Another example of why the tech industry and mobile operators don't get along

When you work in consumer electronics, one of the rules that gets drilled into you very early on is that you never do anything to disrupt the holiday selling season. In the US, the month between Thanksgiving and the end of the year can account for three months' worth of sales, if not more. During that time, you don't change prices, you don't alter your ad campaigns, and most of all you don't ever say anything about future products, because that might cause customers to hesitate before making a holiday purchase.

So the CEO of ATT, giving a speech this week in Silicon Valley of all places, says that a 3G version of the iPhone is in the works:

"Has Jobs announced that? I don't think he's announced that, but you'll have it next year."

Not only does he spill the beans, but he acknowledges that Apple hasn't announced it and then talks about it anyway (link). The next day the story is carried by the AP, MSNBC, the Times of London, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the SJ Mercury News (which had the version of the quote above), and 318 other publications according to Google.

In the US, the assessment from a lot of commentators is that this won't have much impact because the iPhone is so popular anyway. Maybe, I guess, although the iPhone isn't sold out, so any loss in sales is still a loss. But in Europe, I think it could be a big problem. iPhone sales there are not going great to begin with, and folks in Europe are generally much more conscious of 3G vs. 2G issues. The acknowledgment that a 3G iPhone is coming could cause a lot of people to hesitate before buying.

If AT&T competed directly with Orange, O2, and T-Mobile Germany, I'd be tempted to speculate that they made the announcement on purpose to hurt the competition. But they don't, so I suspect this is just a case of a CEO who wanted to show that he's not controlled by Steve Jobs but instead demonstrated that he doesn't understand consumer electronics.

Google Maps Mobile - My Location

Google's Map application for mobile is one of the best things that happened to mobile devices. I've enjoyed it in the beginning on BlackBerry devices. As time progresses, they've developed .cab files for Windows Mobile devices which worked w/ some flaws in WM5 but near flawless within WM6. Yesterday, they released a new 2.0 beta for the application to support a new feature called "My Location". This is great for phones without built-in GPS (even if you do have GPS, chances are, your wireless carrier will charge you to use it) where they use nearby cell-tower and other GPS-enabled phone users signal to triangulate your location.

Yours truly downloaded the latest GMAP mobile application tonight to give it a whirl. Installation went fine as usual, however, from my apartment in the West Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, GMAP prompt that it can't find my current location. Bummer. I'll need to try this on my way to work tomorrow morning.

A Maze of Twisty Little Passages



The end of last week was Thanksgiving in the US, the tradition is to be with family, eat too much food and watch football (not necessarily in that order).



Apparently some folks took the chance to work on Android projects too. We are highlighting a few of the projects that caught our eye.



One of the coming of age rituals of any new platform is the porting of the Z-machine – the interpreter used in the Zork series of games from Infocom. Now Android has the Z-machine thanks to sussman and mariusm. The project, called Twisty, is available on Google code hosting. Thanks for the lost productivity you guys.



Testing is also a hot topic on our Google groups. While JUnit is bundled with the Android SDK to make it possible to do unit testing, there are many other kinds of testing, like automated acceptance testing. Positron builds on the Android instrumentation features from the SDK to make automated acceptance testing of Android applications possible. The author, phil.h.smith, has a pretty good introduction on how to use Positron as well.



Plugins for other IDEs are another favorite on the Android Google groups. While there are only rumblings about a NetBeans plugin at present, the idea-android project already has an early release for IntelliJ IDEA thanks to aefimov.box and intelliyole.



Dion Almaer also picked up on a crossover GWT/Android project which looks pretty amazing too. Chronoscope is an open source charting and visualization library written in GWT. The team were able to take the library, and with 8 hours of playing with Android, had a port to the Android platform.



Of course, there are many more Android projects springing up all the time, as a search of the android label on Google code hosting will demonstrate. It's great to see all this activity just a couple of weeks after the SDK was released.

Windows XP vs. Vista

I am sure people have been experience the "lag" from Windows Vista unless they had powerful machines and long hoped for the first service pack to be released. Well, some bad news is that a software development company in Florida, Devil Mountain Software, stated that Windows XP (beta Service Pack 3) has 2x the performance of Vista (Service Pack 1). Vista's first ever service pack is supposed to be released early next year and is supposedly said to boost the operating system's performance.

The competition resulted in Vista taking over 80 seconds to complete the test, compared to the XP's 35 seconds. Vista's performance increased less than 2% compared to the performance without SP1 while XP's SP3 improvement resulted in a 10% gain. The tests, run on a Dell XPS M1710 test bed with a 2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and 1GB of RAM, put Microsoft Office 2007 through a set of productivity tasks, including creating a compound document and supporting workbooks and presentation materials.

This can definitely be an issue for Microsoft as it aspires to increase it's sales of Vista, especially to businesses. It's no wonder my notebook has to "think" to open a PowerPoint.

Questions about Verizon's new "open" attitude

More than half of the traffic to this weblog comes from outside the US, so there are times when I feel obligated (and a little embarrassed) to explain how the mobile market works here. This is one of those moments.

Verizon, the largest US mobile carrier, made headlines in the US today by announcing that by the end of 2008 it's going to make its network available to any device and any application that the user chooses to install (link).

This will seem remarkable to people living in GSM countries where it's normal to choose any device you want. But in the US, it's an unusual idea. Here mobile usage is split between GSM and CDMA. GSM phones have SIM cards, which technically allow you to switch your account to any phone you want. But in practice, almost no users are willing to give up the several hundred dollar subsidy for buying a phone and service plan together, so they only choose phones that come through the operator.

Things are even more restrictive in the CDMA space, where there are no SIM cards. If you buy a Verizon phone, it can only be used with a Verizon account. Same thing for Sprint.

So Verizon's announcement is a nice change, on the face of it. It's also something of a pleasant shock, since Verizon has the reputation of being the most conservative and controlling US operator. But the announcement's actual impact on the market is going to depend on several questions that Verizon hasn't answered yet:

--How will open access be implemented? Verizon says it's going to define a process by which phones can be certified to work on its network. That could be routine or it could turn into a huge barrier to entry. We also don't know how a user's account will be switched between phones. Is Verizon planning to start installing SIM cards in its phones (something that has been done with CDMA in China)? If not, will you have to take the phone to a Verizon store to get it activated? How much will that cost?

Verizon apparently said something about doing activation through a toll-free number, which could be cool.

--How will the service be priced? Verizon's service plans include recovery of the several hundred dollar subsidy for hardware. You pay for the subsidy as part of your monthly bill. Since Verizon doesn't have to recover a subsidy cost on its open access phones, there's about $10 or more a month that it could pass along to consumers in the form of lower bills.

If Verizon doesn't price the open service lower, what happens to the extra money? Does Verizon pocket it? Or will they offer some sort of rebate on purchase of open access phones?

The answer to this one is critical. The US GSM carriers are technically open, but the subsidy prevents significant sales of alternate phones. If Verizon pockets the subsidy money, very few people will take advantage of the open service. The whole thing could turn out to be a PR gesture rather than a genuine change.

But in the hope that Verizon wants it to be more, here's what they ought to do:

--Make the monthly cost of the open plan lower than a traditional service plan, reflecting the absence of a subsidy.
--Make the handset certification process simple and low cost.
--Make it easy for users to switch their account to a new phone (preferably via a SIM card or website or that 800 number, so they don't have to come to a store).

That's an announcement I'd stand up and cheer for.


Impact on the industry

Until we hear the answers to the questions above, it's impossible to guess how impactful this announcement will be. The most important factor may be how the other US operators react. The best result would be if they start competing with each other to see who can make their network more open. If that dynamic takes hold, competitive forces might drive them to really open up even if they don't intend to.

Pesky iPhoto Function "Original" and "Modified" Folders

iPhoto to me is a mediocre photo viewer. I prefer ACDSEE or PICASA but these options aren't available to Mac users. One of the most annoying features in iPhotos is its ability to duplicate sets after sets of photos in the "Originals" and "Modified" photos. I am dedicating this entry to help combat this annoying feature and share with you, what I deemed to be the more "PC" way to manage photo library utilizing iPhoto.

1. Managing the source - after taking a serious amount of pictures from my trusty camera or (downloaded from the internet), I usually like to keep my photos in a dedicated location on my computer (along with my other important documents). By default, I never keep it in where the OS is suggesting me to (ie. Never in "My Documents" on PCs or "[username] - Documents" on OSX). I find my own location being a much easier way to centralize my files (music, photo, or docs) when it comes time to backing things up.

2. iPhoto - Turn off its ability to duplicate a copy into its "Original" photo.
Under iPhoto>Preference>Advanced, check off the box that sayings "Importing: Copy Items to the iPhoto Library". When you are importing, try to go through the iPhoto interface (File>Importing>) instead of dragging the source images by mouse dragging. This step will prevent your images from being duplicated into the "Originals". With this move, you'll find that the images are merely shortcuts to your source. (Its easy to locate the iPhoto Library Originals folder under iPhoto '06, for iPhoto 08, use this Show Package Content reference to get to the Originals folder.

3. Modified folders - I tend to avoid editing in iPhotos (I'd rather use Photoshop to edit the the source). However, in bizarre occasions such as dealing with iPhone's images (no matter how you import photos off of your iPhone, it automatically assumes a modified set is necessary). There is a quick way to fix the problem. Just simple right click on the photos you've just imported into iPhoto and select "Revert to Original". This will get rid of the duplicates in the modified folders.

