Cell Phone Pictures May Aid Treatment for Methamphetamine Addiction

Sending cell phone pictures of medications before taking them may provide a simple but effective way to monitor compliance with prescribed treatment for methamphetamine addiction, reports a study in the September Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. [via NewsWire]

Clinicians asking their patients to photograph themselves while taking medications may serve as another way of stressing the importance of medication taking," according to the new research by Gannt P. Galloway, Pharm.D., and colleagues of California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, San Francisco.

The researchers provided camera-equipped cellular phones to 20 patients taking a prescription medication (modafinil) to treat methamphetamine dependence. Before taking their daily medication, patients were instructed to take a picture of the capsule in their hand, then e-mail the photo to the research center.

The patients took 95 percent of their prescribed medication based on pill counts and 94 percent based on MEMS. In contrast, based on cell phone photos, the estimated adherence rate was 77 percent. Analysis of weekly data collected by all three methods suggested that the cell phone method tended to underestimate treatment compliance, compared to pill counts.

Read full press relese.

The Other Mobile Video Channel - MMS

Mobile video finally is getting traction among users. In a recent Ipsos/Yahoo survey in the last year, video use just across the mobile Web was up by a third. MediaPost reports.

As mobile users come to expect fatter pipes, they don't balk at the sight of a video play button on their phones.

Under most 3G networks, buffer lag and consistency of experience are improving to the point where streaming media is a viable medium. But in most cases involving video, marketers either have to rely on the traditional pre-roll messaging, a branded video effort that pulls people in, or perhaps an SMS push that links to a video.

One alternative that gets too little coverage and attention in the U.S. especially is MMS, Multimedia Messaging Service. This platform works via the SMS channel in pretty much the same way. Unlike the other forms of mobile video advertising, MMS can send a video clip (generally of a very small size) to an SMS inbox for viewing with the phone's native player.

This gives MMS a potential reach far beyond the 35% of the U.S. Market comprised by cell phones. Many feature phones actually do have multimedia playback capabilities, and of course almost all modern phones receive text. And the beauty of MMS is that it shares SMS's greatest strength as a marketing tool - it is the message no one ignores and usually reads in minutes of receiving.

Read full post.

Augmented Reality Lets You Try On Clothes from Online Shops

Up to this point, points out TIME Techland, we've seen maybe 2% of augmented reality's latent potential. For the most part, applications of the technology have ranged from utterly useless, to transparently gimmicky, to "oh hey, that's kind of cool."

But now, web retailers might want to start jumping onboard the augmented reality train with new software from Los Angeles-based Zugara, which is using the technology to create something of an online dressing room.

Zugara is dubbing it the "webcam social shopper" in a partnership with U.K.-based retailer Banana Flame. Shoppers will need to step back 4-feet from their computers to make the frame work and as an added touch, the interface will utilize Xbox Kinect-like motion controls to navigate menus from a distance (see the video above).

Read full article via ReadWriteWeb.

Barcode apps allow for price comparisons

Spotted on Mobile Behavior Blog, barcode scanning apps that allow for price comparisons.

-- Red Laser captures the barcode and does a quick Google or Amazon search to give you quick price comparisons.

-- ShopSavvy offers barcode scanning combined with a large source of prices and inventory from local and online retailers.

-- Stripey Lines is a barcode reader application and barcode scanner that will turn you into a savvy shopper.

Turning a Cellphone Into a Microscope

Assistant professor of electrical engineering Dr Aydogan Ozcan has developed special software and adapted cellphones to substitute for microscopes and diagnose diseases. The New York Times reports.

The adapted phones may be used for screening in places far from hospitals, technicians or diagnostic laboratories.

... In one prototype, a slide holding a finger prick of blood can be inserted over the phone’s camera sensor. The sensor detects the slide’s contents and sends the information wirelessly to a hospital or regional health center.

Read full article.

