A mobile revolution!

There's some amazing technology coming out across the handheld platforms and one such example is QIK.

This software basically hijacks your mobile phones camera and streams the sound and pictures straight to 'youtube' style website. What makes it special is that it does this in near real-time.

That means that as you are streaming the content, its being displayed and it's this 'live' element which makes QIK so impressive.

Visitors to the website can also interact with the content creator via built in 'live chat' which gives instant feedback which is once again, in near-realtime.

At the moment, QIK is invitation only and in alpha testing so we can expect to see even more features added to the impressive list I've already mentioned. One feature which is already here though is blog integration, which allows your live or recorded clips to feature directly into a html webpage or blog.

You can check this out for yourself here.

One feature I found really impressive was how this 'live content' is much more impressive to the casual surfer. Knowing that its possible to view live videos being shot away from a webcam is impressive in itself but then to be able to interact with that person takes it to a whole new level altogether.

I checked out the mobilediner via QIK and then was also able to visit the website too. Who would have thought that I could interact with political bloggers in the USA, sat in Starbucks by the Whitehouse in realtime via the QIK website and their N95 handset...

Clinton Vs Obama: As seen on flickr

What do you do when you want to become president of the USA? There's quite a few things to think about but you wouldn't think that keeping your flickr account up to date would be one of them. You'd be wrong though.

Yes, both Clinton and Obama can boast a high turnout as far as uploaded photographs go. It seems that every moment has been recorded for the candidates and despite trawling through a good 20 pages per politician, I haven't seen them holding the babies up just yet.

Now I have my doubts that they really are spending so much time online but I'm no sceptic when it comes to the question of communicating with as wider audience as possible. Gone are the days of radio, tv and newspaper battles, replaced instead with online blogs, video sharing websites and even, it would appear, photo sharing ones too?

What next? Bebo?

You can browse Hillary's photostream here. Obama's is here.

My Photos help to recreate RMS Titanic

Here on the socdoc blog, I have written an article about how some of my photographs are helping maritime historians keep the interior designs of the RMS Titanic as fresh as they were on the first day of sailing. You'd be amazed at what artifacts you can find in hotels, offices and even private homes which make this possible.

Life in HD

My video work should start to look a little sharper now thanks the the JVC Everio HD3 camcorder. Although I'm only shooting at 720p rather than the 1440p that the camera is capable of, I am quite impressed with the images from such a small camera.

If you'd like to take a look at my first vid, fresh from the camera's disk drive then click here.

HD camcorders are becoming quite affordable now and although It can be a bit tricky to set up your computer to edit and export on widescreen HD,the results can be really impressive and I'm looking forward to applying some of my photography skills to film making even if they take ages to export and compress!

My MacBook can't cope with 1440p HD so at the moment, here's the stats for anyone who cares.

Camera: JVC 3CCD Evero HD3
CPU: Macbook 2.0ghz Dual Core with 2GB ram
Size: Uncompressed, full quality 2.9gb / H.264 Compressed normal to 227mb
Software used: Final Cut Express 4

On the brink...

As we hurtle towards the new year which seems to arrive sooner each time (although I am reliably informed its a 'good twelve months since the last one'). My mind is split between looking back to what has gone and forward to the new year.

I'm obviously not alone. For every civilisation, there is a day which marks the last and another which marks the first, the numbers may be different but the sentiment is the same.

So I look back on a year which included too many things to list here but more importantly I look forward to a year of opportunity and promise. It's this optimism which I want to end on for 2007. I want to encourage all my readers to begin 2008 with renewed hope and vigour. New beginnings offer us all a fresh start and if we take a leaf from the book of the Roman god Janus, we can look both into the past to learn from our mistakes but also into the future to make 2008 the best year of our lives! Its easy to remember too as we name the first month of the year after this two headed god.

So, may I offer everyone my warmest wishes for a healthy and prosperous new year! Have a good 'un!

Paul