Saturday, May 31, 2008

Triple "R" for Motorola's new V750

I can't say that I'm a fan of Motorola handsets anymore, because after the ailing new handsets are just so-so and almost look the same as their predecessors; I always think that Motorola's clamsheel design is too fragile for my rough jeans' pocket.
But Moto's new handset: the Adventure, a.k.a. v750 is made as refined, rugged and reliable mobile phone. It's planned to be launch on Verizon's network this summer, along with the new PTT service from Verizon.


No informations yet on its specifications, but
PhoneArena got their hands on Verizon's v750 pamphlet: According to same promotional materials we received, the phone will meet military specs 810F for shock, vibration, solar radiation, high temperature storage, altitude, high and low temperature operation and blowing dust.

Seeing on left pic of the handset's low-end, makes me believe it'll be able to actually "blow" air to dust off those nasty dirt on your office desk. ;-p Sorry, my bad for an awful joke there...

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Google goes full throttle on its Gears

Still in the news around Google I/O developer conference on last Wednesday, one of many Google's services that took center stage and caugth everyone attention is Google Gears. Even though Google Gears is only one years old, many software developers from web sites to mobile platforms have heralded it as the service of the future.

How is that? Well, in short Google Gears for desktop has the capabilities to give notifications on the desktop of various events, support for location information, better interactions with a computer's file system, and technology to let large file uploads proceed even when hampered by intermittent network connectivity.

Basically Google Gears is just another advancement of today's web browsers abilities, the same thing of Yahoo's newest service:
BrowserPlus. Chris Prince, a lead Gears engineer, said in an interview at the Google I/O conference: "I think people have realized the browser is kind of broken. A lot of us are trying to improve it." He demonstrated five Gears prototypes to Stephen Shankland (Webware):
  • One let a Web page create a shortcut icon on a computer's desktop so people could launch that Web application with a double-click instead of a more laborious process.
    A notification process, which like Yahoo's BrowserPlus feature ties into a computer's general system notification abilities, is a major missing piece in letting Web applications seize a user's attention the way desktop apps can. "Web apps have this problem where they can't tell users about important things happening on their system," Prince said.
  • His file system demonstration showed a dialog box that let him select a large group of photos for upload rather than the one-file-at-a-time process that today afflicts Web site operations.
  • A "blob"-processing ability could be used, for example, to divide a large file into bite-sized pieces, an approach that makes it easier to restore an upload interrupted by a bad network connection.
  • He used a geolocation-processing ability to process latitude-longitude information to provide a more useful Google map showing bars near Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Google doesn't stop there to spread its wings to dominate the whole web services alone, because Charles Wiles and Andrei Popescu, who work on the Google Gears for mobile project in London, discussed the current state of Gears for mobile right after Prince explained about Google Gears for desktop version. Where Its real power is for mobile users, laptop road warriors and, in the case of mobile phones, for people who are in and out of range of cellular data networks.

Josh Lowensohn (Webware) has got a very good explanation why Google Gears for mobile platforms is important: The main takeaway from the talk is that Gears for mobile phones can solve some of the problems frequently found on mobile Web apps--mainly slow connections and people dropping out of the range of a data connection during data transfer. The example shown was Google Photos, which has a mobile version that's recently become Gears enabled. Users who have a Gears mobile enabled device can download thumbnails and indexes locally, to avoid having to download them the next time they visit. This means Gears enabled pages will load faster as long as they're in your Gears mobile cache.

These whole Google Gears features are still quite vague at the moment, but we do know that it supports Windows Mobile 5 & 6. The upcoming Opera Mini and Opera 9,5 will also be Gears enabled, and yes you may count in Android will definetely has it too. No other talks are mentioned about support for BlackBerry or iPhone, and no more news about other mobile OS either. Hopefully Palm Nova will support it too, since we're seeing more and more use of Google's services everyday now.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Good reasons why iPhone shouldn't get GPS

All of you know that Apple is most likely prepping a genuine GPS feature for the next iPhone 2.0, some may have over rejoice to hear the news but some may not.

