Are we ready to give mobile operators our health information?

Network from Michael Rigley on Vimeo.

A visualization of the trace of the information we feed into networks when we send a MMS by Michael Francis Rigley, a graphic designer from San Francisco.

mHealth Insight via @jranck

Leading artists create mobile art

s[edition] is a new website that allows art lovers to collect art on their cell phones or iPads.

According to the BBC, s[edition] offers limited edition contemporary art for mobile phones, designed by the likes of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin.

The original authenticated artwork can be downloaded for display on phones, tablets, computers and TVs.

Works will be created in limited runs of between 2,000 and 10,000 and will cost between £5 and £500.

Read more.

Related:

-- The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts brought the artwork of Andy Warhol to cell phones. (2009)

-- The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston allows users to wirelessly download Museum masterpieces to cell phones and other mobile devices. (2007)

-- START SOMA, the San Francisco gallery for emerging artists, launched STRAT MOBILE, a retail art gallery to sell New Art for cell phones. (2005)

-- Wooster Collective Mobile Wooster Mobile is a Wooster curated art gallery of images which you can download onto your mobile phones in cities around the world. (2005)

-- Masterpiece painting for cell phones SK Telecom announced that it's NATE service will provide customers with viewing access to 80 selected art masterpieces from the collection of "400 Years of Western Art from Poussin to Matisse". (2004)

-- Famous artwork for cell phone screens 123Multimedia, a French producer of logos and ringtones, launched of a series of "Master Painting" wallpaper designs for cell phone screens. (2003)

-- Contemporary artists create artwork for cell phone screens In November 2003, See My SMS, a Paris based company run by Alexandra de Waresquiel, signed up over 25 contemporary artists, whose artwork could be downloaded onto cell phones; Jeanne SUSPLUGAS, Anne DELEPORTE, Sam SAMORE, Susan SHUP et François-xavier COURREGES all created original artwork for this project. (2003)

911 to Get MMS

How horrible it is to be a 911 operator? You have to answer calls from screaming/injured/angry/crazy/dying people all day. Their job is about to get worse, as soon they'll be able to receive texts, photos, and video of that misery. Gizmodo reports.

The FCC just announced a plan to catch 9-1-1 emergency services up with current technology. Call NG911, they FCC is aiming for standardization across U.S. emergency networks which are not control by any one governing body. With this update, we will now be able to send text, photos, and videos to 9-1-1.

Read more.

Tata DOCOMO introduces 'Magic SMS'

Tata Docomo has launched a new value added services for its subscribers called 'Magic SMS'. The service enables users to convert their standard text SMSes into attractive picture messages. [via TelecomYatra]

The service, Magic SMS, helps users to combine picture messages with original text messages using black and white dotted pictures and is available on GPRS enabled handsets with MMS subscription.

Read more.

Hieroglyphs may be making a comeback, thanks to cell phones

According to Fox News, hieroglyphs may be making a comeback, thanks to cell phones.

Colorado native Kai Staats has invented a new language for cell phones that replaces words with pictures to represent actions, nouns, and places, making his invention essentially a modern form of the hieroglyphics used in ancient Egypt.

The language, which Staats calls "iConji," consists of 32x32 pixel square images that convey either a single meaning, such as "sports car," or a dual meaning such as "food" plus "to eat." It's available for Apple devices like the iPad and iPhone, as a Facebook application, or as a Web application that runs in Firefox or Safari.

Read full article.

It's actually been done before - but for passwords. Software by Japanese company Mnemonic Security offered software to replaces passwords for pictures. The picture security code "replaces alphanumeric passwords with "pass-symbols", a series of pictures or illustrated images that are easy for the user to remember". In 2006, the The Inquirer wrote a funny post suggesting the software was for "stupid people in high powered jobs."

[via popwuping]

iPhone will get MMS September 25

AT&T announced that multimedia messaging will finally come to the iPhone on September 25. The carrier also said it appreciates the patience of its customers.

The iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G will support the service, but owners of the original iPhone will miss out since that handset lacks the proper radio.

You will need a software update before you can send your first photo to another phone number.

[via New.com]

Text Art app turns your words into MMS art

Text Art, by artist Marius Watz, is an exclusive new mobile app for the Nokia E71.

It has just become freely available for download, enabling you to type messages that automatically get generated into mind-bending art that you can share via MMS.

Read on to find out how the Text Art app works, and to discover how you can create generative art desktop wallpaper, simply by talking, moving your arms or typing.

[via Nokia Conversations]

Andy Warhol to mobile

This February, 22 years after his death, Warhol’s most iconic images are celebrated through cellphones across North America.

