Toddlers Fastest Growing Video Gaming Population

More and more small children are taking to video games, according to the latest report from market research firm NPD Group.

While the percentage of kids gaming has grown significantly across all age groups, the fastest growth has been among kids ages 2-5, with an increase of 17 points in gaming incidence when compared to 2009.

... Since 2009, gaming on mobile devices is up from 8 percent to 38 percent, while gaming on traditional portable gaming devices experienced more modest gains, up from 38 percent to 45 percent.

NPD Group press release via The Hollywod Reporter.

BBC Developing iPhone App for Live Broadcasting

The BBC is developing an app that will allow its reporters in the field to file video, stills and audio directly into the BBC system from an iPhone or iPad, reports journalism.co.uk.

The new app, due to be in use within a month or so, is also intended to allow reporters to broadcast live from an iPhone using only 3G signal.

The broadcaster is looking to obtain a site licence to use Lucy Live – a piece of software it already uses – to allow reporters to go live on air directly from an iPhone using 3G.

The development will mean BBC reporters could potentially broadcast live from anywhere with 3G signal and will no longer have to rely on WiFi or carry cumbersome satellite or codex equipment.

[via Mashable]

Egypt Police seize video footage, mobile phones to remove all traces of repression

The violence used by the police in an attempt to suppress any visual record of this demonstration was particularly disturbing,” Reporters Without Borders said to Ikhwan Web.

... Al Jazeera TV’s Cairo bureau chief, Hussein Abdel Ghani, told Agence France-Presse that his cameramen were searched and their video footage was confiscated. Many demonstrators said the mobile phones they had used to take photos or record video were also confiscated.

Read full article.

Why the media is on the move

Mobile phones are changing the future of news, reports Stephen Quinn for The Sydney Morning Herald.

In London, Reuters news agency equipped its journalists with a mobile journalism toolkit about a year ago. Reuters' product manager of mobile and emerging media, Ilicco Elia, says this is the start of a future form of journalism and a new way to tell stories. In fact, the BBC's technology editor, Darren Waters, has been filing mojo (mobile journalist) reports from various parts of Europe since late last year.

"Mobile phones allow journalists to change their heavy camera equipment to a smaller device," Mr Elia says. Reuters' journalists tested the mobile toolkit at the New York fashion week last year and on the US presidential campaign trail. The agency now plans to give the mobile devices to citizen journalists. ...

US: Mobile journalism is changing the newsroom

Editor & Publisher's Joe Strupp has produced a special report on how mobile reporting has and will broadly change the organization of the newsroom.

An increasing number of newspapers employ mobile journalists, otherwise known as 'mojos'. As the technology and gadgets to capture and transmit multimedia data on the go become more widespread, reporters spend more time on the ground, expected to quickly file stories for the Web.

Why camera phones were the centre of attention at Davos

One of the talking points to emerge from Davos this year is the use of online video to report instantly on events, with little mediation through traditional channels. The BBC reports.

Reuters, Nokia collaborate on project for reporters on the go

Reuters and the Nokia Research Center have announced that they are working on a joint project to enable journalists to file and publish stories and multimedia news content from handheld devices instead of computers. News.com

"Called Reuters Mobile Journalism, the initiative relies upon connecting peripherals to Nokia's high-end Nokia N95 device--a Bluetooth-enabled keyboard, a small tripod for video interviews, and a microphone that can plug into the mobile handset--as well as software to make it easier to put together text, images and streaming media."

Uruguayan Reporter in Contempt for Using Phone Camera in U.S. Court

A Uruguayan television news reporter pleaded guilty Thursday to contempt charges for illegally using a cell phone camera inside a U.S. courthouse, where cameras are banned, reports Law.com .

"Martin Sarthou, a reporter for Teledoce in Uruguay, got the camera past security at the Miami courthouse and used it to film extradition proceedings in October 2006 involving Juan Peirano Basso, who is accused in Uruguay with taking part in an $800 million banking scandal involving institutions in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay.

The resulting images were broadcast on Teledoce, including pictures of Peirana being led into court in handcuffs and leg shackles, according to court documents.

"The entire presentation was used to disparage Mr. Peirano in the eyes of the Uruguayan public," said Peirano lawyer Joseph A. DeMaria in court papers.

But according to a translated script, Sarthou said the network "deemed it important for viewers to have access to these images" and see the extradition proceedings for themselves. "

Fox uses Treo to break N.Y. plane crash news

When a single-engine plane crashed into an Upper East Side apartment building on Wednesday, Fox News Channel delivered early live video to its viewers from the crash site using a hand-held mobile phone souped up with streaming video. [via Reuters]

"Scott Wilder, a cameraman for the network, had been about 20 blocks away on another assignment when the crash occurred. Wilder ran uptown and reported live from the scene using a hand-held Palm Treo smartphone that uses the existing mobile network to transmit video to the Fox News control room. From there, Fox News sent it out live on TV to supplement other video being shot by local traffic helicopters.

