New Technology TV

Hong Kong is the world leader in moblie phone usage and Italy isn’t too far behind at number two. Both countries are also leaders in 3G technolgy which means they are sending each other video messages with increasing frequency. In Great Britian, the smallest of the five moblile phone operating companies, 3 UK, is providing a service where their customers can earn cash by shooting video clips and then charging viewers to see them. The operator has over 3 million customers and encourages them to upload their creations (30 second video) onto a channel. The company then pays one penny each time that clip is downloaded. The money is kept in an account and then paid out using the online service PayPal. The idea, already in practice in Italy by 3 UK’s sister company, has netted the equivalent of thousand of dollars to some budding videographers there! It seems the revolution will be televised…There are very tight standards imposed on the content of the videos by a strict editorial board, and violence is taboo. No happy slapping allowed.
Like it or not, face to face communication is coming. Motorola is selling something called “Ojo” that looks something like the Starship Enterprise stood up on its end. It must be designed for the home, because it would elict more than a few laughs on the street. Also, for inside the home, there is something called the Beamer that says it will turn any phone line into a video phone. It runs around two hundred dollars and of course you would have to intstall one on the other end of your call, and that doubles the cost.

In the mobile arena, the Nokia 6680 phone has video sharing capability, a high-resolution screen of 176 by 208 pixels and over 260,000 colors. It also has stereo music capability, 3G and Edge. 3G or third generation mobile phone technology is an umbrella term that denotes standards that can send information at 384 k/bits per second or more. It includes EDGE and WCDMA which are gaining ground inside the US. Music and video streaming are sometimes considered the “killer-app” of 3G technologies, but it is probably too soon to tell.

Another term, we continue to hear is GPRS, which stands for General Packet Radio Service. This is a packet switched technology which allows for faster transmission speeds and is used on mobile phones in applications involving (WAP) Wireless Internet, and any connection that is more sophisticated than voice or text messaging.

EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) speeds up rates in GRPS and is considered an add on technology in 2.5G networks. The U.S. has a little catching up to do, before you can get rich, making 30-second clips, but you may not have to wait that long.