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SEATTLE The Dalai Lama arrived in the United States on Thursday for the first time since the recent turmoil in Tibet, serenaded by fellow Tibetans as he prepared to anchor an ambitious conference on compassion.The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader came here a day after demonstrators disrupted the Olympic torch run in San Francisco in a protest of China’s treatment of his people. The Dalai Lama will be attending a five-day conference that begins Friday.With the Dalai Lama in town, some community leaders said they expected counter-demonstrations from pro-China groups.But all was peaceful when he arrived at a downtown hotel Thursday, telling local Tibetans who sang to him that he supports nonviolent demonstrations but was saddened by the protests in San Francisco.In Tibet, the recent protests against five decades of Chinese rule have been the largest and most sustained in almost two decades. China has accused the Dalai Lama of being involved in the uprising. The Tibetan leader has said that he wants greater autonomy for the remote mountain region but is not seeking independence.Earlier Thursday, during a stopover in Japan, the Dalai Lama said he has always supported China’s hosting of the Olympic Games this summer, but said Beijing cannot suppress protests in Tibet with violence or tell those calling for more freedom in his homeland “to shut up.”He strongly denied Chinese allegations he and his followers have used the run-up to the Olympics to foment unrest.”Right from the beginning, we supported the Olympic Games,” he told reporters near the airport outside Tokyo. “I really feel very sad the government demonizes me. I am just a human; I am not a demon.”Organizers of the five-day Seeds of Compassion conference in Seattle say the Dalai Lama’s visit is expected to draw more than 150,000 people.The Chinese community in Seattle has been split by the Tibetan situation, said Assunta Ng, publisher of the Northwest Asian Weekly, a local Asian-American community newspaper. Ng said she wouldn’t be surprised if pro-China demonstrators show up at some of the events, and added that some Chinese students plan to protest the politicization of the Olympics.The conference will feature dozens of workshops on various subjects, beginning with a panel discussion Friday with the Dalai Lama on “The Scientific Basis for Compassion: What We Know Now.”Tickets for events involving the Dalai Lama have already sold out, according to the conference Web site.Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels will present the key to the city to the Tibetan leader and the University of Washington will present him an honorary degree.The Dalai Lama fled to India after a failed uprising in 1959 in Tibet, but remains the religious and cultural leader of many Tibetans. He was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1989.He was determined to attend the Seattle conference because of his commitment to global peace, organizers said.”He wants compassion for both sides, for the Tibetans, for the Chinese brothers,” said Lama Tenzin Dhonden, a Tibetan monk who spearheaded the development of the conference.After Seattle, the Dalai Lama is scheduled to speak at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor on April 19 and 20, then at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., on April 22.

SAN FRANCISCO Last-minute changes to the Olympic torch’s route through the only North American city on its world tour helped it evade not only protesters, but also fans who lined up for hours waiting for a historic sight that never arrived.”I’m disappointed, annoyed, tired, frustrated,” Sydney Sullivan, 18, said after unsuccessfully trying to chase the flame through the city. “I mean, it’s not every day you get to see the Olympic torch.”After its parade was rerouted and shortened to prevent disruptions by massive crowds of protesters, a planned closing ceremony at the waterfront was canceled and moved to San Francisco International Airport. The flame was placed on a plane and was not displayed.International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge expressed relief that the San Francisco relay avoided the turmoil of the torch’s previous stops in London and Paris, where demonstrators had tried to snuff out the flame.”Fortunately, the situation was better … in San Francisco,” Rogge said at an Olympic meeting in Beijing. “It was, however, not the joyous party that we had wished it to be.”The torch’s 85,000-mile, 20-nation global journey is the longest in Olympic history, and is meant to build excitement for the Beijing Games. But it has also been targeted by activists angered over China’s human rights record, its rule of Tibet and its support for the governments of Myanmar and Sudan.Chinese officials declared the San Francisco event a success and praised the route changes as a clever strategy for thwarting “Tibetan separatists.”The activists “ran into a brick wall in San Francisco,” the Global Times newspaper, published by the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, said on its Web site. It called the changes a “brilliant idea.”Jiang Xiayou, executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic torch relay committee, thanked San Francisco.”Perhaps some of them failed to see the sacred flame today,” Jiang said, speaking through a translator at San Francisco’s closing ceremony. “But we all have felt the passion of the Olympic movement.”Less than an hour before the relay began, officials cut the original six-mile route nearly in half.Then, at the opening ceremony, the first torchbearer took the flame from a lantern brought to the stage and held it aloft before running into a waterfront warehouse. A motorcycle escort