Related:

-- Phone gadget to diagnose disease - CellScope developped by California Berkeley researchers, works as a so-called fluorescence microscope that can identify the markers of disease.

The BitTorrent and the Emule cell phone

Spotted on NewTeeVee, from an article entitled Ten P2P Devices You Never Saw Coming, two applications relevant to cell phones:

The BitTorrent cell phone. From Hungarian researchers, a BitTorrent application for Symbian-based smart phones, complete with an integrated tracker and the ability to use private torrent sites.

The Emule cell phone. From the developers of the open source eDonkey, MobileMule remotely controls downloads from your phone while your PC does the heavy lifting. The Java-based application even offers previews for downloaded video clips by sending single video frames as pictures to your phone.

Netintelligence Mobile gives parents control over what pics and videos their kids download

Netintelligence Mobile, new software for mobile phones, gives parents control over what photographs and videos their children can download to their handset is currently completing final testing but it is expected that it will be commercially available in spring 2007". [via Slashphone]

Netintelligence Mobile is installed on the handset via GPRS or PC download, and parents are then able to specify which content is allowed.

The software would also benefit from the Netintelligence database of more than 30 million internet files flagged as inappropriate, immediately blocking access to these files.

qipit

With qipit you can use your camera phone or digital camera to scan, copy, email and fax written documents. Easily share PDFs of black and white or color documents.

How does it work?

-- simply take a photo of any written document with your camera phone or digital camera
-- send it to qipit via your phone or email
-- get back a high-resolution, easy-to-read PDF of the document — in seconds

Search By Camera! delivers product data from cellphone pics

According to PC Magazine via Engadget Mobile, "a new cameraphone-based image recognition service called Search By Camera! - developed by Bandai Networks and D2 Communications - is promising to help consumers acquire info on products by simply snapping a picture while shopping.

According to a release from Evolution Robotics, "consumers can point their camera phones at virtually any printed image of a product, take a picture and the camera will grab a pattern and match it a growing database of product patterns and images on a remote server. That server will match the ID up with product information, pricing and more and deliver it back to the cell phone.

"We strongly believe that image recognition technologies will be a key element not only in robotics, but also in mobile search," Yutaka Yamamoto, general manager of the Asia division of Evolution Robotics, said in a statement.

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.".

Microsoft Working On Image-Based Search Tool For Mobile

Moco News reports that Microsoft Research Asia is working on an image-based web searching technology called Photo2Search, which will provide information on the go for users of camera phones.

How does it work?

"Seeking information about something seen, a user takes a photo of the object and sends the photo, via e-mail or Multimedia Messaging Service, to a Web-based server, which searches an image database for matches.

The server then delivers database information—whether it be a Web page featuring the object in the photo or information associated with the object—to the user, who can act on the information received: read a menu, enter a gallery, book a hotel room, make a purchase."

Digitizer3: mobile document scanning

Realeyes3D is launching Digitizer3 which transforms high resolution camera phones into mobile scanners, fax machines, and photocopiers.

With Digitizer3, mobile camera phone users can instantly scan and send a copy of any document to a fax machine or an email account, in just a couple of clicks.

For those going to 3GSM in Barcelona next week, they can stop by Realeyes' stand for a demo. In their own words:

Handwritten Messaging

If you’re attending and would like to send a special message from the conference, come by the Realeyes3D stand F38 (Hall 2, Floor 0) and we’ll help you create a personalized wireless postcard to send to your kids, friends, colleagues or mom with w-Postcard™!

Mobile Scanning

Or if you need to get a little work done while you’re at the conference, stop by with your notes or an article—anything you need to copy and send—and we’ll scan and send it to an email or fax for you with a camera phone Realeyes3D Mobile Scanning.