If this is done right, when you right click on a photo in iPhoto, only "Show File" can be selected (while "Show Original" is gray'd out). Selecting "Show File" should point you right to where your source file location. Whereas the iPhoto default whould give you "Show File" as the modified folder and "Show Original" as the original folder. Boo...

*Important Warning: This article is assuming that you do not want to take advantage of iPhoto's ability to help you keep duplicates while modifying your photos. You are minimizing iPhoto's built-in protection to keep a duplicate in the "Originals" and "Modified" folders. I personally find this iPhoto feature extremely annoying as it triples the size of hard disk space. I am also assuming you've got a clean canvas to work with, meaning you haven't already gone ahead and modified a bunch of images in an old iPhoto library. If you are pretty far along in using iPhoto for its features and have modified a good amount of pictures, you'll have to just start from clean slate and make copies/backups of your "originals" and "modified" photos.

Tip: iPhoneDrive Brings Disc Mode to iPhones

iPhoneDrive ($9.95), from Ecamm Network, allows you to use your iPhone for file storage, something you can't do with Apple's iPod/smartphone combo out-of-the-box, as there's no disk mode for iPhones like there is for iPods.Launching iPhoneDrive brings up the utility’s browser window and toolbar. It is from there you can transfer files and folders back and forth between your Mac OS X computer and

Tip: iPhoneDrive Brings Disc Mode to iPhones

iPhoneDrive ($9.95), from Ecamm Network, allows you to use your iPhone for file storage, something you can't do with Apple's iPod/smartphone combo out-of-the-box, as there's no disk mode for iPhones like there is for iPods.Launching iPhoneDrive brings up the utility’s browser window and toolbar. It is from there you can transfer files and folders back and forth between your Mac OS X computer and

HELP: I need a RDP client on my iPhone

As a network engineer you can use the SSH client to remotely manage your corporate switches and routers from your iPhone. But suppose you are a Windows Server system engineer, you like to use an application better known as Microsoft Terminal Server Client, better known as MSTSC in the Microsoft world. When you start it in XP, you can punch in the name of the remote Windows Server you want to

HELP: I need a RDP client on my iPhone

As a network engineer you can use the SSH client to remotely manage your corporate switches and routers from your iPhone. But suppose you are a Windows Server system engineer, you like to use an application better known as Microsoft Terminal Server Client, better known as MSTSC in the Microsoft world. When you start it in XP, you can punch in the name of the remote Windows Server you want to

Samsung Launches CDMA Phone, MAX

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., has launched its first open market phone - Samsung MAX in the CDMA segment.The slider is launched through the company's own distribution network and aiming at the growing CDMA market, will be available to both Tata Indicom and Reliance Mobile subscribers.Hyundai Kim, Vice President and Head - CDMA Division, Samsung Telecommunications India Pvt. Ltd., said, "We expect

Samsung Launches CDMA Phone, MAX

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., has launched its first open market phone - Samsung MAX in the CDMA segment.The slider is launched through the company's own distribution network and aiming at the growing CDMA market, will be available to both Tata Indicom and Reliance Mobile subscribers.Hyundai Kim, Vice President and Head - CDMA Division, Samsung Telecommunications India Pvt. Ltd., said, "We expect

Android, First Touch

Android (As defined in google)is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications. And Google has been release AndroidSDK, contains tools and API, for developing application under Android Platform.

I have been download the SDK, and in a few day will learn it, and try to code in Android Platform, and i will show you, the reader, how to do it.

Fresh new Nokia 5310 XpressMusic pics

"From the compact Nokia 5310 XpressMusic music phone to the fully-featured Nokia N81 multimedia computer, Nokia offers a range of entertainment-enabled devices for consumers who want their music, games and favourite media with them wherever they go," says Kai Oistamo, Executive Vice President, Nokia. "We believe these full-featured, well-designed devices will be very popular and will help bring

Fresh new Nokia 5310 XpressMusic pics

"From the compact Nokia 5310 XpressMusic music phone to the fully-featured Nokia N81 multimedia computer, Nokia offers a range of entertainment-enabled devices for consumers who want their music, games and favourite media with them wherever they go," says Kai Oistamo, Executive Vice President, Nokia. "We believe these full-featured, well-designed devices will be very popular and will help bring

McAfee Delivers on Triple Play Promise With Mobile Security Offering

McAfee VirusScan Mobile now availableSANTA CLARA, Calif., /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - McAfee, Inc. (NYSE: MFE) today announced that McAfee® VirusScan® Mobile, which is included in McAfee's Triple Play offer, is now available for download at http://us.mcafee.com. McAfee currently offers market-leading defense for consumers' PCs and Internet experiences, and the new mobile security component protects

McAfee Delivers on Triple Play Promise With Mobile Security Offering

McAfee VirusScan Mobile now available SANTA CLARA, Calif., /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - McAfee, Inc. (NYSE: MFE) today announced that McAfee® VirusScan® Mobile, which is included in McAfee's Triple Play offer, is now available for download at http://us.mcafee.com. McAfee currently offers market-leading defense for consumers' PCs and Internet experiences, and the new mobile security component protects

Tons of new Nokia N82 live pics

Here are great fresh new live pics of the Nokia N82. The phone looks amazing in these pics and further down there are pics comparing the N82 to the N95 8GB. Man...the N95 8GB has such a huge screen. If the N95 8GB had the xenon flash then it would have been perfect. Perhaps, Nokia will make the N95 8GB successor with a xenon flash. Enjoy the pics.Pics from mobile01i think Nokia N82 very cool. And

Tons of new Nokia N82 live pics

Here are great fresh new live pics of the Nokia N82. The phone looks amazing in these pics and further down there are pics comparing the N82 to the N95 8GB. Man...the N95 8GB has such a huge screen. If the N95 8GB had the xenon flash then it would have been perfect. Perhaps, Nokia will make the N95 8GB successor with a xenon flash. Enjoy the pics.

Korea first country in the world to conduct a program to Cure Mobile Phone Addicts

Korea is believed to be the first country in the world to conduct a program to help cure mobile phone addiction among the young.A civic group called School Beautiful Movement, together with the Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion and SK Telecom, has launched a campaign to teach the youth proper cell phone use. The group hope that the program will help prevent mobile phone abuse

Korea first country in the world to conduct a program to Cure Mobile Phone Addicts

Korea is believed to be the first country in the world to conduct a program to help cure mobile phone addiction among the young.A civic group called School Beautiful Movement, together with the Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion and SK Telecom, has launched a campaign to teach the youth proper cell phone use. The group hope that the program will help prevent mobile phone abuse

I call me

“i call me” is a mobile phone accessory and a key chain1,use your mobile phone to call the “i call me”(send a signal),”i call me” rings. It is useful,when you can’t find your keys(or wallet,or other)2,use “i call me” to call your mobile phone(just push the button),your mobile phone rings.so you can find your mobile phone.Also it’s very helpful,when you need to pretend that someone calls youIt's a

I call me

“i call me” is a mobile phone accessory and a key chain1,use your mobile phone to call the “i call me”(send a signal),”i call me” rings. It is useful,when you can’t find your keys(or wallet,or other)2,use “i call me” to call your mobile phone(just push the button),your mobile phone rings.so you can find your mobile phone.Also it’s very helpful,when you need to pretend that someone calls you

Yellow Gold/Diamond Lines 1GB - SwissMemory™ Prestige

The SwissMemory™ Prestige collection is available only in shells of solid 925 Sterling Silver or 18 ct. White and Yellow Gold. Some designs are handcrafted, mounted with natural diamonds by the world’s best craftsmen, all 100% Swiss made.PRODUCT DETAILS18 ct. Yellow GoldUSB-Memory with 1GB memory stickBladeNail file with screwdriverScissorsKey ringPrice USD: $6,000.00Price CAN: $7,000.00Style

Yellow Gold/Diamond Lines 1GB - SwissMemory™ Prestige

The SwissMemory™ Prestige collection is available only in shells of solid 925 Sterling Silver or 18 ct. White and Yellow Gold. Some designs are handcrafted, mounted with natural diamonds by the world’s best craftsmen, all 100% Swiss made.PRODUCT DETAILS18 ct. Yellow GoldUSB-Memory with 1GB memory stickBladeNail file with screwdriverScissorsKey ringPrice USD: $6,000.00Price CAN: $7,000.00Style

Facebook - what, why, how?

Yes, I know it's been awhile since my last blog post - but rest assured, I haven't forgotten about my blog, it's just that lately I've been dedicating more time to other social channels, especially Twitter and Facebook, and of course also my Second Life. I really believe that you have to get immersed in any new technology in order to really understand it and be able to figure out why it works for so many people.

I already wrote about what I believe to be the magic behind Twitter, and today I'd like to share with you some of my thoughts on Facebook. I decided to choose this subject not only because I find Facebook quite fascinating, but also because there are a lot of people out there wondering what FB is all about and what it should/can be used for. In fact, FB might seem pretty straightforward, but it can take some time to figure it out. And that is why I've decided to share my personal experience with FB.

