You’ve probably read about the trial that Reuters did with an N95-based kit for mobile journalists. I think CNet news were the first to post about it but the detailed info is in the Reuters MoJo (mobile journalism) page. Its a great idea.
Its not unlike my own mobile journalism kit (an early version is shown to the right) although I decided to use a ultra mobile PC as the processing engine for far, far better flexibility due to the increased processing power and application base. I was using a low-end Kohjinsha SA1 that gave me 4 hours of use. Adding a power-pack expanded that to well over 10 hours of live use.
There’s a few problems I see with this Nokia based kit. Firstly, Where’s the optical zoom? If you’re in any sort of press situation a 10x optical zoom with good optics is a must-have. Secondly, there’s no editing capability here. It’s all about sending raw video and text back to base where it can be edited up. That’s a traditional journalism process but certainly not how I work and how I think independent journalists will work in the future. I prepare rich and final-copy posts direct on the 
ultra mobile PC which can be sent straight to the publishing medium, not via an editor. Finally, there’s no substitute for having a PC with you, especially when its a laptop. As many of us with Q1 organiser packs have found out, a separate keyboard is a pain to use unless you have a table and when you’re out in the field, there’s rarely that facility available. The laptop PC gives you flexibility, a much more comfortable PPI (pixels per inch,) a better overview of photo image quality and access to many many options for editing text, images and video while running messaging programs, VPN software and even live streaming software. The keyboard on a PC doesn’t rely on 2 AA-type batteries either! The package is nice but my feeling is that a PC-based system is much much better for a richer delivery.
I like the look of the microphone though. I’ve tried twice to buy a decent mic but keep buying the wrong thing. This Sony ECMMS907 looks like a good tip. I think I’ll have to invest in one for next years CeBIT reporting kit. I also need a camera that will record VGA straight to MPEG-4 format on an SD card. Anyone got any tips?
VIA Pocketables
