Arab spring leads surge in events captured on cameraphones

From Tahrir Square to the scene of John Galliano's racist rants, pictures and videos from the public have been increasingly used in media coverage. The Guardian reports.

In 2011, cameraphones entered the mainstream of photojournalism due to a combination of the Arab uprisings, the Occupy protests and improved technology.

The Guardian, wire agencies and major broadcasters used many more cameraphone and video images. The New York Times said its use has increased a hundredfold.

"That's largely because of the Arab spring", said Michele McNally, assistant managing editor for photography at the New York Times. "Most of the reporters are carrying smartphones because of the image quality of the cameras. They like the style of cellphone filtered imagery and they're less intrusive [to use] in conflict situations."

She said citizen media was an "instant document" of an event rather than a replacement for skilled photojournalism. She said: "Most amateur footage does lack the real smart interpretation of what it's like to be there."

Al-Jazeera's citizen media service Sharek received about 1,000 cameraphone videos during the Egyptian uprising against Hosni Mubarak.

Riyaad Minty, its head of social media, said: "Post Egypt, in places like Libya, Yemen and Syria, citizens posting online have been the primary lens through which people have been able to see what is happening on the ground.

Now our main stories are driven by images captured by citizens on the street, it's no longer just a supporting image. In most cases citizens capture the breaking news moments first. The Arab spring was really the tipping point when it all came together."

Turi Munthe, founder of citizen journalism service Demotix, said there has been a cultural shift in the mainstream media.

Read full article. Gallery: Cameraphone images of the year

Kazakh Police Hunt Citizen Journalist: The Risks Of Bearing Witness

A video showing police firing on fleeing protesters in the western Kazakh town of Zhanaozen was originally uploaded to YouTube on December 20 by a user called saule540. The video challenges the police explanation of the unrest, which left 15 people dead. The authorities had said that they fired into the air and at the ground, and only in self-defense. Radio Free Europe reports.

Now the police are looking for the person (or people) who shot the video, purportedly from an apartment window on Zhanaozen's main square.

... Beyond tracking people down, there are many ways repressive governments -- or nonstate actors -- can attempt to silence witness testimony.

The growth of this shared consciousness (in this case, of state repression grotesquely encapsulated in a short video) is exactly what the Kazakh authorities want to nip in the bud. Even if they're not going from door to door checking people's phones, by holding a press conference saying they're looking for the person who shot the incriminating video they are sending a very strong message to others to think twice before uploading anything.

Read more via @mobileactive.

27% of Photos in 2011 were taken with a smartphone

Smartphones are eating into sales of basic cameras and camcorders in the US, according to market researchers. The BBC reports.

The NPD Group said the point-and-shoot camera market sold 17% fewer units over the first 11 months of the year compared to the same period in 2010.

It said the pocket camcorder market fell by 13% over the same period.

Its online survey of adults and teenagers suggested users were also more likely to opt for their phone camera to take footage "on the fly".

... The study suggested that 44% of photos were taken on a camera over the last year, down from 52% over the previous period. By contrast the share of photos taken with a smartphone rose to 27% from 17%.

Experts suggest the trend is in part due to the popularity of apps including Instagram, Twitter and Facebook which allow pictures to be uploaded to social networks immediately after they are taken.

Read full article.

Super Bowl to be streamed online and to phones for first time

The Super Bowl will be streamed online and to phones for the first time, the NFL said Tuesday. NBC's broadcasts of wild card Saturday, the Pro Bowl and the Super Bowl will be available on the league's and network's websites and through Verizon's NFL Mobile app.

The service will include additional camera angles, in-game highlights and live stats — and replays of those always popular Super Bowl ads.

[via USA Today]

Pakistan’s Taliban Launches Jihad Against Sexting

The Taliban are on a new jihad against the always-on future. Leaflets are turning up in the tribal areas calling camera phones “the source of promoting obscenity and vulgarity,” reports Pakistan’s The News via Wired.

Over 300 cellphones and a dozen computers have been seized and burned so far. The Taliban have reportedly shut down sales of cameraphones and asked tribesmen to cooperate against the “misuse” of those they’ve yet to confiscate.

“The Taliban said they had already banned watching movies and listening to music,” The News reports. “Some of the people, they claimed, were still using their computers for watching movies and music and they had to initiate action against them.” The audacity!

