Posted on

iPod? Hellomoto…

Forbes reports on the long standing rumor of an Apple / Motorola joint development, but beyond the MOT phone that might handle some iTunes stuff. Seems this is going to be a mid-priced phone capable of connecting via bluetooth to your computer to share a subset of your tunes. As Jobs was heard to say, “Think of it as an accessory for your iPod.”

If the phone is as far along as Cue suggests, then Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs would be likely to announce it during his annual keynote speech at MacWorld Expo, scheduled for Jan. 11, 2005 in San Francisco.

In true Apple style, Cue declined to say whether Jobs will indeed address the phone at that event. “What we’ve talked about is a something that is valuable for the mass market,” Cue says. “It has to be a phone in the middle-tier of the market, not a $500-tier phone. It has to be very seamless to use. And we’re very happy with the results.”

Posted on

Pocket PC goes EV-DO

While most of us are waiting on WiFi for the Treo, Verizon blasts out with an Audiovox PPC that can run on the super quick EV-DO network.

The XV6600 runs the Phone Edition of Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition on a 400 MHz Intel XScale PXA263 processor. It includes 128 MB of RAM, and has an SD/SDIO slot for additional storage.

This model includes Bluetooth, allowing it to be used with wireless headsets and as a wireless modem for other devices.

Because it has has EV-DO support, it offers typical download speeds of 300 Kbps to 500 Kbps. Verizon’s EV-DO network is currently available in 20 major metropolitan areas and 24 airports, with more expected in 2005. In places where EV-DO isn’t available, the XV6600 will use Verizon’s slower 1xRTT network. [Brighthand]

Posted on

T-Mobile’s Pain

Nice thought piece by Jesse Kopelman at The Broadband daily on what T-Mobile might consider doing now that they are officially a sitant last in the major wireless game. Hard to argue the logic here… just a matter of how much pride needs to be swallowed in order to move on some of the ideas he suggests.

Unlike Sprint PCS, their daddy doesn’t need them to succeed (and may feel like disowning them about now). Unlike Nextel, they don’t have the high-margin customers everyone lusts for nor do they have the management team that routinely makes fools out of the industry, pundits, and FCC. Most importantly, Unlike Cingular and Verizon Wireless they don’t have 40 million customers paying to upgrade their network. To make matters worse, their data network is circa 2001 and they are a long way from being able to do any Verizon-like bragging about the quality of their voice network. [The Broadband Daily]

Posted on

“To Tivo” is Bad?

I don’t understand why Tivo would protest this, other than to generate publicity for themselves which, might very well be the point. Seems that to become part of the language is a great thing for branding … see Kleenex for Tissues and Coke for cola as examples.

However, the company has recently stepped up efforts to police just how its trademark is used in a sentence. Using TiVo as a verb, for instance – as in “to TiVo” or “I TiVoed ‘The Apprentice’ last night” – is forbidden.

The company has begun sending letters to news organizations whenever it sees the term misused. “We’ve gotten more aggressive,” said Kathryn Kelly, a TiVo spokeswoman. “It’s a much more talked-about subject now.”

Running a close second among uses the company frowns on is “TiVo-like.”

“We do aggressively protect our trademark,” Ms. Kelly said, adding that with competing digital video recorders entering the market, TiVo wants to keep its name from going the way of Xerox or Kleenex. [New York Times]

Posted on

PalmSource’s Paradigm Shift

Andrew wrote a great post today on the PalmSource move to linux. A recommended read for all. We’ve talked about the announcement the past few days and I have to say I agree with this commentary. PalmSource will certainly gain from the move – opening doors that would have previously remained closed. Time will tell for sure, but it look like the future will be an exciting one!

Without a doubt, one of the most important benefits of PalmSource’s decision to put the PalmOS on top of a Linux kernel is that it will have removed one of the single largest barriers to adoption of its software and its quest to see the PalmOS adopted by the widest number of licensees to power an even wider array of handheld devices. The barrier in question is the complete paranoia on the part of many manufacturers to ‘lock’ themselves to a proprietary operating system. By choosing Linux, a ‘free’ open source operating system, there is no doubt that PalmSource’s appeal will increase significantly among existing and prospective licensees particularly since many of them have already invested and experimented with Linux powered devices. [Treonauts]

Posted on

Nokia 6630: light on RAM?

Russs Beattie discovers the new Nokia 6630 has a wacky limited and proprietary memory scheme… Nothing like a new standard to tweak the geek in you.