Airborne Moble, Inc., a leading full-service mobile media company, today announced a license agreement with The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts to bring the artwork of Andy Warhol to cell phones - available now on most U.S. and Canadian carriers:

-- Verizon Wireless
-- AT&T
-- T-Mobile
-- Sprint
-- Boost

[via e-mail press release]

Picture message service suspended after privacy concerns

O2 has suspended its web-based picture message (MMS) viewing service after photos sent privately to others were found online. Computer Active reports.

"The problem, discovered by anti-spam blog Mail Channels, has affected users of handsets that can't display picture messages, such as Apple's iPhone.

Rather than seeing the message, users of these handsets receive a text message with a link to a web-based viewer. However, as no username or password is required to view the message, Mail Channels found that some images could be viewed through a simple Google search."

According to a post today on mocoNews.net, O2 is not alone. Other carriers like Sprint and MVNO Boost Mobile will not only show you the picture or video, but will also show you the phone number, download it, print it, forward it or reply to it all form the same web page.

iPhone 3G with MMS?

According to Information Week which has knowledge of an internal AT&T memo, the iPhone will be getting picture messaging functionality, a feature disapointingly missing from both the original and the new 3G model.

"For the moment, neither AT&T nor Apple have officially said anything about the iPhone supporting MMS.

Gizmodo has a screen shot but it may not be the real thing,

Mobile Content for Boston's Museum of Fine Arts

Today, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) announced the launch of its MFA Mobile program.

Developed by Hill Holliday, MFA Mobile allows users to wirelessly download Museum masterpieces to cell phones and other mobile devices.

Through MFA Mobile, users are able to personalize a mobile device with works of art from the Museum’s extensive collection of art, ranging from a Claude Monet water lily or Edward Hopper lighthouse to an Egyptian sculpture or African mask.

The program launched today on the Web at hmfa.org/mobile, on the mobile Web at mobile.mfa.org and through out-of-home advertising, bus shelters and direct marketing materials also developed by Hill Holliday.

[Press release]

Italian Historical Photography Foundation Teams Up with Museum On The Go

Fratelli Alinari (the world's most prestigious picture photo archive, museum and gallery) and Musuem on the Go team up to provide high – quality Italian photography from the last century for download to mobile phones.

Museum On The Go, the worldwide first portal for download of digital museum objects to mobile devices has dedicated a new section to the famous collection of the Alinari National Museum of Photography.

Images from photographers like Alinari, Brogi, and Wulz are available for download to mobile phones in more than 50 countries worldwide.

The subjects have been carefully selected and range from artistic shots of monuments and historical places of Italian cities (Rome, Milan, Florence, Siena and many others) to scenes of life and folklore).

The photographs originate from the 19th or the beginning of the 20th century and present artists in the vast collection of more than 4.000.000 images available in the Alinari Museum in Florence.

The portal can be found on the Internet or directly on the mobile phone at the Wap-address: motg.mobi Press release

a21 offers stock photos for cell phones

According to the Jacksonville Business Journal, global digital image provider a21 Inc. is offering its digital stock photography as wallpaper for cell phones through major U.S. carriers, including Cingular, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and Dobson.

"The stock photographs a21 is offering can be used as is or customized, through MyNuMo, to add text, color and layer images."

TextandSell (Classifieds)

This sounds like a good idea. TextandSell offers mobile users a way to post classified ads. [via Computeractive]

"Instead of logging on to a website, people create an advert and send it to the site via mobile phone.

Buyers list the first part of their postcode, a description of the item, what it is selling for, then take the picture and send it to Text and Sell using MMS.

The seller can offer a combination of pictures as well as text to create interest in the goods they are selling."

German Railway Offers Cell-Phone Tickets

Germany's national railway launched today a service that allows passengers to buy tickets with their mobile phones, according to The Washington Post.

"Customers who use the service receive a multimedia message on their mobile phones that's read by new scanners and serve as a ticket. Booking via cell phone is available until 10 minutes before a train's departure. Customers must register for the service online before buying their first mobile phone ticket.

... The railway operator said all train ticket collectors should be equipped with the new scanners by mid-September."

Now granny can finally view the MMS you send her [WMMNA]

Narrowcasting TV, by Michihito Mizutani, connects your TV set with your mobile phone.

When you receive a text message or MMS, the cell phone forwards the message to the TV. One of the channels then displays the message or photo.

You may also send a message to your family's TV directly.

The system allows you to connect to people -particularly the elderly- who are not using computer or mobile phones, like your grandmother.