Ok, let's just start with the basics. As you probably know, FB is a very popular social networking site, which enables you to create your profile and connect with friends. In addition to this, it has its own developer platform, which developers can use to build different applications that enable users to do more or less useful activities. Yes, these apps only work in the closed environment of FB, making the site almost some kind of web operating system that doesn't want to talk to the rest of the web on its own, but requires developers to learn its language (called FBML) to bring the magic of the web and social interactions to it. Not surprisingly, many people criticize FB for being a walled garden, and Google is now trying hard to out open social networks with OpenSocial; but for an average Joe all this is not very relevant. If you've got most of your friends on FB and a lot of fun things to do, you don't really care how it's done, so I'll discuss the OpenSocial vs FB platform (or the new FB advertising options) some other time. Today, I'd just like to focus on the user perspective about various uses of FB apps, which in my opinion are the magic ingredient that make FB so appealing to an increasing number of users (some might add: and such a time waster ;) ).

I think we can divide FB apps, and consequently FB's value for the users, in three main categories:
  • Self-promotion and branding: At its core, FB is a place where you can build your own profile. When we build an online profile, we create our online persona, which will be seen by our friends or even the entire world. We might not realize that, but when we fill in various profile fields or choose our profile picture, we decide how we want to be presented to the world. You might want to emphasize your professional side or your fun side; but in both cases we make a choice in how we "brand" ourselves to our public (which we can choose by limiting our profile only to contacts for example). And there are many FB functions and apps that can help us build our persona (or even our personal brand), for example: various default profile options (picture, interests, work & education info, favorite things,...), joining groups (the FB groups function is awful, but I find it useful to publicly express my interest in certain topics), labeling yourself as a fan of something (made possible by the new product pages), your choice and variety of friends, the choice of profile layout (choosing which info to make public, having your music playlist, favorite quotes or the result of a personality test displayed, ...), your FB statuses, the items that appear in our mini-feed etc.. Some people even prefer having multiple profiles for different personas (for example, a different account for their Second Life avatar). Building our FB persona can be quite a task, and a lot of people choose to use just this aspect of FB. They register, fill in the info and connect with friends, and use FB just to say "I'm online too - if you want to connect to me use my e-mail/phone number".
  • Social play: The next category of FB apps enables us to have fun and keep in touch with out friends. We all have busy lives, a lot of our friends live in different cities or even parts of the world, and it's often not easy to find the time or way to hang out together. And here is where FB can help: it enables us to keep in touch with friend through different social (often playful) activities. Even if you're extremely busy, you can always find a minute or two to poke your friends, throw a sheep at them, turn them into a zombie or send them a virtual pet, flower or image. All these apps help us say "I'm thinking about you" in different ways. It might look silly, but it feels nice to receive virtual cakes when you set your status to ill. We often like to say "It's the thought that counts", and I think the social play apps in FB are a great proof of that. Also, the FB news feed, which displays various news about our friends, can help us feel closer to each other as it's constantly reminding of people, telling us what they are doing and providing an easy way to interact with them ("Click here to hug your friend too"). Sure, the feed items are a great way for developers to promote their app, but it does have some positive side effects I've just mentioned.
  • (Social) toolbox: The last category of apps is represented by a set of utilities that can help you save time, provide useful information and even be more organized. These apps can make FB a more "serious" tool. They enable us things like checking our e-mail, collaborating on documents with friends, getting info about weather, keeping track of what time it is for our friends that live in different time zones (my latest favorite app!), displaying latest blog entries from your friends and yourself and much more. These apps are the main reason why people are considering using FB as a business tool or even an e-learning tool. It's comfortable to be able to do so many different things (from play to work) on one single site, and if we want so, we can even make our "serious" activities social by choosing to display info from utility apps on our profile, and thus provide some valuable info to our contacts (I like to use FB Posted Items for this purpose).
These categories can of course often be overlapping - for example, social play apps or social toolbox apps can be used as a branding tool, and often the line between social play and social toolbox can be a fine one. An important point to remember here is that you don't need to use every aspect of Facebook; use what makes sense to you. It's fine if you just want to create a basic profile, and it' fine if you just want to use FB as a social toolbox and ignore the play aspects.



I'd like to conclude this post with some basic Facebook tips that I hope can help you in the process of getting to know FB and finding the added value of this tool for you:
  • Play with FB, but make sure you've got friends to play with. Try out different apps, explore, and be curious, but try not to annoy your friends while doing that. You don't have to send out invites to ALL of your friends for EVERY app you add (there's always a Skip button!). Show your friends you care and know them by sending them invitations for apps that you are pretty sure will be interesting for them.
  • Take some time to adjust your privacy settings. Decide which info/activities can be public, for friends or entirely private. You can also decide whether you want your name to appear in search or not. In the future we'll have the abilities to group friends and have different profiles for close friends, professional contacts, family etc.; but until we don't, try to figure out the best way to present yourself to all the people on your contacts list. You might want consider using the limited profile contacts you don't know well. You can find all these settings under the Privacy link in the upper right corner.
  • Remember that you don't need to have every app you use on your profile. You can access apps from the left-hand menu or the application list. Removing an app box from your profile only will not delete the app, and you will still be able to receive gifts, bite chumps and do all the other *fun* activities. Your friends can often see your app info (for example: Linkeness score) from the app itself, so there's really no need to keep everything on your profile. I know it's not easy, but try not to overload your profile page. When I choose what I want on my profile or not, I like to think about what info I can provide to a new friend that want to get to know me better, and what info I can provide to friends that I haven't spoken in a while. So, to put it simply, take care of your persona, and remember that you can choose the visibility for each profile element. Some info are for friends only while you might want to have some available public.
But of course, this post is based entirely of my Facebook experience in the past few months, and I'm sure we all have our own story to tell. So I'm really interested in hearing your Facebook story: how and why are you using FB, and what is in your opinion the added value of FB over other social networks? Also, what do you think are the best tips you could give to people just starting with FB or people still trying to figure out what the fuss is about?

LG Viewty Phone Wins Heart of Europe

LG Electronics is excited about European consumers' initial response to its latest strategic product, the Viewty phone.The company said Thursday that the first 200,000 units sold out in only three weeks in 14 European countries.The Viewty is a high-end five million pixel camera phone with a 3-inch wide screen. Most camera phones in the market have a picture resolution between 0.5 million and

LG Viewty Phone Wins Heart of Europe

LG Electronics is excited about European consumers' initial response to its latest strategic product, the Viewty phone.The company said Thursday that the first 200,000 units sold out in only three weeks in 14 European countries.The Viewty is a high-end five million pixel camera phone with a 3-inch wide screen. Most camera phones in the market have a picture resolution between 0.5 million and

SAMSUNG Anycall J208

New device fuses full Web-browsing with simplicity and ingenuity(Hong Kong, 21 November, 2007) – Samsung Electronics today introduced its latest 3G handset – the stylish candy bar SAMSUNG Anycall J208 – bringing novice 3G users supreme connectivity and video quality, putting the world within reach no matter where one travels.The J208 is equipped with a 262K TFT color display, a dual camera with

SAMSUNG Anycall J208

New device fuses full Web-browsing with simplicity and ingenuity(Hong Kong, 21 November, 2007) – Samsung Electronics today introduced its latest 3G handset – the stylish candy bar SAMSUNG Anycall J208 – bringing novice 3G users supreme connectivity and video quality, putting the world within reach no matter where one travels.The J208 is equipped with a 262K TFT color display, a dual camera with

Unlocked iPhone for 999€ - T-Mobile Germany

In a move to combat Vodaphone's legal challenge, Germany's Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) will sell a unlocked iPhone for 999 euros (Roughly $1,500 USD). This will make the first official unlocked version of an iPhone. Looks like this game is getting interesting. The big bad Apple has to give in on its stance of a locked device. What does this mean moving forward? Will people be willing to pay for this unlocked iPhone just to avoid a lengthy contract? Will Apple frown upon folks who imported the legitimate unlocked iPhone to the US or worst yet, other countries where Apple has not reached? Will Apple enforce the same stupid two-phone limit AND must be purchased on a Credit Card rule towards these outrageously priced unlocked phones?

Source: Reuter, Engadget

FORENSIC RECRUITMENT

FORENSIC RECRUITMENTI get alot of enquiries asking about computer and mobile telephone recruitment. I try and answer as many queries as I can but I can't deal with all enquiries for those seeking employment. Moreover, it seems to me, at any rate, that alot of enquiries I get would be better directed to a recruitment consultant who specialises in this area and is more able to deal with the

A Stitch in Time



Background: While developing my first useful (though small) application for Android, which was a port of an existing utility I use when podcasting, I needed a way of updating a clock displayed on the UI at regular intervals, but in a lightweight and CPU efficient way.



Problem: In the original application I used java.util.Timer to update the clock, but that class is not such a good choice on Android. Using a Timer introduces a new thread into the application for a relatively minor reason. Thinking in terms of mobile applications often means re-considering choices that you might make differently for a desktop application with relatively richer resources at its disposal. We would like to find a more efficient way of updating that clock.



The Application: The rest of the story of porting the application will be detailed in future blog entries, but if you are interested in the application in question and the construction of it, you can read about it in a not-so-recent Developer.com article about using Matisse (a GUI builder for Swing). The original application is a Java Swing and SE application. It is like a stopwatch with a lap timer that we use when recording podcasts; when you start the recording, you start the stopwatch. Then for every mistake that someone makes, you hit the flub button. At the end you can save out the bookmarked mistakes which can be loaded into the wonderful Audacity audio editor as a labels track. You can then see where all of the mistakes are in the recording and edit them out.