For the rest of us stuck at home, check out the video here. [via mobile|blog.it]

Related scanner enabled camera phones:

-- Xerox turns camera-phones into mobile scanners

-- Technology turns your cameraphone into a scanner and fax

-- NEC Co-Develops Technology That Turns Cell Phones Into Scanners

Related handwriting recognition enabled camera phones:

-- Japanese handwriting technology picked for new Motorola 3G phone

-- Nokia phone adopts handwriting recognition

MobileTag

Nokia and Abaxia have just launched MobileTag.

"The service let you generate a "tag" (or 2D code) that contains your personal information: Firstname, lastname, phone number, email address.

You can then connect to your account on the web and acess your information..."

View demo.

[via Smoothplanet]

Kodak Mobile Service Postcard Application

Kodak Mobile Service has paired up with handset and carrier leaders to provide mobile phone users with a fast and easy way to send personalised photo postcards direct from camera phones.

With the new Kodak Mobile Service Postcard Application, consumers simply snap a picture, select a border design, enter a personalized message and an address and Kodak will mail the postcard to any U.S. address.

[via Buy-n-Shoot.com]

Snack Maker Gets Mobile Sales Assistant

Microsoft is conducting a pilot project with KiMs A/S, a Danish snack and chips manufacturer.
mobile sales assistant.

Mobile sales assistant gives the mobile sales force access to data such as current inventory levels and historical information about the individual customers’ purchasing habits. The salesperson can also use the customer’s most recent point-of-sale data on the device, which gives a full picture of that customer’s profile, provides insight into which promotional campaigns are best suited to that store, and enables the salesperson to advise the customer on how to maximize sales accordingly.

The mobile sales assistant also lets the sales team reduce the number of devices required to serve customers. Previously, a salesperson needed a personal PDA, a mobile phone, a laptop and a pager to complete orders. As a result of the pilot project, salespeople can use a single mobile device that includes a phone, a calendar, contacts and Microsoft Office programs. The mobile sales assistant also lets the sales team connect remotely via GPRS, hot spots or other wireless means to immediately send data, such as orders, and receive updates, such as inventory levels and customer-specific campaign information, directly from Microsoft Axapta.

[via mobileblog]

Omron Designs New Facial ID Software For Mobile Phone Handsets

Omron has developed an improved facial recognition software to identify mobile phone holders via the handset's camera, company officials said, reports Nikkei.net.

"The software, designed to prevent unauthorized use of a mobile phone, scans the face in about 0.6 seconds and unlocks the handset once a positive identification is made.

Dubbed Okao Vision, the software can identify the genuine holder with an accuracy rate of over 99%, by comparing the facial features with those of a photo taken and registered in advance, the officials claimed.

The company developed similar software in February, which takes about one second to identify the user. For the new product, it shortened the time to two-thirds, by improving the algorithms, and improved the accuracy by increasing the number of scanned facial features to 200 from 80."

Picture from dottocomu

Related articles:

-- KDDI R&D Labs Develops Facial Authentication System For Cell Phones

-- Omron Produces Face Recognition for Mobile Phones

Magic Tricks go Mobile

I-Magic offers magic clips and tips based on the Virtual Magician brand.

The magic content enables users to be “Instant Magicians”. The videos show the actual performance by Swiss virtual magician Marco Tempest and then teach the users to perform the tricks instantly themselves.

Samsung Introduces File Viewer Phones

Samsung will release "file viewer" phones that can open documents or image files, writes Digital Chosunibo.
The SPH-V6500 and SCH-V650 can store files (MS Office files and files in PDF, JPG, txt, etc.) for use during business trips or for study on the move.

Their 16 million color LCD is the same used in high pixel camera phones, and a 1.3 megapixel camera is built in.
The phones come with an upgraded remote control feature allowing users to control televisions, VCRs, and karaoke, to air-condition, PCs, game consoles, and car TVs. Silver-nano technology keeps bacteria off the handset.

Cameraphones used for expense reporting

This sounds fabulous and is another example of how business is using picture phones.

