Saturday, February 28, 2009
Putting movies on mobiles
Putting movies on mobiles | ||||||
The awards highlight the increasing impact that mobile phones are making in the entertainment industry. The first ever mobile film awards got a touch of Hollywood glamour as it was hosted by multiple Oscar winner Kevin Spacey. Describing his involvement, he said: "When I started to hear about MoFilm, I started to hear about what they were trying to do with respect to short films and content being able to go on to people's phones. "And in some cases realising that, in some countries, this might be the first time they ever see a movie," he said. "They won't see it on that big screen, they'll see it on a small one." New platforms Many aspiring filmmakers are frustrated by the lack of opportunities to screen their work but mobile phones are increasingly being seen as a new platform for these short works. "Just the notion that yet there is another place - a further journey for artists, film-makers, documentarians - anyone who wants to express themselves and find a way to have that expression be seen by a wide audience," said Mr Spacey. "When you think about how many people have mobile phones in the world, it's pretty ridiculous," he added.
The MoFilm competition received 250 entries from more than 100 countries. Entries were restricted to films that were five minutes or less in length - ideal for viewing and sharing on mobile phones. An independent jury then selected a shortlist of five film-makers from which a winner was chosen by an audience voting using their phones at the Mobile World Congress. "English as a Second Language" produced by Frank Chnindamo and directed by Jocelyn Stemat, won the MoFilm grand prize. "This is about giving people in other countries a platform, and an ability to show their work, I'm here to support an idea that's about other people," said Mr Spacey. "Purists may hate this but guess what guys, this is what our kids are looking at, they are engaged in this, they want this device. "This is about people who are inspired and kids want this, they are more informed, they get it," he added. The majority of films made for mobiles are short in length, taking into account the screen size, however this could be overcome as technology advances.
"I'm not sure that something could be longer than ten minutes and be able to sustain itself on that kind of screen," said Mr Spacey. "Although, I know that one of the things we are learning here is that there are mobile companies that are creating phones that have the ability to watch stuff at higher quality." MoFilm is pioneering content for mobile and online services that Mr Spacey feels is a world away from Hollywood. "I am the only person from the film industry here, I see its potential, I get it," he said. "It doesn't seem to me that other people are aware of it yet but I can see where it's going to be in five or ten years time. "It is an incredible opportunity, particularly for young emerging film makers." Start here
Mr Spacey's involvement with grass roots movie makers does not begin and end with hosting the MoFilm ceremony. Mr Spacey co-founded the Triggerstreet website that allows budding film-makers to showcase their work. "I started the website about six years ago, and we now have close to 400,000 members around the world," he said. "We started out with short films and we've done a whole series of short film festivals on the site. "There are screen plays, plays, there's novels and now comic books which we just started - it's become a platform for independent film makers. "One of the things we've learned at Triggerstreet, cause when we started, we didn't quite frankly know whether we were going to get wedding videos and porno. "The quality of work and the simple ability at story telling, the thing that ignites someone and inspires them to tell a story, can really come from anywhere," he added. Digital Planet is broadcast on BBC World Service on Tuesday at 1232 GMT and repeated at 1632 GMT, 2032 GMT and on Wednesday at 0032 GMT. | ||||||
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
'Mobile health' campaign launched
Mobile health' campaign launched | |||||
Three foundations have announced their intention to join in a "mobile health" effort to use mobile technology to provide better healthcare worldwide. The UN, Vodafone, and the Rockefeller Foundation's mHealth Alliance aims to unite existing projects to improve healthcare using mobile technology. The alliance will guide governments, NGOs, and mobile firms on how they can save lives in the developing world. The partnership is now calling for more members to help in mHealth initiatives. The groundbreaking "mHealth for Development" study produced by the UN/Vodafone Foundation Partnership lists more than 50 mHealth programmes from around the world, showing the benefits that mobile technology can bring to healthcare provision. The report also outlines how such programmes offer value to the mobile industry. That, said UN/Vodafone Foundation Partnership head Claire Thwaites, is a crucial step in an industry that like so many others stands at the edge of a downturn. "I think there's a real need to have an alliance," Ms Thwaites told the BBC at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. "It's looking at scaling up and bringing governments together with NGOs and corporations, and it will commission pretty rigorous research on what the market opportunity is for mHealth, answering the question: why should a business get involved in this area?" Bringing a "value proposition" to network operators is what could bring together the individual, small-scale efforts that so far have existed as purely humanitarian endeavours. Andrew Gilbert, European president of Qualcomm, says that his firm has launched 29 different programmes across 19 countries, involving some 200,000 people, as part of its Wireless Reach campaign. "It's not a charitable thing, it's very much aimed at allowing these solutions to become self-sustaining," he said. Connecting areas Because 3G mobile technology is cheap and easily made widespread, Mr Gilbert added, comparatively small amounts of investment can wreak great change in these so-called emerging markets.
"In India, there are 1m people that die each year purely because they can't get access to basic healthcare," said Dan Warren, director of technology for the GSM Association, the umbrella organisation that hosts the MWC. "The converse angle to that is that 80% of doctors live in cities, not serving the broader rural communities where 800 million people live." Simply connecting rural areas with city doctors using mobile broadband would allow the provision of better healthcare to more people, and many of the initiatives to date have focused on that kind of connection. In 2007, the GSMA supported Ericsson in its Gramjyoti project, providing broadband to the remote Indian villages in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. A band of paramedics in a mobile broadband-equipped van visited the villages and were able to cover vast areas, referring many queries back to doctors in major cities. Fragmented market Yet mobile technology, as much as it can multiply the efforts of city-dwelling doctors and bring diagnoses to far-flung villages, cannot make up for some shortfalls. "There's 4 billion mobile phones now in the world, 2.2 billion of those in the developing world," said Ms Thwaites. "Compare that to 305 million PCs and then look at hospital bed numbers: there's 11 million of them in the developing world."
