Just caught this (from a few moments ago) in my server logs…
Technorati Tags: maemoapps.com, N-Series, N95, Nokia, WebKit
This post brought to you by Nokia and Rhapsody
Intel modifies Wi-Fi and massively extends range
Just caught this from News.com … Intel has developed massively long range WiFi via some updated software.
Academics and researchers from the company’s labs have created a system that lets Wi-Fi signals, which ordinarily carry a few hundred feet, instead travel 100 kilometers, or more than 60 miles, said Eric Brewer, director of Intel Research Berkeley, a lab owned by the company that cooperates on research projects with the University of California at Berkeley.
“It is regular Wi-Fi hardware but with modified software,” he said.
To show it works, Intel has set up a link between its labs in the downtown section of this Bay Area city and the university’s Space Science Lab, about 1,200 feet up and about 1.5 miles away on Grizzly Peak Boulevard. The receiver in the office consists of a directional antenna linked to a modified–but otherwise standard–wireless access point. [CNET News.com]
Apparently, this won’t be coming to the end use any time soon – at least in this country. Intel has their sites set on emerging markets. This seems like a cool play to me. Instead of relying on WiMax and other technologies to come to market, Intel will be able to roll out enhanced base station software and antennas and enable people to use standard Wifi systems on their computers… seems like a natural fit for the OLPC project.
Backup and Restore on the Nokia Tablet
I updated my Nokia N800 yesterday with the v3 software update and wrote a piece over at MaemoApps.com which walks you through the process as well as how to backup and restore your settings which make flashing the hardware a bit less scary.
Technorati Tags: Firmware, Internet Tablet, Maemo, maemoapps.com, N-Series, N800, Nokia
Verizon Wireless Unlimited Data Plan Limitations
I was just reading up on Verizon Wirless’s plans in light of their pending test drive (EVDO is so tempting) and found this lovely note:
Unlimited Data Plans and Features (such as NationalAccess, BroadbandAccess, GlobalAccess, Push to Talk, and certain VZEmail services) may ONLY be used with wireless devices for the following purposes: (i) Internet browsing; (ii) email; and (iii) intranet access (including access to corporate intranets, email, and individual productivity applications like customer relationship management, sales force, and field service automation). The Unlimited Data Plans and Features MAY NOT be used for any other purpose. Examples of prohibited uses include, without limitation, the following: (i) continuous uploading, downloading or streaming of audio or video programming or games; (ii) server devices or host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, automated machine-to-machine connections or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing; or (iii) as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections. This means, by way of example only, that checking email, surfing the Internet, downloading legally acquired songs, and/or visiting corporate intranets is permitted, but downloading movies using P2P file sharing services and/or redirecting television signals for viewing on laptops is prohibited. A person engaged in prohibited uses, continuously for one hour, could typically use 100 to 200 MBs, or, if engaged in prohibited uses for 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, could use more than 5 GBs in a month.
Fring could be a great mobile Twitter client…
Once IM support gets back into Twitter that is…
In case you don’t know Fring can let you connect to GoogleTalk, MSN, Skype and now SIP accounts all in one. It does eat a fair bit of memory and works the battery over pretty well while it’s running, but overall it’s a really nice application. If you have 3G data or wifi on your device you can make VOIP calls which is always a good thing.
N800 – Understanding the Applications Manager
If you’d like to get an understanding of what the Applications Manager is and how it works on the Nokia Tablet, I’ve just posted an overview which will take you through installing a new app.
Technorati Tags: Maemo, maemoapps.com
S60 Text Tip
I recently discovered this by accident and when I mentioned it passing last night it’s clearly one of many things about the S60 that takes some exploring to learn.
When entering text in T9 mode, you can get the dictionary to choose a different word while it’s underlined with a simple tap of the * key. Here’s a quick example:
T9 was smart enough to know I wanted Test first, but in case you were actually typing something else, you can cycle through the choices with the * key.
An Evening with S60…
I had a great time at the S60 event last night at the Nokia Flagship store in NYC. Thanks to Phil from S60 for setting the whole thing up and to the warm hospitality of the Nokia store team!
It was great to geek out with Nokia staff and other enthusiasts! I really enjoyed meeting quite a few new people as well as actually speaking in person to a few familar bloggers: Darla Mack, Mark Guim and Stefan Constantinescu. The S60 brought out all the new and upcoming goodies so we got to really check out the 6110 Navigator, E61i, E65, N75, N76, E90, N93i and the N95 which seemed to captivate most people who were there.
