Reiter's Camera Phone Report

Man in China beaten to death after using camera phone to record protests

A Chinese man was beaten to death after using his camera phone to record protests of residents in a rural village in China who were upset about the government’s decision to establish a garbage dump near a residential area, according to The Guardian.

Wei Wenhua, the general manager of a company owned by the local water resources bureau, was pulled from his car and beaten by chengguan, enforcers who are paid by local governments to deal with crowds, the article says.

For years I have written in this weblog, been quoted in the press and spoken at conferences about my fears that people taking camera phone photos and videos of government activities would be killed, maimed and/or jailed.  It has begun to happen.

Prediction coming true

Because camera phones are becoming so ubiquitous, consumers are increasingly likely to record newsworthy events, often before professional journalists and photographers.  Some people will knowingly risk their lives to take photos and videos of government abuses, military actions, demonstrations and other potentially dangerous situations.

The bad news is what I predicted years ago is happening.  Camera phone users are being hurt or killed.  The good news is consumers with camera phones are making it much more difficult for miscreants to hide what they’re doing.

This always-connected wireless imaging revolution is still in the early stages.  We are just beginning to see, for example, live streaming broadcasting from cellular phones, that I’ve written about in my mobile television weblog and in one of my weekly mobile communications “Thinkernet” columns (see below) for CMP’s “Internet Evolution.”

Camera phone video shows assassination of Benazir Bhutto

A video of the assassination of the former prime minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, has been identified as taken by a camera phone.

I have seen at least two videos of the assassination and at least one of them, according to a news report I heard, was from a camera phone.  Channel 4 News in the U.K. has reported on the incident (see below) and shown a video that I think was taken with a phone.

You can find the two videos on the Web on numerous sites, but I haven’t seen any one specifically identified as taken with a camera phone.  However, one of the videos clearly shows people holding camera phones (see below) right before her death.

When I first learned about the assassination, I thought it was extremely likely that camera phone photos and/or videos would emerge. 

The wireless imaging revolution

As I have written many times before, camera phones are revolutionary.  With one billion (more or less) people who have camera phones, major news events will never be the same.

Also, imagine if “ordinary” people were using the capabilities of new software, such as from Qik, that allows live, streaming camera phone videos, to record the assassination.  The wireless imaging revolution is here friends.  (I’m also posting this on my camera phone weblog.)

Chyron's WAPSTR part of future of news reporting

This isn’t “hot news,” but I’m posting this as much for myself to think about as anything.  “Seeking Alpha” has published an article that’s bullish about the business opportunities for a television graphics company, Chyron, and the company provides camera phone products for newsrooms.

The brief item about Chyron that caught my eye notes, “Other initiatives include WAPSTR [see below], a system of integrating user content flawlessly and immediately into newscasts.  Anyone with a camera phone can send and image directly to a local TV station by phone, and within seconds the station can have the image on air as breaking news.”

I’ve written before in this weblog and, more frequently, in my mobile TV weblog, about the revolutionary aspects of camera phones for journalism.  The future of news is not just journalists transmitting camera phone images and videos, but also — more revolutionary — consumers being able to transmit streaming video live from camera phones.

I discuss this in greater detail in one of my weekly CMP Publications columns, “The Serendipitous Broadcaster Revolution.”

Camera phone photo captures secretive artist, prankster at work in U.K.

An artist and prankster in the U.K. whose artwork can fetch tens of thousands of pounds — but who is careful not to reveal his identity — appears to have been photographed in the act of painting by a camera phone user, a detailed article in The Times reports.

The artist, known as “Banksy” (whose real name might be Robin or Robert Banks), is photographed extending double yellow lines from a road in East London to a wall of a house to create a large yellow flower.

This latest work could be a dig at the local borough council that has publicized its intention to clean his graffiti from the area, the article says.

Although some images have been published that purport to be the artist, the camera phone photo is believed to be the first image showing him at work.

Artistic pranks

The Times says, Banksy is well known for his pranks, “which have included releasing an inflatable Guantanamo prisoner doll in Disneyland.  The British Museum took eight days to realise that Banksyus Maximus, a rock depicting a Stone Age hunter with a shopping trolley, was not a genuine artefact.

