3G Cartoon Time

FunMail and Intel are previewing a new service that will enable users to create their own customized cartoons on a mobile device, based on the text of a short message. If a user enters a message saying "Let's get dinner later," they might get an animation of Garfield munching a burger. The user can then customize the animation, such as modifying the background, character or props. FunMail's real-time animation rendering engine then creates a unique animation, which is streamed to the PCA device in Macromedia Flash format.

"FunMail on PCA can work on the networks the operators are building today, and create an entirely new generation of animated services such as animated messaging, daily animated horoscopes, animated alerts -- just about anything," said FunMail CEO Adam Lavine. "This gives mobile operators the opportunity for an entirely new revenue stream, without requiring major new infrastructure investment."

"Services like FunMail show what can be done with the advanced processing power of PCA on a PDA or Smartphone," said Jeff Krisa of Intel's Wireless Computing and Communications Group. "The combination of FunMail's real-time rendering engine and the Intel PCA chipset create an extremely compelling and unique user experience. And the solution is scalable, so as the user upgrades to newer devices the experience becomes increasingly richer."

The FunMail Animated Rendering Engine, which is the result of over 20 man- years of development, enables animated content to be generated in real-time for a variety of devices and formats. It is device-independent, can generate content for SMS, MMS and rich-media devices. The Rendering Engine is up and running on NTT DoCoMo's i-mode network, allowing i-mode users to create customized animated messages by choosing background, character and props from a set of menus.

"This is a classic example of a powerful client with a thin media stream," said FunMail CEO Adam Lavine. "Unlike video, animation can produce a very powerful user experience, with a small amount of bandwidth. Sending 30k to 50k of data to an Intel XDA device can result in a fantastic animated experience with the FunMail solution. Our rendering engine is real-time, and the XDA is powerful enough to display full-motion animation, so the only delay really is in the streaming of the content, which requires a very small amount of bandwidth, especially for GPRS or 3G."

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