[via WMMNA]

Trading mobile football cards

More World Cup fever. A new service called mSwaps, allows football fans to trade footie stickers on their cell phones.

"The company wishes to relive the days of sticker collection and has adapted it to the mobile age with mSwaps and hopes the service will be a hit among football crazy youngsters. [via Tech Alert ]

If you ever collected or traded football cards then you will understand collectmSwaps instantly. mSwaps is a sticker or card collection on your mobile phone! To show our support for England during the World Cup this summer, mSwaps cards are pictures of England heros past and present, complete with statistics.

UK. Picture messaging still too expensive

The relatively high prices charged by network operators for MMS messages is holding back market growth, according to new research from analyst firm Informa Telecoms & Media, reports UK Computing.

"Operators are currently charging four times as much to send an MMS compared to a text message.

"Pricing is fundamental to the success of MMS. Subscribers are still unwilling to pay the comparatively higher tariffs for MMS and, until the price ratio with SMS narrows, traffic volumes will remain low," said Kester Mann, senior research analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.

Although MMS traffic quadrupled in 2005, only three operators recorded more than 100 million MMS messages sent. This compares to 30 billion text messages in the UK alone last year.

New Art for cell phones

START SOMA, the San Francisco gallery for emerging artists, today announced the launch of STRAT MOBILE, a retail art gallery to sell New Art for cell phones. Curated by Start Soma founder John Doffing, Thousands of original works of New Art from hudnreds of the world’s most prominent emerging + underground artists can now be downloaded onto mobile phones across the United States.

Related:

-- Contemporary artists create artwork for cell phone screens In November 2003, See My SMS, a Paris based company run by Alexandra de Waresquiel, signed up over 25 contemporary artists, whose artwork could be downloaded onto cell phones; Jeanne SUSPLUGAS, Anne DELEPORTE, Sam SAMORE, Susan SHUP et François-xavier COURREGES all created original artwork for this project.

-- Wooster Collective Mobile Wooster Mobile is a Wooster curated art gallery of images which you can download onto your mobile phones in cities around the world.

-- Masterpiece painting for cell phones SK Telecom announced Tuesday that it's NATE service will provide customers with viewing access to 80 selected art masterpieces from the collection of "400 Years of Western Art from Poussin to Matisse".

-- Famous artwork for cell phone screens 123Multimedia, a French producer of logos and ringtones, has announced the launch of a series of "Master Painting" wallpaper designs for cell phone screens.

MMS xmas Calender

MMS Xmas Calender - A new day = a new artist = a new artwork for you and your mobile phone. [via Guerrilla-Innovation].

Each day, between December 1-24, subscribers to the xmas calendar will receive an MMS-artwork made of text, image or sound. The artworks are created by 24 different international artists, specifically for MMS enabled phones.

The MMS xmas calendar is realized in collaboration between the design agency 1508 and the art foundation Artnode - the price of the wireless calendar is 100 kr (Euro 14 - $ 16.50) and the profit goes directly to the Danish Red Cross.

MMS-to-email

3's customers in the UK can send MMS to any email address and recipients can reply by email within five days, according to Mike Grenville at 160characters.org.

... "People want to be able to send MMS to anyone, from anywhere, commented Jason Bradley, 3's Director of Communication Products. This is what mobile technology is all about. MMS-to-email is an ideal way to drive MMS uptake, by integrating with a communications technology everyone already uses, internet email."

The launch of MMS-to-email is being supported by an MMS marketing campaign called "reasons to send" that will highlight the benefits of using video and picture messaging".

Paris Match offers their celeb pics to mobile phone users

French weekly people magazine Paris Match has set up a mobile short code (82300) to enable their readers to download celebrity pictures from their weekly selection and from their archives.

In a statement in this week's issue, they say: "because the mobile phone has become a media in itself, sometimes even a tool used for reporting, Paris Match has decided to accompany it's readers in this new world, which allows for instant communication, in complete freedom, and will help share information and experiences."

Paris Match covers celebrity news but also major world events, and is world reknown for the quality of it's coverage and it's award winning "grand reporters".

Glamour in the Slammer -- Now on Wallpapers

A new novelty set of cellphone wallpapers called Celebrity Mugshot Wallpapers‚ caters to consumers fascination with the crimes and misdemeanors of the rich and famous.

Celebrity Mugshot Wallpapers chronicle the lawbreaking escapades of the People magazine set while you‚re trying to place a call.