departed, but the torchbearer was nowhere in sight.Officials drove the Olympic torch about a mile inland and handed it off to two runners away from protesters and media. The runners began jogging in the opposite direction of the crowds, and the procession gave front-row views to nearby residents, who leaned out their windows for the unexpected sight. More confusion followed, and the torch convoy apparently stopped near the Golden Gate Bridge before heading southward to the airport.As the flame traveled toward the airport, news dribbled through the crowds of more than 10,000 spectators and protesters gathered at the waterfront that the torch wasn’t coming. While Olympic fans dispersed in disappointment, many protesters were undeterred by the development.”I think it was very strange that the torch seemed to be running away from the people, but it was a good day because attention was focused on some very important issues,” said Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition.San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong said the decision was made after protesters who swarmed into the street along the original route refused police orders to get back behind barricades. Disputes among China protesters and supporters were escalating into “pushing and shoving matches,” Fong said, and one protest group began breaking windows on a bus.”We had serious concerns about the possibility of additional violence, of additional disruption … if the torch bearers were to run along this route,” Fong said. “We felt it would not be safe.”There were signs of tension even before the torch relay began. Pro-Tibet and pro-China groups had side-by-side permits to demonstrate, and representatives from both sides spilled from their sanctioned sites across a major street and shouted at each other nose to nose, with no visible police presence to separate them.Farther along the planned route, about 200 Chinese college students mobbed a car carrying two people waving Tibetan flags in front of the city’s Pier 39 tourist destination. The students, who arrived by bus from the University of California, Davis, banged drums and chanted “Go Olympics” in Chinese.”I’m proud to be Chinese and I’m outraged because there are so many people who are so ignorant they don’t know Tibet is part of China,” Yi Che said. “It was and is and will forever be part of China.”Only a handful of arrests were made, and no major incidents were reported, police said.Local officials say they support the diversity of viewpoints, but tightened security following chaotic protests during the torch’s stops in London and Paris and a demonstration Monday in which activists hung banners from the Golden Gate Bridge.Vans were deployed to haul away arrested protesters, and the Federal Aviation Administration restricted flights over the city. One of the runners who planned to carry the torch dropped out earlier this week because of safety concerns, officials said.Torchbearers in other cities have complained of aggressive behavior by paramilitary police in blue track suits sent by Beijing to guard the Olympic flame. Although there were no major problems reported in California, they did make their presence felt.At least one torchbearer decided to show her support for Tibetan independence during her moment in the spotlight. After being passed the Olympic flame, Majora Carter pulled out a small Tibetan flag that she had hidden in her shirt sleeve.”The Chinese security and cops were on me like white on rice, it was no joke,” said Carter, 41, who runs a nonprofit organization in New York. “They pulled me out of the race, and then San Francisco police officers pushed me back into the crowd on the side of the street.”Peter Ueberroth, chairman of the United States Olympic Committee, said the U.S. had struck the right balance between preserving freedom of speech for protesters, providing an exhilarating experience for the torchbearers, and preventing a repeat of the chaotic demonstrations that accompanied the torch in London and Paris.”As close as anybody can do in a free society, so far it’s looking very good,” Ueberroth said. “Virtually anybody and everybody is being heard.”On Friday, the IOC’s executive board is to discuss whether to end the remaining international legs of the relay after San Francisco because of widespread protest. The torch is scheduled to travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and then to a dozen other countries before arriving in China on May 4. The Olympics begin Aug. 8.After the San Francisco event, Indonesian officials announced it would significantly shorten its leg of the Olympic torch relay in the capital, Jakarta, citing security concerns. Their relay was scheduled for April 22.Rogge has refrained from criticizing China, saying he prefers to engage in “silent diplomacy” with the Chinese.Meanwhile, the White House said anew that President Bush would attend the Olympics, but left open the possibility that he would skip the opening ceremonies. Asked whether Bush would go to that portion of the games, White House press secretary Dana Perino demurred, citing the fluid nature of a foreign trip schedule.A spokesman for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would not attend the opening ceremony. Brown’s office said the decision was not aimed at sending a message of protest to the Chinese government, that Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell will represent the British government at the opening, and that Brown would attend the closing ceremony.London is hosting the 2012 Olympics and British officials were expected to attend events throughout the games.French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he is debating not attending the opening ceremony as a protest of China’s crackdown in Tibet.

