Greenpeace Argentina, as part of Greenpeace's global Whales Campaign, in a protest action yesterday delivered cans of fake 'whale' to the Danish Embassy in Buenos Aires. The action was recorded clandestinely by the activists on mobile video. According to Greenpeace, the Danish government is part of the pro-whaling meetings held in Japan. The cans were inscibed with "Whales Canned thanks to Danish support."
Video-mediated farmer-to-farmer learning for sustainable agriculture data sheet 825 Views
Author:
Van Mele, Paul
Publication Date:
Oct 2011
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
From June to September 2011, Agro-Insight conducted a scoping study for SDC, GFRAS and SAI Platform on the production, dissemination and use of farmer training videos in developing countries, with a focus on sustainable agriculture. Literature was consulted, the internet screened, experts and users consulted and a global on-line survey launched in English, French and Spanish.
There is a general consensus that farmers need good agricultural training videos, but they do not browse the web in search of them. For watching videos they rely mainly on outside agencies. Only about 20% of all respondents have never used video to train farmers and have never searched the web for agricultural videos. Many of those didn’t know where to look for videos, hadn’t found videos on the right subject or hadn’t found videos in their local language.
Mobile is one of the technologies discussed, but not the only. The study cites some mobile-based programs and notes current limitations to mobile video for farmers.
Riding the Mobile Innovation Wave in Emerging Markets data sheet 1437 Views
Author:
Accenture
Publication Date:
Jan 2010
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
If communications and high-tech companies are to achieve their growth targets over the next few years, they must look to the emerging economies. These markets, with large populations, hold great promise. Although many consumers in these areas live in rural areas and rely on more limited means, their disposable income has risen in recent years. Many such consumers have become more confident about the future, and are now willing to buy aspirational products such as mobile phones and services, even on credit.
To achieve high performance in this environment, companies must understand the key mobile trends as they evolve in developing economies. They must develop a deeper understanding of the mobile value proposition to emergingmarket consumers as well as their distinctive service needs. New distribution networks must be created. Content, products and services need to be tailored to local populations. These challenges will require new models of collaboration to succeed in a more complex ecosystem.
There is an enormous amount of literature on the use of mobiles in development work - from case studies and project evaluations, to broad policy recommendations and specific technology papers.
One place you can begin your search of relevant publications, reports and evaluations is in our mDirectory. For snapshots of the kind of information you can find there, here are more research slidecasts!
Way back in 2008, we spoke with Yael Schwartzman, who described her work in agricultural data collection. In this presentation, we feature a report published by Schwartzman, now a country manager at Frogtek in Mexico, and Tapan S. Parikh, assistant professor at UC Berekeley's School of Information.
Many mobile phones can capture video footage. This has enabled both trained journalists and citizen reporters to more easily capture footage including images that were rarely seen before. The Polk Journalism Award in 2009, for example, was awarded to a video from Iran captured on a mobile phone. Today, more and more journalists are using mobile phones to record video and quickly transfer content to their newsrooms via mobile data connections.
Using mobiles to capture video isn't new news. But there is good news: You don't need a high-quality video camera to do high-quality reporting, be you in the U.S. or elsewhere. Many journalists and citizen reporters today use smartphones to capture video footage. Examples abound. Vancouver journalism students use an iPhone with some additional hardware and software to do all their video editing on the phone. Voices of Africa uses a Nokia N-series smartphone. In his book Mobile Journalism in the Asian Region, Stephen Quinn uses both iPhones and Nokia smartphones. This post will provide some tips and tools on how you can record quality video and audio from your mobile phone.
Make Sure Your Phone is Capable
Phone hardware is constantly improving and getting cheaper. With an older phone, you may consider video enhancement software, which can offer a cheaper way to get better quality video content. For high quality video recording on a mobile, the best phones available today feature 640 x 480 pixels at 30 frames per second. 320 x 240 pixels at 15 frames per second produces acceptable web-quality video.
Lower resolutions will look grainy and pixelated without software enhancement, and video below 15 frames per second will look choppy. On the high quality end, these are some good mobile phones with excellent video cameras:
PC Magazine featured these five video-phone models with varying price ranges. The article includes lengthy reviews and a matrix comparison of the phones.
The GSMArena.com database features 1800 phones with video capabilities, 70 of which are listed on this page. The site allows you to search for cameras based on various criteria and links directly to carriers around the world who are selling these phones.
The Nokia N series phones are generally highly recommended for video recording. The N82, N93, and N95 are mentioned often by independent reviewers.
Go Shoot (good) Video
When it comes to shooting video, the major difference between mobiles and mainstream camcorders is that mobile phones have simpler (and smaller) cameras. It is important to understand what makes for good quality video given these limitations. Some suggested tools and tips are listed here.
Mobile phone users want to upload content to multiple sites but do not have the time and/or ability to do so. ShoZu allows content to be shared on multiple sites by clicking one button. Users can also view friend's content updates through this application.