Wilder's work represents one of the first instances of a network using video captured via mobile phone camera live on the air."

Honoring News Photos as Picture-Taking Evolves

Since handing out its first award in 1955 for a picture of a motorcyclist skidding out of control, the annual World Press Photo contest, produced by professionals for the press has grown into photojournalism's premier event. The 50th-anniversary exhibition, featuring prize-winning news images from 2004, opens tomorrow at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The New York Times reports.

This year's Photo of the Year award went to the Indian photographer Arko Datta for his shot of a woman in Cuddalore, in southern India, lamenting the death of a relative killed in the tsunami. World Press Photo, a nonprofit foundation based in Amsterdam, also handed out prizes to more than 60 other photographers from two dozen countries.

They were chosen from almost 70,000 entries submitted by more than 4,000 photographers, more than in any previous year.

The recent uptick in submissions may seem linked to the proliferation of cameras in more and more devices, like cellphones, a phenomenon gradually turning everyone into an aspiring shutterbug.

"The line between professional photojournalists and amateurs is thinning. And with more and more nonprofessionals opting to use their cameras to capture socially relevant images, it can only make photojournalism more popular," said Mr. Datta, who works for Reuters".

Korea Top Magazines Go Mobile

Korea mobile operator KTF is launching a service allowing users to read magazines from home and abroad such as Woman Sense, Living Sense and Cosmopolitan on cell phones, writes Telecoms Korea.

The nation's second largest operator forged alliance with publishing and media companies JoongAng M&B and Seoul Media Group to release a mobile magazine service "Sunday Seoul Zapzzi."

This mobile variety magazine service proves the latest news with photos on entertainment, fashion trend, health, leisure and travel.

Plans are to expand the coverage into movie, politics, economy, social issues and sports. The company will also provide subscribers with opportunity to participate in the production of the magazine as mobile reporters.

Cell Phones Increasingly Used to Snap the News

Reuters (via Eyebeam reBlog) reports that twice in one month De Telegraaf, the biggest Dutch newspaper, published front-page pictures shot by mobile phone users.

Wednesday, the daily published a picture of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh who was probably killed by an Islamic militant.
Passerby Aron Boskma took a picture with his cell phone at the scene of the crime in Amsterdam. News photographers arrived only after the corpse had been covered, leaving Boskma's picture the only one showing knives plunged into the body.

As more and more "ordinary" people are now carrying camphones, the trend of using phones to snap the news is growing.

In Sweden, a ferry collision filmed with a cell phone was shown on national television last year. Last month, Dutch newspapers published photographs shot with a cell phone from a police shoot-out in the town of Enschede, made available to Dutch news agency ANP.

ANP receives camera phone pictures through a collaboration with Internet news Web site Nu, which offers money and prizes to amateur photographers who send in pictures.

In Japan, it has become common to sell pictures to television stations and other media outlets.

Camphone Shot on Orchard Street

One of Engadget's writers (Peter Rojas?) was walking down Orchard Street yesterday afternoon and took this picture with his camera phone.

Not only was it posted in Engadget and is being picked up around the web, but the girl in the picture will be guest-editing Engadget next week. How cool is that?

Moblogging the hurricane

As Florida braces for Hurricane Charley and Tropical Storm Bonnie, Weblogs are a good tool for news sites in the coverage area, reports Cyberjournalist.net.

"In fact, Hurricane Bonnie back in 1998 marked the first time a news site used the Weblog format to cover a breaking story, on charlotte.com.

Among the sites blogging Charley so far are WeatherBug, which has dispatched one of its meteorologists to blog the hurricane; and The Tampa Tribune and WFLA."

So far stories are of professional journalist blogging the hurricane - though one can find pictures of the storm by local citizens on Textamerica. Hopefully Media outlets will not call out to citizen reporters, to endanger their lives to cover the hurricane, as was done by Denver station, KCNC Channel 4, during a tornadoe. cf Did Denver Deliberately Endanger Citizen Journalists?. You figure professional weather reporters have training on how to keep safe.

See also related article -- Hurricane Victims, a.k.a. Amateur Journalists.

Web Reporters on the Scene Fast

Steve Outing for E-Media Tidbits describes how the web staff of the San Diego Union-Tribune covered a school-bus crash.

