Qik- a most useful video streaming app for 5800

I was all set to blog about Qik, an app that once you download to your mobile, can then be used to to stream video directly from your phone’s camera onto the web when along came furtiv, another useful piece of software that essentially overcomes one of the shortcomings of the 5800(where do they get these names???).

First, a quick word about Qik(excuse the pun:-).  Qik lets you stream video live from your camera phone directly onto a website where it can be used by others. Either a 3G connection or a wifi connection are of course required for it to work properly. The phone also stores a copy of what’s been streamed so once the live stream is done, you then have the option of uploading your content onto the qik website and setting it either for private or public view.

There are a few other bells and whistles such as being able to chat with your friends in real time while streaming content and also informing your friends via twitter and sms  while streaming video. You can also post video direct to your wall on Facebook if you re the type to let it all hang out. All in all, this is a nifty bit of software that adds functionality to the video recording capabilities of your phone. Of course, the lack of 3G here limits its usage and you can’t really play citizen journalist yet.

Furtiv, the other goodie,  overcomes a shortcoming of the phone that I mentioned in my earlier post, which is the lack of onetouch access to sites such as Picasa. All you have to do now is to download some settings(not even an app) from the furtiv site and you are good to go with sites ranging from youtube to picasa. furtiv is still in beta so its too early to tlak about bells and whistles though a lot more is being promised in the final product. Once the settings have been downloaded and you follow the instructions and allow furtive access to your picasa or youtube account, then an option to upload your photos/videos to these services becomes available in the upload option when you go to the media that you want to upload. Might sound complicated but it’s very simple since there’s no app to download. There are some screenshots on the furtiv website that should give you a better idea of how to go about being furtiv(excuse the meaningless pun again:-)