A company called epc has developed an app that uses the camera in a cameraphone to take photos of expenses for expense reporting.

How it Works:

Whenever you incur and expense, be it business or personal, you simply:

- Use the camera in your Smartphone to photograph your receipt. You will be amazed at the quality.

- Record a voice tag to summarise the details of the expenditure.

- Select from drop down lists for category, method of payment and other information.

- Export the information to the EPCeipt Excel Application.

Later At Your PC With the EPCeipt Excel Application:

- You can view your receipts, listen to your voice tags, and edit your expenses before submitting them.

- All your scanned receipts are embedded in the spreadsheet so you can submit your expenses by emailing just one file.

And In The Finance Department:

- Paper is eliminated. Click on a button in Excel to bring up the scanned receipt image.

- Print an expense invoice, and copies of the receipts directly from Excel.

Benefits:

- Your expenses are done in real time as you travel. Get back that day a month that you spend on paperwork.

- Eliminate the costs of handling paper invoices.

- Get up to date real time financial information.

- Improve productivity and job satisfaction.

- Retain scanned images of receipts for warranty purposes.

Further details and download a trial version can be found at here.

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. "

Innovators readying for big splash

DEMOmobile 2004, produced by IDG Executive Forums, is known as a somewhat exclusive conference that attracts top executives from around the country and is not accessible to the public, reports The San Diego Tribune.

It opens in La Jolla, California today and runs through September 10.

Companies will take the wraps off new products in front of an audience of investors, analysts and executives from technology heavyweights such as Qualcomm, Microsoft, Motorola, Verizon and Nokia.

Related to camera phones:

"Now that camera phones have become widespread, several companies have interesting mobile photography applications:

-- OurPictures Inc., a Palo Alto firm, will demonstrate a system to send photos from a camera phone to a computer or television with a single click, instead of the half-dozen or more menu selections necessary on many camera phones today.

-- Massachusetts-based Mobot has a system to combine the Internet and camera phones for mobile commerce, an idea that was popular but never realized in the tech-boom years. Subscribers would be able to take a picture of an ad in a newspaper or magazine and e-mail it to Mobot. The company would research the product and provide price and other information to the subscriber.

Something easier done with barcode technology? cf Technology links ads to website via cell phone

Buy With A Wave Of A Phone

Somewhere in that long list of things that mobile phones were one day "supposed to become" was a replacement for the credit card. [ Forbes ]

"Sour Chhor wants to make it happen, and he's closer than you might expect. He's general manager of a group at Philips Electronics focused on developing a technology called near field communications (NFC) that is based on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and could within a year start turning common mobile phones into the spendthrift's best friend.

Consider the following scenario: Walking down a street, you spot a poster advertising that you can buy your favorite artist's new single right then and there. All you have to do is hold your mobile phone up close to the poster, and the song downloads directly to the phone--which also happens to be a digital music player, for easy playback.

And why not use the phone to buy concert tickets too? Not only will the phone handle payment but it will also become the ticket. Wave it in front of the turnstile at the concert venue, and the phone gets you in the door, where it can also be used to buy a T-shirt.

"The nice thing about NFC is that it's so intuitive, there's almost nothing you need to learn to understand it," Chhor says. "It's like walking into a room and just talking to someone."

textamerica promotes business moblogs, its platform for enterprise solutions

Textamerica has established a special section on its Web site dealing with its business services, including its hosting of moblogs for companies and its platform. [via Cameraphone Report]

Find out what moblogging can do for your company.

Avon uses camera phone to analzye customers skin

The cosmetic industry has wised up to camera phones to sell beauty products, according to this story in i4u, reporting on Avon Cosmetics Japan having their sales people analyze the skin of customers using picture phones.

"Start-up WisdomTex Inc. provides the service that lets Avon sales people take a camera phone to the customers face and send a photo of the skin to WisdomTex analytics service.