As a result, mHealth projects must also be able to provide an ounce of prevention, and the report sheds light on some particularly successful initiatives. In South Africa, the SIMpill project integrated a sensor-equipped medicine bottle with a SIM card, ensuring that healthcare workers were advised if patients were not taking their tuberculosis medicine. The percentages of people keeping up with their medicine rocketed from 22% to 90%. The medium of text message can overcome sociological barriers as well. The Project Masiluleke SMS message campaign provided people with free text messages, with the remainder of the 160 characters used to provide HIV and Aids education. In Uganda, the Text to Change text-based HIV quiz campaign resulted in a 33% increase in calls to an HIV information hotline. "There are a couple of interesting benefits that the project brought to light," says UN Foundation spokesperson Adele Waugaman. "One of them is the benefit of talking to people in their local language. "Also, HIV is very stigmatised in South Africa, so people don't like to discuss it publicly. The benefit of getting these private text messages is it's a new form of access that addresses these stigmatisation and privacy concerns." Healthcare includes improving quality of life as well. One case study from Qualcomm's Wireless Reach programme, - 3G for All Generations - shows how mobile broadband has brought the company together with the Spanish Red Cross and Vodafone Spain to provide a custom software solution for Spain's elderly. They can have video calls with care providers, call for help, or simply have a chat, providing real social interaction without anyone needing to travel. Each of these and the many more in the new report showcases the potential of the technology but underlines the significant stumbling block of mHealth so far. "The biggest problem is fragmentation of small projects," says Ms Thwaites. "A lot of the work being done on the ground is NGO- and foundation-led, but let's join those efforts with the Microsofts and the Qualcomms and the Intels and the Vodafones. "There's a business case for it now; you have to have the experience of the NGOs on the ground talking to the big corporates out there and creating real business models, and that's why I think the mHealth Alliance can tackle that." | |||||
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Divorce by text messaging and e-mail on the rise among Muslim men
A study on "Marriage and divorce amongst Muslim women in India", undertaken by Sahiba Hussain, reader, Centre for Dalit and Minorities, Jamia Milia Islamia, highlights that more and more men are divorcing via SMS and e-mail.
Where women do not have access to mobile phones or computers, men use landline phones to pronounce the divorce declaration. "From 15 divorces that we looked at in 2008, eight were pronounced via SMS, e-mail and over the phone," said Husssain.
"Five divorce declarations were given face to face but amongst these also, only in one case a witness present when the declaration was made," she said.
The phenomenon is taking place despite a decree by the All-India Muslim Women Personal Law Board’s which forbids men from divorcing by electronic means.
Most of the SMS’ and e-mails had husbands complaining along predictable lines. They did not find the wife "beautiful enough", "compatible enough" or of having brought "adequate dowry".
Dowry demands are on the rise and the minimum cash payment being made by the wife’s family to the bridegroom is 5,000 rupees or the equivalent of 80 euros.
Even those families which earn as little 10 rupees per day or 15 euro cents are expected to fork out a dowry.
"One woman was so confused after receiving the SMS that she sought clarification from the qazi, or Islamic judge who, on reading the pronouncement, said that it did amount to a divorce.
"The husband was working abroad when he sent it," Hussain said.
Over 30 women have been interviewed so far from Delhi and several other cities in Bihar including Darbanga, Madhubani, Munghyar and Gaya in Bihar.
The idea was to include feedback from women living in both urban and rural India. Only one woman received a registered notice. In 90 percent of the cases it was found that women had to wait, sometimes as long as 27 years, just to recover her 'meher' or dowry, with husbands giving assurance that the "meher would be given to the woman at an appropriate time".
With Islamic judges not being in a position to ensure bridegrooms pay the maintenance or support money, a majority of Muslim women seek maintenance through civil courts, the study concludes.
Women divorcees are among those with the lowest social status in Indian Muslim society.
The report cites the example of one such divorced woman who faces much social stigma while "until today, her younger two sisters have remained unmarried", said Hussain.
DIVORCE BY TEXT MESSAGING AND E-MAIL ON THE RISE AMONG MUSLIM MEN
iPhones and the Taliban:
iPhones and the Taliban:
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| Mullah Zaif, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, says he is 'addicted' to his iPhone |
I could not believe my eyes. We had arrived to interview Mullah Zaif, the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan who is now under virtual house-arrest on the outskirts of Kabul, when he walked into the room, sat down on the couch and pulled out an iPhone.
A former member of the Taliban! An iPhone! How times have changed.
During Taliban rule, which ended when the US and its allies rolled in and took control of Kabul in 2001, the leadership had banned just about anything associated with modern technology.
There were no televisions, no computers, no radios, no music and though iPhones were not around back then, they most certainly would not have been allowed.
I asked Zaif about his gadget. His response was pretty much the same as everyone who owns an iPhone.
"I'm addicted," he said, "the internet is great on this, very fast."
He proceeded to show myself and our film crew his favourite websites. I half expected him to log on and show us 'Taliban Twitter'.
But there is a very serious side to all of this of course.
The Taliban and other groups opposed to US military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have been incredibly quick to latch on to new technology and methods of communication.
It has enabled them to wage their war in a sophisticated fashion, using not just guns and bombs, but messages and propaganda too.
When reporting from Afghanistan I am always amazed at how quickly we get information from all sides of the conflict with vastly different accounts of what happened.
It is fair to say that no single version is the truth, and that is why we always try to report what every side is saying.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Brown interrupted by his mobile
Brown interrupted by his mobile
Gordon Brown was interrupted by his own mobile phone in the middle of a news conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