Another thing, I was completely surprised that I couldn’t take my 512MB RS-MMC out of my 7610 (that Nokia also leant me) and pop it into my 6630. I was warned, but I didn’t believe it until I tried it. Yep, Nokia’s changed memory standards again and are now using a Dual Voltage Reduced Size Multimedia Card (DVRS-MMC). Oh. My. God. And people call the Memory Stick proprietary? You can’t even *buy* this memory!!!! Arrrgh. So I’m stuck with the 64MB of RAM that came with the phone, and even though I can hot-swap it out, I have nothing to swap it with. (Can you see the tears welling?)

Posted on

The Broadcast flag striking your DVR soon…

Get ready for the suck. It’s no secret that the Broadcast flag is coming and that your cable DVR (probably Sat) and Tivo will all quietly start erasing things you thought you had indefinitely saved for later…

Time-Warner is arm-twisting cable companies into agreeing to a scheme to automagically erase your saved episodes of Six Feet Under from your cable-company-provided PVR after a month or so. This is the danger of sucking up to the studios in the first place: they say, “Suuuure, we’ll ‘let’ you build a PVR that will tape the shows you cablecast to your customers, but that permission is contingent on our ongoing goodwill. So if in the future we decide, for example, that your PVR can’t record certain shows, or can’t skip certain commercials, or can’t store certain recordings for more than a few days, you’d better implement it. Or else. So what if your customers can’t figure out why their PVRs don’t work properly? That’s your problem, pal.” [Boing Boing]

Posted on

Gizmodo on the Treo 650

I was reading the Gizmodo review of the Treo 650 and had a few thoughts to add…First the bits of interest:

PalmOS advocates often tout the vast library of PalmOS applications available for the platform — I’ve made that same observation myself — but many of the applications are designed for older Palms with lower-resolution screens with pen interfaces, making their use on the Treo frustrating. Of the two or three IRC applications I’ve used, none of them feel right for the Treo, forcing me to use the touchscreen when I should be able to control everything through the keyboard. I’d trade 10,000 generic PalmOS applications for 100 designed for the Treo alone.

And the lack of multi-tasking — come on, it’s almost 2005. Why can’t I have an IRC window, an AIM window, and a web browser open and still make a call? It’s not a hardware limitation, it’s a limitation of decrepit operating system extended past its prime. [Gizmodo]

So here’s the deal Lev. I agree there should absolutely be applications that just run super well on the Treo. The more Iv’e used mine, the more I wonder why many applications that say they are compatible even bother. Whether it’s Agendus 9 simply requiring more power than the device can muster, or just a hack to get the 5-way to sort of work in many others. I think th eissue is that the Treo, while a huge component of PalmOne’s current sales is just a new device in an old line and there is not enough money for many small developers to create specific apps. There are quite a few great applications designed just for Treo though. I’d recommend you check out MyTreo.net, Treocentral and of course Treonauts for mentions. Both Treocentral and MyTreo have software sections specific to Treo and even have “homes” for the developers.

As far as multi-tasking goes… it may not be true multitasking as in XP or OSX, but I’ve found it quite possible to run a music player (Pocket Tunes Deluxe), my email (ChatterEmail) with multiple (AIM, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo) IM services and even an eBook all at the same time. Do you really want windows floating around, or would you rather just more easily switch between processes? I can use the volume buttons to do that thanks to Butler, which lets me choose to use the Volume buttons as volume, or to jump back and forth between my previously run apps. Pocket Tunes Deluxe has a great feature which lets me press a key to pull it up from the background to advance, pause or even just open it all the way up. ChatterEmail is capable of popping up when new messages arrive and can even let you reply or delete without leaving the current app.

Out of the box may not suit you but the Treo platform is quite capable.

Posted on

Too Many Routers

I currently have 3 routers running here and it’s causing some issues…

My current setup looks like this:

  • ATT CallVantage D-Link Router
  • Linksys Router (used to be my only one)
  • Vonage Linksys Router
  • Linksys Switch
  • Apple Airport Extreme

I only have two computers but I have quite a few devices connected on the network as you might imagine. The issues I am having are probably not too common and I am sure neither is my setup for that matter but perhaps someone reading has some insight.

I need to open some ports on the DLink in order to forward certain things to my desktop computer. I’d like to stream some music out to myself for example, which used to work just fine when I only had the Linksys, but with the additional equipment things are considerably more complicated. My main linksys uses 192.168.1.X addressing but the 2 VOIP routers have 192.168.15.X ranges. All my stuff can connect out to world except for the Vonage router. Since the Vonage box comes after the ATT, it loses and has yet to connect (this is the least of my priorities).