The article describing it is: http://www.developer.com/java/ent/print.php/3589961



In the original version, the timer code looked like this:



class UpdateTimeTask extends TimerTask {
public void run() {
long millis = System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime;
int seconds = (int) (millis / 1000);
int minutes = seconds / 60;
seconds = seconds % 60;

timeLabel.setText(String.format("%d:%02d", minutes, seconds));
}
}

And in the event listener to start this update, the following Timer() instance is used:

if(startTime == 0L) {
startTime = evt.getWhen();
timer = new Timer();
timer.schedule(new UpdateTimeTask(), 100, 200);
}


In particular, note the 100, 200 parameters. The first parameter means wait 100 ms before running the clock update task the first time. The second means repeat every 200ms after that, until stopped. 200 ms should not be too noticeable if the second resolution happens to fall close to or on the update. If the resolution was a second, you could find the clock sometimes not updating for close to 2 seconds, or possibly skipping a second in the counting, it would look odd).



When I ported the application to use the Android SDKs, this code actually compiled in Eclipse, but failed with a runtime error because the Timer() class was not available at runtime (fortunately, this was easy to figure out from the error messages). On a related note, the String.format method was also not available, so the eventual solution uses a quick hack to format the seconds nicely as you will see.



Fortunately, the role of Timer can be replaced by the android.os.Handler class, with a few tweaks. To set it up from an event listener:



private Handler mHandler = new Handler();

...

OnClickListener mStartListener = new OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View v) {
if (mStartTime == 0L) {
mStartTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
mHandler.removeCallbacks(mUpdateTimeTask);
mHandler.postDelayed(mUpdateTimeTask, 100);
}
}
};


A couple of things to take note of here. First, the event doesn't have a .getWhen() method on it, which we handily used to set the start time for the timer. Instead, we grab the System.currentTimeMillis(). Also, the Handler.postDelayed() method only takes one time parameter, it doesn't have a "repeating" field. In this case we are saying to the Handler "call mUpdateTimeTask() after 100ms", a sort of fire and forget one time shot. We also remove any existing callbacks to the handler before adding the new handler, to make absolutely sure we don't get more callback events than we want.



But we want it to repeat, until we tell it to stop. To do this, just put another postDelayed at the tail of the mUpdateTimeTask run() method. Note also that Handler requires an implementation of Runnable, so we change mUpdateTimeTask to implement that rather than extending TimerTask. The new clock updater, with all these changes, looks like this:



private Runnable mUpdateTimeTask = new Runnable() {
public void run() {
final long start = mStartTime;
long millis = SystemClock.uptimeMillis() - start;
int seconds = (int) (millis / 1000);
int minutes = seconds / 60;
seconds = seconds % 60;

if (seconds < 10) {
mTimeLabel.setText("" + minutes + ":0" + seconds);
} else {
mTimeLabel.setText("" + minutes + ":" + seconds);
}

mHandler.postAtTime(this,
start + (((minutes * 60) + seconds + 1) * 1000));
}
};


and can be defined as a class member field.



The if statement is just a way to make sure the label is set to 10:06 instead of 10:6 when the seconds modulo 60 are less than 10 (hopefully String.format() will eventually be available). At the end of the clock update, the task sets up another call to itself from the Handler, but instead of a hand-wavy 200ms before the update, we can schedule it to happen at a particular wall-clock time — the line: start + (((minutes * 60) + seconds + 1) * 1000) does this.



All we need now is a way to stop the timer when the stop button is pressed. Another button listener defined like this:



OnClickListener mStopListener = new OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View v) {
mHandler.removeCallbacks(mUpdateTimeTask);
}
};


will make sure that the next callback is removed when the stop button is pressed, thus interrupting the tail iteration.



Handler is actually a better choice than Timer for another reason too. The Handler runs the update code as a part of your main thread, avoiding the overhead of a second thread and also making for easy access to the View hierarchy used for the user interface. Just remember to keep such tasks small and light to avoid slowing down the user experience.



So that's it for the first of what will be a series of Android tips. Hopefully this will save you a little head scratching on what will probably be a fairly common thing to want to do (i.e. make something happen or update at regular intervals in a lightweight way in your application). There is plenty of more material from my experience of porting this very simple application which will be covered in some of the future "tips" articles. There are some other great tips being discussed as well as an opportunity ask questions at the Android Developers Discussion Group.

Mobile Phone Alarm 'dangerous'

Mobile Phone Alarm 'dangerous'I read an interesting news article reported by kvue.com about a woman in the East Austin area of the US who found that when she dialled "911" on her mobile telephone it had an audible alarm that activated. In itself the alarm noise was not excessively loud and it may not be a problem for those who have a disability and need confirmation that "911" has been

Sony Ericsson Concept Phone Has Full-Sized USB Port [Concept]

Putting a full-sized USB port in a phone is such a simple idea, even a caveman could think of it. Yet, until now, nobody has. Vincent Palicki's design features such a port by the number keys, allowing devices like thumb drives to plug in and transfer MP3s, movies and documents. Cellphone makers, pay attention...this is a good idea. [Yanko Design]

Sony Ericsson Concept Phone Has Full-Sized USB Port [Concept]

Putting a full-sized USB port in a phone is such a simple idea, even a caveman could think of it. Yet, until now, nobody has. Vincent Palicki's design features such a port by the number keys, allowing devices like thumb drives to plug in and transfer MP3s, movies and documents. Cellphone makers, pay attention...this is a good idea. [Yanko Design]

Gplus GP810

Gplus GP810Here is the latest phone from Gplus, the GP810. Gplus is a pretty common name in Taiwan releasing many phones. This time it's a slider phone and features 260K color QVGA screen, 3 mega pixel AF camera, microSD support, measures 98x49x14.5 mm and weighs 77 grams. It also has a nice brushed metal look.

Gplus GP810

Gplus GP810Here is the latest phone from Gplus, the GP810. Gplus is a pretty common name in Taiwan releasing many phones. This time it's a slider phone and features 260K color QVGA screen, 3 mega pixel AF camera, microSD support, measures 98x49x14.5 mm and weighs 77 grams. It also has a nice brushed metal look.

E-Ten's Glofiish M800 with VGA, HSDPA, WiFi, and GPS -- now official

Why hello hello Mr. M800, thanks for officially joining the QWERTY party. Hot on the heels of their X800 launch comes the keyboard totin' M800 sharing most of the same goodies included that 2.8-inch, 480 x 640 (VGA!) touchscreen. If you love WinMo 6 Professional powered by a 500MHz Samsung S3C2442 CPU and riding atop quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, tri-band UMTS/HSDPA data, SiRF Star III GPS, WiFi b/g,

E-Ten's Glofiish M800 with VGA, HSDPA, WiFi, and GPS -- now official

Why hello hello Mr. M800, thanks for officially joining the QWERTY party. Hot on the heels of their X800 launch comes the keyboard totin' M800 sharing most of the same goodies included that 2.8-inch, 480 x 640 (VGA!) touchscreen. If you love WinMo 6 Professional powered by a 500MHz Samsung S3C2442 CPU and riding atop quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, tri-band UMTS/HSDPA data, SiRF Star III GPS, WiFi b/g,

JCB TOUGHPHONE (Sonim XP1)

This unusual looking handset is the JCB TOUGHPHONE (yes, it really is spelled all in capitals). There are no prizes for guessing what the TOUGHPHONE's main sales proposition is - but in case you haven't guessed it, the clue is in the TOUGHPHONE's name.The TOUGHPHONE is rated to at least IP52

JCB TOUGHPHONE (Sonim XP1)

This unusual looking handset is the JCB TOUGHPHONE (yes, it really is spelled all in capitals). There are no prizes for guessing what the TOUGHPHONE's main sales proposition is - but in case you haven't guessed it, the clue is in the TOUGHPHONE's name.The TOUGHPHONE is rated to at least IP52

Amazon Kindle: Not a home run, but an interesting start

By now I assume you've read about Amazon's Kindle e-book device. I think it's interesting and important, but more for its business infrastructure than for the device itself. And I'm not at all sure that it'll be a commercial success, unless it gets a lot more content quickly.


What they announced

Kindle's hardware is a lot like that of the Sony and Iliad e-book readers. I won't bother repeating all of the specs; you can find a good summary on Engadget here and here and in a lengthy Newsweek essay here.

The industrial design of the device looks uninspiring to me. It's made of white plastic, a color scheme that most people associate with ease of use, low price, and limited features. Considering Amazon's strong emphasis on ease of use in its announcement today, I guess the color makes sense, but it's at odds with the $399 price.

I haven't touched a Kindle yet, so maybe it looks nicer in person. But in the photographs its sloping edges and slant-key keyboard do nothing for me. It looks a bit like a badly-carved wedge of Parmesan cheese. There are a total of 54 buttons, controls, and keys on the face of the device, so naturally it looks cluttered. There's virtually none of the lust-inducing elegance of the iPhone; the design screams "utilitarian."

"Is it just me or is that thing one hell of an ugly thing to walk around with?" --Comment posted to Newsweek's article on the Kindle

The design is not necessarily a bad thing; the device is going to live or die based on its usefulness, not its looks. But the lack of a lust factor makes people much more willing to nit-pick its features and price. So far Kindle is rated 2.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon's own website, with most of the negative ratings coming from people who have never even touched the device.


Clever wireless, vulnerable business model

Interesting use of the network. Things get a lot more elegant when you look at the services attached to Kindle. Amazon has built in a radio that talks to Sprint's EVDO data network. Wireless is used to deliver almost all content to the device (except for MP3 files, which sync via a USB cable). This is both attractive and disturbing.

