wallpaper

Thumbplay fetches songs for your phone

Some of my favorite cell phone apps and services are also the simplest. Thumbplay, a major content storage and sales company (coverage), gets that with its latest service for Web-enabled phones, Thumbplay GET.

It's essentially a link request and return service for Thumbplay's content offerings. Users text GET, followed by the artist's name or song title, to Thumbplay's short code, 48000. Seconds later a link is returned through text, which leads to the search results. Users can then click to purchase the download.

Though primarily positioned as a song and ringtone service, Thumbplay GET will also … Read more

Myfotowall turns your photos into wallpaper

It might be a bit off-putting if you do this with photos of people, but still-life images or travel photos? Fantastic.

Myfotowall takes any of your own photographs and turns them into wallpaper. The company, based in West Yorkshire, England, says it can take any image and blow it up 16 times larger than the original without compromising the quality.

Myfotowall uses inkjet printing technology to put your chosen image onto paper-backed vinyl. The company charges 45 pounds Sterling per square meter, or about $90 per 10 square feet. You get to hang the paper yourself with spatula and glue … Read more

When wallpaper goes wrong

And here I thought Alltel's commercials were bad. As I prepared to review the Motorola Rokr Z6m I was scrolling through the phone's available wallpapers to see what it offered. After passing by the standard options that come with any Alltel or Motorola handset, I found a wallpaper that stopped me cold.

In the middle of a blue sunburst pattern was an animated figure of the blue-shirted spokesman from Alltel's grating commercials. The wallpaper shows "Chad" (as he is called) gyrating away to some unheard music. Though I can't put my finger on exactly … Read more

Myxer: Get your media to go

Myxer introduced a new feature at DemoFall: a widget to instantly upload photos, videos or ringtones to mobile phones.

It's aimed at people who want to make money on things like wallpaper and ringtones but don't have the technical know-how or the resources to distribute it themselves. Mobilized by Myxer is a delivery platform that can push any content to any phone. They've promised to keep up on the constantly fluctuating mobile standards and phones that enter the market so you don't have to. The only requirements are that users own the content they want to … Read more

Image seller branches out to cell phones

iStockphoto, an online subsidiary of stock-art seller Getty Images, is taking its business to consumers. The company typically sells images from its 1.5-million item library to newspapers, ad agencies and others with a large appetite for photos and illustrations, but on Wednesday it announced a partnership with Amuse Entertainment Group to let ordinary folks download images to use as mobile phone wallpaper.

The companies began a pilot phase of the project in the United Kingdom. Subscribers using the Orange, O2, T-Mobile, 3, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone networks will be able to download images beginning in April.

The pilot could … Read more

Vista gets some wallpapers from Flickr users

Flickr member Hamad Darwish is now a part of computing history, with two of his photographs included in Windows Vista. Usually Microsoft doesn't approach people with (we're assuming) large checks unless they're vying for a name or settling a lawsuit, but Darwish's work wowed Microsoft so much they hired him for a photo shoot.

Apparently there are three more images from Flickr users shipping with Vista, along with a few from Microsoft employees, too.

This is a cool use of services like Flickr. While Corbis, iStockPhoto, and Getty Images are all a hotbed for finding good … Read more