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I had the opportunity Saturday to attend Pangea Day 2008, a one-day global event celebrating film and humanity. Nokia sponsored the event. It was organized by Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED)--a New York-based non-profit aimed at sharing knowledge. The idea of the event was to take
Sony Pictures turned Sound Stage 15 in Los Angeles into the hub, connecting to similar events in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro. The event aired live on several global networks and Internet television stations, subtitled in seven languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, and Spanish.
In March, Nokia announced a mobile filmmaker contest that ran through April. The contest generated about 600 independent short movie entries from around the world. A panel of judges picked five finalists who attended the Los Angeles event, which premiered the short movies. Eduardo Cachucho, who shot the winning mobile short film "The Game" in South Africa where he lives, won the Nokia Mobile Filmmaker Award announced Saturday. The prize: a mobile filmmaking trip to the Rwandan Gorilla Reserve with a full crew to capture the experience.
I had a chance to sit down with Afdhel Aziz, a senior marketing manager for sponsorships at Nokia. We talked about the movies, the Nokia N95 cellular phone and camera, which by the way is an amazing device. We talked about connecting online through a mobile phone, and spent a few minutes talking about radio frequency identification and near field communications. Some of the things we talked about revolved around consumer privacy.
He agreed that rather than RFID, consumers should look toward their cellular phones, which can now track their every move, rather than RFID, and weigh the benefits against what they consider issues. Technology manufacturers need to become the educators. I'm the observer who disseminates the information.
Technologists are just scratching the service on what the mobile Internet can do, according to Aziz. "Today you just see a version of the regular internet on your phone," he says. "Once you add content so your phone and people know where you are it becomes Internet cubed because you can access information whenever and wherever you want it. Some people might find that a bit scary, a bit big brotherish."
At what point are consumers willing to swap personal information for a discount on coffee or clothes, for example. Aziz says "I may be happy to let Ticketmaster know I'm in Los Angeles because they'll offer me discounts on a concert for my favorite band at the local venue this Saturday."
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