WIRELESS AND MOBILE NEWS

According to a recent camera phone study completed in Japan by MIPC (The Mobile Imaging and Printing Consortium) over 40% of respondents answered that they have printed out photos taken on their camera phones. Among working women and grandmothers print rates were particularly high, with more than 50% in each group printing photos taken with a camera phone.

More than 50% of respondents reported that they make use of their camera phone function "several times per week". Among female high school students, the number who used the camera function of their mobile phones "every day" was particularly high (20.0%).

Almost 40% of respondents indicated that, "There are photos I took with my camera phone that I would like to print out," with a particularly high response rate among "female homemakers/part-time workers with children" and "women with grandchildren."

With regard to attitudes on using a digital camera as opposed to a camera phone, 42% of respondents answered that they "use a digital camera for important photos of special occasions and major events, and a camera phone for snapshots." The results point to a difference in the ways digital cameras and camera phones are used depending on circumstances.

The survey indicates that print needs for photographs taken with camera phones are significant, with nearly 40% of respondents answering, "There are photos I took with my camera phone that I would like to print out."

It is believed that a vital key to increasing the print rate of camera- phone photos will be increasing user awareness of how to change photo-size settings to enable higher image resolution compared with default settings, and how to adjust other camera settings.

More than 60% of respondents said the most frequently used photo sizes were the "Standby Display" (240 x 320) and "VGA" (640 x 480) settings, with a majority of users taking photos at the default photo-size settings offered by their camera phones. As the camera functions of camera phones become increasingly advanced (many now greater than 3 megapixels) many users have expressed dissatisfaction over print-image quality when taking photos using the "Standby Display" and "VGA" size settings.

MIPC: Mission, Goals and Objectives

Launched in February 2004, the Mobile Imaging and Printing Consortium (MIPC) is a dynamic non-profit industry association that fosters collaboration across the hardware, software and wireless technologies involved in mobile imaging and printing. MIPC is producing standards-based solutions and printing guidelines that will provide consumers with simple, seamless, and intuitive methods for printing pictures taken with camera phones.

MIPC Members represent the most prestigious and powerful companies in the mobile imaging and printing space. Those represented companies include: Aplix Corporation, Brother Industries Ltd., Canon Inc., Cerience Corporation, Eastman Kodak Company, Fujifilm Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, Konica Minolta Holdings, Inc., Lexmark International, Inc., MCCI Corporation, Micron Technology, Motorola Inc., NEC Corporation, Nokia, Olivetti, Olympus Corporation, Ricoh Company, Ltd., Samsung Electronics Company, Ltd., Seiko Epson Corporation.

According to a report by InfoTrends, global camera phone users are expected to print 37.2 billion of the total images taken in 2008, when it is estimated that 85% of all mobile phones sold will feature an embedded camera. (InfoTrends, 2004 Worldwide Camera Phone and Photo Messaging Forecast, March 2004)

For details on this study visit: http://www.mobileprinting.org/news/ For additional information visit: http://www.mobileprinting.org