"Our first alert came in from our [emergency-alert] pager; after confirming with other sources we put up a breaking news alert. We used our news chopper (we have an agreement with the provider of the television news chopper to capture video anytime it is in the air) video to grab a frame for the upper photo [ on this page ], and the lower photo by Greg Magnus was sent by wire from his photo cell phone which he also used to report from the scene. Jeff Dillon wrote the story using TiVo to review the details as a press officer talked to a local TV station as one of our news sources." [Later in the day, the site sent a videographer to the site and integrated video into the coverage.]

Steve points out "How refreshing that newspaper websites are doing more original reporting. There's an example of not just relying on print-side reporters but utilizing website reporting resources."

For more on camera phone equipped journalists reporting live, check out this category in Picturephoning.com

The BBC will cover the Glastonbury Festival with camera phones

The BBC is ramping up its digital coverage of the The Glastonbury Festival this year with additional interactive TV, online and mobile services, reports Revolution Magazine.

Mobile phone WAP and PDA services will offer news, performer and schedules information on the move and the BBS has confirmed that it will use MMS. Producers and presenters will be able to take and send pictures on a mobile phone and then send them direct to the BBC website within a couple of minutes.

You can check out last year's BBC pics and blogs on the festival here.

The Glastonbury Festival 2004 takes place on June 25th, 26th and 27th. This year Oasis, Sir Paul McCartney and Muse have all been confirmed acts, with rumours of Morrissey, PJ Harvey, James Brown, Kings of Leon, Basement Jaxx, Elbow, The Chemical Brothers, Ms Dynamite, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Franz Ferdinand, The Rapture and The Libertines also appearing.

News filed on the spot - thumbs permitting

Following Øyvind Woie's experience of updating live from CeBIT 2004 for the Norwegian newspaper Vårt Land, (cf Norway's First Photo-Phone Reporter), Woie's next project will be to report from a large Norwegian music festival this summer, using a camera phone to post pictures and text to a web gallery, reports dot Journalism.

"As mobile reporting technology becomes more common, traditional note-taking reporting will become a thing of the past, says Mr Woie.

"Journalists must be able to produce pictures, video, audio and web copy as well as use mobile technology and create stories and news for new broadband mobile media," he said.

"Readers don't read, listen and watch the news from the sofa anymore - the mobile phone makes it possible to read Norwegian news in Mombassa or be get entertainment on top of the Himalayas."

Norway's First Photo-Phone Reporter

E-Media Tidbits comments on Øyvind Woie's experience of updating live from CeBIT 2004 for the Norwegian newspaper Vårt Land.

"Woie brought nothing but his Nokia 6600 photo phone, and sent in his reports every time he spotted something worth a mention. All in all, he submitted 32 small stories, consisting of a 400 x 300 pixel photo and no more than 160 characters of text. The end result was a small slide show with all the latest gear and trends".

News Phone Photos: Stopgap Journalism

I check on Steve Outing on E-Media Tidbits every day, because he believes camera phones are a wonderful tool for journalists and he reports on how these new handsets are being used by the press.

In his latest entry, he relates a great anecdote as reported by Lost Remote's Cory Bergman: "After arriving on scene at the hospital after a chemistry lab explosion at a Seattle-area school, reporter Jim Forman of KING-TV snapped a picture on his camera phone. Minutes later, it appeared on KING5.com. An award-winning shot? Hardly. But ... instead of waiting for video to be shot, fed, and encoded, they posted the pic as soon as it landed in their e-mail, saving at least an hour."

Steve Outing concludes: "Photo phones in the hands of journalists. It's largely about timeliness and being first on breaking news, not quality (though that will come as the technology evolves). In a case like this, a low-quality camera-phone shot may be the only thing a news organization has until a professional photographer can get his/her shots processed and edited". Hear, hear.

Escape! A New Kind of Breaking-News Reporting

Steve Outing for E-Media Tidbits reports on the San Diego Union-Tribune's multimedia coverage of a murder trial, including a camera phone. The website's news staff used all of the following elements in a single news story:

- Camera phone images taken by the web staff. ("We have begun using the phones for breaking-news coverage," Rose reports. "While the images are not great quality, they certainly are serviceable -- much better than nothing.")

- A screen capture from a TV news helicopter (thanks to an agreement with the contractor who provides video to local TV stations).

- Video produced by the SignOn staff.

- At the end of the day, a photo from the newspaper staff.

Opportunities and Tensions for the News Industry

Madan Rao on E-Media Tidbits has an interesting post reporting on BBC anchor Nik Gowing, speaking at the recent World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva:

"New-media technologies like photo phones are making every citizen a potential eyewitness reporter; Internet publishing is speeding up the news cycle as well. All this spells new opportunities -- as well as tensions -- for the news industry.