You get Keanu Reeves after his encounter with the law for drunk driving, Al Pacino after his 1961 arrest for carrying a concealed weapon in a car with three people wearing black masks and gloves, Nick Nolte after his 9/11 2002 arrest by California Highway Patrol for driving under the influence or Hugh Grant after getting caught with hooker Divine Brown,

The wallpapers are available for $1.99 US each from www.CelebrityMugshotCalendars.com/download.htm by clicking on any number of mugshots you want.

Also be on the look out for the Celebrity Mugshot Calendars 2006 (Hollywood, Sports, Music and Hip/Hop Editions) set to be released in August.

Transgender Band to Release Nude Photos by MMS

Wonderful and bizarre. Korean Transgendered band, Lady, are due to release a photo album revelaing them in all their buff glory.

An interesting (and perhaps not so incidental) facet of this is that the images will be delivered to mobile devices first.

[via Aflie's Blog and Digital Chosunilbo]

SI Swimsuit screensavers popular with Sprint subscribers

Sprint PCS said its Sprint PCS Vision customers have purchased more than 500,000 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit screensavers, which are provided by Summus Inc. [via RCR News]

Related article:

-- See how good your phone looks in a bikini - Sport Illustrated scours the globe to find the most beautiful women for its annual swimsuit issue, and now mobile users can download them onto their cell phones. This same campaign was launched successfully last year. The 2004 version generated as many as 1.5 million downloads

EMotoPhone: MIT Project

Emotophone, a project by the MIT Speech Interface Group, adds a new dimension to cell phone interaction by allowing users to send personalized emoticons over the phone (or real pictures) to show how they are feeling, in order to augment verbal communication.

The EMotoPhone icons can also be sent independently, outside of the context of a conversation.

For example, if you are too busy to engage in a conversation,but you want to let someone know that you are thinking of them, you can send them an EMotoPhone wink. Using real faces for the EMotoPhone icons makes cell phone interaction richer, more personalized, and more fun!

Related:

-- Cell Phone with Feeling - Siemens has launched the CX70 Emoty on the UK market, a phone that lets its owners express their emotions and communicate these feelings to friends - as an emotional MMS together with text.

-- The future of affection - The shiny, wipe-clean future we are headed for may seem like a cold and uninviting place, but if existing technology is any guide then feelings and emotions are going to play a big part in this hi-tech world.

-- SMS hugs via Mobile Phone - HugsSMS is a device designed for sending someone you care about a hug using your mobile phone.

-- 'Emotive Alerts' on cellphones - Angry on a friend who is too busy to pick up the phone? Just leave a voice message and he will take the hint through an on-screen 'emotica' - a new age technological marvel from MIT.

-- Voicemail software recognises callers' emotions - MIT's Emotive Alert's voicemail system labels messages according to the caller's tone of voice and could be helping people identify which messages are urgent.

-- SMS with feeling - BT has developed new technology that takes mobile messaging to a new level where "actual emotions can be conveyed between family and friends in a physical and tactile way"

-- Lie detectors for cellphones - The Truster plugs into a phone - cellular or land-line - or a TV and can spot deceivers, even if they speak a foreign language.

Trading Soccer Cards by MMS

For the last two World Soccer Cups, trading stickers (called Paninis) portraying the players of each team from every country was a huge business, all the kids were buying the packages or boxes with a number of random pictures, in an effort to complete their collection of every single player, before the games were over.

Now, this season's soccer players' cards are available for collection by MMS, thanks to PaniniMobile.

[via mobile|blog.it]

Virgin Mobile goes to Stringfellows for sexy pic

Virgin Mobile has teamed up Peter Stringfellow to offer “glamorous” images of both men and women from his Stringfellows nightclub, sent direct to users mobile devices.

The first level of 11 “angels” and 8 “hunks” will be available online or via WAP, direct from Virgin Mobile's BITES service.

The second tier of content will include an additional 10 “middle shelf” adult-only images. These will be available only to adult customers who have completed a credit check to prove they are over 18."

See how good your phone looks in a bikini

Sport Illustrated scours the globe to find the most beautiful women for its annual swimsuit issue, and now mobile users can download them onto their cell phones.

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit photographs are available immediately from SI.com/wallpaper to customers with one of 76 mobile phones initially available through three major GSM wireless carriers (with additional carriers and phone models being added in the future).

This same campaign was launched successfully last year. The 2004 version generated as many as 1.5 million downloads, according to a company press release.

General Wireless enables MMS using Microsoft e-Mail clients

General Wireless has launched an application that enables standard Microsoft Outlook programs to send and receive MMS messages, reports Cellular News.

"The solution is designed to help mobile operators reach out to millions of e-Mail users, giving them convenient access to MMS messaging, thus driving MMS traffic."