Roeding’s World Travels: South Africa

Cyriac Roeding, the former EVP of mobile at CBS is on a world tour of about 10 countries in seven weeks, documenting for mocoNews the mobile lifestyle across the countries he is touring.

Excerpts from South Africa

Even in the wild, mobile is key and pervasive in South Africa. Many parts of the vast Kruger National Wildlife Park have perfect cell phone voice and EDGE data connectivity. Ironically, stationary PC internet access at safari lodges is not stationary: Regular desktop PC’s are connected to the web via mobile connection to the next tower in the Park.

To top it off, mobile technology is also employed to help overcome the remnant effects of apartheid. In the townships of tens of thousands of metal shacks, cell phones are the key to communication for the people that live there. Where telephone lines and stationary computers are a rarity, the population avoids the cord altogether and leaps right to mobile phones, like we have seen in Nepal, India and Bhutan.

Throughout the country, crime is also tackled using mobile phones. Outdoor billboards call out in big letters “Mobile-ize Against Crime!” Citizens are asked to tip off the police if they see suspicious activity by texting to a shortcode.

Check out more pictures on flickr.

mixART SMS from Hands-On Mobile

Hands on Mobileunvieled mixtART, an SMS service that allows independent artists to sell their original works of art as wallpapers to mobile subscribers. [via Wireless Mobile News]

"mixtART provides mobile users access to an art application, offering a variety of wallpapers created by an array of artists.

Many artists featured on mixtART will be attending ComiCon which will be taking place in San Diego from July 24 to the 27th. At ComiCon, the artists will be unveiling works of art, which customers will be able to purchase immediately for their mobile phones."

iPhone boost Japanese manga

The newly released Apple iPhone is making a hit all over Asia.

But in Japan – where the mobile phone was introduced Friday, selling out the same day – a special feature is being stressed. Among its many capabilities, the iPhone can display popular Japanese “manga,” or comics. UPI Asia reports.

"At the Digital Publishing Fair held in Tokyo as part of the Tokyo International Book Fair on Sunday, software company Celsys was demonstrating the phone’s prowess with manga. With a touch of the finger, a user can move the comics back and forth or flip them 90 degrees.

This is just the latest method by which avid comic readers can get their daily manga dose. Many people read them online. Of all the digital content purchased online, amounting to nearly 40 billion yen (over US$375 million) last year in Japan, about two-thirds was manga or other comics. "

... In a booklet called "Inside Out: A Mini Encyclopedia of Contemporary Japanese Culture" published by the Foreign Press Center, comics and animation are referred to as "showcases for the strikingly rich imagination of Japan's artists, that serve as vehicles to project Japanese culture around the world."

Dennis the Menace Goes Mobile

The classic comic book Dennis the Menace is now accessible to mobile phones as picture messages. [The Times Online via The Mobile Technology Weblog]

"In a move that will challenge the traditional comic, publishers are looking at ways of dramatically reducing costs and attracting readers by sending strips as picture messages.

Unlike traditional comics, the new service works by sending cartoons directly to customers as digital slideshows. Strips of up to 12 frames are converted into digital files and sent to handsets using MMS (multimedia message service) technology."

Singapore’s Mobile Comics Contest

The Singapore government is supporting mobile comics with Comi Idol— a contest where Singaporeans can showcase their comics and digital artwork on mobile phones.

Closing Date for submission: 25 February 2007. The 1st Nationwide Comi Idol Competition is open to both amateur as well as professional comic artists.

International entries accepted in Comi Idol Worldwide.

[via MocoNews]

Mobile Manga in Japan. Success explained

Insight from Newsweek on the sucess of mobile manga publishing in Japan. Really interesting, most manga services are consulted after 11 p.m and not while commuting - and most readers are women.

"Consumer demand for manga (the Japanese word for print comics) has surged in recent months, thanks to high-speed 3G phones, the proliferation of fixed-rate plans, and high-quality LCD displays.

The growth in manga shows how hard is it to predict what effect new technologies will have on old markets. Manga publishers initially thought that a phone service would appeal to commuters, but customers have turned to their mobiles to read comics more at home, especially after 11 p.m., than on the move.

... For Japan's publishing industry, which has endured a decade of declining sales, the boom is "a savior"... The market for digital publishing grew nearly fourfold compared with the year before, to $38.5 million in March 2006.

Comic books account for $19.6 million, compared with $9.4 million for comics on PCs.

Publishers are busy converting the hundreds of titles in their archives to digital format. But digital television may soon compete with comics for viewers' eyeballs.

The other surprise is that women account for the lion's share of mobile manga consumers.

UK Telegraph launches mobile cartoon

The Daily Telegraph is launching "a mobile version of its popular 'Alex' cartoon this week, which will allow mobile phone users to download it straight to their handsets free of charge.