Gowing showed footage of BBC's first-ever news broadcast where a correspondent reported live via a photo phone, for a story on ships".

Picture phone used for breaking sports news

Donn Friedman, photographer from the Alberquerque Journal, sent this over.

Here's an example of using a camera phone for breaking sports news. Published as the game was ending. In a dramatic finish the visiting team scored 10 points in the last two minutes to win the state football championship.

It will be about 6 hours until our dispatch from our print newspaper reporters and photogs make it to the web site." (Thanks Don!)

To view online, click Alberquerque Journal and in site search. copy/paste this title: It's La Cueva by a toe.

Reporter + Photo Phone = Timely Moblog

In an entry today, Steve Outing for E-Media Tidbits writes about journalist Louie Villalobos of The Sun in Yuma, Arizona, writing and photographing for a "moblog" while covering a story on a portion of the Arizona border with Mexico.

Called "The Border: Where Two Worlds Meet, the blog includes photos taken by Villalobos along with a brief description for each.

Professional journalists producing weblogs is one of Steve Outing's favorite topics and he wishes more reporters would experiment with this form of news storytelling.

Paper Publishes Its 1st Cell-Phone News Photo

Steve Outing in E-Media Tidbits reports that Scandinavia's second-largest morning newspaper, Göteborgs-Posten, published yesterday on its website its first news photo taken by a mobile phone.

A reporter arrived at the scene of a collision between a tram and a truck in central Göteborg, snapped some pictures with his camera phone and sent them off via e-mail (by phone) to the news desk. "A great example of why news organizations should be replacing all reporters' mobile phones with photo phones" says Steve Outing.

Just for the record, reportedly, the very first photo taken by a camera phone and published on the front page of a newspaper was in June 8 of this year, when Sydney's Sunday edition of The Daily Telegraph published a photo of flamboyant jailed stockbroker Rene Rivkin inside the detention center, where he was serving the first 24 hours of his sentence for insider trading. cf Camera phone in Sydney jail gets media attention .

UPDATE / CORRECTION Japan Media Review reported an earlier case in Japan. A photo of a bank fire was published in the Yomiuri Shimbun.

The (positive) impact of picture phones

Don't miss Steve Outing's enthousiastic review of Evan Nisselson's article entitled "Why will wireless camera phones revolutionize the photography industry?" and published in The Digital Journalist, commenting on the impact of picture phones.

"It's refreshing to read this positive outlook of the photo-phone phenomenon, rather than just defensiveness. And Nisselson points out how the devices will forward the photojournalism profession, not undermine it. He dismisses the devices' current poor quality -- often cited by pro photographers -- as a red herring; resolution is improving rapidly as photo-phone technology improves".

A visual revolution

In a thought provoking piece published in Editor & Publisher, Steve Outing writes about how the emerging trend of picture phones will likely influence news media in major ways. Already, several news organizations are asking their readers to contribute in a novel way, by sending in their pictures.

He predicts it will be common for newspapers to publish images of significant news events where professional photojournalists weren't present but picture phone users were. And though Photojournalism experts agree that in general this is a good thing -- it's not without its challenges.

It is likely to have even much bigger consquences than videos taken with popular camcorders, not always in arm's reach unlike cell phones, always near by. One can only wonder, if I may add, at the magnitude of the consequences, when you think of the most famous amateur video, the one documenting the brutal beating by the LA police of Rodney King, which led to riots in the city following the verdict of the trial.

It could potentially create a logistical nightmare for picture editors, flooding the news photo department with a wave of images sent in from the public. Such a scenario is perfectly likely in the event for instance of a terrorist attack in a major city, according to Kenny Irby, a visual journalism faculty member at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg. Irbi recommends news photo departments have a disaster plan in place for such situations.

Another fear is authenticity, how can you tell if a picture has been retouched? With the wide spread use of powerful photo design and production tool, Photoshop, editors need to be very careful about what they accept from the public and publish.

Steve Outing closes his column, with a lighter side, suggesting news feature editors match the creativity of one of the most popular UK web sites, Dogs in Cars, which publishes online user-submitted photos of ... dogs in cars. Great fun.

Journalists document events with camera phones

Journalists equipped with digital phones or picture phones are giving editors a real edge on the news, as they can be sent practically in real time from an event. Fashion webiste Show Studio's speedy coverage of the collections during the Paris Prêt-à-porter, allowed them to scoop more established fashion news organisations. cf cf SMS: Business gets the message

Steve Outing in an interesting posting on E-media Tidbits in February, envisions most reporters carrying digital-camera phones when they hit the street on reporting assignments in the near future.