Reiter's Camera Phone Report

Wall Street Journal examines efforts to promote printing camera phone photos

The Wall Street Journal looks at efforts by computer printer companies to promote the value of printing camera phone photos.  The article discusses companies as Hewlett-Packard, Canon, Kodak, Fuji Photo Film.

"Over the past year, Fuji and Kodak have upgraded the photo-printing kiosks they supply to retailers so consumers can print pictures directly from camera phones.  H-P, Canon and Seiko Epson Corp. are designing home printers specifically to work with camera phone.

"All of these companies are talking to cellphone makers such as Nokia Corp. and wireless carriers like Sprint Corp. about ways to make printing photos from phones even simpler, the WSJ says.

Beating out digital cameras

The article notes that research firm IDC expects 186.3 million camera phones to be sold this year compared to 68.8 million digital cameras (see left).  "That means phone makers such as Nokia and Samsung Electronics Co. have displaced traditional camera manufacturers as the biggest makers of digital cameras," the WSJ says.

The Journal notes that it's not always easy to print camera phone photos.  Some camera phones have Bluetooth, some use differnent memory cards.  Printer companies, such as Epson, Canon and H-P, are working together to develop standards for transferring photos to printers.

Many of Kodak's PictureMaker kiosks have Bluetooth and infrared capabilities in addition to memory card slots.  Kodak says 15,000 of its 25,000 kiosks in the country can print camera phone photos, although the article doesn't state whether that means those 15,000 have Bluetooth and infrared.

Fuji is exploring adding WiFi to its kiosks, the article says.

Sparking photo printing

Another effort -- not discussed in the article -- to promote the value of taking and printing photos is called PicturesMatter.  The effort is spearheaded by the Independent Photo Imagers association and sponsored by a variety of photo companies.

Currently, PicturesMatter is promoting the printing of digital camera photos.  But very soon there will be information about printing camera phone photos.  I am helping PicturesMatter and writing some information for the Web site. 

The information will be posted next month.

moblogUK offer Creative Commons wizard with searching for images

Alfie Dennen of moblog hosting company moblogUK was nice enough to inform me that his company has implemented a Creative Commons wizard that enables its subscribers to select photos to be covered under a CC license. 

In addition, moblogUK has implemented a search engine for searching CC-tagged images under different classifications (see below).  The classifications are:  Commecial use, non-commercial, freely modifiable, share alike and no derivatives.

Alfie writes, "We're the first photoblogging site to do this, and we hope that if the word gets out, that our members content will become a fantastic resource for people who want to have quick access to a huge amount of excellent image based copyright commons licensed content."

[Note to "Camera Phone Report" readers:  Business and domestic duties during the past week or two have prevented me from updating this Weblog as often as I've done.  But I'm back now and you should be seeing many more updates.]

Future Image seeks your opinion for camera phone survey

Camera phone research and conference company Future Image wants your opinion in a camera phone survey (see below).

It's a relatively brief survey that asks for details about your camera phone and what you like and don't like about it.  You can probably complete it in a couple of minutes.

Anyone can participate.

Saudi Arabia lifts camera phone ban, huge demand

A day after I wrote that Saudi Arabia was expected to lift the ban on camera phones, I see the government has indeed removed the ban and there is, apparently, a huge demand, according to an article in the Arab News.

The article says, "Just a day after the ban on mobile camera phones was lifted, there has been an unusually high demand for camera phones and the prices of latest models dropped, according to local mobile phone vendors.

"Mobile phone dealers who received the news on Tuesday night told Arab News the battle was over and shops were bringing out the stocked camera mobiles and their sales have gone up within a day after the lifting of the ban."

T-Mobile in Germany offers first two megapixel camera phone in Europe

T-Mobile Deutschland is offering the Sharp TM200, the first two megapixel camera phone in Europe, notes Esato.com.  The handset includes automatic focus, a flash, an 8x digital zoom, Bluetooth, an MP3/ACC player and an SD card slot.

The phone sells for 149.95 Euros ($201.79 -- egads, the Euro is high!) with a contract.