Brian Lam (
Gizmodo) has very good reasons on the drawbacks of having GPS feature inside your new iPhone 2.0 have outweigh the benefits:
  1. The location tech in the current iPhone is much quicker. No matter what chip, even SiRFstar chips in full blooded GPSes take awhile to lock on. When using the very capable N95, I'd often drive across town or walk half way to my destination before I'd get signal lock.
  2. I'd never use an iPhone as a car GPS. Not even with updated software. The amount of work and expertise that goes into a high end, 5+ generation Garmin is some serious stuff. The logic is all proprietary. It's not easy to do. And GPS antennas need to be somewhat pointed. If it's on your dash, it needs to be on the back. If it's for walking, it needs to be on the front. Which is it?
  3. Battery life gets screwed when you keep the GPS on with constant updates.
  4. These chips aren't exactly small, although they have been known to fit in things like Suunto watches. That going to make this thing thicker?

But we'll have to see whether it's going to be actually true or not, since we still don't know if an embedded GPS is going to be in iPhone 2.0 and what iPhone 2.0 looks like. We'll soon see on June 9th, where it's not over until the fat-woman sing ...errr, I mean until Steve Jobs announce it ;-D

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Palm apps are still wanted everywhere

I think it's about time we put behind the "Is the Palm OS dying?" subject for good, because even though we all have to admit that Palm OS is indeed old and never had a major updates; but all of those applications that are available for Palm OS is still being used (and liked) by many people everywhere around the globe.

PalmInfoCenter is reporting that back in February StyleTap has released a video demo of the StyleTap running Palm OS apps on a iPod Touch. Gregory Sokoloff, CEO of the company, said they have been overwhelmed by the level of interest and the video has been viewed over 800,000 times. So now the company has taken the plunge to bring a version of its StyleTap CrossPlatform environment to the iPhone and the iPod touch platform. The move will essentially bring thousands of Palm OS apps over to the new iPhone platform. Picture on the left is courtesy from Engadget Mobile.

Ouch, now you can have both of the best world: Palm vast apps availability and iPhone's superior user interface in your pocket. There will be no more obnoxious and ridiculous reasons anymore for you not to buy the shiny little device from Apple, that you've been drooling over ever since you saw it at local stores.

And if that's not enough to make us leave Palm handsets for other more appealing smartphones,
PalmInfoCenter also has reported that Access has released an update to its Palm OS Garnet VM for Nokia Internet Tablets. New features in the Garnet VM Beta 2 (v1.01b) include full screen support, three hot-swappable display modes (portrait full screen, portrait windowed and portrait landscape), improved performance and various compatibility and app specific updates. Notable new apps that are now listed as compatible include: Google Maps, Snappermail, Pocket Tunes, Kinoma Player 4 EX and CorePlayer.

Oh boy, when will all of these going to stop now? C'mon Palm, don't let them run you over like that and do something quick right now to fight back!


[blogged with my Treo 750v]

The cradle has finally arrived

At last, the Palm Cradle Kit for my Treo has arrived yesterday! I've ordered it from the first time I bought my Treo last year, and the store just called me a week ago to tell me that they've it in stock now in limited numbers.

That's what you get when you live in a country where Palm brand is not as popular as other mobile handset brands here...

But I'm so excited to have it, and it feels like my Treo is all new again. I've been placing my Treo on the cradle every time I got back to my desk, and believe or not they looks very gorgeous together. ;-D

If just my Treo is not attached to its new cradle, I'll take a picture of them together. But I'm sure you guys have already seen it and bored about it.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Glide mobile OS v3.0

Taking your works on the go is sometimes more than a headache when you realize that you've forgotten to transfer some important files into your smartphones last night.

This is where a web service that lets you access your workspace on-line can be a real life saver, with it you will not have to worry of leaving behind any necessary documents at home or office. And because it's a web-based service, you won't have to worry about hardware and OS compatibility as well.

Like few other same web services I've discussed before, there's a new version of such web service mentioned that's launched just last Thursday by
TransMedia; called Glide OS. The newest v3.0 will allow you to access your files inside your Windows, Linux, Solaris and Mac computers through its client software which is of course has to be installed first within each computers.

And where according to
AppScout, users can set up their own Web sites but also will be able to control how those sites interact with other personalized sites. Further more, Peter Cohen (PC World) concludes that Glide OS has features rights management technology that lets you restrict (or un-restrict) access to your files as much as you need to. You can, for example, restrict access to a specific file to be viewed only by a specific user a set number of times, or you can restrict by upload limits, file modification structure, group and project management association and more.