The attractive part is that Amazon can pre-test each Kindle device to make sure they connect to the Sprint network before they get shipped to the customer. This is a huge advantage over WiFi. One of the dirty little secrets of WiFi is that non-PCs often have a lot of trouble connecting to WiFi routers in homes and offices. I don't know why this happens, but I suspect it's because the router vendors test their hardware mostly against PCs, and never find the bugs in connecting to other devices. Trouble-shooting a Kindle that couldn't find the network would be a nightmare, and Amazon has bypassed the whole issue by leaving WiFi out of the device.

I also like Amazon's decision not to hit its users with a monthly fee to access the network. Instead, the charges are embedded in the cost of downloaded content. This means that users who buy a lot of content will be subsidizing the ones who read only a little, but Amazon has hidden the charges so well that I don't think anyone will notice. Kindle makes the wireless network do what it should do: Disappear.

I have two worries about the use of EVDO. The first is that if someone lives outside of network coverage (like at my house) their Kindle won't work properly. I would have preferred to see WiFi included as a backup. The second problem is that because Amazon has to pay for that wireless connection, it has to tax virtually any information transmitted to the device. You can load documents onto the device by sending it an e-mail, but you'll pay 10 cents for every message. That doesn't sound like much, but it's annoying to have to pay anything at all for something that's normally free.

Likewise weblogs: You have to pay $1-2 per month for every weblog that you want delivered to your device. That's understandable if you look at Amazon's expenses, but it's astonishing for something that's free on a PC. What's worse, the most enthusiastic readers -- the people most likely to buy Kindle -- are the people likely to be scanning 20 blogs a day. They won't pay $20-$40 a month just to read blogs.

One workaround would be to subscribe to an e-mail blog aggregator like Feed Blitz and have it send a daily digest to your Kindle. That'll presumably cost 10 cents a day -- $3 a month, for unlimited blogs. That is, assuming Amazon doesn't put a size limit on the messages sent to Kindle.

The relatively closed nature of Kindle has led to some angry commentary on ebook enthusiast sites that you'd expect to cheer the product. For an example, there's an essay on Mobile Read here.


Self-publishing: Nice idea, but...

I was delighted to see that Amazon is allowing authors to self-publish e-books for the Kindle. You just submit them to the Amazon Digital Text Platform, set the suggested price, and Amazon adds them to its catalog (link).

The catch is that Amazon pays you only 35% of the suggested price of the book (link). They keep 65% -- for the amazing service of adding your book to their catalog (basically, they shift some bits around on a server). And by the way, if there is any bad debt, Amazon doesn't pay you any royalties at all on that sale, even though they're the ones who failed to collect.

By comparison, Apple takes 30% of iTunes revenue, and NTT DoCoMo takes about 11% of revenue from content and apps sold over its network.



I'd love to hear from the folks at Amazon if there's a reasonable business justification for keeping such a huge cut of self-publishing revenue, but I think it's probably for two reasons:

--Amazon is greedy, and/or

--They don't want to completely undercut the royalty structure of print publishers (who typically pay up to 15% royalties on a printed book)

Either way, Amazon's royalty structure is outrageous. And it won't last. One of the most important aspects of electronic publishing is its ability to change the wretched economic structure of the industry so authors get the majority of the revenue for their work (I've written about the economics of it here). The change is inevitable, and if Amazon tries to hold its current royalty structure it'll eventually just drive people to other e-book platforms that don't rip off authors.


Will it succeed? It's the content, dummy.

All of the issues covered above will affect the success of Kindle, but ultimately the sales of an ebook reader depend on having a huge library of reasonably priced content -- books and periodicals. Lack of sufficient books is what killed the last generation of ebook readers, Rocket eBook and Softbook (I worked at Softbook for a short while, so I saw the situation there first hand).

Judged by that standard, Kindle is off to a surprisingly mediocre start. There are some promising signs. For example, people don't like paying hardcover prices for intangible ebooks, so Amazon is pricing current best-sellers at $9.99, compared to about $15-$16 for hardcover. There are hints in some articles that Amazon is even subsidizing some books to hit this price. The price difference isn't big enough to make people buy Kindle, but it helps to overcome resistance. Good move.

The problem is in the library of other books. Or I should say the non-library. There are supposedly about 90,000 books available for Kindle currently, which sounds like a lot but actually makes for a poor selection. To get an idea of what was available, I took a quick look at the titles available from several prominent science fiction authors -- Niven, Brin, Asimov, Simak, Vinge, etc. (hey, I work in the tech industry, that's what I read). The selection is quite bad -- for many authors, the only Kindle editions are their second-rate books. Or there are a bunch of individual short stories available for 99 cents each, but not most of the novels. I strongly suspect that Amazon is counting each of those short stories as one of the 90,000 "books," because they are all labeled as books in the website. If true, that means the actual number of real books for the device has been heavily exaggerated.

Try the test yourself -- go to the search page here and type in your favorite author's name. Let me know what you find. Maybe fields other than science fiction have a better selection. I hope so.

There's nothing that makes an ebook customer angrier than paying $400 for a device and then finding that most of the things they want to read on it are not available. The iPod succeeded even though a lot of songs were missing from iTunes at first -- but remember that people could rip their own CD collections, and install MP3s for free. Amazon doesn't have a base of content that its users can shift to the reader, and it charges money for any document transferred to the device. So it has to fill the library on its own, quickly.

I think Amazon has a lot of work to do here.

I'm intrigued that about 16 newspapers and magazines are available for Kindle. Unlike books, newspapers and magazines are viewed as disposable, so people are less resistant to buying them electronically. And getting instant delivery of a weekly magazine is a significant advantage over waiting a few days for it to appear in the mail.

Judging by Amazon's price to receive the San Jose Mercury News (Silicon Valley's Incredible Shrinking Newspaper) on Kindle, prices are about 40% less than print subscription. That's not bad. What I don't know is whether the Kindle editions of the papers and magazines will be the full text of the print version, or just excerpts. If anything's left out, people will be turned off.

Amazon must get a critical mass of content -- meaning a lot more magazines and newspapers, and rapid growth in books. If it can do that, Kindle may finally jump-start the ebook industry. It won't explode overnight, but Amazon has a long history of forcing its investors to wait years for the full payoff on investments. If Amazon can maintain that patience, I think it Kindle has a chance.

But I sure hope they make the next version of it look nicer.

Google Unveils Android Mobile OS in Video Demo

The last year has seen a great deal of speculation about Google introducing a mobile phone onto the market. In the last few months, it has become fairly clear that Google would not in fact be releasing a mobile phone - but instead was creating an open source mobile phone operating system that would integrate fully with Google's existing services and offer developers the ability to create a wide

Google Unveils Android Mobile OS in Video Demo

The last year has seen a great deal of speculation about Google introducing a mobile phone onto the market. In the last few months, it has become fairly clear that Google would not in fact be releasing a mobile phone - but instead was creating an open source mobile phone operating system that would integrate fully with Google's existing services and offer developers the ability to create a wide

See the iPhone SNL Sketch that Never Aired

A few days ago, Gizmodo posted a video of a Saturday Night Live iPhone sketch that never aired. I'm sure you've all seen the latest iPhone campaign where "random" street goers testify in front of a black backdrop about how the iPhone has changed their lives. Saturday Night Live evidently produced a sketch based on this ad campaign, but it never aired as it was cut due to another sketch running

See the iPhone SNL Sketch that Never Aired

A few days ago, Gizmodo posted a video of a Saturday Night Live iPhone sketch that never aired. I'm sure you've all seen the latest iPhone campaign where "random" street goers testify in front of a black backdrop about how the iPhone has changed their lives. Saturday Night Live evidently produced a sketch based on this ad campaign, but it never aired as it was cut due to another sketch running

Windows Home Server: For The Average User

If you're like me, you backup all your digital files/media to a external HDD. You also may not like posting pictures on a photo sharing site due to time consumption, possibilities of lost files, etc. Security is another issue where you want to share pictures but only with particular people and online storage or email is not a solution for all of the above. Here is a good alternative...Windows Home Server. Some key features of this software is that it allows you to organize all your media/files in one central hub, backup your files on all PCs automatically, recover lost files or even entire PCs, access from networked PCs to all your Windows Home Server files, and even a personalized Web address for sharing your photos and streaming home videos. As I have, many will ask what to do when one of your drives crash. Though not as good as a RAID solution, a workaround is that you can set up the server to backup duplicates across multiple drives.

Now, if you don't have a machine laying around or lazy to build one like me, I definitely think this is the perfect remedy...HP MediaSmart Server. There are two models to choose from on Amazon w/ free shipping (currently, there is a special offer and you can sign up for free webinars posted on their site):

Both are currently out-of-stock but you can still pre-order and wait for inventory. Both come with a 1.8Ghz AMD Live/64 Bit Sempron Processer, 4 internal hard drive bays, 4 USB 2.0 ports, and one eSATA port for storage expandability. Please keep in mind that a monitor is not needed as this is a server not a normal PC. Setup is said to be easy as just connecting it to power and your home network. On top of all this, it fits nicely into a small machine (9.7 x 9.2 x 5.5 inches; 10 pounds) and is visually pleasing. Initial reviews are fantastic and I can't wait to get my hands on it!

Android: the first week

Wow, what a week! The response from the community on Monday's Android SDK release has been overwhelming. Our forums have been flooded and we're glad to be helping people dig in writing new applications.