It wasn’t long ago that the Taliban had a different beef with cellphones: They were essentially electronic homing devices for the armed drones overhead. Trackers placed in SIM cards used in militants’ cellphones told the drones who to kill, Taliban propaganda used to argue. Now the anti-cellphone campaign is a mechanism for social control.

Read full article.

Related articles to the Taliban and cellphones blogged by textually over the years.

Upskirt Photographers Use Silent Smartphone Apps

Most cameras and mobile phones in Japan automatically make shutter sounds when they are used to take a photograph, a feature that makes it difficult for perverts to secretly capture upskirt images. Smart phone such as the iPhone usually allow users to disable all sounds, but iPhones sold in Japan have been altered to keep the shutter sound on.

However, as the Yomiuri has pointed out, some smartphone applications can disable shutter sounds.

A search for the Japanese words "muon" (silence)" and "kamera" (camera) on app sites for Apple Inc. and Google Inc. smartphones turned up about 200 applications. Some boasted they enabled users to "take photos in silence without bothering others," and others said the function "was perfect for taking photos undetected." Some of these programs have been near the top of app ranking charts.

[via Japan Probe]

Cell Phone Cameras Images adequate to Diagnose Malaria and other Diseases

Are cell phone cameras good enough to transmit microscopic information to experts? A new study found that many simple bar phones with cameras could snap a good enough picture through a standard microscope to allow a remote assessment of a sample. The results were published online Wednesday in PLoS ONE. Scientific American reports.

... In Uganda, where there are only eight physicians for every 100,000 people, getting a definitive diagnosis can be difficult. The research team enlisted local health workers to try using their own (or borrowed) cell phones to capture photos and videos of microscopic images to send off for remote diagnosis.

The best images were obtained with cameras that were two megapixels or higher, which are common in smart phones and are in some slimmer Nokia, Samsung and Sony bar phones. And some of the most successful diagnoses were those of samples that contained malaria parasites, which “were often so clear that specific stages of the malaria parasite could be identified”—thus improving targeted treatment.

Read more.

Face Recognition Technology Comes to Malls and Nightclubs

TIME Techland on how face detection is being used offline in “smart sign” technology and other applications.

... A novel use of Intel’s face detection software has been pioneered by SceneTap, an app available for iOS and Android that lets users check out the crowds at bars and clubs before heading out. Cameras installed at local nightlife venues count everyone who enters the establishment and also detects their gender and approximate age. Looking up a bar on your smart phone will show you how packed it is, the male to female ratio, and the average age of each gender.

More advanced face detection technology also attempts to interpret a person’s emotions. Such an advance can potentially help marketers gauge reactions to their ads.

Read full article.

Parents keep watch on newborns with hospital webcams

California's St. Jude Medical Center is one of the first hospitals in the country to implement a webcam system called NICVIEW, which gives parents a virtual window to their newborns. CNN reports.

A camera mounted above their incubator provides couples with access to a live video stream that they could watch from their phones, laptops or computers.

Most of the babies in St. Jude's neonatal intensive care unit, which has 14 incubators, are born prematurely and are released within four or five days. Some, however, stay for months. Being able to check in on them helps with the separation.

About half of the sessions originate from Web-enabled devices such as iPads, iPhones, Droids and Blackberries. The password-protected webcam system is also being used at a handful of hospitals across the country.

Read full article.

A Crossword Puzzle That Doubles As A QR Code

Filmmaker Christian Svanes Kolding sees an opportunity for QR codes to be more than just lame marketing tools.

[via FastCompany]

In Malaysia, RFID used to track eco-friendly harvesting of trees and illegal logging

According to Springwise, RFID is being trialled in Malaysia to help the Forestry Department detect illegal logging activities.

The decision to use RFID was spurred by pressure from the European Union to guarantee that exported wood products were harvested in a sustainable and eco-friendly way.

It is presumably similar to the preliminary pilot scheme, in which trees were individually fitted with RFID tags. This made it possible to record each one felled legally, which in turn meant each tree could be subsequently traced.

Read more.

1st Circuit Rules Public Has Right to Videotape Police

In a resounding affirmation of the First Amendment, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that members of the public have a constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public. Media Law reports.