The best from this new Glide OS v3.0 is with paid plans that are starting from $4.95/month or $49.95/year; you may access your account directly from your smartphones or PDAs. The supported mobile OS are iPhone, Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, BlackBerry and even the unreleased yet Android platform. All you've got to do is point your mobile web browser to this link, and Glide will direct you to the appropriate mobile web page. "Glide untethers you from your computer desktop and effectively transforms 75 models of mobile phones and counting into 75 powerful mini-computers," TransMedia Chairman and CEO Donald Leka said in a statement.

That's not all, Glide relies on transcoding technology in order to create and access the 20 applications availabe right now on the go or even off-line. These include photo editor, word processor, presentation software, spreadsheet application, custom e-mail client, project management tool, calendar tool, meeting software, slideshow creator and more (click on the thumbnail pic right to enlarge it). If just Glide is not limiting the storage capacity to only 5GB, it could become the winner from other competitors.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Android's Market app looks identical to iPhone's App Store

It's a no brainer for Apple to provide App Store to host applications from 3rd party software developers, aside it's good for iPhone popularity itself, everyone including Apple will benefit from it.

And now, it's most likely Google will also be following Apple's footsteps. During the Google I/O developer conference in San Fransisco, Android's project leader Andy Rubin said; "It would be a great benefit to the Android community to provide a place where people can go to safely and securely download content and where a billing system would allow developers to get paid for their effort. They can add to it. They can remove from it. They make it their own. They can rip out all the Google stuff and put in all Yahoo! stuff."

As you can see it on the Android's sneak-preview screenshot left, there's already a "Market" icon ready (marked with red circle) in Android OS prototype shown at the conference.

But it's too early to know how this Android's Market application will ends up, since Android is an open platform and it's APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are freely changed according to the will of the handset manufacturers who host it; so we might be seeing different versions of Android's Market in the future. It's going to be hard to compare it head-to-head with iPhone's App Store...

Sources are from
The Register, via Engadget & CNet News.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Voice Changer

Sometimes you wish to have an alternative way to call those people who have been avoiding you every time you called to their mobile phone, and where they always hang up whenever they immediately hear your voice. Perhaps you're a debt collector, a spy who's on watch, an IRS officer who's looking for financial background secrets, or maybe you're just simply an obsessive stalker who couldn't take no for an answer?

Either way, now you can do all of that in disguise. In fact, you can do that in a funny way too. Because Spyville has released a handsfree Cell Phone Voice Changer, which works simply by plugging it into your mobile phone's handsfree jack like usual. But unfortunately according to its oficial web site statement; this Cell Phone Voice Changer will not work with Razor, Samsung and Nokia.

After that plug-in it; you may choose from 4 different voices available: duck, child, old man or robot. So now with your voice actually sounds like an old man, you'll finally will be able to make those calls you've wished for to Craiglist's "gray" services. Although I wish Spyville would add one more sound to Cell Phone Voice Changer: Alvin the chipmunk, so then I could sing the "Bad Day" song to my cruel ex-girlfriends. ;-D ~LOL~

Source from Spyville.com, via Crave. Note: click on the Daniel Powter's song title to watch and listen the song on YouTube, or enjoy both with full pictures below. Oh, while you're at it then don't forget to see Alvin and the Chipmunks singing the "Funky Town". ;-p



[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

VIA OpenBook attacks

Now, have you heed on my warning before about buying Asus Eee PC 701? Because it's not only that Asus has already released the all-new 900 series from its Eee PC line-up, but now VIA is also set to release its OpenBook as well.

According to the Richard Brown, Vice President of VIA Technologies Corporate Marketing in his official statement at VIA's
website; this OpenBook is based on last year NanoBook's reference design. This reference design is called CAD (Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike) v3.0; where it's meant to give customers such as OEMs, system integrators, and broadband service providers greater freedom in tailoring the look and feel of their device to meet the diverse needs of their target markets. Sounds pretty aggressive move against the successful sales of Asus' Eee PC and HP's 2133 MiniNote positive reviews, where VIA is planning to have broader level of customer segments.

