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Jamie Oliver launches Samsung Hope Relay charity giving app

Samsung hopes one million dollars will be raised from a new app that donates one pound for every mile you run to charity.

Jason Jenkins
Jason Jenkins is the director of content for CNET in EMEA. Based in London, he has been writing about technology since 1999 and was once thrown out of Regent's Park for testing the UK's first Segway.
Jason Jenkins
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International chef-bot Jamie Oliver and British Olympic cyclist Victoria Pendleton teamed up with Samsung this morning to launch an app that will see the tech giant donating £1 to charity for every mile you run.

Called 'Samsung Hope Relay', the app seemed pretty nifty in the short time I had with it. Once you've downloaded it, you take a picture of your face and move it around so it fits into a circle on the screen, type in your name and email address and it will create an animated character with your face on it.

Then click a button to say you're going for a run or cycle and the app uses GPS to track your movements. You can share your stats and animated character with your Facebook friends and enlist them to help you get to a distance target you set, saving you from doing all the hard work yourself. Have a click through the photo gallery above to see more screenshots from my hands-on and pictures from the press conference, including a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance from David Beckham.

If you're travelling over 25 miles per hour the app stops registering your miles, to stop you plopping the phone in the car and driving about to rack up your total. The app will also stop counting after 26 miles.

The money raised will be split between three charities. These are Kids Company, which helps vulnerable young people in London, International Inspiration, which gives children across the world the chance to play sport, and an as-yet-unnamed charity to be decided by the International Olympic Committee.

Samsung's UK MD Andrew Griffiths said the company is hoping for £1 million to be raised, but the total is open-ended, so it could be greater if the whole country were to get behind it. (Update: Samsung's PR company has just phoned me to say that this information was wrong -- Samsung's contribution is actually capped at $1 million.) You can rack up the miles until 12 August.

The app is available today for Android phones at the Google Play Store, for Bada phones at Samsung's app store and for iPhones here. It will arrive in the UK first, with 20 other countries following shortly.

What do you think -- is this a good idea or not? Will you be forming a team and using this app when running? Let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook wall.

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David Beckham made a super-brief video to encourage us all to download the app.
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Jamie Oliver and Victoria Pendleton on stage at London's City Hall with Samsung UK MD Andrew Griffiths.
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Here's the main screen of the app.

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