The Service suggests suitable cosmetics from the Avon product line to the sales person on the phone display. This is a great idea, this way Avon does not need to train the sales people in understanding skin conditions and therefore saving them a bundle".

For more exaples on how business are using cameraphones, cf How people are using camera phones.

3G Horse Racing

Catering to the needs of horse racing lovers, 3 Hong Kong offers their mobile customers horse racing video content for streaming and downloading horse racing video clips provided by i-CABLE's “iHorse” Portal, according to 3G.

"Customers can use their mobile phones to view horse racing video clips and information, enjoy video mobile communications, make video calls and bet anywhere inside and outside the racecourses at will, enabling them to closely follow every race and make the best betting decision".

Encrypted MMS

Silicon Village Mobile, a provider of secure message encryption applications for Symbian phones, announced new versions of it's popular Fortress SMS encryption series of applications, according to a company press release.

The Fortress Suite encryption application is able to send encrypted MMS messages between handsets, independent of operators and mobile to E-mail encrypted MMS and is a good choice for Mobile pathology messaging, Telemedicine, Insurance, Financial, Law Enforcement and Government mobile users.

"For the first time, Professional Camera users can send documents and imagery between handsets and to personal computers, confident their confidential information is encrypted end-to-end."

Doctors should think twice before diagnosing based on a camphone shot

The Medical Defence Union has advised doctors to think twice before using picture mobile phones to take and send digital pictures to assist in the diagnosis and management of a patient's condition, reports E-Health-Media

"The new  guidance followed press reports on doctors already using mobile phone picture technology to aid diagnosis. These have included reports that A&E doctors in one hospital are reviewing images sent by fire fighters to decide whether to assist at the scene or prepare the hospital for dealing with serious trauma; and another where doctors were reported to be sending x-rays by mobile phone."

MDU medico-legal adviser, Dr Nicholas Norwell, warned that doctors needed to be aware of some of the medico-legal pitfalls, particularly around the security of such images, the issues around patient consent and potential to inadvertently send an image to the wrong person".

See related articles:

- Firefighters are testing an emergency photo messaging scheme to help save more lives

- Doctors use picture phones

On a more positivie side, a recent study found "that dermatology waiting times were reduced when GPs took a Polaroid picture of their patient's visible symptoms and included them in referral letters to dermatologists. In future, GPs could be using picture messaging, rather than instant cameras, in schemes such as this".

Deal to allow professional prints of photos from Sprint phones

Sprint PCS Vision customers soon will be able to have their cameraphone photos printed professionally through a partnership announced Tuesday between Sprint Corp. and Fuji Photo Film U.S.A., writes to David Hayes in KansasCity.com.

"The service will allow Sprint customers to send their photos to the Picture Mail Web site, edit them and forward them to a Fujifilm retailer for printing. Customers will be able to select a local retailer where they can pick up the prints in as little as four hours."

Sprint would be the first wireless company to offer the service for cameraphone users.

Sprint customers used cameraphones to send more than 66 million photos in 2003. With cameras included in most new wireless phones on the market, that number is expected to increase in 2004.

Photomessage your expressions

Alan Reiter in Cameraphone report describes UK cellular operator Orange's photo contest for camera phone users.

The contest, Expressionist, wants photos of different expressions: Happy, surprised, angry, smug, bored, sad, guilty, scared, confused.

The exhibition will be held in a London art gallery where the photos will comprise an interactive video mural, which will display a range of human emotions onto the walls at your prompt.

"You stare at the wall. The wall stares back. You smile at the wall. A thousand faces smile back. You pull the face -- be it happy, sad or confused -- and you control the show." Cool.

Police camera phones hunt graffiti

In effort to tackle Britain's epidemic of vandalism, police are to photograph thousands of pupils' jotter-book etchings with camera phones to fight against an upsurge in graffiti spraying, reports The Guardian via Smart Mobs.

