Mobile Choice Blog

The Sun launches QR mobile barcodes on adverts

For most UK newspapers, the limit of their mobile ambitions is selling ad space to ringtone companies, and maybe launching their own WAP sites. The Sun has done both of those, but now it's going further with an innovative new plan to put Quick Response (QR) mobile barcodes on adverts within the newspaper.

What are they? Well, they're little symbols placed on adverts, which you can point your cameraphone at, take a photo, and then it's converted into a WAP link, taking you to the site of whichever company placed the advert.

Companies using the barcodes already include Ladbrokes, Sky and Twentieth Century Fox (the last two aren't surprising, as they're part of the same megacorporation as The Sun). To get them, you'll need to download a QR reader application though, created by a firm called i-nigma. QR codes have been popular in Japan for several years, but this is the first truly mainstream attempt to use them in the UK.

(via MocoNews)

Nokia teams up with Reuters for mobile journalism

We've heard a lot about 'citizen journalism' in the last year, which generally involves members of the public shooting photos and/or video on their cameraphones, then sending them into newspapers or TV broadcasters. It's even been claimed the phenomenon could put proper journalists out of a job. Nokia and Reuters have other ideas, though.

They've launched a new project called 'Reuters Mobile Journalism' (although we prefer the way the website address shortens that to Reuters MoJo). It's basically an application preloaded on Nokia N95 handsets, allowing Reuters hacks to file stories from events without the need for a laptop. They've already been testing it out at events like New York Fashion Week and the Edinburgh Film Festival.

It's easy to see why putting cameraphones into the hands of journalists will result in some interesting stuff - more photo and video-related than textual. But this isn't new - savvier websites have been getting their journalists to moblog for a while now, using existing technologies and services. Still, it'll be interesting to see how the relationship between Nokia and Reuters develops - we wonder how many journalists would put up with filing content from a device with the N95's famously low battery life...

Reuters Mobile Journalism website

Need new glasses? Should have gone to Japan with your mobile phone...

Wow. If we needed glasses (and we're sure the day isn't far off, judging by the way we're squinting at the screen as we type this), we'd go to Japan to get them.

Why? So we could use the innovative Mobile Fitting service that's being tested in the Megane Top spectacles chain. It involves taking a photo of yourself, then combining it with glasses downloaded from the store's mobile site.

Admittedly, it's not as good as, ahem, actually trying the real glasses on. But it presumably means you can go home and try on as many pairs as you like, without any assistants getting pushy. Specsavers, launch this soon!

(via Picturephoning)

Burma protests: the importance of cameraphone-toting citizen journalists

As you'll know if you've been watching the news this past week, there's something of a popular uprising going on in Burma, which has been met with a violent crackdown by the military junta there. But with few foreign journalists and camera crews allowed into the country, the gap's been taken up by Burmese demonstrators with mobile phones.

Picturephoning has a post on the developments, explaining how footage of the violence has been shot on camphones and then sent out to news organisations like the BBC and CNN, who've then aired it. It's a sign of how technology is giving new hope in situations like this, where a few years ago, a government or dictator would be able to prevent information leaking out.

That said, phones aren't going to bring the Burmese generals down at a stroke: it's now been reported that they're cutting internet access and looking to do the same thing to the mobile networks in Burma, in response to the citizen journalists' efforts.

(via Picturephoning)

Five-megapixel mobiles like the Samsung G600 will kill off low-end digital cameras

Last week, the main Mobile Choice site reviewed the new Samsung G600 mobile (pictured), which is the latest five-megapixel cameraphone to go on sale, following the recent LG KG920 and Nokia N95, with the Sony Ericsson K850i Cyber-shot coming soon.

These are all relatively expensive handsets, of course, although the price comes down if you get them on a contract. But we think it's the start of a slippery decline for low-end digital cameras. Once a five-megapixel phone is affordable, why would you want a digital camera offering the same or less resolution?

Note, we're not saying phones will kill all digital cameras. If you're into your snapping, a ten-megapixel digital camera still vastly outperforms phones - not just on resolution, but on all the other photography features too. But in terms of a camera that you carry around with you for quick snaps, phones are already winning the war.