Boise attorneys and human resources officials are reviewing whether two city employees are violating city rules by working at private wastewater treatment facilities.Interim Public Works Director John Tenson said he’s asked to see if the moonlighting work performed by Bill Duncan and Chris Linder and their company, Operations Management Consulting Services, conflicts with their city jobs. The city allows employees to have second jobs so long as they don’t interfere with city work and employees inform their supervisors.Duncan and Linder meet job performance requirements managing the city’s two wastewater treatment facilities, and have disclosed the work of their company, Tenson said. Since 1999, the men also have operated the company that contracts for daily operations at smaller, independent treatment plants such as Boise’s Hidden Springs and the Avimor planned community in Ada County.In January, Boise Mayor Dave Bieter had his staff create a policy designed to block sewage from outside communities after Avimor’s developers said they intended to truck sewage to Boise’s treatment plants. Bieter has opposed the Avimor development, calling it “leapfrog development” and urban sprawl. The company owned by Duncan and Linder will operate and maintain Avimor’s treatment facility.Last month, Boise blogger Dave Frazier complained about the arrangement, and the Idaho Statesman has received messages about the moonlighting. The company’s Web site touts Duncan’s and Linder’s experience within the city. It also lists the city’s 2006 Peak Performance Platinum Award - recognition for superior operations at the West Boise Wastewater Treatment Plant.Tenson said questions about the company have cropped up from time to time. But until a Statesman inquiry, Tenson wasn’t aware his employees’ company worked on several projects with a local firm, Pharmer Engineering, that sometimes contracts with Boise. Tenson asked the city’s legal and human resources department to rule out any potential conflicts with that company, he said.”We take conflict of interest very seriously. We want to make sure every step of the way, you are doing it right,” Tenson said. “It’s awkward. From a management perspective, moonlighting causes any manager a concern. But you have to respect what they can do in their private life, too.”Duncan declined to comment, other than to say he was “not doing anything wrong or illegal. Everything is above-board.”Linder did not return a message left on his city telephone.Robert Pharmer, president of Pharmer Engineering, which designed both the Avimor and Hidden Springs facilities, said the companies work separately. “They do not oversee our projects at all, and they do not work on our projects,” Pharmer said. “There is no connection, business-wise, contractually or any other way.”City contracts are selected through the engineering division, and neither Linder nor Duncan oversee any contracts, Tenson said. “We plan (to have) a meeting later this week to make sure there is no conflict,” he said.Tenson also referenced a 2007 document from the city’s ethics commission, which said it was ethical for city employees to work for companies performing similar work as their city job, when paid by the hour and there is not a conflict of interest or violation of the fiduciary duties owed to the city.Bieter is comfortable with a previous review and has no problem with the men doing outside work, said his spokesman Adam Park. “This case has been looked at carefully, and it was determined there was no conflict of interest or violation of city policy,” Park said. “Once that determination has been made, they’re free to do what they want with their own time.”Kathleen Kreller: 377-6418

