iReporters

CNN has 750,000 of them. Registered iReporters. Citizens like you and me who are, collectively, much more apt by chance to be witness to history than a few hundred official news reporters. When we see something newsworthy, we just capture it and upload it to CNN. You don't get paid for it (as far as I know), but you get to contribute.

 

iReporting was made possible by camera phones, especially video phones. You can now directly upload media to CNN and other news outlets. In fact, iMovie for Mac has a special upload preset for it that automatically sizes the video to the correct dimensions, formats it and uploads it to CNN.

 

One issue with iReporting style is that it's a little clunky interviewing someone...you never see the interviewer behind the camera, only the interviewee. Apple just patented a method whereby your iPhone can use both cameras to capture the entire interview, switching between you and the subject automatically. The end result would be a seamless interview that looks as if you had used two cameras and edited the shots together.

 

"The new features creatively utilize multiplex video streaming techniques whereby dual cameras on the iPhone could automatically switch back and forth between interviewer and interviewee seamlessly for a live report."

 

What a cool idea.

 

P.S. Isn't that graphic creepy? All patent graphics look like that for some reason. They must go to school to learn how to sketch concepts up as creepily as possible.