According to industry body the Mobile Data Association, more than half the UK’s mobile phone users now have cameraphones. How many of them are actually sending pictures to each other though? Er… not a lot.
To remedy this, the MDA has launched a picture messaging section on its Text.it website, which includes a tutorial, some answers to common questions, and a list of reasons to use picture messaging, including “let Granny see the kids having fun in the park.”
Shouldn’t Granny be in the park with them? And does she even have a mobile phone? Let alone know what to do when a picture message arrives… I shouldn’t poke fun – it’s all useful advice, although I can’t help thinking that photoblogs and other forms of picture sharing might be more accessible to the sort of people the MDA is targeting. For example, more phones preloaded with applications to post photos directly to Flickr.
I had a play with Nokia’s new N93 phone this week, which is getting lots of publicity for its high-resolution video shooting capabilities. But there hasn’t been as much fuss made about its TV-Out port, which lets you connect the N93 to your telly.
All About Symbian’s got a great feature outlining some of the possible uses, from wide-screen word processing or gaming through to TV web surfing. That’s their image on the right. Apparently, you can even make video-calls and have the person you’re talking to appear on TV.
I’ve yet to be convinced on the games front, I can’t see a mobile phone displacing PS2 Pro Evo from my living room, let alone any next-gen consoles. But the other examples hint at the use of the TV-Out feature, which Nokia will hopefully be rolling into more of its smartphone handsets.
It’s been a heck of a busy week over on Pocket Gamer, with a steady stream of news and reviews about mobile games. On the news front, there were exclusive details of Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Gameloft’s latest outing for super-spy Sam Fisher, and also the new 90s-themed Trivial Pursuit, which is promising questions on grunge, dotcoms and Generation X.
Meanwhile, there was also news of real-time military sim Company Of Heroes, a Tetris clone called Constant Techno featuring, gulp, tunes written by a Eurovision entrant, and Sim Empire, which may remind you of a certain other famous city-management game.
Talking of Tetris, EA Mobile has just released Tetris Mania, a tarted-up version that messes with the formula – but to what effect? There were also reviews of gangster epic Goodfellas, old-skool beat’em up Fatal Fury, and sandy sports title Playman Beach Volley 3D.
Oh, and if you share my view that there aren’t enough mobile games full of colourful fish and aliens, you may wish to check out the review of Insaniquarium Deluxe too.
Although by ‘the future’ I mean ’something quite fun to blog about on a wet Thursday afternoon. Anyway, I’ve just found this site, Mod Your Mob, which appears to be something to do with Orange. And it’s basically a collection of people who’ve modified their mobile phone, and uploaded photos to prove it.
The site claims that Sony Ericsson are going to actually make the best one that gets submitted. This crocodile one (pictured) rules!
Now here’s a tool that could get some use round my gaff. dotMobi, the people who sell mobile domain names, have launched a web-based emulator that lets you check how well websites will display in your mobile browser.
It’s really designed for companies to use, and then persuade them to buy a .mobi domain when their site looks rubbish. But for us punters, it could also be useful when trying to decide which websites we want to bookmark on our phones.
You’ve got to admire politicians for the quality of their soundbites, even when they’re just kicking up a stink for the sake of getting some publicity. Take Aussie minister Helen Coonan, who wants tougher regulation on mobile content to ensure kids don’t get their hands on porn and other adult material.
The operators here in the UK already have their age-verification system set up, which gets you to prove you’re over 18 before letting you access anything smutty. And that was introduced precisely to stop headline-hungry politicians from wading in, as seems to be happening down under.
That said, I think Helen may have stumbled on a selling point for adult content. Imagine how many people would click on a link on Vodafone Live for ‘pipeline of perversion’…
(via MocoNews)
Listen up if you’re an aspiring Chris Moyles or Lauren Laverne. Gadget specialists iStuff have launched a new gizmo that turns your phone into an FM radio transmitter.
It’s called the iCast Universal FM Transmitter, and it plugs into any device – MP3 player, PSP, laptop or mobile phone – and lets you tune into your, ahem, tunes from any normal FM radio. Why would you want to do this instead of just listening on headphones? Er… I’ll get back to you on that one.
Anyway, if you’ve got a mobile phone with a regular headphone jack – are there many? – you can buy the iCast for £29.99.
They might be firing blanks on the pitch judging by last weekend’s match against Chelsea, but Manchester City are leading the Premiership in one regard: they’ve become the first club to offer radio frequency (RF) enabled mobile ticketing, scanning fans’ phones rather than tearing their paper tickets.
Cool stuff. But hang on a minute. “Those wanting to take advantage of the mobile service will have to upgrade their phones to an RF-enabled Nokia device supplied by Man City.”
What if you don’t like Nokias? What if you’re happy with your current phone? What if, ooh I dunno, you won’t trust Man City to supply you with technology until they can supply you with a decent defence?
It seems a strange move to use the RFID technology, when they could use other forms of mobile ticketing that would work on the phones fans already own.
I’ve just been reading an interesting comment piece on MobHappy by Russell Buckley, suggesting that if social-networking site Friendster (MySpace kids, ask your dad) wants to recapture its former cool, it should go big on mobile.
And he points out that “there’s still no really great social networking site that successfully combines the best of web and mobile, with any kind of scale.”
It’s a great point, although surely the logical step is for the social networking sites that ARE cool now – MySpace, Bebo – to introduce new mobile tricks, rather than an old dog like Friendster.
Continue reading ‘Why aren’t more social networking websites going mobile?’
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