“This summer he made a Stonehenge-style circle at the Glastonbury Festival out of portable toilets, and he once painted a hole with blue sky poking through the Palestinian side of the West Bank wall.”

Photopreneur posts good tips for taking camera phone photo that sell

“Photopreneur” has written “17 Ways to Take Camera Phone Photos that Sell,” that has worthwhile suggestions about how to take photos and what subjects to take.

Some suggestions include:

*  Take unconventional shots, such as holding the phone above your head, shooting around corners and interesting angles.

*  Photograph images of celebrities in interesting situations, such as a kiss or “a mouth full of pie.”

*  “Become a bounty hunter” to be on the lookout for specific subjects

*  Take images that aren’t covered by professional photographers, such as images in the stands during sporting events, during small demonstrations of “a witty banner or a painted face” or of fans around a stage door during or after a concert.

Business apps

Here’s one I especially like:  “If you’re not a professional photographer, take your camera phone to work and take regular snaps behind the scenes.  Again, these images are unlikely to end up on a gallery wall, but they will bring in potential customers and give you product sales.”

Among the many problems with the way cellular operators run their camera phone businesses, the lack of virtually any information on the corporate ramifications of wireless imaging is one of their worst mistakes.  Most of the operators — and handset vendors — are clueless about the value of promoting enterprise applications and, instead, concentrating almost exclusively on consumer applications with nary a nod to business uses.

Journalists, bloggers risk prison sending Myanmar protest photos, videos

Bloggers in Myanmar (Burma) are using cellular phones to transmit photos and videos of anti-government protests occurring in that country and risking years in prison because of the government’s strict policies about Internet usage and information dissemination, according to an article in The Age.

As the article says, “The Government heavily regulates every website that carries Burmese news or information, and bars access to web-based email and general internet use.  Mobiles [sic] phones are expensive and difficult to obtain, further limiting communication.”

Aung Zaw, the editor of Irrawaddy, a news magazine for expatriate Burmese in Thailand, says journalists and bloggers who send information to the magazine risk imprisonment so Irrawaddy has to be extremely careful about not putting them in any danger.

I searched YouTube for “Myanmar” and see there are numerous videos about the protest but I can’t tell whether any were recorded by camera phones (see below).

Revolutionary application

One of the reasons I started this weblog and continue to write it is because camera phones are one of the most revolutionary wireless applications I’ve seen in my 29 years of analyzing mobile communications. 

The ability of ordinary people to shoot photos and videos of politically charged events and post them almost instantaneously highlights one of the most important benefits of camera phones to society.

Kenya's Business Daily discusses camera phone effects, problems for photo processors

AllAfrica.com has posted an article from Business Daily in Kenya about the effects of camera phones and notes that the photographic business of some merchants is suffering in Nairobi.

“Workers at a photo studio along Banda Street in Nairobi say they have lost considerable business because they no longer develop as many pictures as they used to do,” the article says.  A sales clerk at one store says that with people using digital equipment, the only business the store can count on is passport and visa photos.

The article also discusses an amazing amateur video “Battle At Krueger,” on YouTube and on ABC’s I-Caught that shows a baby water buffalo captured by lions, then falling in the water and being attacked by crocodiles, being dragged up to the bank by the lions and finally saved by the herd of water buffaloes. 

Although the article focuses on camera phones, I think the video was taken with a camcorder.  Anyone know for sure?  The point is that nature photographers kill for this type of dramatic footage, but an amateur caught it by being at the right time and place with a camcorder.

Australian Catholic priest resigns after camera phone video records curses, epithets

A Catholic priest in Melbourne, Australia has resigned as Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral after a camera phone video — available on YouTube (see below) — shows him cursing and hurling racial epithets at kids who are skateboarding on church grounds, according to an article in The West Australian.  (Warning:  Very graphic language in the video and in the YouTube comments.)

This isn’t pleasant to watch.  The priest, Monsignor Geoff Baron, and the skateboarders are cursing each other and the priest uses some racist language.  Also, it looks as if Monsignor Baron and some skateboarders pushed each other.

