Cellphone chat/photoswap software

No product news immediately in sight today, but an interesting cellphone Java app caught our attention. There have been cellphone instant messengers before, but Machiuke.jp* adds the twist of allowing you to snap photos using the phone's camera from within the app and send them immediately to whoever you're chatting to. It's compatible with pretty much any Java phone on any carrier (also a first, we believe), meaning that it should be possible to swap images without worrying about formats and sizes. You can also group chat with up to 10 people at the same time. Work those thumbs!

The only potential impediment we can see to takeup of the app is that registering someone in your group list requires you to enter their cellphone number as well as user ID, which we suspect will limit usage to fairly close friends.

* "machiuke" meaning "standby," referring to the fact that the app will run in the background on the phone's desktop.

Via K-Tai Watch (Japanese).