I got a great overview of Feature Pack 2 (s60v3 fp2) which has some very slick animation transitions, awesome customization and of course media capabilities. I think Mikko finally resolved the issue for me with Feature Packs not being installed through firmware updates — A feature pack is an extension on the platform, that usually requires new hardware to run. The average lifespan of a device is about 2 years and the development path is tough to intersect — even for a total Nokia package (software and hardware). It’s quite a bit more difficult for S60 devices not manufactured by Nokia…
It’s clearly a business decision not to support things beyond the more “basic” updates which are generally to squash bugs or make smaller enhancements. We are actually lucky Nokia even supports that as it’s far from common for a handset manufacturer to enable end-user updates. While the hardware will be more powerful when FP2 ships, it will also be easier to use — meaning you’ll actually see in the UI that you can adjust a setting (obviously) and that multiple apps are running so that the capabilities are more easily understood. Now the audience last night was far from the average user and Nokia is making a move with FP2 to enable a broader suite of devices to become more capable rather than just relying on their ultra high end stuff…
I’m looking forward to the browser release which should arrive within the next 1 month. Apparently, the user voices have been heard and the browser will be pulled out from the FP updates so we’ll all be able to take advantage of the progress that’s been made without having to drop some serious dough on a new phone — just to take advantage of the browser…
Some pics I snapped are on flickr and include some GPS coordinates from my trip as well as a few shots inside the store. The flickr pool from last night has a bunch more. Phil also shot some video from last night which should eventually make it on YouTube…
Again – The night was a lot of fun and I hope we’ll have other opportunities to get together.
BTW — Congrats to the lucky winner of the N95 last night — I missed your name and stopped paying attention once I realized it was not me. 😉
Technorati Tags: N-Series, N93i, N95, New York, Nokia, S60, Symbian
PocketCaster video Blogging…very cool!
OK – This is pretty crazy. I just live streamed a video from my Nokia N93 to the web! I had actually seen Steve Garfield do this last week when I was in Dallas and tried to get it working over dinner with Andy Abramson, but the open AP in our restaurant was blocking my progress at the time.
I cover a few random bits… obviously testing PocketCaster (check) a bit on Twitter for Stefan (check) and a progress report while sitting on my ass with the Nokia Workout Tracker
While the N93 was on my Nokia Tripod I also moved the camera around a bit so sorry for the seasickness…
I could have posted this to my blog directly if I used Typepad or Blogger, so instead I routed the video through YouTube. When I watched I had to use Safari to get my video to play in Quicktime for some odd reason as Firefox requested I install a plugin. I use Quicktime Pro so I’m not sure where the glitch is, but think it’s pocketcaster…
Technorati Tags: Twitter, N73, Nokia, Streaming, Nokia Sports Tracker, N-Series, PocketCaster, YouTube, N93
Nokia Sports Tracker!
I have not had a chance to try this, but the screen shots over at E-Series make the Nokia Sports Tracker look very cool. If you’ve got a compatible Series 60 device and a bluetooth GPS or (even better) a device with integrated GPS, you can get a very cool look into your workouts…
Technorati Tags: Fatblogging, Fitness, GPS, N-Series, Nokia Sports Tracker
Nokia GPS Question…
Is it possible to get a Nokia GPS to be active in always-on mode without leaving a navigation app open? It seems that when active both the LD-1W and LD-3W save their tracks locally which is cool. You can read this through most apps that can read NMEA info (Google Earth works nicely) when you get back to your computer to see where you’ve been. With the appropriate additional tools, you can even use the time-stamp to match against pictures you take with a DSLR.
My main purpose though is to ping it throughout the day via Shozu and I’d rather not leave Nokia Maps running which tends to eat my phone’s battery if in constant tracking mode.
Technorati Tags: LD-1W, N-Series, Nokia, Nokia Maps, Shozu, Google Earth, smart2go, GPS, gate5, LD-3W
When it’s too easy to get online?
Hard to imagine easy online access being a bad thing — except when you have to pay as you go on a metered 3G service with a very misleading name… Metered plans are a good way to get you to pay extra. If you use the data services or will with a new device, that slight up-charge to unlimited (at least as I’ve seen in the US) will actually end up saving you money.
I have this 20-year old staying with us for a bit, so I handed her an Nokia N93i. I told her it had WiFi (which she understood, since all our computers at home have it), an amazing video camera (which she got excited about, in a YouTube way), and I told her that it could play her music in as good as any music player (and which 20-year old is not a music freak).
Well, first thing she goes off and do is download a bunch of songs from bands on MySpace, using the phone’s browser. It’s how she understands accessing stuff on the Web. Then she started taking some great videos of the bands she went into town to see (that’s another story).
I told her I was impressed that she was able to get online so easily. I didn’t think our devices made it that easy to use the WiFi (I later found out that the N93i has a neat WiFi sniffer).
A few days later, she was showing me something and I noticed that she was using the access point called ‘Internet’, which happens to be Sonera’s (her operator) 3G access point.
Ugh.
A quick check of her bill, via SMS, confirmed that she’d run up an incredibly high data bill.
It was too easy to get online. And the whole access point thing was new to her, so she didn’t think she wasn’t using WiFi.
