for mobile photographers to upload and add comments to photos directly from their Nokia Nseries multimedia computers to Flickr.

Consumers will be able to connect to their online Flickr accounts without the need to download or install any additional applications. The Nokia N93, Nokia N73 and Nokia N72, also announced today, are the first Nokia Nseries devices to support Flickr."

Casio Develops RFID Wristbands for Fitness Clubs

Casio dhas eveloped RFID wristbands for fitness clubs.

The wristbands are made of silicon rubber and Hitachi's mu-chip RFID tags. Each piece of training equipment has a PDA that reads the wristband tags. The PDA recognizes who's using the equipment and displays a personalized training menu. It also records and displays personal health-related data.

The RFID-tagged wristbands can also be used for managing check-in/out, tracking people's activities, monitoring kids' attendance to a fitness program, calling fitness club staff in an emergency situation, and cashless payment in a fitness club facility.

[ reBlogged from wonderful RFID in Japan ]

Hollywood unions in deal on cell phone TV shows

The Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild on Monday said they reached a landmark deal with Touchstone Television setting pay and working conditions for the making of the mobisodes of the hit ABC series Lost to be shown on mobile telephones. [via Reuters]

... "The agreement not only lays down conditions for producing the new programming, but lays down a framework that could cover other technological platforms."

Video Handsets Mostly Just Used as Phones

According to the The New York Times, 28 per cent of cell phones now in use can show video, but only 1 per cent of cell phone users watch videos on their cell phones.

"Many, many people just use their phones as a device to make and receive calls," said Drew Hull, research director for mobile content at the NPD Group who conducted the survey. Until the price of video service drops, he said, "they still have no interest in paying extra for that service."

Related downer studies:

-- Mobile extras may not attract US consumers-survey

-- Mobile TV is not a turn-on, BT trial finds

Toyota ad to be featured in "Prison Break" mobisode

The WSJ reports that "Toyota Motor and News Corp.'s Fox network plan to announce today that they have cut an extensive deal for the auto company to sponsor -- and be featured in -- a spinoff series for mobile phones of the hit drama "Prison Break".

... "Toyota says it pursued the mobile series as a way to break free from the traditional 60-second TV spot and go after young consumers."

Related:

-- Mobile product placement the next next big thing

-- PocketSpots Delivers Mini-Ads For Mobile Devices

-- Levi's launches worlwide campaign on Mobuzz TV first

And the Emmy goes to... AOL's Jim Bankoff for "Live 8"

TV shows created especially for cell phones, handheld computers and the Internet became a new category this year in the Emmy Awards.

And the winner in the Video content for nontraditional delivery platforms is... AOL's Jim Bankoff for Live 8's concert to end global poverty.

Other winners listed here.

[via AOL money&finance via Calacanis.com]

Handsets turn 'mobile newspaper'

Shanghai's two newspaper groups started their own "Mobile Newspaper" services in the past months, reports ShangaiDaily via Smart Mobs.

"Generally speaking, two kinds of mobile news exist in the market.

Under the first kind, operators regularly send edited and shortened news through multimedia messages every day. Subscribers, who pay 3 yuan to 8 yuan every month, can read the mobile news offline.

The second type of service allows users to read complete news content (compared with print media) through WAP (wireless application protocol) technology and people have to pay for network access fees.

... Wenhui-Xinmin launched four mobile newspapers last month under the News365 brand. They covered news, finance, sports and entertainment. Jiefang Daily kicked off iNews mobile newspaper earlier this year. Each of the media group sends users multimedia messages 2 or 3 times a day.

"The standard of our news choice is important, interesting and related to readers as well as eye-catching pictures," said Chen Ying, one of four full-time editors of News365.

On average, every multimedia message includes three pictures and 20 text messages, each of them of 100 characters long. "

Purse Doesn't Let Women Forget Keys, Phone

The Ladybag, developed by researchers at Canada's Simon Fraser University, can detect its content and alert the owner when something is missing, like a mobile phone, reports The Raw Feed.

"RFID tags are inserted into your "stuff," and a reader at the bottom of the purse makes sure they're all there before you leave the house. If something is missing, a pattern associated with that item LIGHTS UP on the outside of the bag."

Celebrity blogging goes wireless with BlogStar

Reuters gives BlogStar a write up.

BlogStar offered by Sprint features multimedia content uploaded by Hollywood celebrities.

"The rich and famous stars are documenting their lifestyles with camera phones and posting pictures, text and, eventually, video to their personalized mobile blogs. Access to each blog costs $5 per month. Subscribers receive alerts when new posts are uploaded, to which they can leave replies as well as discuss content with other subscribers."

Previous post: - Blogstar: Content posted by Hollywood celebrities

Mobile product placement the next next big thing

AdJab links to a Business Week article claiming mobile advertising is the next frontier.

"... Cell phones are increasingly video compatible and of course video iPods are smaller, more convenient and allow for constant updating of content in ways that, say, portable DVD players never could.

Even more attractive is the fact that content on cell phones is malleable and can be customized based on the user. ... Doing placement deals on mobile devices is also - at least for the moment - a whole lot cheaper than those deals are on TV. That's because so many of the deals, like those on The Apprentice, also include pricey ad buys in addition to the brand placement within the show."

Related:

-- PocketSpots Delivers Mini-Ads For Mobile Devices

-- Levi's launches worlwide campaign on Mobuzz TV first

T-Mobile launches World Cup branded phone

T-Mobile is launching a T-Mobile official England World Cup cell phone, reports Pocket-lint.

"Football fans will be able to get their hands on a branded Samsung E270 handset preloaded with a video of Geoff Hurst's 1966 winning goal for inspiration, as well as other classic video clips and exclusive content. For a truly English World Cup flourish, the black compact slider is embossed with a "Three Lions" logo. "

... As of June, T-Mobile will offer exclusive access to watch World Cup matches via their mobile phone on its unique World Cup TV channel.