Here are the full offical
specs of VIA OpenBook:
  • Processor: 1.6GHz VIA C7®-M ULV Processor
  • FSB: 800MHz
  • Chipset: VIA VX800 unified chipset
  • Memory: DDR2 SO-DIMM up to 2GB
  • HDD: 80GB Hard-Disk or above
  • LCD Panel: 8.9" WVGA 1024X600 LED screen
  • Graphics: VIA Chrome9 HC3 DX9 3D engine with shared system memory up to 256MB
  • Video Decoding: MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC1 and DiVX video decoding acceleration
  • Audio: Realtek HD Audio codec, 2 speakers
  • Networking: 10/100/1000 Mb/s Broadcom Giga NIC Ethernet Solution
  • Wireless: Broadcom 802.11b/g or GCT 802.16e, -2in1 (WiFI+ Blue Tooth) default module, -3in1 (AGPS+WiFI+ Blue Tooth) upgrade module, -WiMAX secondary wireless module option, -EV-DO /W-CDMA secondary wireless module option, -HSPDA secondary wireless module option
  • I/O: 4 in 1 embedded card reader, 1 D-Sub Port 3 x USB (Ver. 2.0 Type A Port), 1 Mic-in audio jack, 1 Headphone out
  • Webcam: 2.01 megapixel dual headed rotary CCD camera
  • Dimension: 240(W)x175(D)mm
  • Thickness: 36.2(H)mm ( at battery)
  • Weight: Under 1kg
  • Operating System Support: Microsoft® Windows® XP, Windows Vista® and all popular Linux distributions
  • Battery: 4 Cells, 2600ma
  • Options: USB interface, DVD Dual RW, Leather Cover

Pretty tempting huh? Although I'm not so fond of VIA's chipsets or processors, but they surely have been favorites for many who seek a balance between performance with price. And as I can see you who think like that, are already drooling all over your keyboard; unfortunately there are no words and certainty yet on price tag and release date for this sub-notebook device.

But to quench your thirst for this VIA's OpenBook for now, you can visit Gizmodo and Engadget hands-on at each respective websites. And while you're at it, you can also watch the OpenBook video launch below.

The world of smaller mobile notebook, which sometimes called as sub-notebook or UMPC, is going to be more exciting as we're drawing near to Intel's launch of its newest processor for that peculiar market: the Atom. It'll be interesting to watch, who will get more attention from consumers and become the winner: Asus Eee PC with Intel Atom or HP 2133 MiniNote with VIA Isiah or VIA OpenBook with C7? We'll have to wait until all are announced and official, at Computex on next June.



[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Monday, May 26, 2008

Happy 9th anniversary to Palm Addict!

Happy Birthday Palm Addict!

Who would've thought that a simple idea back then at
1999 by Sammy and his gang to create a Palm community , have last for 9 years and still going strong.
Like what Mr. Wally Matsen have said in his
post not long ago, Palm Addict is a real community that I felt belong and can relate to. It's so great to be here, so thank you Sammy and all of you Palm Addict readers for accepting me...

I'm affraid I don't have much to give in return for all of your kindness, except my wish and pray that Palm Addict will continue to flourish and become a greater community in next many years to come. And I hope God will also bless all of the people who support Palm Addict from behind ;-)

Amen, God speed everyone!

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Apple grows new business branches on corporate soil

You will reap what you sow”, and there goes the saying that has tickled me for quite some time. Since I’ve been trying to find the right idea that embodied in the text of the title up there, with the subject I wanted to talk about down here.

Sure, no one can predict the future. And all we have to do to get the best result, is to do the best we can at the time we’re given right now. In the case of the company with a one bite eaten fruit logo; Apple pretty much these days has been collecting Steve Jobs’ (Apple’s CEO) ‘indecent’ actions in the past. It can be called like that, because back then when Steve startled Mac fans & users by going to the so-called ‘dark-side’ which meaning Mac is using its rival’s power source: Intel’s processors.

Everybody was furious, including those stuck-up share holders who are sitting at Apple boardroom. But with Mac sales is soaring at 51% over the previous year and Apple share price has risen 2,300% over the past five years, those once frowning eyebrows of the share holders are now replaced with big smiles on their face. And so Steve has scored a big juicy fruit in the form of a private
Gulfstream jet, as a token of appreciation for his ‘always-controversial’ vision.

The huge transition from implanting a new Intel brain into Mac family line-up, has enabled everyone who own & use Windows to run it on Mac. You even have the choice to run both OS X and Windows, with
Boot Camp or 3rd party softwares like Parallels Desktop & VMware Fusion. The good point is that Windows will run just fine even on Mac Mini (1.66GHz Core Duo) to the newest eight-core Mac Pros, the trick is picking the right Windows you want to install on your Mac.