Monsignor Baron “will now take a period of rest and refreshment for the remainder of 2007,” according to a Church spokesman.  Although he resigned on his own accord, the article reports that after this video was posted on YouTube he was ordered to take an indefinite leave.

More difficult to be abusive in public

The point is camera phones are making it more difficult to be abusive in public, whether you’re a public figure or not.  You never know when someone will have a camera phone recording your behavior.

Overall, this is a good thing.  But we sacrifice privacy.  And photos and videos certainly could be taken out of context.

Time names "You" -- for user content -- "Person of the Year"

Time magazine has named "You" -- the ordinary citizen who blogs, takes videos and posts them on the Web, in essence, user-generated content -- as the "Person of the Year" for 2006 in its December 25 issue (see below).

However, Time doesn't mention anything about the camera phone phenomenon for taking millions of photos and videos.  At least, I couldn't find anything by quickly reading all the articles. 

(However, Time discussed the power of user videos and camera phones in its previous issue.  See further down this article.)

In describing its choice of "You," Time says 2006 is "a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace.

"It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes."

The value of consumer content

Time says analysts call the phenomenon of citizen participation and interactivity as Web 2.0 -- is if it's a continuation of the existing Web.  But it's really a revolution, the magazine says:

"And we are so ready for it.  We're ready to balance our diet of predigested news with raw feeds from Baghdad and Boston and Beijing.

"You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos — those rumpled bedrooms and toy-strewn basement rec rooms — than you could from 1,000 hours of network television.

And we didn't just watch, we also worked.  Like crazy.  We made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts.

"We blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. We camcordered bombing runs and built open-source software."

New digital democracy

"Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight.  I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana?

"I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals?  I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street?  Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

"The answer is, you do.

"And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you."

"Beast With A billion Eyes"

Although Time's "Person of the Year" issue doesn't discuss the camera phone phenomenon, the magazine did write about it and the impact of user-created videos in general in its December 16, 2006 issue (see below).

With the headline of "The Beast With a Billion Eyes," Time notes Michael Richards' racist rant at a comedy club -- that was captured by a camera phone -- and reports on the power of camera phones. 

Time writes, ""If you credit YouTube with revolutionizing the media, you must first credit every cell-phone company that has handed out deep-discount videophones like Cracker Jack prizes; they've turned us into a culture of Zapruders.

"When millions have the power to quickly, easily send any image around the world, you have something akin to global telepathy. (The cell-phone messages from 9/11 victims were chilling enough; imagine the visuals, had the attacks happened in 2006.)"

The New York Times reports on Reuters/Yahoo consumer photo/video distribution venture

With the headline of "Have Camera Phone? Yahoo and Reuters Want You to Work for Their News Service," The New York Times has published a detailed article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/technology/04yahoo.html) about the Reuters/Yahoo venture that's soliciting photos and videos taken by consumers for posting on a variety of Web sites.

Reuters hopes to develop a service that distributes user-created images around the world. The article says "users will be able to upload photos and videos to a section of Yahoo called You Witness News (http://news.yahoo.com/page/youwitnessnews).

"All of the submissions will appear on Flickr or a similar site for video. Editors at both Reuters and Yahoo will review the submissions and select some to place on pages with relevant news articles, just as professional photographs and video clips are woven into their news sites today."

Some payments

Consumers will not be paid for images on the Reuters and Yahoo sites, the article says. However, consumers whose photos and videos are used by Reuters' clients will receive some compensation.

Reuters is still working on the specifics of the payments. The New York Times reports that Chris Ahearn, president of Reuters' media group, says the payment might be small, but it could be larger if Reuters is granted exclusive rights to photos and videos of major events.

As for a financial relationship between Reuters and Yahoo, "For now, no money is changing hands between Yahoo and Reuters, but if Reuters is able to create a separate news service with the user-created material, it will split the revenue with Yahoo," The New York Times says.

[Sent via TypePad wireless e-mail with RIM BlackBerry 8700g]