Photos and video from mobiles to
Web
Cognima and Yospace effortlessly transfer photos
and video clips from phones to a Web-based media album
Cognima and Yospace today announced they
have combined technologies to produce a solution to allow camera-phone
users to effortlessly store and share their photos and video clips
in an online media album.
The solution is aimed at network operators and service
providers, who will offer a branded version of the media album
to allow their subscribers to manage and share personal photos
and video clips taken with their camera phones.
This unique offering will go into production for
the first time with a major Mobile Network Operator in February
2004, with a closed group of customers participating in an initial
consumer pilot. Cognima recently conducted user testing of its
photo upload application to a media album. Users were given a
Cognima-enabled phone for one week. On average users uploaded
96 photos each, with two users uploading 150 photos each, in the
one week of testing. The testing demonstrated, for the first time,
that a combined media album and effortless media replication solution
had a fundamental impact on the way in which people use camera-phones
and share media.
The Yospace Media Community Platform (MCP) is a
feature-rich media album solution for Mobile Operators that allows
photos, videos and other multimedia to be stored and managed by
mobile phone subscribers. Cognima has developed Cognima Replicate™,
a data replication framework that allows Mobile Network Operators,
Handset Manufacturers and Service Providers to make mobile services
effortless for their customers to use.
The Cognima and Yospace solution means that a camera-phone
user no longer needs to engage in a complex and time-consuming
process to save their pictures or video clips online:
- The user takes a photo or a video clip on their camera phone
- With one key-press they confirm that it should be uploaded
to the media album
- Cognima Replicate then automatically uploads the photo or
video clip to the Yospace Media Community Platform.
- Users can access the Media Community Platform online via their
handset or a web browser, from where they can share the photo
or video clip with friends in a variety of ways.
Currently the only way to get photos and video clips into an
online media album directly from a camera phone is by using MMS
or HTTP upload which typically involves between 11 to 17 key presses
(depending on the type of phone) for each photo. In recent research
of 1,063 15-24 year olds in the UK by the ROAR Consortium the
young people surveyed reported "huge
frustration with technological updates [to phones] that do not
give optimum performance such as 3G, MMS and WAP technology"
"Seamless upload of photos and video from camera phones
to web portals has become a key requirement for Mobile Network
Operators in order to generate the revenues they require from
camera phones," said Simon East, CEO, Cognima. "Yospace's
media album is best-in-class. Integrating the Media Community
Platform with Cognima Replicate has produced an effortless photo
and video upload solution for end-users. Yospace and Cognima can
now jointly offer a unique, effortless to use, revenue generating
product to Mobile Operators".
"We have seen a tremendous commitment by the mobile industry
into online storage of media. The Media Community Platform provides
the opportunity for mobile operators to act as a media 'hub' for
personal content and media sharing that will establish significant
new revenue streams, extending beyond simple peer-to-peer messaging",
said Dave Springall, CTO, Yospace. "The greatest challenge
is that of user adoption. Because Cognima Replicate requires so
little user interaction to take advantage of these services, we
believe that the user is effectively brought closer to the media
hub."
Cognima and Yospace will both be showing the full solution working
live at 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, France in February.
A demonstration video showing the user experience of the automatic
photo upload from a camera phone to a web portal is available
on the Cognima website
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