While Microsoft is pushing Vista as the next upgrade from XP, and they also plan to stop supporting XP starting on next June 30th; so basically Windows users are left with Vista with the only choice available. Microsoft has slated that Vista can be run on less powerful and cheaper machines, but at minimum performance. And this means, Microsoft is indirectly created an opening for Mac OS X to be an attractive alternative for companies and their workers; who don’t want to spend more money on expensive computers but still want user friendly features & eye-catching user interface.

And so big companies like IBM, Cisco and Salesforce; are starting to give a trial for their employees to migrate from PCs into Macs. The illusion of
Mac is killing PC slowly becomes a reality…

But are the reason you can put Windows on your Mac and Vista slumps, is the same reason why Apple’s total sales have surged from $5.2 billion in fiscal 2002 to $24 billion last year? Not exactly, it’s more come from the user’s experience on using Mac.

According to Student Monitor researcher who has surveyed 1,200 undergrads this year, there are 43% of college students who intend to buy a laptop plan to buy a Mac. Aside from that statistic research, Scott Kriens (Juniper’s CEO at Sunnyvale) has said: "Everybody told me I should get one, it's not anything to do with negative perceptions about Microsoft. It's just that Macs are cool."

The very same perspective has been the foundation of Steve Jobs and his minions for a long time ago: to create the next cool thing for the world’s consumers, and this core of every Apple’s products which was first only appreciated by small groups of college students and artists; is now being embraced by almost everyone.

It all started with the wonder music player from Apple: iPod, and soon followed by the one and only mobile phone product: iPhone. Those both products are specifically made by Apple’s engineers ~and cunningly envisioned by Steve himself~ to work best only with Mac, so that’s when people are starting to buy Mac for home usage. Soon they begin to wish to stop being a vampire; "Windows-by-day, Mac-by-night”.

Mark Slaga, chief information officer of Dimension Data, says he has received up to 25 e-mails from his employees who asked for permission to use Macs at work. He concedes, "Steve Jobs doesn't need a sales force because he already has one: employees like the ones in my company." Steve Jobs declined to comment for this story, and so he did on the mysterious lines of
people queuing in front of Apple’s flagship store on 5th Avenue-New York few days ago.

But the ‘notorious’
Fake Steve has explained what really was going on that day: “I just had Katie and Phil in here mumbling excuses and trying to blame the contractor who hired the actors for the iPhone queue outside the Fifth Avenue store in New York. As you may have read, the bozos started lining up yesterday -- a full two weeks ahead of schedule. I mean we've worked this out for months here in our Fifth Avenue mock-up set in Building X at the Cupertino headquarters. ….. Phil says it's the contractor in New York who got the folks out on the sidewalk and had them out there chanting until we got wind of it and had them hustled away.” ;-D ~LOL~

Both of Steve above has the same thing in common: eccentric style. And for the ‘real’ Steve who is leading Apple to its glorious name nowadays with his unconventional leadership, has created a certain dilemma for companies who wish to adopt Mac platform into their system. One peculiar thing for corporate customers is they need cooperation, like knowing the road map of a product and its future upgrade version. Steve’s way of thinking is to make Apple’s product as secretive as possible and to announce it with dramatic unveilings (often at the annual MacWorld convention), this way Apple’s products can become exclusive for the owners.

And exclusive will means the product can be tagged with high price, just like what Steve has long argued that he wants to sell to people who spend their own cash and therefore will appreciate quality and style. For example is MacBook lightest sibling: the Air, which racked around $1,599 for the lowest spec but still score as one of Apple’s biggest sales contributor behind iPhone & MacBook Pro. And that’s not all, the MacBook Air also has created a new battle ground against other PCs and Windows, as “
cloud-computing” has become a new platform in the future.

But the biggest challenge for Steve (and Apple) to grasp a bigger slice of pie in the computer market; is the support for existing corporate systems such as Microsoft’s Exchange Server, IBM’s Lotus Notes and SAP’s System Solution. Both of Apple’s products: Mac & iPhone, aren’t capable to support those corporate grade programs yet.

So like the previous surprising move for Mac to go with Intel’s processor, Steve announced iPhone will support Microsoft’s Exchange mail system last February. And also open up iPhone’s source code for 3rd party software developers to create new exciting and productive apps with iPhone SDK, all are set to be announced as iPhone 2.0 at WWDC ’08 on June 9th (according to
Fake Steve’s announcement, again ;-p).

Ken Dulaney, an analyst from Gartner Group research firm, said that all of these discussions about iPhones are causing tech buyers to ponder whether to bring in Macs as well. But the most propelling factor is shown by IBM’s Institute for Business Value survey result, which concluded around 80% of consumers said they'd prefer a service provider that gave them more choice in the applications and services available on their mobile device.