The ruling comes in the case of Simon Glik, a Russian-born, Boston lawyer. In 2007, while walking through Boston Common, Glik saw a teenager being arrested by Boston police. After he took out his cell phone and began recording the arrest, the police arrested him for violating the Massachusetts wiretap law, a broadly written law that makes it a crime to intercept "any wire or oral communication."

After a state court judge dismissed all the charges against him, Glik filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court against the police officers who arrested him and the City of Boston. The defendants asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit based on their qualified immunity from lawsuits as police officers acting within the scope of their duties. The trial judge refused to dismiss the case and the defendants appealed to the 1st Circuit.

Read full article.

Vladimir Putin's New Arch Enemy: YouTube

As more details emerge about the very messy, probably corrupt Russian election, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is calling for a full investigation, and believe it or not, YouTube might be the best place to look for evidence. The Atlantic Wire reports.

Thanks to a coordinated effort by both amateur and professional election monitors, the site is packed with clips that appear to catch officials in the act of everything from changing votes after they've been submitted to stuffing ballot boxes, literally.

President Dmitry Medvedev denies the videos actually show voter fraud. But the clips have gone viral, and they're not exactly calming down the thousands of angry Russians who've taken to the streets to protest government corruption.

It's difficult to tell whether the YouTube voter fraud videos come from coordinated election monitoring efforts or simply concerned citizens with smartphones. With view counts now peaking in the millions, though, it also doesn't really matter.

Read full article.

Teen Sexting Not the Norm, Says Study

Studies suggest that sexting among teens may not be as common as many people think it is. ABC News reports.

One study, Prevalence and Characteristics of Youth Sexting: A National Study, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that 2.5 percent of the young people surveyed participated in some sort of sexting activity in the past year, but only 1 percent admitted activity that included material considered child pornography, meaning images or videos that featured naked genitals, breasts or buttocks.

But if the definition of sexting is broadened to include sexually suggestive images, such as provocative poses with no nudity or appearing almost nude, the number of kids participating in it jumps to nearly 10 percent. Most kids participate in sexting either as a prank or while they're in a relationship.

... Dr Michael Rich, an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School told ABC News in November that the number of teens who sext seems to be dropping, possibly because they are more aware of the consequences of their behavior.

"In other words, their awareness of the risk is now increased," he said.

Read full article. Image from Patrick Deese Sexting Series.

Cameraphones used to check animal welfare at cattle sales

Animal activists are turning up at livestock sales in Australia with mobile phones, to try to film any abuse. ABC.net.au reports.

The Australian Livestock and Property Agents Association says the welfare of stock is now a public issue and the change is noticeable at saleyards.

"Everybody's got a phone these days that can take footage or a photo and we're getting those forwarded to us.

"But it's not only in saleyards, it's at loading ports for live export, it's just on general farms, it's everywhere where there are animals."

Read more.

Feature Movie Shot entirely on Nokia Phone To Open in L.A.

A feature movie shot entirely on an Nokia N8 is about to go on show in Los Angeles, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The movie, Olive, and which director Hooman Khalili says cost less than $500,000 to make, is billed as a film about a little girl who “transforms the lives of three people without speaking one word."

Mr. Khalili has made the first five minutes available online.

Read more.

Senseye will let you control your mobile phone with your eyes

Forget Siri, Copenhagen developpers are planning to launch on Android phones in 2012, a technology called Senseye that controls your phone with your eyes. TheNextWeb reports.

The team has developed technology that tracks the movement of your eyes using the front-facing camera on mobile phones. This then allows you to control all sorts of aspects of the phone. You will be able to send messages, play games and more without having to touch the handset at all.

A developer interface will allow third-party apps to work with Senseye, and the plan is to earn revenue through licensing the technology to manufacturers so that it can be baked into the operating systems on handsets straight out of the box.

Read more.

SkanzJr supplies QR codes for kids - no need for cameraphone

QR Media is turning to a younger audience with the unveiling of SkanzJr, inch-wide silicone QR-coded bracelets, targeted at kids ages 7 to 12. USA Today reports.

Each $10 band contains a QR code along with an alphanumeric code on the back. By scanning the QR code or alternatively — since few kids are likely to carry a smartphone — by entering the alphanumeric code, a kid can build a SkanzJr.com mobile website listing favorite songs, TV shows, books, sports teams, ice cream flavors and more.

Read full article.