Dammit, it said ‘Internet’. [Lifeblog]
New Site – Featured Maemo Apps
This morning I’m announcing a new project I’ve just started — Featured Maemo Apps!
I read a bit today on how debian has a site focused on highlighting an application a day. It occurred to me immediately that the Nokia Tablet and Maemo platform also needed a resource to help users explore the growing list of applications and get a better understanding of the tablet’s capabilities. And so here we are… [Featured Maemo Apps]
I’m passionate about the Nokia Tablet and think there’s an opportunity for the platform to seriously expand grow as this new category becomes more well understood. This is my contribution back!
If you’ve been reading here and either have an application you’ve developed or have something you’d like to know more about as an end-user, please let me know and I’ll get things queued up!
Technorati Tags: Linux, Nokia, Open Source, N770, N800, Maemo, N-Series
iPhone to make VoIP calls
Hard to see how this won’t work. I hope other VOIP providers follow… I can’t really see Michael Robertson sitting idle, letting Jajah get an edge over Gizmo.
It seems Jajah’s Mobile Web service will allow iPhone and smartphone owners to make these calls from within the mobile’s built-in web browser to any number in the world – no software download is required.
All an iPhone user will need to do is type the address mobile.jajah.com into their browser, and then enter their user name and password in order to be able to call people from within the browser.
The Jajah blog claims: “We are going to bring Jajah Mobile to the iPhone as soon as it becomes available.†[Macworld UK]
What will the Nokia N800 software update bring?
There are a few bugs I’m hoping will get squashed when the next software release comes out … scheduled for any day now.
I’m sure other people have things they’d like to see fixed, but these are ones I deal with on an almost daily basis:
- Random Reboots – Think it’s been confirmed as a DSP issue and something that has been discussed on the users mailing list.
- Bluetooth – While it’s great when it works, there are plently of times after a start-up that my bluetooth refuses to turn on, which means I need to reboot until it either turns on automagically, or allows me to activate it through the control panel.
- Flash speed and responsiveness – this is the YouTube / Google video. Today’s tweak is to set the cache high and the quality low which you can do with a tap and hold on flash movie. It does not seem to work as a general preference, but certainly helps quite a bit if you want to watch something immediately.
- Application quit errors – while vastly improved on the N800 from the 770, it still happens and is definitely something that needs addressing. Usually happens to the browser. Not sure whether this is an OS or application issue.
There are also features (like Skype and Rhapsody) coming very soon. I’ve actually been fortunate enough to see one of those in action as a hack of sorts and been assured that as good as it is in “hack-mode” the real release will be very solid.
Features I really want:
- Bluetooth headset support – man do we need this — even if Uncle Nokia thinks headset guys are usually a bit round in the middle (an inside joke)… this would really enable a better VOIP experience.
- Actually while we are at it, why not A2DP support as well so we can use wireless stereo headphones.
- Enhanced Video codec support – .MPEG4 would be killer, though I know a lot of windows users really want to see Windows Media added as well.
- I’d love to see that Nav Kit in the US… supposedly coming in March which of course it is. Perhaps it makes sense to show all the cards with the software update.
- I’d also love to see some new easter eggs… FM Radio was a nice discovery, but there’s got to be some more goodies hiding under the covers….
I’m sure there are other things, but these are ones I actively think about that would greatly enhance my daily usage. If you’ve got others, let’s here about it in the comments!
Technorati Tags: A2DP, Bluetooth, Bug, Feature, Multimedia, N-Series, N800, Nokia, Opera, codec, Rhapsody, Skype
An Evening with S60…
I’ll see you there… Good thing I confirmed as the event is over-booked!
Birdstep SmartVoice – why is this interesting?
Birdstep SmartVoice looks interesting, but I am struggling to understand why you would need it. They are targeting the service provider not the consumer, so I suppose the idea is that a non-UMA device could be enabled to function in that capacity switching seamlessly between wifi for VOIP and cellular as you enter and exit coverage zones.
Once you’ve installed TruPhone, Gizmo or Fring as I have your device connects to your APs and does exactly this. TMO is banning 3rd party apps (which sucks for unlocked users like myself) and would limit the usage I’ve been enjoying – though I’m on Cingular… and you can certainly choose a carrier that’s open to getting your own apps working to do this yourself. These apps are easy to install and easy to use.
Technorati Tags: Gizmo Project, N-Series, N80, N800, N80i, N93, N95, Nokia, Fring, TruPhone, VOIP
Shozu – I miss you
Since updating the software on my N73, I’ve been unable to install Shozu which is probably one of the most used pieces of software I had. I just get an “unable to install” error after downloading and selecting the phone as the install location…
I’ve posted this on the Shozu forum for help, but have yet to see any response. Anyone else run into anything similar? I need my Shozu back!
Technorati Tags: Flickr, N-Series, N73, Nokia, Shozu, YouTube
