"Vodafone Academy has been developed to boost the usability and cross-platform capability of content services on Vodafone Live!, while the Quick Start programme will help third parties launch content onto the Live! service. The daily running of both initiatives, which will be funded by Vodafone, has been outsourced to Bango.
'We want to help our content partners improve the usability of their services and the way that they exploit different channels such as Java, MMS and video,' said Vodafone head of content Al Russell
Puca, a mobile marketing and mobile entertainment services company, has announced the launch of its new MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) platform, which enables clients to send multimedia messages to subscribers of all Irish mobile networks. Puca hosts this service on its own platform and says its technology allows companies to reach all participating customers, regardless of which mobile network they subscribe to.
Hungary's data protection ombudsman ruled Thursday [Dec. 11] that mobile telephone users who transmit pictures of people who are unaware of being photographed are liable to prosecution, and their cellular service providers could be, too.
Ombudsman Attila Peterfalvi said he started an investigation after one of Hungary's three cellular providers ran an advertisement saying: "If you see a good-looking girl or guy on the street, don't hesitate to share the aesthetic experience with your friends via MMS (multimedia messaging)."
How dumb is this cellular provider? Did the really think its smart to be so risque?
Alan Reiter makes a very good point in relation to the growing incidence of city municipalities banning camera phones, that the manufacturers are really asking for it by the nature of the advertising they do. But, I have to ask, how stupid are these government officials? Do they really think that the extra speed and convenience of posting to the net with camera phones is so hugely different than what could be done previously with an SLR camera and scanner if someone was so inclined? For goodness sake miniature cameras have been available for years and I'd argue that Casio wristcameras could be put to much more insidious use thank bulky phones.
So why have camphones been singled out? Alan must be right - the manufacturers have foolishly waved a red flag to a bull.
And about bloody time too! Even though the article only mentions Palm and Pocket PC compatibility I'm assuming here that I'll be able to use one with my Symbian based Nokia 3650. Surely?
Wow, textamerica.com, the moblogging website, has announced that it is accepting video submissions in 3GP, MOV and MP4 formats. This is fantastic stuff and bound to revolutionise on-the-scene news coverage. If you thought all those blackout, firestorm and snowstorm photo blogs were exciting can you imagine if they had been video blogs?
"GPS-navigation is now available for a wide range of mobile devices with genuine mass-market appeal, and is set to become one of the mobile killer-applications driving value-added service revenues. Webraska supports the latest versions of the operating systems for mobile devices – currently Symbian Series 60 v6.1 and higher – as well as Microsoft Windows Mobile for Pocket PC and Smartphone 2002 and 2003. Webraska’s GPS navigation software is compatible with the smartphones being launched in time for Christmas such as the Nokia 6600"
There's no doubt but that GPS is the key moblogging element missing in the current crop of smartphones. Services like this will plug the gap.
"Reaxion Corp., a global provider of entertainment and communication software for mobile networks and devices today announced the availability of its Multimedia Message Service (MMS) client developed for QUALCOMM's Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless(TM) (BREW) platform. The MMS client is now available in Australia to subscribers of Telstra's Mobile Loop wireless data services."
Tom Hume makes a welcome return to the blogosphere by posing an interesting question about the social conventions to be built around new technologies, such as Bluetooth, that broadcast our willingness to 'hook up' with each other to varying degrees, in public places.
Er, go read Tom's post to make sure you interpret that summary in correct context ;-)