Business software giant Oracle has decided against opening a data center in the Treasure Valley, the Idaho Department of Commerce confirmed Wednesday.The California company had narrowed its choices to the Treasure Valley and the Salt Lake City area.”Commerce has been involved in this with our economic development partners for about six months,” spokesman Bibianna Nertney said. The state has not been told why the Treasure Valley was passed over, Nertney said. The department didn’t deal directly with Oracle but worked through a site selector representing the company. She said Salt Lake has been working to attract Oracle for almost three years.The number of jobs Oracle would have brought to the Valley couldn’t be confirmed, but the Commerce Department said they would have been high-paying.Oracle is a Fortune 200 company that trades on the Nasdaq stock exchange. In 2007, it reported $18 billion in revenue and $5.3 billion in earnings.A call to Oracle’s public relations department wasn’t returned Wednesday.Although the Commerce Department confirmed the discussions with Oracle, Paul Hiller with the Boise Valley Economic Partnership declined to say if his organization was involved.”I can’t comment on the project at this point, and I can’t confirm that it is in fact Oracle,” he said.But Hiller did say his organization is still negotiating with an unnamed information technology company.”We’ve got nine projects currently under way, and one is with an information technology company,” he said.The negotiations with the IT company could bring between 200 and 300 high-paying jobs, but Hiller said any decision is “several months away from a conclusion.” The nine projects could bring about 4,000 jobs, he said. This is the third potential company expansion in the area that has fallen through in the past few months.In December, Hiller’s organization confirmed that two companies including a chemical company had been considering locating in Boise, but there wasn’t sufficient power available for the company’s heavy industrial needs.Despite the recent disappointments, Hiller said interest in the area remains high.He said the industries looking at the Boise area in a variety of fields, including manufacturing and high technology.But he said if Boise is chosen, some of the jobs wouldn’t arrive soon because the majority of the companies are looking at expansions in a five- to 10-year time frame after the current economic downturn is over.The Idaho Business Review first reported that Oracle had pulled out on its Web site Wednesday. Ken Dey: 672-6757

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. Traditional wireline provider Embarq Corp. is offering a new cordless home phone that includes Internet-powered features it hopes will help it hold on to customers.The company, which lost 6.3 percent of its access lines in 2007 - ending the fiscal year with 6.47 million - expects to continue losing them at that rate or faster in 2008.Embarq began losing customers well before Sprint Nextel Corp. spun it off the local-phone division in 2006, but it remains the nation’s fourth-largest traditional telephone provider.The Embarq eGo, which the company began selling Tuesday, works like a regular landline phone but has a video screen and can hook into the customers’ high-speed Internet connection.Customers can use it to check weather and sports and general news culled from Internet sites, access an online local business directory and scroll visually through voice mail and lists of frequently called numbers.”We are attacking why would you ever want to use your wireless phone in your home,” said Dennis Huber, Embarq’s senior vice president of corporate strategy and development.Customers must have high-speed Internet to use eGo. The handset and a base station that connects to the Internet router cost $130. Extra handsets - the system can support up to five per household - are $50 each. Discounts will be available on eGo in Embarq’s retail stores.Overland Park-based Embarq hopes eGo will keep customers from abandoning their home phones in favor of cell phones or Internet-based telephone service.Huber said the eGo is aimed at providing customers some of the same content they can receive through their personal computers or cell phones - just quicker and cheaper.”We, over the past 100 years, have been great at selling people connectivity,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is add value to that connectivity.”Using the customer’s ZIP code, the eGo can provide local weather forecasts and list times of movies showing nearby or help users find the closest pizza parlor and immediately call it.Product developer David Rondeau said Embarq will continue developing services for the eGo, including eventually some premium offerings.