A handful of quick notes for this Friday evening:




  1. We've released a quick point-revision of the SDK to fix some high-priority issues. You can now download M3-RC22a and read the release notes. Don't forget to get Eclipse to update the ADT plugin.


  2. A couple of good articles on the web for your reading pleasure:



  3. Finally, we've split our forums into topic areas to make them a bit easier to manage. Be sure to check out the details and join the discussion.



Have a great weekend, and happy Android coding.

T-Mobile Unlimited Email Plan - $9.99

The cost of smartphones have definitely come down in the recent months. I remember three years ago when I first go into it, a relatively cumbersome smartphone would cost you $500 with no incentives or rebates. These days, you can pick up a nice smartphone as low as $0. I was able to pickup my AT&T 8525 via Amazon.com at for $79.99(MSRP $599).

The data plans, however, have always been expensive. Most plans have always been around $29 to $45 depending on the carrier. I remember complaining about the lack of wifi and high cost of mobile data plans which can keep the growth of mobile market behind. Lately, I noticed a trend in reducing the cost of data plans. TMobile has always been the leader in cheaper data plans. I remember my BlackBerry 7100 utilized a $19 unlimited data/email plan. Then, came the AT&T’s iPhone Data Plan at $19.99. Somehow, I found out about a similar AT&T data plan known as the Media Max 200, which is also $19 for my 8525 as well. I believe Sprint is one of the carriers lowering the cost of their EVDO plan as well.

I ran across this Blackberry Pearl offer as I was checking out the T-Mobile lineup this afternoon. In this promotion, they are offering $9.99 Unlimited email plan to new Blackberry Pearl customers signing up with a voice plan. I think its aggressive and I applaud Tmobile’s attempt to attract more customers in the consumer smartphone sector. Although I personally would need the data part of it for websurfing.

Leopard OS X and Vista Clean Install

I've been sitting quietly on the sideline watching the Leopard drama unfold for a good three weeks now. I've gotten a copy of Leopard but decided to wait it out a bit before quickly updating my MBP. Just incase there are some horror stories after the upgrade. After reading some reviews online and talking to some co-workers, I've decided against the "upgrade" route and decided to go for a clean install. The process was simple, first I used Bootcamp Beta to wipe out the Vista partition I had and then used disk utilities from Leopard bootup to erase and format the HDD to a clean slate.

One little trick to install, skip the "checking the stability of DVD" as you begin to install the OS. This process takes about 20 minutes and its a waste of time. I took my chances and skipped at 15% into the checking process. Total installation took approx. 35 minutes and the end result was fabulous. I checked for software update right away and re-installed all of the applications. One little glitch that I noticed was while launching Google Earth for the first time, the graphic beneath the mouse cursor was blank. This went away after I re-launched the app.

Re-installing Windows Vista was not as easy. Bootcamp partitioned my hardrive but Windows refused to install on it because it was not done in NTFS. I had to reformat on the fly (taking any chances of wiping out the bootloader reference) and proceed. After the install, I didn't realize that Leopard OS X disc is needed to update the drivers (in my defense, while in Bootcamp beta, the assistant would ask you to prepare a driver disc, while in this case, they just partitioned and asked for installation disc). During this process, the laptop gave me a "blue screen of death" towards the end of Bootcamp driver installation. My second attempt was better.

In the end, I was able to get everything up and running the way I wanted to be and I do appreciate some of the new features of Leopard (Stacking, Spaces, Cover Flow Finder, iChat improvement, etc.). I think it sucks that Leopard doesn't come with the standard iLife 08 package as my Tiger disc did.

Samsung i560 (SGH-i560) Preview

We don't have all the details of the Samsung i560 at present, but we can tell you that this is a 3G slider phone running the Symbian S60 3rd Edition operating system.The SGH-i560 has 150MB of internal memory, expandable through microSD cards. On the back is a 3 megapixel

Samsung i560

We don't have all the details of the Samsung i560 at present, but we can tell you that this is a 3G slider phone running the Symbian S60 3rd Edition operating system.The SGH-i560 has 150MB of internal memory, expandable through microSD cards. On the back is a 3 megapixel

Nokia N82

How do you follow up a success like the Nokia N95? Well, one way to do it is to follow the path of the Nokia N95 8GB and give it more memory and a larger screen. If you wanted to go further, then you'd probably dream up something even more

Nokia N82

How do you follow up a success like the Nokia N95? Well, one way to do it is to follow the path of the Nokia N95 8GB and give it more memory and a larger screen. If you wanted to go further, then you'd probably dream up something even more

HTC Touch Cruise (Polaris)

First off, I would like to thank the mobile experience and Andy for inviting me to be a contributing author. As he mentions, we have always had regular discussions and a strong passion for technology, particularly "the mobile experience".

Now for my first post...
As most should be seeing in the US market now, the HTC Touch is being heavily promoted by Sprint, which has been extremely well received in other markets. I want to comment on the third release of the HTC Touch line, called the HTC Touch Cruise (Polaris). This phone is one of those that practically has it all with good form factor, an abundance of features, and the "cool factor" of TouchFLO technology from HTC (finger-touch scrolling, panning, and photo zooming similar to the iPhone's capability). Most of the key features include in-built GPS with TomTom for personal navigation, super fast connectivity with 3.5G-HSDPA and Wi-fi, Bluetooth, MP3 Player & FM Radio, Windows Mobile 6, 3MP camera, MicroSD slot, & more. For those that can't handle the on-screen keyboard, go for the HTC Touch Dual.

Nokia 8800 with 3G

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Cellpone maker Nokia (NOK1V.HE) unveiled two third-generation (3G) 8800-series mobile phones on Tuesday, 8800 Arte and 8800 Sapphire Arte.The 8800 Arte is set to start shipping in the current quarter at a retail price of 1,000 euros ($1,462) before taxes and subsidies. The 8800 Sapphire Arte will begin shipping in the first quarter of 2008 at 1,150 euros before taxes

Nokia 8800 with 3G

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Cellpone maker Nokia (NOK1V.HE) unveiled two third-generation (3G) 8800-series mobile phones on Tuesday, 8800 Arte and 8800 Sapphire Arte.The 8800 Arte is set to start shipping in the current quarter at a retail price of 1,000 euros ($1,462) before taxes and subsidies. The 8800 Sapphire Arte will begin shipping in the first quarter of 2008 at 1,150 euros before taxes

Palm OS on Nokia: Strategy or tactic?

I was stunned today when I saw the press release from Access Company saying that they're giving away a beta version of the Garnet emulator for Nokia's N-series Linux tablets (link).

The Garnet emulator lets you to run most Palm OS applications. So in layman's terms, Access is giving away Palm OS for use on any N-series tablet.

I hadn't previously heard any hints from Access about offering Garnet for other platforms. I thought it was only supposed to be available with Access Linux.

I got excited by the announcement, figuring maybe Access had realized that the real innovation is going to come in the applications layer, not the core OS plumbing. I imagined all sorts of scenarios for what they might be planning:

--How about porting Garnet to some other Linux implementations. Hmm, what comes to mind? Maybe Google's Android? Access would need cooperation from Google in order for the emulator to talk directly to Linux. Would Google help with that?

--There is a need in the market for a mobile application environment that's truly "write once, run anywhere." Might Access intend to use Garnet to compete with Java? That would involve porting Garnet to operating systems other than Linux. How about Windows Mobile and Symbian? How about the iPhone?

--There are several ways Access could make money from this:
  • Give away the emulator in beta but charge for the final version.
  • Give away the emulator on N-series but charge for it on other platforms.
  • Give away the emulator everywhere and make money by selling support software and bundling a software store and taking a cut of the purchase fees for apps (a derivative of the iMode and Acrobat models).

Intrigued by the possibilities, I talked to folks at Access. They shot down most of my speculation. As it was explained to me, this is a tactical move. By porting Garnet to the Nokia tablets they can get some testing for the emulator, and also give a "more interesting ongoing proposition for current developers." (It says something about the momentum for your OS when you feel the installed base of Nokia Linux tablets is an attractive developer target, but I guess you take what you can get.)

Access might try to put the emulator on other standard Linux implementations, but they're very busy working on software for licensees they can't talk about yet, and don't have time to port to anything else, including Android.

That's a shame. In my opinion, there's more of a market for Garnet on other platforms than there is for a Linux phone OS now that Google is giving one away.

But Access believes Google's nonstandard approach to Java and Linux is not going to go down well with the mobile development community. They said Android faces big challenges and a likely backlash.

Okay. I guess only time will tell whether that's justified self-confidence or denial of reality.

Meanwhile, I'll go play with Garnet on my Nokia tablet and wonder about what might have been.

New Contributing Author at The Mobile Experience

The Mobile Experience is pleased to welcome a new contributing author to the blog. I have invited my friend Robert to chime in his opinion and experience in the mobile world. Offline, Robert and I discuss everything from cars, stocks, technology and mobile. I am looking forward to reading some of his stories.

New Microsoft Zune Released today ...

... ...

Just show me the code

OK, you've downloaded the SDK and are now ready to build the next killer app for mobile (and maybe win some $$$ in the process ;)



Activities? Intents? SimpleCursorAdapter? Huh? Hmm...how do I proceed?



Well, that depends on your style. Some will want to carefully go through all the documentation top-to-bottom, while others may prefer to just dive right into code.