With Symbian and Windows Mobile are the most used OS for mobile phones in the market right now, consumers are seeking for a niche mobile phone that stands out in the crowd: iPhone. So when the corporate office workers are demanding for more Macs and iPhones, is Apple ready to comply with the most anticipated & upcoming iPhone 2.0?

I’ll let Dan Moren’s (Macworld) fine line of wisdom to answer that question: “But when it comes to Apple, the interesting questions never begin with “could they…”, but rather with “would they…”….. So, don’t be too surprised when the next big thing out of Apple is something that nobody predicted. After all, that’s just the way we like it.

Sources are from:
The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit (BusinessWeek)
Best of Both Worlds: OS X and Windows (Macworld)
Mobile subscribers really do want more choice (NewsBlog)
The Apple of the future (Macworld)

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

An early peek at Apple’s presents for you in iPhone 2.0

Ho-ho! Looks like Christmas is coming early for some of you who lust for the new iPhone 2.0, and the excitement inside all of us is building fast as Steve Jobs was seen prepping his Santa costume for his keynote speech at WWDC ’08 this June 9th. Judging from the costume which will replace his famous turtle-neck black sweater shirt, he’s definitely is planning to announce something spectacular…

As usual, it’s the end of the weekend. So I’ll round up some news and rumors that are scattered around the net for the past week, just for you dear Palm Addict readers. And like any previous posts I made about the likes of this one; it’ll be yourself who choose which news / rumors that can be consider true, and the closest to become to reality.

Oh, what the heck. Let’s just have some fun whether they’re real or fake, okay? Here we go:

Apple was shipping 188 mysterious cargo containers to the US
Reported by
ImportGenius (via Gizmodo), there were apparently 188 containers from Asian supplier Hon Hai and Quanta Computers, mysteriously marked "electric computers," shipped to Apple Inc on March 19th. So yes, that means there will be plenty enough of iPhone 2.0 for you greedy Apple fans!

3G or no 3G?
Wait up, are those 188 cargo containers contain 3G iPhone or not? Because we all know that there have been stock shortages around Apple stores and wireless carrier stores as well, and according to
iSmashPhone the previous assurance of 3G on/off slide button is indeed only a photoshopped screenshot. But another assurance popped out, and this time it’s coming from Engadget Mobile: "Australian site ChannelNews claims that a "senior executive of Telstra" is the latest 3G iPhone bean spiller. They quote the exec as saying the following: "We know what is coming we have seen the new device and it will be available on our network as soon as it is launched in the USA. By Christmas this phone will be capable of 42Mbps which will make it faster than a lot of broadband offerings and the fastest iPhone on any network in the world." C’mon, don’t taunt us like that guys! ~the 3G iPhone pic is courtesy from Jesus Diaz (Gizmodo)~

Apple is making new iPhone 2 ads
Gizmodo insider said that an iPhone ad is being shot today by a big name director. It's probably Apple's traditional ad agency, and the only thing that my source and I can't confirm is whether this is for iPhone 2 or the first gen. I'm guessing it's for the second generation given the scope of the ad's resources and the timing.

AT&T will have 3G iPhone on June 19th
AT&T still wishes to become the first and sole distributor of the newest iPhone 2.0 when it’ll be introduced at WWDC ’08 on by Steve Jobs himself. So AT&T has managed to lure “Santa Steve” to drop his new toy on June 19th, just ten days after the rumored official announcement. Sources are from
InfoSyncWorld, via the iPhone blog.

3G iPhone case leaked
A company called XSKN has revealed a case design described as an "iPhone 3G" case. It also appears to be slightly thicker which was also previously claimed. Head on to
MacRumors for more pictures of this aforementioned new case for 3G iPhone.

Hold on a sec there, no Apple’s “iPhone-Christmas” is complete without a wish list. How do you expect “Santa Steve” to give you the perfect iPhone without knowing what you want? That’s why I pick Kent German’s (
CNet On Call) check list, so you won’t have to trouble yourself with a headache from thinking what you need in iPhone 2.0:
  • Multimedia messaging
  • Video recording
  • GPS, checked. It’s been confirmed at my previous post here at PA, and better yet Engadget Mobile has reported that the new iPhone 2.0 will get geotagging.
  • Cut and paste
  • Stereo Bluetooth
  • User-replaceable battery
  • A memory card slot
  • Tactile feedback for the touch screen
  • Flash support for the Safari web browser
  • The capability to use MP3s as ringtones, checked… errr, it’s kinda vague right now. Because according to AppleInsider; Apple is in talks some of the major music labels over a deal that would allow next-generation iPhone owners to purchase music tracks directly from the handset over cellular wireless networks. Given that the negotiations are only a few weeks young, it's reported that any deal may not be announced until after June 9th, the most likely day for the introduction of the much-anticipated 3G iPhone.

