New mobile journalism application allows reporters to file and publish text, photo, audio and video news stories from handheld devices, rather than laptops

Nokia Research Center (NRC) and Reuters are working together on a mobile journalism project that could transform the way journalists file news reports when on the move.  The new mobile application is the first project to be showcased from a long term research collaboration that has been established between NRC and Reuters.  It centres around a lightweight toolkit that provides everything journalists need to file and publish stories from even the most remote regions of the world. 

Through an ongoing trial that started this summer, select Reuters journalists around the world made use of the mobile journalism application in their everyday work to edit, combine and file text, images, sound and live and recorded video streams, producing and publishing multi-media stories of broadcast quality without needing to return to the studio or office.

The mobile journalism application uses the multimedia capabilities already available in existing smart phones and combines these to produce a toolkit that fits intuitively with the way in which journalists want to use it.  The toolkit comprises multimedia capabilities, text editing tools and live video streaming and is accessed using an innovative user interface.  Metadata facilities automatically combine every piece of information the device already has about the context for the story - location, time, date and so on.  For the trial, GPS integrated video-streaming technology was provided by Comvu.  Reuters has already developed a mobile editorial interface that links the toolkit developed by NRC to the in-house editorial process, allowing stories to be published almost instantly from the field.

The trial involved a select group of Reuters journalists who filed stories from events ranging from New York's Fashion Week to the Edinburgh Film Festival.  Reuters continues to make experimental use of the application.  A group of university students will also use the application in coming months, to give an idea of how the toolkit could possibly work in a future citizen journalism context.

The Mobile Journalism Toolkit

So what is in the Mobile Journalism Toolkit? First of all the phone. This is a Nokia N95 which now comes in three different versions: original European version, the US edition (adds more memory and support for US carrier frequencies) and the new 8GB version (stores much more music and videos).

The next part of the toolkit are the peripherals. A key component was the bluetooth keyboard that they used. This made it much easier to enter text-based stories in the field. For this they used the Nokia SU-8W. This folds up and has a bracket to hold the phone.

They also supplied a basic tripod to help in video interviews and a Sony microphone for directional audio recording and reducing background noise in interviews - this required a special adaptor plug that was made by Nokia for the project. Finally to deal with power issues they also used Power Monkeys, both basic and Explorer versions (The Explorer has a solar charging system) .

Source:Nokia press release

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