Either path will eventually lead to the sample applications provided in the SDK — these samples will be invaluable in your quest for Android mastery. The samples include:




API Demos

A 'kitchen sink' application that covers the most useful aspects and components of the Android APIs. You'll see different implementations of Activities, Services, Notifications, Layouts, as well as methods for working with graphics and text. This application provides a good source of templates for your projects as well as a reference to 'How do I do this?'-type questions.


Lunar Lander

A game which demonstrates how to load and draw graphics, animation techniques, taking user input, saving state when the user pauses the game, and more. Coding shouldn't be this fun!


Note Pad

You'll learn how to use Intents to open a new screen, access a local database, and more. This sample is a good introduction to application flow and life cycle management, which are vital in developing more complex applications.



Source code and resources for these applications are available in the SDK (samples/) as well as online: http://code.google.com/android/samples/



Here are some suggestions on what to do next:




  • Read through each application's manifest file (AndroidManifest.xml) to learn about the typical structures in an Android application.

  • Modify the code to familiarize yourself with the building and testing process.

  • Use a particular code snippet as either a base template or to get some needed functionality for your own project (why reinvent the wheel?)



Put these sample applications through their paces; and if you get stuck, please post your questions to the Android Developers Discussion Group.

WM6 Installed on my HTC AT&T Cingular 8525

I finally took some time yesterday to install Windows Mobile 6 free upgrade from HTC's website for my AT&T Branded 8525, otherwise known as the HTC TyTN. This upgrade is meant for all AT&T customers with 8525 only. The upgrade period is 11/1 to 2/1/2008, so you better act quick or atleast download a copy of the RUU Rom file and print out the instruction before 2/1.

The installation is relatively painless. I don't save a lot of personal information on my phone's main memory and I am in sync with my outlook with contacts and tasks so there wasn't anything to back up with. After I made my final synchronizations, I followed the instruction and installed the RUU effortlessly. The entire process took about 15 minutes.

Final thoughts: The new WM6 looks and performs better on the good ole' 8525. I noticed the phone reacts faster to menu selection and pull down. A general improvement in response rate. Previously running on WM5, I had a hard time getting the phone to "connect" to my computer. This problem went away however, took me a while to realize I had to turn off "advance USB" connection setting from the phone to get it to synchronize to my address book successfully. All in all, it was an easy upgrade from HTC. Kudos!

Gphone, Google, Android, Open Handset Alliance

Mobile has never gotten as much attention as this past week, when Google dropped the news on its official entrance into the mobile market. In their typical fashion (Desktop PC/Internet), they have decided to approach the mobile market by coming out with a revolution software/OS to the mobile environment known as the Android. Essentially, they've got about 30+ mobile players (ie. HTC, Motorola, T-Mobile, etc.) forging an "Open Handset Alliance " pledging to keep the development around android completely open. To get things started, an SDK is already available and Google has offered a price of $10M to developer who can come up with the coolest Widget.

I am not going to get into the details of what it is, or how it works. There are about 2,177 articles written for it already (as of 12:01AM today). If you need a quick reading, Engadget has a good bullet point article for your reference.

What I am interested is commenting on the company HTC, aka. High Tech Computers, Inc. This Taiwanese firm, which I've commented, reviewed and owned its products (often badged as a AT&T or TMobile or Sprint phone) is making some serious progress in the smartphone market. Having my background in the embedded market few years back, I always knew the Taiwanese manufacturers were tight with the Microsoft gang (XP Embedded, CE, and now WM5/6). HTC is considered a top partner for Microsoft year over year. In a sudden move, it seems like it is now Google's best friend with a couple of phones slated launch with Android early 2008 as well as a rumor that Google has been using an HTC handset known as the "Dream". HTC has a series of strong products that can rival the iPhone, HTC Tilt, Touch and Cruise. The smartphone market is definitely heating up. The saga continues...

This is the droid you're looking for

Following last week's announcement of the Open Handset Alliance, today we're happy to offer an early look at the Android SDK. We're eager to get feedback from lots of developers in our discussion group. We're also providing developer documentation and this blog to help you get up and going.



You're probably wondering about what's available today. This preview of the SDK will allow you to develop Android applications that you can run, test, profile, and debug using the emulator and the other included tools. Note that the look and feel of the user interface in the emulator is a placeholder for a final version that is under development.



One of our goals in releasing the Android SDK is to unleash the creativity of application developers on the platform. We'd also like to get feedback early enough that we can make changes before the first Android-powered devices are available to the public. We plan to release updates to the SDK regularly which means that there will be additions and changes to the APIs and user experience — subscribe to this blog to stay up to date.



We're really looking forward to seeing all the amazing applications that developers will create on an open mobile phone platform. In fact, you may even want to enter your application into the Android Developer Challenge — a USD$10 million challenge sponsored by Google to support and recognize developers who build great applications for the Android platform.

iPhone Screen Protectors Shipping Free to European iPhone Owners

Though we've been well aware of ShieldZone's free domestic shipping policy for all invisibleSHIELD mobile phone screen protectors, including the iPhone and iPod Touch, the good news is that this extends beyond US shores. ShieldZone (Zagg Inc.) is offering free shipping to the UK, France, Germany, and all over Europe. In fact, international shipping is free, period.The invisibleSHIELD is made from

iPhone Screen Protectors Shipping Free to European iPhone Owners

Though we've been well aware of ShieldZone's free domestic shipping policy for all invisibleSHIELD mobile phone screen protectors, including the iPhone and iPod Touch, the good news is that this extends beyond US shores. ShieldZone (Zagg Inc.) is offering free shipping to the UK, France, Germany, and all over Europe. In fact, international shipping is free, period.The invisibleSHIELD is made from

iPhone Firmware 1.1.2 Available

Last night, iPhone firmware version 1.1.2 became available. Though available for download here, the firmware is still not available via the iTunes auto-update feature. Strangely, however, if performing a restore on your iPhone via iTunes, iTunes will download and install the 1.1.2 firmware. Clearly it is only a matter of time, likely within the next few hours, before 1.1.2 is fully integrated

iPhone Firmware 1.1.2 Available

Last night, iPhone firmware version 1.1.2 became available. Though available for download here, the firmware is still not available via the iTunes auto-update feature. Strangely, however, if performing a restore on your iPhone via iTunes, iTunes will download and install the 1.1.2 firmware. Clearly it is only a matter of time, likely within the next few hours, before 1.1.2 is fully integrated

Sony Ericsson P5i: Rumored specs

The new Sony Ericsson lineup is turning into a highly anticipated set of phones. The P5i is one of the more exciting phones that we have to look forward to. A full touchscreen slider that is rumored to feature a 2.8-inch VGA display, 360 MHz CPU, 5 megapixel camera with auto focus and flash, HSDPA and HSUPA connectivity, built-in GPS, built-in Wi-Fi, 160MB ROM and 128MB RAM with microSD and

Sony Ericsson P5i: Rumored specs

The new Sony Ericsson lineup is turning into a highly anticipated set of phones. The P5i is one of the more exciting phones that we have to look forward to. A full touchscreen slider that is rumored to feature a 2.8-inch VGA display, 360 MHz CPU, 5 megapixel camera with auto focus and flash, HSDPA and HSUPA connectivity, built-in GPS, built-in Wi-Fi, 160MB ROM and 128MB RAM with microSD and

NEC N905iµ launched in Japan

NEC has announced the official launch of the 12.9 mm thick N905iµ handset device. The N905iµ device comes with 1Seg TV broadcasting, as well as Yamaha's audio engine, which allows for high quality sound. This combination seems like a good way to attract mobile TV viewers. NEC plans to release the phone for the Japanese market on November 26th, with no plans to move the phone international as of

NEC N905iµ launched in Japan

NEC has announced the official launch of the 12.9 mm thick N905iµ handset device. The N905iµ device comes with 1Seg TV broadcasting, as well as Yamaha's audio engine, which allows for high quality sound. This combination seems like a good way to attract mobile TV viewers. NEC plans to release the phone for the Japanese market on November 26th, with no plans to move the phone international as of

Nokia to Google: Welcome to the Mobile Market! (P.S. We're Not Afraid of You)

Left out of the Open Handset Alliance, Nokia nevertheless extended a warm welcome to Google's new Android open source platform on Monday. After years of hype surrounding the mobile internet, as well as the subsequent struggles by handset makers and carriers to realize (or, in some cases, thwart) that vision, Nokia cast Google's entry into the market on Monday as further evidence that the day of

Nokia to Google: Welcome to the Mobile Market! (P.S. We're Not Afraid of You)

Left out of the Open Handset Alliance, Nokia nevertheless extended a warm welcome to Google's new Android open source platform on Monday. After years of hype surrounding the mobile internet, as well as the subsequent struggles by handset makers and carriers to realize (or, in some cases, thwart) that vision, Nokia cast Google's entry into the market on Monday as further evidence that the day of

HTC already working on Google phone

Taiwan's HTC will start selling a Google phone in the second half of 2008.Taiwanese mobile phone maker High Tech Computer (HTC) is already working on a Google phone, and will start selling it in the second half of next year, an executive said Tuesday.The company was rumored early on to be making a handset for Google as was South Korean handset giant Samsung Electronics. But with the Monday launch

HTC already working on Google phone

Taiwan's HTC will start selling a Google phone in the second half of 2008.Taiwanese mobile phone maker High Tech Computer (HTC) is already working on a Google phone, and will start selling it in the second half of next year, an executive said Tuesday.The company was rumored early on to be making a handset for Google as was South Korean handset giant Samsung Electronics. But with the Monday launch

Google, the OS company

The bottom line: Google is now an OS company.