I can’t figure out how to correctly alter the settings on the D-Link since it has such a different way of management than the more familiar UI of the Linksys. The other annoying part is if you mess with something you not only have to reboot the damn thing, but you also take the chance that your phone service won’t work. I’ve already had the pleasure of reseting both my main Linksys and D-Link to default states in order to start my testing again… My addressing is DHCP with static IP numbers for the computers which works and will need to remain that way so external calls can properly route to the right place.

Bueller? Anyone?

Posted on

To stick with TMO or not…

I like T-Mobile and have been very happy with the service as well as their policies on usage… but the latest news from Reuters states that they will not be heading to 3G for at least 2 years and that EDGE will begin to rollout next year as a holdover. My Treo 650 will (hopefully) arrive soon after the new year, once the Sprint exclusive ends and will be capable of EDGE, but as of this moment only ATT / Cingular offers such a speed. I won’t have to worry about faster than that for at least 6-12 months since no devices capable of such speeds have caught my eye… yet.

Unlimited data plans range from $50-80 depending on who you ask (or what carrier you were with previously) and I think it’s actually still getting sorted out in the new Cingular. My $20 unlimited GPRS is nice, but will be slower than I’ll be capable of — and who really wants that right? EDGE will be a considerable boost, but will come at a price, literally. I’m sure T-Mobile will raise their price for the increase once it arrives and I would think NYC would be an early city as it has been for the other majors as they rolled out new speeds. Even if I dropped my TMO WiFi, I’d still be paying quite a bit more just for data…

I don’t like playing the waiting game when there are some unknowns.

Posted on

PalmSource going Linux

Mobile Pipeline reports that PalmSource is going Linux! There are still no devices running OS6 (powered by Be) so it should be interesting to see when this actually hits the market.

Palm OS developer PalmSource said Wednesday that it will create a Linux version of the Palm OS.

The company announced it is acquiring China MobileSoft Limited (CMS), which has been developing a version of the Linux operating system for mobile devices. In a statement, PalmSource said the acquisition indicates the direction in which it is moving.

“This is the next stage in our growth and a major milestone for the mobile phone industry,” PalmSource CEO David Nagel said in a statement. “We plan to offer the ease-of-use and flexibility that Palm OS is known for to all mobile phones. We believe the combination of PalmSource, CMS and Linux gives us the technological and market critical mass to compete with even the biggest proprietary operating system companies.”

PalmSource said in its statement that it “plans to implement Palm OS on top of Linux, bringing the benefits of Palm OS to the Linux community.” It said it will continue to offer its two versions of the Palm OS — version 5.x, known as Garnet, and version 6.x, known as Cobalt. [Mobile Pipeline]

The news directly from PalmSource is available here…

Posted on

Kaleidescape Gets Sued

Reading this news at eHomeupgrade it struck me just how ignorant some people can be… Why wait until the product has been licensed and released to do something like this?!?! Why even allow the license??

Kaleidescape, one of the few players in the DVD movie server market that has made the best effort in producing a fully licensed, be it a super-expensive ($27,000), movie jukebox is getting sued by DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA). The twist to this story is that the DVD CCA is the licensing partner Kaleidescape pays off to have the right to bypass CSS copy-protection technology used by DVDs when making “bit-for-bit” copies for storage on the movie server, which are then available for in-home network distribution and viewing. [http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/405/kaleidescape_gets_sued]

The really ridiculous thing is that the Kaleidescape is so expensive it automatically limits the number (max – hundreds) of people could afford and would actually want something like this.

Posted on

CyTV Streams TV

I don’t have the EyeTV hardware to test, but still like what this does a great deal…

CyTV is a streaming solution for elgato’s EyeTV family of TV tuners. It allows you to watch TV and recorded programs over a local network (wired or wireless) or the internet, and it supports EyeTV USB, 200, 300, and 400. You can pause and resume live TV on the client (“timeshift”), and you can also change channels remotely.

The CyTV Server requires a Mac with an EyeTV unit. On the client(s), you can use the VideoLAN Client (VLC) media player to play the stream, so you can watch on any platform supported by VLC (and there are many!). The distribution also contains a special client application for Macs that gives you more control (like watching previous recordings, skipping back and forth, etc.). [CyTV]