Alex' has been running on the Daily Telegraph's business pages for the last 13 years."

[via NMA]

Mobile manga beats out hard copy for lazy literati

Japan remains the world's undisputed manga monarch, but the way Japanese are enjoying cartoons is undergoing a fundamental change, according to Sunday Mainichi.

"Though manga readership has been declining here for over a decade, Japanese comics are more popular overseas than ever before.

Among the main reasons given for the decline in domestic manga readership has been the proliferation of the Internet and mobile phones.

... NTT solmare has carved a tidy niche for itself after merging the competing interests and its "Comic Site" has become the biggest mobile phone site dedicated to manga in Japan.

"We've passed 10 million downloads since starting the service in August 2004," a spokesman for the Osaka-based mobile phone company tells Sunday Mainichi. "We get about 2 million to 3 million downloads a month."

Baloophone

Balloophone is a concept for Smartphones featuring a color touchscreen - speech balloons are brought to real life from comic strips.

The smartphone adapts to your favorite comics: talks to you in your favourite character's language, updates you on new series, contains tunes, ringing tones and games based on the comics.

The tail of the balloon serves as a USB connector to interchage data between the smartphone and a computer.

On the other side of the smartphone there is an additional black and white screen that displays short inscriptions such as "Mmmm!", "Oh, no-o-o-o!", "What????" at random. When you talk the smartphone observes your tone of voice and uses friendly, angry and neutral expressions typical for your favourite character.

Turn your smartphone 90 degress - the contents of the screen will rotate as well. Even if you hang upside down like Spiderman you will make everything out.

Mobile Software for Independent Comic Artists

Barefoot Software is now accepting submissions from Independent Comic Artists for a new service, www.s60comics.com that will allow Comic Books published on Barefoot Software’ mPublishing platform.

mComic enables Comic Artists the ability to provide their comic books or collection of comic strips/gags onto the Series 60 Smartphone platform. [Press release]

"God's Cartoonist" Makes His Angels Available on Cell Phones

Guy Gilchrist, the well known cartoonist of such popular comics as "Nancy," "Mudpie" and "The Muppets," is bringing his beloved "Angel" strips to cell phones around the world via the new web site GoGags.com. [via Finance Visor]

Each daily episode is just $.50 and may be purchased at http://www.gogags.com. A subscription service that allows automatic daily downloading straight to your phone is coming soon. Mobile Internet service through your cell phone's carrier is required.

Daily Dilbert cartoons on your cell phone.

Verizon Wireless has inked a deal with FunMail to offer daily Dilbert cartoons on Verizon handsets.

Dilbert, the United Feature Syndicate comic strip, is the most photocopied, pinned-up, downloaded, faxed and e-mailed comic strip in the world. Dilbert appears in 2,000 papers in 65 countries and 25 languages. More than 20 million Dilbert books have been sold to date, and more than half of Adams' books have made The New York Times best-seller list. [Cellular News]

Related article: - Dilbert comics on your cell screen

Int'l cartoon producers vie for Chinese cell phone market

International cartoon producers are making their way to China's cell phone cartoon and animation market to gain a foothold in the world's largest cell phone market, according to Xinhuanet.

"International Television for Asia (ITA) has signed an agreement with the Beijing China Cartoon Media Group to deliver cartoons, games, screen savers and other content to China Mobile earlier this year.

Some well-known American cartoon classics like Superman, Betty Boop, Casper the Friendly Ghost and Felix the Cat will be introduced to China's cell phone screens, Sander K. Johnson, president of ITA, said."

"There is a huge audience for games and animated messaging. We see it as the next great wave of entertainment driven demand in China," Johnson said.

China Mobile will launch a cell phone cartoon contest next month to motivate the country's fledging cartoon industry.

Companies offer cell-phone comics in Japan

Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. will almost triple the number of comic books it formats for viewing on cell phones in a move that will make it the No. 1 provider of popular Japanese "manga" comics for cell phones, a company official said Monday, reports the Associated Press.

"The Sony Corp. unit will increase the number of titles it offers to 300 over the next year. That's more than double the number offered by top rivals NTT Solmare and Toppan Publishing combined, though the two competitors also plan to boost their libraries.

Japanese viewers pay 315 yen ($2.90) to download five manga titles a month by an artist of their choice.

Cell-phone comics use a technology called Comic Surfing, developed by Tokyo-based venture firm Celsys, which takes viewers through manga stories at a carefully calculated speed and sequence.

The manga frames are specially formatted to fit on tiny mobile phone screens. Pop-up frames and vibration during action scenes add to the drama. Cell-phone comics with preprogrammed sound effects are also coming soon, said Toppan Publishing spokesman Katsunori Onishi".

Cell Phone Comics the New Ambassadors?

American artists make their cartoon strips available to cell phones around the world and look for foreign cartoonists to join them, reports Symbian1.