The fact that Google's recently-announced OS products are aimed at mobile devices and social networking sites is interesting, and I'll talk about the impact of that below. But it's secondary. I think the big, really important change is that Google has now jumped with both feet into the middle of the operating system world. That potentially has huge implications for the industry.

The impact will depend a lot on how Google follows up. If it pours substantial energy and resources into its OS offerings, it will be extremely bad news for Microsoft and other companies trying to charge money for their own platforms. On the other hand, if Google doesn't make a serious long-term commitment, it will embarrass itself deeply. This isn't like launching a new web application -- an OS has to be complete, and it has to work properly in version 1, or there won't be a version 2.


What they announced

It's kind of ironic. For years after Google became a prominent web company, people speculated about whether or when it would create its own OS. The logic was that Microsoft has its own OS, and Google was challenging Microsoft, so Google would create its own OS too. But then as the years went by and it didn't happen, people moved on to other subjects. The speculation died out. But one of my rules about the tech industry is that "obvious" things happen only after everyone in the industry has written them off. So I guess Google was due.

The company has been creeping toward the OS space for a while. Google Gadgets is an API to create small applications that run in web pages, and Google Gears is code that lets web apps run offline, making it easier for them to challenge desktop applications. But they were both relatively low-profile (or as low profile as anything Google ever does). But in the last couple of weeks, Google made two much more assertive announcements:

--OpenSocial is an effort to create a shared platform for applications that can be embedded within social websites (link).

--The Open Handset Alliance is an effort to create a shared platform powering mobile devices (link).

Although they're aimed at very different parts of the industry, they're both efforts to create a standard platform where there was fragmentation; and they're both alliances of numerous companies, with Google providing most of the code and the marketing glue. I think there's a recurring theme here.


Details on the Open Handset Alliance

Open Social was covered very heavily when it was announced a couple of weeks ago, so I won't recap it all here. If you want more details, Marc Andreessen did an enthusiastic commentary about it on his weblog (link).

The OHA announcement was today, and I want to call out some highlights:

--It's built around a Linux implementation called Android. Android will be free of charge and open source, licensed under terms that allow companies to use it in products without contributing back any of their own code to the public. This will probably annoy a lot of open source fans, but it's important for adoption of the OS, as many companies thinking about working with Linux worry that they will accidentally obligate themselves to give away their own source code.

--Google is creating a suite of applications that will be bundled with Android, but they can be replaced freely by companies that want to bundle other apps, according to Michael Gartenberg (link). There is a lot of speculation, though, that if you bundle the Google apps you'll get a subsidy from Google. The folks over at Skydeck estimate the subsidy could be about $50 per device (link). That might not sound like huge money to you and me, but keep in mind that mobile phone companies routinely turn backflips to squeeze 25 cents out of the cost of a phone. When you sell millions of phones a year, it adds up.

--A huge list of companies participated in the announcement. That's not as impressive as it sounds; when you have a well-known brand, a lot of companies will do a joint press release with you just for the publicity value. But a few stood out:

Hardware vendors. Samsung, Motorola, LG, and HTC all endorsed the OS. HTC and LG gave particularly enthusiastic quotes. The first three companies have all been playing with Linux for some time, so I wasn't surprised. But HTC is another matter -- it is the most innovative Windows Mobile licensee, and Microsoft must be very disturbed to see it blowing kisses at Google.

(A side comment on Motorola: For a company that said it wanted to consolidate down on a small number of platforms, Motorola is behaving strangely -- it jumped all over Symbian a couple of weeks ago, and now is supporting Android as well. I think it has now endorsed more mobile operating systems than any other handset vendor.)

Operators. Participants in the announcement included NTT DoCoMo (a long-time Linux lover), KDDI, China Mobile, T-Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, and Sprint. That's a very nice geographic spread, and ensures enough operator interest to make the handset vendors invest.

--Google claims all Android applications will have the same level of access to data on the phone. That's pretty interesting -- most smartphone platforms have been moving toward a multiple-level approach in which you need more rigorous security certification in order to access some features of the phone. I'll be interested to see how the security model on Android works.

--We'll get technical information on the OS November 12, and the first phones based on Android should ship in the second half of 2008.

--Although Android's first focus is mobile phones, the New York Times reports that it can be used in other consumer devices as well (link).


What it means to the mobile industry

It all depends on the quality of Google's work and the depth of its commitment. If Android has technical or performance problems, it could sink like a stone. If it doesn't have enough drivers or has poor technical support, the handset vendors will avoid it. If the developers can't create good applications, users won't want it. This is a very different business for Google -- handset vendors and operators will not tolerate the sloppy, indifferent technical support that Google provides for its consumer web apps.

If, on the other hand, Google's platform really works and the company invests in it, I think it could have some very important impacts.

Impact on Windows Mobile: Ugliness. The handset companies endorsing Android are also Microsoft's most prominent mobile licensees. I doubt any of them are planning to completely abandon Microsoft (they don't want to be captive to any single OS vendor), but any effort they put into Android is effort that doesn't go into Windows Mobile. So this is ominous.

The whole mobile thing just hasn't worked out the way Microsoft planned. First it couldn't get the big handset brands to license its software, so it focused on signing phone clone vendors in Asia, thinking it could use them to pull down the big guys. But Nokia and the other big brands used their volume and manufacturing skill to beat the daylights out of the small cloners.

Now Google is coming after the market with an OS that's completely free, and may even be subsidized. This will put huge financial pressure on not just Windows Mobile, but all of Windows CE. Even if Microsoft can hold share, its prospects of ever making good money in the sub-PC space look increasingly remote.

Impact on Access: Ugly ugliness. How do you sell your own version of Linux when the world's biggest Internet company is giving one away? I don't know.

Impact on Symbian: Hard to judge. Symbian is the preferred OS of Nokia. As long as Nokia continues to use Symbian, it stays in business. The question is how much it'll grow. After years of painful effort, Symbian just managed to get increased endorsements from Motorola and Samsung. Now Google is messing with both of them. Japan has been a very important growth market for Symbian, now Android is endorsed by both DoCoMo and KDDI. All of that must feel very uncomfortable. If nothing else, it's likely to produce pressure on Symbian to lower its prices. And Symbian should be asking what happens if Android turns out to be everything Google promises -- a free OS that lets handset vendors create great phones easily. It's not fun competing against a free product that's been subsidized by one of the richest companies in the world (just ask Netscape).

Maybe if Symbian agrees to enable Google services on its platform it can get the same subsidies as Android does. It's worth asking. If not, maybe Symbian should be looking for other places where it can add value in the mobile ecosystem.

Impact on mobile developers: Potentially great. Mobile developers have suffered terribly from two things: They have to work through operators to get their applications to market, and they have to rewrite their applications dozens of times for different phones. If Android produces a single consistent Java environment for mobile applications, that would be a big win. And if it can open up the distribution channels for mobile apps, that would be great as well. We don't have enough details to judge either outcome yet, and the app distribution one depends on business arrangements that may be outside Google's control.

Impact on Apple, RIM, and Palm: Probably none at all. A lot of the coverage of Android is positioning it as some sort of challenger to iPhone and RIM.

I don't buy it.

Apple, RIM, and Palm all make integrated systems in which the software and hardware are coordinated together to solve a user problem. Android, by contrast, is only an operating system. It's plumbing, not the whole house. Unless Google's handset licensees magically develop the ability to design for users -- a feat equivalent to a giraffe sprouting wings -- their products won't be any better as systems solutions than they are today. The OS hasn't been the thing holding them back, and changing OS won't alter the situation.

Android puts interesting financial pressure on Microsoft, but it doesn't directly solve any compelling user problems. If it eventually drives a great base of mobile applications, that might eventually be attractive to some users. But in that case the systems vendors could just add a copy of Google's application runtime (it's open source, they can grab it anytime they want). Or they could host their devices on Google's plumbing. Palm and RIM might both benefit if they could transfer engineers away from core OS and toward adding value that's visible to users.


Impact on the tech industry: This isn't just about mobile phones

I have no access to Google's internal thinking, but even if it sincerely believes it's only doing a mobile phone OS, I don't think it can or will stop there. Technology products often develop a momentum of their own, no matter what was intended at the start. The lines between the computing and mobile worlds are breaking down already, and if Google creates an attractive software platform that's free of charge, that platform will inevitably get sucked into other types of devices. I'm not saying that Android is going to end up in PCs, but if it's functional and well supported I think it could end up running on just about everything else that has a screen.

Besides, if you look across all of the recent Google announcements, I think it's clear that Google has a larger agenda: It wants to break down walled gardens, because they interfere with Google's ability to deliver its services. It has even developed a standard methodology for attacking them: Create a consortium so you don't look like a bully, and fund an "open" alternative to whatever is in the way. They are doing it to Facebook, and they're doing it to Windows Mobile. Google doesn't even have to make money from the consortium, as long as it clears the ground for its services to grow.

Take a lesson from evolutionary history. The most successful animals are not those that adapt to the environment; they are the ones that reshape the environment to match their needs. I think that's what Google is doing. It's going to use open source and alliances to suck the profitability out of anybody who creates a proprietary island that it can't target.

It'll be interesting to see if and how Google applies this principle to the upcoming frequency auction in the US.

Or to anyone else who gets in its way.