And I’ll add my own personal wish: a jailbreak tool! Oh yeah, I know you want it too. What would the world become, if there’s no tool to free up your iPhone so everyone on the whole wide world can enjoy the new iPhone 2.0? Rage, chaos, thieves, and kleptomaniac everywhere. So don’t forget to download the new WinPwn tool Release Candidate 1, which said to be much more stable and contain many bug fixes – as well as some notable new features as reported by Just Another iPhone blog:

  • Completely rewritten installer app that adds support for nearly every package (Including Cydia)
  • You are now able to remove items from installer
  • Change logos without restoring.

And now lastly, I’ve save up the best for last. All of those above news and rumors are never be complete without a sneak preview of what might iPhone 2.0 will look like, so here’s a rendered model courtesy from webwise (deviantART). The picture is pretty much very impressive, where you can see there’s even a tiny-little hole in front of it that resemblance to the rumored front camera on the new iPhone 2.0 for making 3G video conference calls. Except for its slim build, which contradict with the leaked 3G iPhone case above…

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

McDonald Japan is testing RFID coupon

It seems not long ago that I talked about using mobile phones to replace wallet, and now McDonald is testing out a new e-coupon system called Kasazu coupon (means contactless) in Japan. It is basically a payment application that is downloaded into your phone and is then placed on top of an RFID reader by the user for instant payments and coupon redemption.

Wired is reporting that McDonald will begin using the tech in 175 stores and eventually expand it to the other 3,800 stores in that country. There’s no word on when they expect to move this option to U.S. stores. Many phones in Japan include RFID tech, so it's a good place to set-up highly concentrated trials of a transaction technology that will likely go completely mainstream in the next few years.

It all sounds good and very tempting to try for consumers who wish for fast service, but as long as they don’t forget about the
security issues using such technology; then hopefully it’ll work out just fine.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

What bothers me about Palm’s newest Treo 8.xx

Like many of you, I rather wait and see what will come out from those news and rumors about Palm latest handset: Treo 8.xx; but I couldn’t help to restrain myself from talking about it since there are two things that have been nagging my mind.

First is the naming, you must’ve remembered back then when our mobile world was stirred with an early look of what was once called as Palm Drucker at Bill Gate’s CES little slide show. And soon,
Gizmodo revealed the Vodafone’s roadmap that showed up the same name: Drucker. Soon after that, the name began to change into Treo 800 as many leaked infos is pouring around the net. But now, it seems like the official name change again into Treo 850. Some are even adding the word “w” behind those naming numbers, to show it’ll host Windows Mobile. So, from now on I’m just going to call it as Treo 8.xx until Palm announce the real official name for it.

Secondly, it’s the physical build. From the grainy and blurry of first appearance picture, into BGR’s first leaked photo shots of they called it as Palm
Treo 800w, and then BGR gave us another exclusive pictures of now to be called as Palm Treo 850. Where as you can see at the pictures that I’ve set up on the left side of this post, the transitions of Treo 8.xx design is concentrated on the command buttons (Windows, ok, calendar?, email/messages?, D-pad, call and stop buttons) which I like to call it as “ribbon” buttons. But the difference between Treo 800w and 850 is somewhat unappealing for me, personally I would much prefer the 800w design than 850.

Maybe it’s just me, but those round buttons on 850 are less prettier (or more handsome, your choice of words then ;-p) than the rectangular with little bit rounded-end buttons on 800w. Oh, I’m sure there are many of you who think differently and have different perspective from mine there; but it sure is fun to talk about until Palm launch the official one ;-D

Plus we haven’t touch on the specs here, that’s another thing to worry about now. No sure infos on the specs except rumors, and the news that someone out there have been
playing with Treo 800w for quite some time.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Healthy as a horse again

As always, my Treo woke me up with the built-in WinMob’s alarm this morning. And as usual, I grabbed it while my eyes were still half closed to turn off the alarm. But when I turned on the screen, all of a sudden it stopped responding.

