Viewers will watch the final scene of upcoming feature film, Nine Lives first. He will then catch the remaining nine segments explaining how the story, about a hapless office worker whose inadvertent bag-swap results in him being pursued by both the police and bumbling gang members, came to be. The sequence of these nine clips will depend on where he is, as determined by the phone's GPS or global positioning system.

Nine Lives, made at the cost of $25,000, is a collaboration between Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) School of Art, Design and Media undergraduates, and its computer engineering undergraduates who created the GPS software that keeps track of the viewer's location and screening the relevant clip.

The film, said NTU's assistant professor Scott Hessels, offers film-makers a new way to tell stories from the traditional seat-bound way, one that can be 'personalised and localised' for each viewer.

Other ways the film-and-technology marriage could pan out, he said, include tourism applications, where tourists in Chinatown can access video clips on the history and sights of the area; or in reality TV shows where contestants in the correct geographical area will get a video clue on their phone telling them their next destination or task.

To download the GPS software or watch a preview of the film, visit www.gpsfilm.com.

Currently, only phones running on Windows Mobile software are supported, although the Nine Lives team is in discussions with Nokia to support its Symbian phone software as well. The patent-pending software, which cost about $45,000 to develop, had been released for non-commercial use.