A group of American cartoonists is selling their comic strips directly to people around the world through an Internet website: fulltiltmobile.com.

Users may download the comics to their computers and then transfer the files to their Nokia Series 60 Smartphones using Bluetooth or other means.

Dawn Douglass, president of Full Tilt Features, says this allows anybody anywhere to read their comics, no matter what wireless service they may have.

Full Tilt comics are presently available in English only, but they hope to offer translated versions in the coming months. "Many people enjoy practicing their English with our comics," said Annie Taylor-Lebel, a Full Tilt cartoonist who lives in Canada and also speaks French. "But if people want our comics in other languages, too, then we will work to make that happen."

Cartoon Thriller Debuts On Mobile Phones

‘Thrill Noir' is an all-new, dark, edgy graphic tale presented in cartoon strip format that's building a cult following in the UK. But you can't get this in any bookshop, newsagents or even specialist comic book store.

‘Thrill Noir'is available exclusively via mobile phone, according to creativematch.

"All fourteen episodes of the first series are already available to fans via Gobspeed and can be downloaded, simply, anytime, anywhere on WAP enabled phones."

Manga Doctor for 3G Phones

An unlicensed but brilliant surgeon -- himself terribly scarred -- prepares to take on another apparently hopeless case, this time right on the cell-phone screen.

Black Jack, a series of immensely popular comics from Tetsuwan Atom's (Astro Boy) creator Osamu Tezuka has decided to make the jump to wireless and is coming to KDDI 3G mobile phones.

For 315 yen a month, readers can download Black Jack's medical adventures twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays.

Stories of this anti-hero have been serialized for 30 years in Japan, continuing long after the death of Tezuka. Black Jack has had his own live TV drama, video animation and animated TV series, and now he's going mobile.

reBlogged from Wireless Watch Japan

Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales Goes Mobile

Fans of Hans Christian Anderson (author of such fairy tales as The Ugly Ducking, The Emperor's New Clothes and The Little Mermaid) will soon be able to access several of his tales on mobile phones thanks to a deal between ohm:tv and Danish animation company Studio Campfire. The fairytales are presented in the form of an interactive comic book, and the launch coincides with the 200th anniversary of Anderson.

[via Moco News]

Toons Go Mobile

More animation content providers are exploring the wireless frontier. Karen Raugust chronicles how wireless is creating a quiet animation boom in Animation World Magazine.

"[...] Animated applications — motion-based screensavers, ringtones, games and clips — are a growing component of mobile content for all types of brands".

One of the broadest mobile efforts to date is Marvel's just-announced deal with MFORMA to create content based on all of Marvel's 5,500 characters (except Punisher, which is under a preexisting deal with another publisher).

[...] Another recent streaming content deal involving animation is between Stan Lee's POW! Entertainment and multimedia content publisher Vidiator Technology. The partners will create wireless, streaming broadband content for carriers worldwide."

Related articles on mobile cartoons from around the world:

-- It's a mobile Marvel - Mforma has signed a multimillion dollar, multiterritory contract with Marvel that will mean its 5,000 comic-book characters will be available for the creation of new mobile games.

-- Charlie Brown Goes Mobile - FunMail plans to offer a downloadable "best of" anthology of the Peanuts Comics for $1.99 per month for unlimited viewing."

-- The Incredible Shrinking Comic - The next big thing in the comics world is the small cell-phone screen, according to Randy Dotinga reporting from the Comic-Con International in San Diego.

-- Cartoon Network introduces mobile TV in Italy - Italian mobile operator 3 will distribute Cartoon Network to its videophone subscribers.

-- KTF users can send cartoons on their mobile handsets - KTF (Korea) announced Wednesday its MMS or multimedia messaging service allows users to send cartoon mail on their cell phones.

-- mixipicts, cartoons for your mobile - A smart new animated messaging service for mobile phones has been launched by Glasgow-based company mixipix.

-- Mobile Phone Comic-books Launched - Net publishing firm iComic Press has launched a new technology which allows users to download interactive comic-books to their handsets and also provides the tools for artists to create and upload their own work.

-- Mobile Comics on Sprint - Sprint USA has launched a mobile comics service, in association with Funmail's Mobile Comics Networks. These daily comics include strips from household names such as Dilbert, Dick Tracy, Zits, Baby Blues, Momma and Beetle Bailey.

-- Kuwaiti mobile users get MMS Arabic cartoons - Wataniya Telecom has announced an MMS service offering Arabic cartoons and comics to mobile users in Kuwait. Called 'Action', subscribers will receive a weekly MMS cartoon

-- Dilbert comics on your cell screen - The Dilbert service offered by FunMail lets users receive a series of the funniest Dilbert comic strips, and store them in a virtual "archive" for viewing anytime they wish.