"Images of etchings are captured on camera phones, emailed to police headquarters and stored in a database of graffiti tags, the trademark sign of the urban street 'artist'. Detectives can then compare them with images of spray paint vandalism in towns and cities. "

See previous article Police test “snap trap” approach.

How people are using camera phones

For Textually 2003 - The Year in Review, here is a round up of the ways camera phones have been used by individuals and businesses. And as these phones, widely popular, go mainstream, with image quality and picture snapping features improving with the launch of each new model, it is clear we have yet to scratch the surface on how private individuals and businesses will find ways to use them.

Get the Picture?

I discovered this Internet News article by Patricia Fusco entitled "Get the Picture?" on Techdirt and it describes how small businesses in the US are using camera phones in new and exciting ways to save their businesses time and money.

What's also interesting is that each of these companies subscribe to Sprint's PCS Free and Clear services for business called "Unlimited Picture Mail". But as Patricia Fusco points out, "customers should generally be wary of the fine print of any cellular plan, as dome "unlimited" picture phone plans charge by the kilobyte, which could rack up unforeseen charges in the future".

Excerpts:

-- Maintenance Systems, a Chicago-based painting company, arms each of its painting crews with a Sanyo 5300 cellular phone and "Picture Mail" — a service that enables business owners to capture, store and send images from any location. Once a crew completes a painting job, they snap a picture of the final product and e-mail it to the hiring company for billing.

-- Heroman Plant Services is a regional interior landscape company based in Baton Rouge, La. Heroman's field representatives use Sanyo 8100 cellular phones to gain expert second opinions from supervising horticulturists. Heroman technicians take pictures of sick, damaged or newly installed plants and e-mail them to the corporate office. After examining the photos, treatment recommendations or design changes can be made on the spot, without needing to send someone out on location.

-- CS Bechtold Designs, an Ohio-based kitchen and bath design company, uses camera phones to prove its case to vendors when incorrect shipments arrive at a customer's worksite.

For more on innovative ways of using camera phones, cf How people are using camera phones .

A new use for camera phone: Agent's safety

Camera phones as a tool for real estate agents seems a natural and has often been mentioned as one of the strong business applications for these new handsets. Shooting on the spot and forwarding pictures to prospective buyers, could give a real estate agent a speedy edge in a competite market (cf
How business people and professionals are using camera phones).

In Today's Chicago Tribune, an interesting article written by Mary Umberger, describes a company who will suggest real estate agents user their camera phones - not to shoot property - but to snap pictures of their clients (with their permission), as a form of insurance.

"The real estate industry is not as safe as it used to be," says Pat Dougherty, a Marietta agent for 22 years who founded the RealSafe.net Network after an incident with a man who asked her to show him a house on short notice".

Her company will offer to store pictures in a secure database, which can only be accessed by court order.

"The yard signs will say `This is a RealSafe.net home,' and there will be signs in the windows," Daugherty says, so there will be some name recognition," and also some reassurance for the homeowner who will know that a record is being kept of who enters their home -- at least, when the house is being shown by an agent who pays a monthly fee to Dougherty's firm.

The firm will begin marketing its services to real estate agents as of January.

Mobile Sports Pics A Winner

Empics, a company written about before, who can provide photos to websites or mobile phones in only 20 seconds from the moment the picture is taken to when it appears - has won The 5th annual Growing Business Awards for 'Technology in Business' in London, reports Mike Grenville for 160characters.org.

"The technology has already been successfully tested at a number of FA Premier League, UEFA Champions League and Football League matches. Earlier this year, EMPICS ran live web slideshows on Manchester United's official club website. It also provided similar images in other sports, from cricket's Twenty20 Cup to The Open golf championship."

