Mobile Choice Blog

Akon in trouble after police investigate cameraphone video

If you're a top pop star planning to throw a fan into the crowd, for heaven's sake make sure nobody's filming the incident on their cameraphone. R&B singer Akon didn't heed those sensible words, and is facing a police investigation as a result.

What happened was this: someone lobbed an object at Akon from the crowd during a gig. He got them brought up on stage, then threw the offender back into the crowd. Quite violently. Yet when footage of the incident appeared on YouTube, the police took an interest, and now Akon is facing charges of endangering the welfare of a minor and second-degree harassment.

Akon says it was a staged publicity incident (if that's true, he probably hired the people toting cameraphones). But it's the latest example of incidents happening at gigs making their way straight onto YouTube thanks to people's mobiles. Usually, of course, it's stars falling over, rather than fans being 'falled over' by stars...

(via Reiter's Camera Phone Report)

ITV debuts The Hot Desk, its first made-for-mobile TV show

The All Saints comeback didn't, it's fair to say, go that well. How they must be gritting their teeth seeing the almighty fuss that The Spice Girls are currently getting. However, that hasn't got All Saints stars Nicole Appleton and Melanie Blatt down. They're co-hosting a new ITV show called The Hot Desk, which has been made exclusively for mobile phones.

Joined by T4 presenters Dave Berry and Emma Griffiths, they'll be interviewing celebs, schmoozing at parties, and generally bothering people with their big desk (that's the gimmick, see). Each show will be two minutes long, and will be free to access from ITV's own mobile site. Data charges will presumably apply though, so watch out if you're not on a flat-rate tariff.

Liam Gallagher is the first interviewee. Hang on, isn't he Nicole's fiance? Keep it in the family, then.

Where are all the mobile micro-video-blogging services?

Admittedly, there aren't thousands of people asking this burning question, but we certainly are. We read a post on the excellent SMS Text News blog about Hictu, a startup company that lets you 'video microblog' (film short video clips of yourself waffling, then share them online). It looks pretty cool, but as far as we can see, there's no mobile angle.

And that made us think, wouldn't this be the perfect application to get people using their phone's videocalling function? They sure aren't using it to call each other, so why not provide different and innovative uses? So, you'd be able to videocall a shortcode, say your rant, and then it would be automatically uploaded to a website - Hictu or something else - for the world to see.

We'd do it, but are any companies making it possible? Post comments if you know of any!

Get set for BBC catch-up programmes on your mobile (if it's Wi-Fi)

Techy types will be well aware of the BBC's iPlayer technology, which lets Windows users watch shows from the last seven days on their computers for free. It's been criticised for locking out Mac and Linux users, as well as for not bringing mobile users into the catch-up party.

That could be changing. The Beeb has signed a deal with Wi-Fi hotspot network The Cloud, allowing people to access BBC shows via the latter's 7,500 UK hotspots for free. And here's the thing: although aimed mainly at people with laptops, it's also going to be accessible if you have a Wi-Fi capable mobile handset. For example, the iPhone, but many others besides.

It's not the wireless BBC wonderland that couch potatoes have been hoping for, but it's a step along the way at least.

(via MocoNews)

The future for Big Brother? Your mobile video clips, of course...

Pretty soon, you won't have to go through an audition process to appear on Big Brother. Mobile company Ericsson has launched a new mobile video service called Me-On-TV, which lets you upload videos from your mobile phone to share with a wider community of users.

Ericsson plans to sell the technology to broadcasters, websites and mobile operators, with the first customer being Endemol - the company behind Big Brother. The idea is to use it to make shows like Big Brother even more interactive.

How? Think about spin-off shows like Big Brother's Big Mouth, where an audience of BB fans give their opinions on recent events. Now imagine a version hosted by a presenter, but with the opinions coming from viewers all over the country, via uploaded vids or live videocall interviews. It's being used in the Netherlands first, but hopefully Me-On-TV will feature in the next UK Big Brother, in some way.

(via MocoNews)