QR Code Sand Castle

Spotted on CSout Japan Blog, a QR code sand castle, made on a Shonan beach about an hour outside of Tokyo. It was part of a SINAP Summer program to promote beach cleaning efforts.

To date, almost 400 readers have left comments regarding whether or not their mobiles could read the code; a cursory glance at the results shows that most phones could.

How to Send Full Resolution Photos from Your iPhone

File under good to know.

If you email photos from your iPhone using the standard "share" button, it shrinkifies them to a squee 800x600. But if you copy and paste them into the email app, you'll get the full delicious resolution.

GeekStuff and Lifehacker via Gizmodo.

MIT unveils Barcode replaclement: The Bokode

Just a few weeks after celebrating the 35th birthday of the barcode, researchers at MIT have unveiled a promising replacement for the aging standard. Gizmodo reports.

Dubbed the Bokode, the system uses a clever focusing technique that allows a small beam of light to hold a wealth of easily accessible information.

... The implications of the Bokode could be huge. While traditional 1D and 2D barcodes can be read by cell phone cameras, the camera has to be extremely close to the barcode in order to get a good read. The Bokode is much more robust and can be read from as far as a few meters away. Cameras can even scan multiple Bokodes at once. Imagine how easy comparison shopping at Best Buy would be with a system like that.

Apple restricting use of augmented reality applications on iPhone

Augmented reality is rapidly becoming the new buzzword of the software industry. The concept is to overlay information on a real-world image using, or instance, the camera on the iPhone 3GS. PocketGamer reports.

The augmented reality system makes heavy use of a combination of other features too, such as GPS tracking, the Internet and - perhaps most importantly of all - the new digital compass built into the iPhone hardware upgrade.

Developers are eager to start putting this concept to use but Apple apparently isn't quite so keen. According to LA Times, the iPhone manufacturer has told one developer it won't be approving any augmented reality applications until version 3.1 on iPhone software has been released.

Here's a video demonstrating the sort of applications augmented reality could be put to.

A witness of alleged abuse said cops erased cell phone video evidence

According to The Daily News, the NYPD is investigating a complaint that cops erased cell phone video that showed officers roughing up a suspect after a fatal police shooting in Manhattan last week.

App allows users to order prints of their photos

Media sharing service/app ShoZu has teamed-up with mobile print-on-demand service Touchnote to allow users of ShoZu’s iPhone app a convenient way to print any photo and have it mailed to anywhere in the world in 24 hours by Touchnote. Intomobile reports.

According to the official release, this is one of the earliest adoptions of Apple's iPhone In-App micro-payments.

ShoZu’s iPhone app is available from the Apple AppStore and they said as soon as other application stores enable in-app micro-payments they’ll most likely offer expand the service to other platforms.

Camera phones can help diagnosis

Taking photographs or video of unusual symptoms on an ordinary camera phone can help doctors diagnose uncommon problems, according to researchers. eHealth Insider reports.

A paper published in the BMJ describes the case of a 25 year old pregnant woman in Norway who reported frequent episodes of severe nipple pain.

The woman presented three photographs from her camera phone depicting the colour change of a typical episode.

The doctors from Trondheim, Norway, said that with the help of the photographs they diagnosed Raynaud’s phenomenon of the nipple. The patient was given treatment, her symptoms completely resolved within one week, and she was able to continue breastfeeding with no side effects.

Read full article.

Could u MMS me ur blood sample?

In the developed world, we take camera phones for granted as ways to record our lives – but in poorer countries they could be used to save lives, say bioengineers. The US team has designed a portable microscope that straps to a camera phone and can be used to diagnose potentially fatal diseases in blood and sputum samples. New Scientist reports.

Light microscopy is an essential healthcare tool that can help to diagnose dangerous diseases including malaria and tuberculosis. If necessary, digital images of cell samples provided by camera-equipped lab microscopes are shuttled through the internet to experts at other healthcare centres for further analysis.

Related article in the BBC">BBC.

Streaming, not P2P, behind mobile broadband data usage surge

Mobile data use grew by 30 percent in the second quarter of this year as HTTP streaming from sites like YouTube and Hulu surged 58 percent. P2P use can cause mobile data congestion, but it's growing far more slowly than other kinds of data traffic. arstechnica reports.

According to the report, "What is most noticeable from the data gathered in this report is that subscribers are treating their mobile networks much the same as they treat their fixed networks. This is particularly true for heavy data users who seem to expect the same service from the Internet, irrespective of their access method."

A Blind Photographer (!)

After professional photographer Alex Dejong lost his sight three years ago, he thought his days of taking and editing photos was over. But the iPhone 3GS's VoiceOver feature, plus a few key apps, has given some of his abilities back.

An amazing story from Gizmodo.

Life, as Seen Through My Phone

The New York Times writes up a viewing Wednesday at the Stephen Weiss Studio in downtown Manhattan of 14 artists, who were asked to chronicle a week in their lives with a Casio Exilim Mobile camera phone.