ShoZu is a provider of mobile social media services that connect mobile consumers with their online social networks, personal blogs, photo storage sites and other Web 2.0 properties from the handset. The company was founded in 2001 in London and now has offices in San Francisco, France, Spain and Italy. The company is funded by investors, which include Atlas Venture, Crescendo Ventures, TLcom Capital partners and TTP Ventures.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a mobile phone
Key Features :
The main sites ShoZu collaborates with are: Flickr, Facebook, Dailymotion, Photobucket, Twitter, MySpace, Friendster, 23, Box, CNN and a few more. The main kinds of sites the company works with are: photo sharing, online communities, blogging and journalism Users can choose their mobile phone platforms on ShoZu's website and then purchase the application.
Not listed, visit http://www.nokiausa.com/ or local Nokia site.
Problem or Need:
The Nokia S60 3rd edition video editor comes standard on Nokia N95 phones. The video editor is a simple video editing tool that allows a user to cut clips, add special effects, credits, and sound to video clips, and publish clips to a website, all through a mobile phone.
The Nokia S60 3rd edition video editor comes standard on Nokia N95 phones. It is part of the S60 Platform (formerly Series 60 User Interface) - a software platform for mobile phones that run on Symbian OS. The video editor is a simple video editing tool that allows a user to cut clips, add special effects, credits, and sound to video clips, and publish clips to a website, all through a mobile phone.
The Nokia S60 3rd edition video editor comes standard on Nokia N95 phones. It allows a user to cut clips, add sound, transitions, credits, and special effects such as slow motion or black and white. A user can create "micro-movies." The final version of the movie can be saved on the phone itself and sent via MMS, e-mail, or uploaded to a website.
Main Services:
Multi-Media Messaging (MMS) or other Multi-Media
Tool Maturity:
Currently deployed
Release Date:
2010-08
Platforms:
Symbian/3rd
Current Version:
1.3
Program/Code Language:
MESymbian
Reviews/Evaluations:
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/Editing_a_Video_Presentation_on_teh_N95.php
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/media/item/Videocast_11_Video_editing_on_the_Nokia_N95.p
hp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlhLb0MOn1s
Today's Mobile Minute brings you coverage about revenue from Brazil's mobile youth, a Pew report on mobile habits, the conclusion of NPR's look at race and the digital divide, a guide to building voice infrastructure in developing regions, and what m-banking services need to consider about non-literate consumers.
This guest-post is by Arturo Morosoff who completed recently a project with D-Tree International and BRAC Tanzania to provide videos on mobile phones to assist Community Health Workers (CHWs) for health education. It is posted here with permission.
I recently completed a five week volunteer project working with Irene Joseph and Gayo Mhila of D-Tree International to provide videos on mobile phones to Community Health Volunteers with BRAC Tanzania in the Mbagala district of Dar Es Salaam.
A bit about me: I have no formal training in ICT or public health. My background is in technology and business and I live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. I was on a two month trip in Tanzania and volunteered to help D-Tree with this project. As such, the project needed to be completed in a short time and we began with modest goals.
Among BRAC’s programs to help alleviate poverty is its health program, which relies on an all-female team of Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) to conduct monthly home visits to provide health education and support. Each CHV visits 150 – 200 homes each month, asking health related questions and providing healthcare information. In Tanzania, D-Tree has been collaborating with BRAC to provide the CHVs with a mobile phone-based tool called Commcare, to help improve the effectiveness of their home-based programs. About a year ago there was discussion with the CHVs of providing them with health education videos suitable for use on phones to provide additional support for their home visits.
Streaming video from your mobile almost feels like magic. A video taken on your mobile phone appears, in real time, on the web and even allows users to interact with the mobile phone user through real-time chat functions. "It's immediate, it's there, and it's one click away," Flixwagon CEO Eran Hess told the BBC in a recent video interview. "It's very easy to do."
MobileActive tested two streaming video applications, Qik and Flixwagon, to see how they measured up for use by nonprofits and advocacy organizations that want to document and feature video content in real time. Lastly, we discuss how streaming video can be used for social impact.
MobileActive has aggregated dozens of videos focused on the use of mobile phones in civil society on our new MobileActive YouTube channel.
The MobileActive channel features playlists about mobile phones used in a variety of different fields. On the Mobile Phones in Advocacy playlist, you can watch videos about Greenpeace Argentina's work to pass the Ley de Bosques (Forest Law) by using mobile phones and an advertisement for FishMS, a South African SMS infoline that allows users to text in the names of fish and get a rating about their environmental sustainability. Watch the Mobile Phones in Global Development channel for videos on mobile banking, the Village Phone program, and the growth of mobile phones in the developing world. Check out the Mobile Phones in Human Rights playlist for a variety of videos of human rights abuses taken on mobile phones, including the mobile videos of Egyptian police brutality by blogger Wael Abbas.