Related articles and technology:

-- Toshiba to sharpen digital video images (Toshiba software)

-- Picture alerts sent to sports fans (Empics)

-- Sports highlights sent to cell phones (Automatic Sports Video Analyzer)

Lost your camphone? Locate it by remotely taking a picture

This is wild. You know how you dial your own cell phone number to hear it ring when you can't remember where you put it? Well this is even better, as long as your lens is not face down that is. An app exists for Nokia Series 60 handsets which remotely takes a picture, called MMS CAM for Series 60.

"Just send the command SMS '//YMMSCAM' and in the twinkling of an eye it takes a photo and sends it back via MMS or via e-mail (an email adress must be saved in the contact that sends the SMS)".

Hopefully, that ceilling will look familiar.

This could lead to all kinds of interesting possibilities... Propping up your camera phone somewhere strategic and remotely taking a picture. In a sort of blind random way.

From wonderful new blog on the block mobilewhack.

Doctors use MMS to send X-rays

Denmarks' doctors and specialists who are far away form the hospital can now also help patients get better treatment. Using a camera phone, doctors at the hospital take pictures of a patient's X-rays and send them to colleagues who might be on duty at another hospital. They can then phone the doctors on the case to discuss how best to tackle the situation, according to Cellular News.

"Doctors often face the problem when dealing with a patient that it is difficult to decide on the best course of treatment. In such cases, it can help to talk to one or more colleagues but because they are so often on the move it is usually impossible to review the patient's X-ray pictures."

Related article: Doctors use picture phones

Toshiba to sharpen digital video images

Software that will make it possible to capture fast-moving objects such as footballs on camera and send them as high quality images to mobile phones has been developed by Toshiba, according to The Inquirer.

"This software analyses moving images as they are converted to data and processes any portions with any rapidly moving objects separately from those that are relatively still. The results are crisp images that lend themselves especially to sports coverage".

Related Articles:

-- Picture alerts sent to sports fans (Empics)

-- Sports highlights sent to cell phones (Automatic Sports Video Analyzer)

How wireless imaging is impacting the world of business

Forbes published the transcript of a Q&A with Alexis Gerard, president of the digital imaging research firm Future Image, who discusses how wireless imaging is impacting the world of business.

Some examples of how wireless images apply to businesses. Excerpts:

FDCEDITORS: Alexis, can you give us some specific examples, please?

ALEXIS GERARD: Sure. Law enforcement, any kind of field repair or maintenance across industries, manufacturing, facilities management.

FDCEDITORS: How would imaging come into play in law enforcement?

ALEXIS GERARD: For instance taking a picture of a suspect, a vehicle, a location, and transmitting it to another officer or another location for verification

[...]

Rusty: What do you think is the biggest hurdle to getting greater use of wireless imaging?

ALEXIS GERARD: Excellent question Rusty, thank you. The biggest hurdle is simply that we have grown used to the fact that we cannot communicate visually, that we have to translate visual information into words in order to communicate it. By the way, this is also why the first movers can gain such tremendous advantage. There's not a steep technology, investment, or learning curve - it's a matter of changing habits.

FDCEDITORS: And what do you think it will take to push us past those perceptions?

ALEXIS GERARD: Another great question, thank you. I think the biggest single "push" is the fact that carriers will essentially give you a camera in your phone at no cost. Once it first occurs to you that "hey, wait a minute, I can just take and send a picture"...and then a second, and a third time...you won't go back.

Big-a: What are some of the most under-utilized applications of wireless in imaging?

ALEXIS GERARD: Well, imaging and wireless have never been brought together before, this is a very recent development. So everything is under-utilized...or non-utilized...but the most compelling applications are going to be where speed is important. For instance, everything that has to do with emergencies.

More on Comparative Pricing with a Camera Phone

Following yesterday's post on comparative pricing at Amazon.com thanks to a camera phone and NeoMedia technology, Eric Lin for TheFeature.com describes exactly how it works:

"The shopper works by using your cameraphone to take a picture of a book's ISBN number (by using the bar code). Then using a proprietary application, the picture is sent to NeoMedia, who will use the bar code to determine the ISBN number and send you Amazon's price for that book.