If memory serves me, I believe Vodafone in the U.K. was the first cellular operator in Europe to offer a one megapixel camera phone.

Digital satellite cellular phone pilot service begins in South Korea next month

SK Telecom next month will launch a pilot program for satellite-based digital television programs using new cellular phones provided by TU Media, according to an article in The Korea Times.  Commercial service is slated to start in May 2005.

Customer will pay a one-time charge of 20,000 won ($18.65) and a monthly subscription fee of 13,000 won ($12.12).

Samsung has previously debuted the SCH-B100 digital multimedia broadcast (DMB) with two megapixel camera phone and battery life that enables users to watch videos for 2.5 hours.

Just the start

This is just the start in Asia -- specifically, South Korea and Japan -- of testing new protocols that are designed to deliver streaming video to cellular phones and other wireless devices.

For more information about this concept, check out an article in New Scientist magazine.

One third of U.K. subscribers use cellular phones to take photos

One third of cellular subscribers in the U.K. use their phones to take pictures, based upon a survey conducted by Enpocket, DM Europe reports.  This represents an increase in usage of 200 percent compared to the same period last year.

Females comprise 53 percent of the users.

The article says MMS usage has increased from nine percent to 21 percent during the past year.  The data is based upon 1,000 interviews conducted in November 2004 and relate to cellular use from September 2004 to November 2004.

Indian engineering student arrested for selling student porn video

A 23 year old Indian engineering student has been arrested in New Delhi for selling eight copies of a camera phone porn video of two other students to Baazee.com, an online auction site owned by eBay, India Daily reports.

As I previously wrote, two Indian students -- a girl who was an honor student and a boy from a wealthy family -- were expelled from school after the video was circulated (and is still being widely circulated) on the Internet.  Indeed, my posting of the incident has generated hundreds of comments, most of which I've deleted because they were inappropriate.

Daily India says Ravi Raj, a student at IIT, earned about 17,000 rupees ($385) selling the videos.

HeyPix offers photo sharing, editing, incuding camera phones

From blogger extraordinaire Robert Scoble's Scobleizer I learned of HeyPix, a new photo sharing/editing service that accommodate camera phone photos.

You can use the service for free with 50MB of storage and 200MB of transfers, that HeyPix estimates as 50 photos and 4,000 views. 

Or, you can opt for the "standard" $4.95 per month service that includes 1GB of storage and 2GB of transfers (1,000 photos and 40,000 views) or "Pro" for $7.95 per month that offers 3GB of storage and 5GB of transfers (3,000 photos and 100,000 views).

Saudi Arabia reportedly will lift ban on camera phones

Saudi Arabia, which has banned camera phones from the country, is reportedly going to lift the ban on importing and selling the handsets, notes a brief article in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The newspaper Al-Eqtisadiah quotes unnamed sources saying the "authorities" have asked the Saudi Interior Ministry to implement regulations  to prevent "the negative use of camera equipment in the phone."

Saudi Arabia is one of the most conservative nations in the world.  Posting photos on the Web of females can create a scandal for the people involved.

Why lift the ban?

But it's difficult to ban human nature and camera phones -- imported and sold illegally -- are available in Saudi Arabia despite the ban, as I've written several times.  As I've also written, Saudi Arabia confiscates and doesn't return camera phones from anyone entering the country.

If Saudi Arabia lifts the ban, I suspect the reason will have as much -- or more -- to do with business considerations than with consumer demand.  The Saudi Arabian government wants to promote the development cellular services, including new 3G products.

The government knows it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find 3G phones without cameras -- unless they are manufacturered specifically for Saudi Arabia.  This would make the phones more expensive to produce and, of course, prevent cellular operators from offering the wealth of camera phone/camcorder phone services that are a key component of the 3G business.

Update:  There's a much more detailed article in the Arab News.  The article notes, "Sources at mobile markets said they expect a formal decision on lifting the ban to be issued within a few days.

"Traders said the move would lead to a boom in the sale of mobile phones to more than five million units annually at the cost of SR5 billion ($1.33 billion)."