Last year, an event came out of nowhere that drew more than 2,000 people to Bogus Basin.It had nothing to do with fresh powder. In fact, it was during the blazing heat of summer, and people were hopping lifts, listening to music, eating, drinking, riding new trails and raising money for the development of a system that will stretch from the mountain above Boise all the way to the Idaho Velodrome and Cycling Park in Eagle.That was the inaugural Trailapa-looza, and this year’s version promises to be bigger and wilder while just as beneficial to trail enthusiasts - and not just on wheels.Jodi Peterson, owner of Open Space Advertising and creator of the event, explained that mountain bikers, hikers, runners and people who just love the outdoors are invited to attend the celebration and contribute to trail maintenance and development.The event will include guided trail rides, hikes and runs, a downhill slalom race, educational workshops, product samples, youth activities (including a kids rodeo area for mountain bike technique lessons), live music, food vendors, New Belgium beer and more. Fun will be in great supply, but Peterson said the core of Trailapalooza is teaching people about the trail system and how to treat it and each other while using it.The event is set for 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 9. It is free, though lift tickets are $10 and there is a $5 suggested donation per car, with proceeds going right back into the trails because of a collaborative effort by the U.S. Forest Service, Bogus Basin Mountain Recreation Area, Ridges to Rivers and Southwest Idaho Mountain Biking Association.Peterson’s Web site is under construction, but questions can be directed to her via e-mail at peterson.jodi@gmail.com. Erin Ryan: 672-6732

Boise attorneys and human resources officials are reviewing whether two city employees are violating city rules by working at private wastewater treatment facilities.Interim Public Works Director John Tenson said he抯 asked to see if the moonlighting work performed by Bill Duncan and Chris Linder and their company, Operations Management Consulting Services, conflicts with their city jobs. The city allows employees to have second jobs so long as they don抰 interfere with city work and employees inform their supervisors.Duncan and Linder meet job performance requirements managing the city抯 two wastewater treatment facilities, and have disclosed the work of their company, Tenson said. Since 1999, the men also have operated the company that contracts for daily operations at smaller, independent treatment plants such as Boise抯 Hidden Springs and the Avimor planned community in Ada County.In January, Boise Mayor Dave Bieter had his staff create a policy designed to block sewage from outside communities after Avimor抯 developers said they intended to truck sewage to Boise抯 treatment plants. Bieter has opposed the Avimor development, calling it 搇eapfrog development?and urban sprawl. The company owned by Duncan and Linder will operate and maintain Avimor抯 treatment facility.Last month, Boise blogger Dave Frazier complained about the arrangement, and the Idaho Statesman has received messages about the moonlighting. The company抯 Web site touts Duncan抯 and Linder抯 experience within the city. It also lists the city抯 2006 Peak Performance Platinum Award ?recognition for superior operations at the West Boise Wastewater Treatment Plant.Tenson said questions about the company have cropped up from time to time. But until a Statesman inquiry, Tenson wasn抰 aware his employees?company worked on several projects with a local firm, Pharmer Engineering, that sometimes contracts with Boise.
Tenson asked the city抯 legal and human resources department to rule out any potential conflicts with that company, he said.揥e take conflict of interest very seriously. We want to make sure every step of the way, you are doing it right,?Tenson said. 揑t抯 awkward. From a management perspective, moonlighting causes any manager a concern. But you have to respect what they can do in their private life, too.?p/>Duncan declined to comment, other than to say he was 搉ot doing anything wrong or illegal. Everything is above-board.?p/>Linder did not return a message left on his city telephone.Read more in Thursday’s Idaho Statesman.

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho A pilot project by a group that wants to establish a five-star rating system for child-care providers in Idaho is entering its second year.IdahoSTARS Quality Child Care Rating System allows child care providers to volunteer to participate in the statewide project.It’s an effort to improve the quality of care and offer parents more information about where to send their children. The group hopes to have the rating system in place by 2009 for care providers who want to participate.More than 70 facilities volunteered this year, and 29 were randomly selected to take part, said Martha Anderson, IdahoSTARS regional quality consultant in Hayden.She said the voluntary rating system is important because Idaho has few child-care regulations.Day care centers with fewer than seven children are not regulated by the state. Idaho lawmakers in the most recent session killed a bill that would have set standards - such as criminal background checks for workers and annual health and fire inspections - for centers with four or more unrelated children.”This is really grass roots,” Anderson told The Spokesman-Review. “We want to help individual providers improve their quality.”Fingerprints Children’s Center in Lewiston is one of the facilities taking part in the program this year.”I’m completely supportive of the idea of it,” said Brooke Pedersen, the center’s director. “Hopefully parents will see that centers that made an effort to be in the system will be the quality centers.”An IdahoSTARS mentor will work with child-care providers to develop a plan to improve, as well as apply for grants to make improvements.Once that work is finished, the providers would receive the STAR rating.Because it’s a voluntary program, Anderson said, it would be up to the day-care provider to decide whether to make the results public.Anderson said IdahoSTARS officials believe it’s important the state have a quality day-care system because good early childhood experiences lead to success in school and greater earning potential as adults.IdahoSTARS, according to its Web site, is a joint-project between the University of Idaho’s Center on Disabilities and Human Development, and the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children.