Providing highlights of the latest World Cup matches, the T-Mobile channel offers customers a 3-4 minute snapshot of each game within 1 hour after the final whistle."

Vision enabled mobile gaming

Eyemobile software developped by Gesturetek's lets any cameraphone act like a joystick.

According to Popular Science Blog, "the software compares successive views from the camera lens to judge the movement of your hand. That movement can propel a ball through a maze, as in its TiltaWorld demo, and more may come soon. It's like an old-fashioned handheld game, only electronic".

Related motion-sensing technology applied to cell phones

-- Motion-Sensing Phone to Hit Market

-- 'Body talk' could control mobiles

-- Mobile phones to turn into golf clubs and toy guns in Japan

-- Cell phone gaming: Shake the Phone

-- Japanese Phone Responds to Shakes

-- Device Turns Ordinary Cell Phones into Vibrating Game Phones

Turning your Nokia into a spy camera with iCamCU

An application with the somewhat cheesy name ofiCamCU claims to be able to turn a smartphone into a spy camera, reports Mobile Gazette, allows user to monitor or conduct surveillance for fun, on your mates, children or pets.

newswireless.net suggests, "you leave your Nokia smartphone casually lying somewhere - like, watching the unattended dinner on the table - and when you suspect the culprit is there, you send a text to the phone. And it takes a picture.

And then the software sends the picture - or the video - back to you, automatically, via MMS.

... "It is also possible to run the iCamCU software in what amounts to a 'stealth mode on the remote handset. You can, then, turn someone else's phone into a webcam if they habitually leave it lying on its side, pointing at something of interest.".

New Motorola survey demonstrates the real-world impact of 3G

The Generation HERE - 3G report published Thursday reveals that the take-up of the latest super-handsets and services is not only growing, but is also fundamentally changing the way in which users live and communicate. [via putting people first]

Dozens of writers and journalists travelled the world to interview and observe 3G users in different cultures for Generation HERE. This methodology, Motorola says, led to a report that had a qualitative rather than quantitative approach to give a fuller picture of the 3G world.

“This was a report about nuances," explains its editor Peter Lyle. "Behaviour and adaptation, creative and unexpected usage. Ultimately it isn’t difficult to get statistics about penetration, but those statistics, although they still have relevance, do not tell the whole story of how a new technology impacts upon people’s lives.”

Generation HERE uncovered a surprising 3G age range among users. While it is typical to see teenagers using their mobiles to access community services like Japan’s Mixi and Sweden’s LunarStorm, the report’s research team also spoke to Japanese grandparents who keep two 3G phones – one for themselves, and the other for recording and sharing pictures and videos of their grandchildren.

An exclusive podcas featuring in depth discussion of Motorola’s Generation HERE with researcher Stephen Armstrong is available for download at The Podcast Network (TPN) at http://gadget.thepodcastnetwork.com/the-gadget-show-49-generation-here

Pantech's androgynous ad

Interesting androgynous positioning for Pantech's new IM-S100 business phone (2 megapixel cameraphone) for their print campaign. [via MobileKorea.tv]

Did Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr really invent 3G?

Did Hedy Lamarr, a beautiful Hollywood film star of the 1930s and 40s, really invent spread spectrum? Cellular News reports.

... "Spread Spectrum: Hedy Lamarr and the mobile phone" by Rob Walters, is the story of mobile from its early beginnings to the arrival of spread spectrum and the third generation. With a carefull assessment of the contribution of Hedy and composer George Antheil, who took out a patent in 1942."

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Hedy Lamarr was a famous Hollywood star and the first woman to appear naked on film. George Antheil was a piano player and composer. So just how did these two come to invent the latest technology used by the mobile phone? She was labelled "the most beautiful girl in the world" and he "the bad boy of music" yet way back in 1942 they took out a patent covering the vital radio technique that we now call spread spectrum.

This absorbing book traces the eventful and sometimes scandalous lives of Hedy and George. It tells the fascinating story of radio and the ongoing battle to make it secure and of similar quality to wired communication. Spread spectrum emerges from that battle to become the solution of choice for anything from mobile phones to wireless computer networks.

France Telecom R&D on NFC in your mobile

The R&D department of France Telecom has developed a mini-site showing some scenarios and examples of use of NFC-enabled mobile phones.

[via putting people first]

3 launches mobile TV show

Mobile operator 3 will launch an entertainment show backed by partners including Warner, Universal, the Premier League and ITN, reports The Guardian via Mobhappy.

"A three month trial basis "will determine if it attracts new customers and whether, in the long-term advertisers, will be able to benefit from sponsorship and co-branding opportunities.

"The 12-minute entertainment show will be branded Today on 3 Live and offer news, reviews, competitions, music and football clips from partner brands. The programme is being made by mobile content producer etv."

Investigative report on Citizen Reporters, Monday night on CanalPlus

Monday night at 22h50 on "Lundi Investigation", French TV channel Canal Plus is broadcasting an investigative news segment entitled "Everyone is a reporter: The end of professional Journalists"?.

Ariel Wizman and Laurent Lunetta have travelled to France, Italy, England and the US, investigating how citizens armed with new technologies, are becoming a threat to professional journalists.

Cyril Fiévet, Loic Le Meur, Dan Gilmore, Kyle MacRae (Scoopt), Alfie Dennen (moblogUK), Christophe Grébert (Monputeaux.com), Joël de Rosnay, Carlo Revelli (Agoravox) and myself for Picturephoning.com, Joëlle Menrath, author of Mobile Attitude and Bruno Patino, co-author of Une presse sans Gutenberg, have all been interviewed for this program.