Category: gadgets and technology

Nextel Communications by next year will offer a mobile phone with Motorola  based on Microsoft’s Windows Powered Smartphone platform, and in the second quarter of this year the carrier will begin trials with a phone that can be used on Wi-Fi wireless LANs, a Nextel executive said here Sunday.

  
The Smartphone device will support tri-band GSM/GPRS (Global System for Mobile Communications/General Packet Radio Service) as well as Nextel’s iDEN (Integrated Digital Enhanced Network) infrastructure, according to Barry West, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Nextel, in an interview following a Nextel briefing.

[InfoWorld]

According to this article from Unstrung, the Push to Talk (PTT) software from Sonim that Erricsson is using has a ways to go. In fact, at times it does not work at all.

The idea is to create an inter-carrier digital two way radio/walkie-talkie that works between CDMA and GPRS. Working across carrier would be an achievement, if it worked…

Amazon.com now has an early adopter picks section. [Werblog]

…my hope is to demonstrate within a short time that this is at least a feasible approach to creating a “modern” Newton device, by piggy-backing on an existing, current PDA platform, and disregarding its native user interface entirely.

[~stevenf]

Samsung today announced theit PalmOS 5.2 based Smartphone. It’s a Triband phone with GPRS Class 10 and features a CMOS camera with 640×480 resolution. It’s powered by a XScale PXA800F-CPU with 266 MHz, 32 MB RAM, SDIO capable SD/MMC Slot. It will also feature Graffiti 2 and is supposed to be available mid 2003, with a price Tag around 600 Euros.

[Mobitopia]

WOW – Looks Gorgeous!! But no bluetooth? I guess you can always add it with via the SDIO slot…

Amazing array of concept designs called “Offspring” from Frog Design and Motorola for a new line of wearable devices that connect to each other via Bluetooth. Among them, a Wearable Digital Assistant that uses voice recognition instead of a numeric keypad and has storage for music and video files; the Wristable (pictured at right), a version of the wrist version of the Wearable Digital Assistant; and special eyeglasses with a built-in heads-up display, a digital camera, earbud headphones, and a microphone; a wearable mini-digital camera.
Read

[Gizmodo]

Very cool concept designs…. definitely worth a click!

Known…

Sony Clie TG50
pro: OS 5, Bluetooth, 320×320 screen, keyboard
con: Memory Stick

Update (3/15) – reviewed by both Brighthand and Infosync. Just ok… not the WOW I was hoping for.

Palm Tungsten T
pro: OS 5, Bluetooth, 320×320 screen, slider, SD
con: Price (for now) it did just come down though and they are offering a $99 SD Camera…

Rumored…

Handspring Treo 2.0
it’s gotta be cool

Palm Tungsten C
Is it a smartphone, does it have wifi, a camera?

The consumer-electronics maker introduces a trio of models–from high-end to midrange–to its family of Clie handheld devices. [CNET News.com Personal Technology]

A secretive team of AOL Time Warner executives has begun talking with other major cable operators and media companies about speeding up and co-opting the potential revolution that TiVo kicked off. The company’s system, called Mystro TV, is AOL Time Warner’s gambit in an imminent battle over the future of the television business. Satellite services, cable systems and television manufacturers are all racing to promote their versions of the TiVo-like technologies that threaten to wreak havoc on networks and studios, and AOL Time Warner wants to put its own stamp on the evolution of the medium.

Its plans will turn in part on whether the company can end two years of internal discord following AOL’s acquisition of Time Warner. If the company’s often antagonistic divisions can cooperate, their collective arms reach to all sides of the television business. The company’s Turner Broadcasting and WB are the largest collection of networks. Warner Brothers is the largest television studio. And Time Warner Cable is the most technologically advanced and second-largest cable operator.

[New York Times]

Assuming there are not more ads peddled at me via the downtime on pause of course… this sounds like good tech to addd to their already very powerful set-top box…

Perkins: The problem we are trying to solve here is about the consumer experience on top of any OS. The test model for this is what Steve Jobs just did with Jaguar. Personally, I got iTunes, iPhoto, iMovies all running on one server at home, and it’s transparent. If I plug a DVD in or an iPod in, the icon automatically comes up on my screen. When I plug my Sony Cyber-shot camera into my Mac, I don’t have to do anything, because it assumes I want to see the pictures in the camera so it automatically brings up the iPhoto interface. I don’t even have to touch my mouse! This is the model for Sony.

Idei: We actually met several times with Steve last year, in January, March, and June to try to work out a mutual strategy. But you know Steve, he has his own agenda. [Laughs.] Although he is a genius, he doesn’t share everything with you. This is a difficult person to work with if you are a big company. We started working with them, but it is a nightmare. We have the exact type of guy like Steve within Sony. His name is Ken Kutaragi. They respect each other. So maybe if we can get them both together then they could figure out how the PlayStation and the Mac can work together.

[AlwaysOn Network]

Ara got his new SonyEricsson P800 last week and has a short write up about it today. You can just sense that level of awe that comes over geeks when they first start playing with these new phones. Just plain “woah.” You think, what more can I DO with this thing? It seems at first like every 10 minutes you’re discovering something new because it’s always with you or you go online and discover some app that does something completely unexpected. You buy the phone with one thought in mind, but very quickly start the grok the intelliphone mojo…

“I’ve got this computer with me… all the time. And it’s got an internet connection… all the time. And it takes pictures. And it plays music. And it runs Java.” And your mind just does a back flip of techno-lust joy: This thing ROCKS!

And then you read a blog about someone else’s phone with more features and you think, “ooh. What I really want THAT one…” 😉

[Russell Beattie Notebook]

Using “Delivery”, one of the sample D.C.L applications, I just installed a package on my Newton over an AirPort connection without entering any IP configuration information. My Newton discovered my PowerBook over Rendezvous. Wirelessly.[~stevenf]

Every so often I like to take my MessagePad 2100 out and play. Seems this may have just gotten infinitiley easier to match up with OS X…amazing. Even as Symbian, Palm, and Microsoft push their latest wares, they still don’t have the technical prowess of the Newton user community — a group with next to no financial incentive…other than the passion to maintain what was and in many ways, still is the best damn handheld ever. At least until Mr. Steve wakes up one day and decies we are once again ready to be blown away.

Extremely detailed Sony-Ericsson P800 review. (via dive into mark)

Update: And here’s another review, somewhat less positive. (via anonymous emailer)

[~stevenf]

LocFinder.org lists over 7800 WiFi nodes, which it claims is the largest directory anywhere.

[Werblog]