Eric Lin points out that "no mention is made of whether you will be able to purchase the book from your handset. The application, which runs on the Nokia Series 60 phones, will launch on the 3650 first and follow on other models".

And Lin makes a valid point, saying in essence that since taking a picture of a bar code is so much eaiser than entering a URL or a product name, this type of application could turn out to be a popular m-commerce application.

Upscale UK Hair Salon Chain launches MMS Hairstyle Gallery

The Toni&Guy chain of upmarket hair salons in the UK is offering their customers the option to download pictures of hairstyles from a large gallery of photos online, onto their mobile phone. This way they can discuss their potential new look with family and friends before visiting a hairsalon, according to 160characters.org.

This is not the first time Ton&Guy has used cell phones in a clever way, to promote their salons and bring in customers. To boost sales in the quiet month of January (2002), they offered clients a chance to download a money off-voucher to "trim the price down of a haircut". And according to the BBC article at the time, Toni & Guy was thinking of using text messaging to remind regulars when they were due for a trim, or when their highlights needed touching up.

And just for fun, because it's related to hairstyles, remember the Brylcreem MMS interactive campaign entitled Send in a picture of your friends' worst hairstyles?

Checking out traffic cams on your cell phone

MTN South Africa launched “for fun” in July 2002, a camera placed on a cellphone tower in Johannesburg, enabling MMS enabled mobile users to check on live traffic at 4 major hi-way interchanges, by typing *155# on their mobile phones, reports ITWeb.

The free service was so successful - 3'000 users access Traffic Cam daily - that feeds were then later added to the .mtnice.co.za Web site and MTN is looking to add additional cameras and features to the service, including live video streaming of traffic.

With an increased MMS base expected after the Christmas period, added content to the site and the introduction of a commercial platform, the service is expected to exceed 100 000 hits a day.

Scottish cartoon newsreader goes mobile

The Scottish Executive - the devolved government for Scotland,responsible for most of the issues of day-to-day concern to the people of Scotland, announced that it will introduce a mobile video news service with the aid of a friendly animated character, according to Electronic News via Moco News.

Seonaid, a virtual woman, is the character who will deliver the news to those testing the mobile information service.

Red Carpet Images From the Emmys to Your Mobile Phone

A team of professional photographers will be positioned in key areas on the red carpet and backstage, to snap live photos of today's hottest television stars present at the Emmy Awards, Sunday September 21st, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, according to Yahoo Business News.

The pictures will be available for viewing in real time on Nokia's 2003 Primetime Emmy Awards website.

And AT&T Wireless Services and T-Mobile customeras with MMS enbabled phones, will be able to send special requests to a Nokia observation camera by text messaging, for a photo to be sent directly to their mobile phone.

Vodafone teams up to put football fans in picture

Vodafone has forged a three-year alliance with the UEFA Champions League to provide its mobile telephone customers with video clips and match data from games across Europe, according to the Guardian.

Customers can receive video clips from recent and historic matches, screen savers, ringtones and downloadable icons.

They will also have access to a range of match statistics including game results, line-ups and match previews.

MMS news services and snippets thanks to push technology

Peggy Anne Salz for the TheFeature.com, looks into push technology for picture phones and how this is both an perfect medium for delivering information to users about local events as well as an interesting revenue model.

- Together with its content partners Vodafone has launched some 10 MMS breaking-news services

-- This week Vodafone Germany added a new service that delivers news from the IAA, Frankfurt's automobile trade show.

-- Holland, the country who brought to television the first "Big Brother" reality show in 1999, is now innovating with the first picture soap opera sent to cell phones, using WAP-push technology. cf Jong-Zuid: First MMS soap opera .

-- And the Feature.com has launched SCREAM, "its own MMS news and views service that invites the industry's movers and shakers - as well as members of The Feature's own cutting-edge community - to voice opinions on hot industry issues."