Siemens on Friday launched the trial of mCam, an application it says will shortly see streaming video delivered to mobile devices.
[VIDEO]In its trial version, the application is used to transmit graphics of sporting highlights, in this case the cricket test between SA and Zimbabwe, to users with Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) handsets. However, Siemens intends to migrate the application to a wireless Java version in the near future.
The quality of the resulting picture is dependent on the display resolution of the receiving device, which on most current cellphones makes it barely discernable, but even so the companies involved believe it will be popular.
"South Africans are a little crazy about sports," says Pete da Silva, COO of the local Siemens Information and Communication Group, explaining the choice in content for the trial.
[VIDEO]The trial is run in conjunction with sport content company Scoreline, which has human operators selecting images and feeding them into the distribution database. Scoreline also supplies the text scores and information which accompanies the pictures.
Francois Nolte, business development manager responsible for mCam, says the application is a relatively simple addition to a Web server with a WAP gateway or connected to a remote access server. It sends high-quality bitmap images to the requesting device, which translates it into the highest quality it can display.
[VIDEO]The resulting grainy, monochrome image is uninspiring, but Siemens is still excited about mCam's future.
"The next step is to integrate it with SMS notification of new content," says Nolte. "When we migrate it onto a wireless Java platform in the next few months it will increase the response time. Then we plan to add colour, add one or two second streaming clips, add audio to it and finally integrate it into the multimedia messaging system."
[VIDEO]Da Silva says the service will be of significant higher quality with the availability of 2.5G or near-third-generation bandwidth. He expects one such service, GRPS, to be in use locally by the first quarter of next year.
mCam will be the basis of the info2go.co.za portal, where the cricket demo is currently available. Siemens says the six-month trail period will focus on golf and cricket action, with news, health and stock information to be added to the portal to "create the definitive mobile information portal".
[VIDEO]The application is wholly South African developed, but Nolte says interest has been expressed by Siemens subsidiaries in both Europe and the Far East.
"We hope to see it in use there pretty soon," he says.
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