TALK ABOUT STRETCHING a story. How about this one which claimed that London teenagers were using mobile technology to tackle gun and knife crime? Karate-chopping their assailants with their V1615 phones? Um, no. Using them to make an anti-crime Rap video, actually.

The whole thing was part of a project – Lifewise - to involve 200 youngsters from seven different educational establishments across the London Borough of Wandsworth.

The result was "a professionally-mastered CD of music incorporating anti-violent lyrics written, mixed and produced by the students" along with video promos.

How laudable. It appears the academics have finally found a way to put 'happy slapping' to good use. More importantly, however, is that the students have found how utilise their Vodafone handset for various forms of communication.

For example, they could Skype each other which was especially useful as the students were split over several locations across South London. The handsets also enabled them to access the internet for research purposes and work remotely and with one another.

So that the students didn't abuse their loan handsets, educational specialist, Steljes, provided the handsets with a Vodafone tariif that gave unlimited data, email, Internet browsing and uploading capabilities – but not voice.

The software used was a combination of Steljes Anytime and Wildkey's Wild data which facilitates data collection from mobile phones to PCs.

If kids turn from happy slapping to happing rapping some good has come out of all of this. µ