HELSINKI, Finland Four widely divergent scientific innovations are finalists in the international $1.8 million Millennium Technology Prize from the Technology Academy of Finland.The inventions - DNA fingerprinting, biomaterials for human tissue regeneration, key elements in mobile communication and fiber optic networks - were created by six scientists, the academy said Tuesday.The winning innovation, to be announced on June 11, will receive $1.2 million, and the three runners up $180,000 each.Sir Alec Jeffreys, a professor in the genetics department at the University Leicester in Britain, is nominated for the invention of DNA fingerprinting.”No other development in modern genetics has had such a profound impact worldwide on the lives of many millions of people,” the academy said.Finalist Robert Langer - an Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who works with the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, a collaborative of the two universities - was cited for “development of innovative biomaterials for controlled drug release and tissue regeneration.” The academy said his technology has “saved and improved the lives of millions of people.”Andrew J. Viterbi, a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California, was chosen for the invention of the Viterbi algorithm, “the key building element in modern wireless and digital communications systems.”And three scientists were cited for the fourth innovation, the erbium-doped fiber amplifier, which made possible high-capacity optical fiber networks: Emmanuel Desurvire, with Thales Corporate Research %26 Technology in France; Randy Giles, with Bell Labs in Murray Hill, N.J.; and David N. Payne, from a professor at the University of Southampton in Britain.The prize, launched by the Finnish government and industry in 2004, rewards achievements in four categories: energy and the environment, communications and information, new materials and processes, and health care and life sciences.Previous winners include Japanese professor Shuji Nakamura for inventions in laser technology and LED lighting and Tim Berners-Lee, the MIT scientist credited with inventing the World Wide Web.

Mobile Internet devices and online communities are merging to a new kind of web diary: “micro-blogging,” where people fire off terse missives about what they are doing or thinking at any given moment.
The postings are bare-bones, on-the-go versions of online journals in which people share their lives and dreams — hence the name micro-blogging.
“Blogging has evolved and become more formalized,” said Yahoo Design Pattern Library curator Christian Crumlish, author of social networking book “The Tower of Many.”
“A beautiful blog entry is an art form, and it takes time. So, micro-blogging fits into your life where you take a minute or two to see what’s going on and go back to work.”
Hot website Twitter has attracted a large following since launching slightly more than two years ago as a way to share Haiku-like text message updates with unlimited numbers of friends instantly via mobile telephones.
The service entices users with its signature line, “What are you doing?”
Startup Utterz, publicly unveiled last year, goes a step further by allowing users to post text, video, photos or audio from mobile telephones to the Internet with a simple call.
“What are the four things you can do with a mobile phone? You can talk, you can send text, you can take pictures and send video,” Utterz president Randy Corke told AFP.
“We want to use the technology that you have in your pocket,” he said.
“We want to make blogging as easy as talking … Our users can literally take their mobile telephone out and capture the experience, and the emotion of their voice, and interview people.”
Websites where people post blogs or share pictures or videos have become ubiquitous and firms like Twitter and Utterz are positioning themselves as places to merge and manage the images and words.
The power of these technologies was unexpectedly unleashed at a recent US tech conference, SXSW, when attendees micro-blogged searing critiques of an on-stage interview of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
“The woman interviewing Zuckerberg is lame,” Utterz user Leora Zellman wrote beneath a live picture she snapped of the interviewer, BusinessWeek magazine’s Sarah Lacey, on stage during the event.
“Never, ever have I seen such a train wreck of an interview,” wrote Twitter user Jason Pontin. “Poor girl, flirtatiously awful though she was.”
Lacey “Twittered” her own response.
“Seriously screw all you guys,” she wrote. “I did my best to ask a range of things.”
Enthusiasm for micro-blogging has prompted numerous blogging and social networking sites to focus attention on ease-of-use and accessibility in a world increasingly fond of mobile net devices.
Top social networking properties Facebook and MySpace offer mobile versions of their sites to increase user accessibility.
Facebook invited Twitter to customize applications for the online community when it opened its platform to outside developers early last year.
Video-sharing superstar YouTube tailors links for mobile telephones, including a special player built into Apple’s iPhones, which combine video, music, Internet and mobile telephone capabilities.
Picture-sharing website Flickr, which added a video feature in April, encourages uploads from camera-equipped mobile telephones.
“New technologies are most accessible when they take something you need to do anyway and make it much easier and much more useful,” Corke said.