The show’s attraction was that it highlighted the rise of the camera phone as a totem of cool.

... James Danziger of the Danziger Project gallery doubts that camera-phone images will ever have merit as art. “Where they are most interesting is in a journalistic situation,” he said. Because, as every cell-toting teenager knows, camera phones are perfect for capturing ephemera.

Cass Bird, whose ethereally lighted portraits of friends and celebrities were on view at Weiss studio, said her favorite images “are just intimate moments, that if you had to bust out a conventional camera, you probably would miss.”

Read full article. Above left, camera-phone photo by Chrissie Miller.

Stop worrying, Hollywood – nobody is stealing your films with mobiles

Cory Doctorow has a piece in The Guardian explaining why it's awfully dumb for a theater to confiscate cellphones at a preview screening: Nobody's pirating movies with a cellphone, and real leaks come from inside the industry.

[via Gizmodo]

Related: - Crackdown In Cinemas

Data Capture Redundancy

"Overkill". Spotted on Jan Chipchase's future perfect.

EU decides not to implement Mobile TV tax

Content to Mobile via IntoMobile is reporting that the European Union has quietly dropped plans to introduce a tax on phones capable of receiving video, a move which mobile TV leaders regarded as potentially calamitous for the viability of the industry.

Late last year, news agency Reuters revealed that the European Commission (EC) was intending to introduce a 14% tax on mobile handsets that include a TV receiver. On 10 December 2008, the EC sent member states a formal proposal to reclassify some phones as "multi-functional devices". Such reclassification would have incurred an additional 14% tax on phones with TV receivers.

... Reuters has now reported that reacting to pressure, notably from Nokia and Sony Ericsson, the EU will halt any such plans.

Smart clothes could take photos

Clothes could one day take snaps of everything happening around whoever is wearing them. The BBC reports.

US researchers have made smart fabric that can detect the wavelength and direction of light falling on it.

The research team has found a way to accurately place sensors in each fibre and co-ordinate the electrical signals they send when light falls on them.

The results were a step towards "ambient light imaging fabrics" said the researchers.

Led by Dr Yoel Fink from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the researchers have extended earlier work that placed sensors in relatively large polymer fibres.

Read full article .

Google image search gets usage rights filtering

In an effort to keep people from incorrectly reusing or repurposing images found on its image search tool, Google has added new options that let users filter results by usage rights. Users can now filter photos by whether they're available for reuse, commercial reuse, reuse with modification, or commercial use with modification. cnet News reports.

Google is including a variety of licensing methods including Creative Commons, GNU Free Documentation license, and items that are in the public domain.

3 offers free Sky TV on the Sony Ericsson W995

3 is offering its customers a saving of £5 a month when they purchase the Sony Ericsson W995. With exclusive access to Sky Mobile TV, customers of 3 will have access to live sports coverage as well as Sky Sports 1, 2, 3, Xtra and Sky Sports News. For the non sports fan, there will also be instant access to Sky Sports News.

[via Mobile Choice]

Japan. Mobile porn boom

Global revenue from pornography on cellphones will more than double to $4.9bn in the five years to 2013, while music sales will grow by about a third, according to Juniper, reports IOL.

... Japan has more than 1 000 firms producing adult content movies, generating about 17,000 titles last year, according to Tim Smith, who has worked in Japan's telecoms industry since 1999 and is chief executive of 3G service company Sairis Group.

Smith says the top Japanese adult content internet sites have as many as 1,000 new customers a day, each paying as much as ¥10 000 as a sign-up fee.

While music downloads are the "official big earner" in Japan's mobile commerce, more money is made through porn, dating sites and even fortune-telling services, says Smith, whose firm has helped run promotions in Japan for Viacom's Paramount Studios, Toshiba and MasterCard.

Anti-paparazzi handbag

Spotted on boingboing, the Anti-Paparazzi Clutch Bag, a prototype handbag detects camera flashes and emits a powerful, obscuring strobe that is meant to confound paparazzi.

Related: - Anti Paparazzi Sunglasses - Bright LED Light-emitting diodes fixed to your glasses can be switched on and make you “invisible” to cameras.

Nokia launching 12-megapixel camera phone

Nokia is stepping up its game with the launch of a 12-megapixel camera phone later this year, according to PhoneReport via ZDNet. This follows up 12 MP model announcements from Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson. The best Nokia has to offer right now is the Nokia N86, which only an 8 megapixel camera.

Flickr Adds Direct-To-Twitter Publishing

Flickr now has a built-in feature that lets members tweet their photos. “You can upload directly to Flickr and Twitter simultaneously, or tweet a photo already on Flickr, using a special short Flic.kr URL,” says the company’s FAQ. It also explains how to post photos from your phone, and how to tweet from Flickr.

[via The New York Times]