My eyes were suddenly wide open in disbelief, the freezing situation of my Treo awaken me completely. The first idea came into my mind was perhaps this is caused by yesterday moblogging, where I mercilessly beaten Treo’s keyboard to wrote a pretty long blog and a few more as well. Hey, what can I say? When the inspiration to write is coming, I have to immediately jot it down before I lost it, right? Besides, isn’t that what Treo supposedly made for? To be there whenever I need it to be ;-)

My thumb was jumping up and down on Treo’s talk, Windows, ok and close buttons as I was panic to think of the next step I should take. Even if I was trying to
switch and close the applications with HandySwitcher was no good at all, since the screen was completely frozen at Today Screen with the Alarm still ringing.

Then it’s time for the last resort that I hate to do: soft-reset. So I opened up the memory expansion slot at the side of Treo, and pushed it with the stylus-pen. I waited impatiently to know the result, but after just few minutes of waiting; looks like my Treo is up and running again like a healthy horse.

Thank goodness, Palm has prepared a soft-reset button ready. I really hope the Treo 850w is going to have more stability than its previous siblings, but for anticipating the worst things like above experience; I wish Palm will still include that soft-reset button on Treo 850w.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Rediscover Indiana Jones

I've just watch a rerun of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade movie at a local television station here in Indonesia, which has reminded me how fun and exciting it was that made us love Indy character so much.
Now, Indiana Jones fourth movie has been released worldwide last May 22th, and it has rekindle the old memory of three previously good movies that made Indy's fedora cap and his bullwhip known to the whole wide world.

And so now we all know what is the "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" movie's storyline, oh wait... I'm not supposed to tell you guys (who haven't watch the movie yet), sorry. ;-p

But if you're really a hardcore fan of Indiana Jones, why don't grab the same fedora hat that Dr. Jones is wearing while he crushed those Natzies. Think Geek is currently selling what appears to be officially licensed Indiana Jones' fedora hat for US$99, or you can watch below video preview of it on action...


If you don't feel like wearing such an old stylish hat, then you can also play with Indiana Jones Lego toy at home. There's always another way for you to have a great adventure just like Indy, ain't it right?

OpenOffice viewer for Symbian smartphones

The great thing about open source softwares is that we wouldn't have to worry at all about purchasing license for each computer, and the best of all is it's free. Like OpenOffice, which has released new v2.4 not long ago.

But it lacks the support for mobile devices, especially for smartphones. We can't take OpenOffice on the road, while perhaps you're going to have a meeting with potential clients and you need to review those company's docs one more time for presentation. So this one is for you who own Symbian smartphones, as pointed to me by Mathias Bauer (Project Lead OpenOffice.org Writer); there's no OpenOffice for smartphones yet but at least there is an ODF viewer (and editor IIRC) for Symbian devices.

One that provides such app for viewing OpenOffice document files is a freeware from Odendahl SEPT-Solution called Mobile Office, here's the statement taken from its website: "The OpenDocument format is also used by other well known dektop applications such as OpenOffice, StarOffice and KOffice. With Mobile Office, you can read those files on the road without the need to convert them to other formats as well as compromising on formatting and ODF features." Here are some of the features of Mobile Office:
  • open OpenDocument text(.odt), spreadsheet(.ods) and presentation(.odp)
  • open OpenDocument files directly from email attachments, MMS, Bluetooth, filebrowser as well as webbrowser
  • view thumbnail image
  • get information about subject, title, keywords and other meta information
  • get statistics about paragraph count, words and pages
  • zoom and fullscreen
  • search
  • view of changes

So far, this free Mobile Office only for Symbian S60 & S80. If you own Symbian S60 3rd edition or UIQ3, you'll have to purchase license for it after you try it for 10 days. (click on each of the OS link to immediately download it to your smartphone) To find out more on which smartphones is this Mobile Office can support, just head to the FAQ page.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

iControlPad will change your iPhone into a serious mobile game

Watch out Nokia N-Gage & PSP! Here comes the gaming add-on pad for the most famous mobile phone in the world (a.k.a. iPhone): iControlPad. The mastermind behind this project, CraigX has thought of the reason why he make it: "Emulators and games just not really working well enough with the touch screen? We didn't think so either - so we built this little add on. Yeah. Realise the full potential of the iPhone by adding real controls."

It's pretty straight forward, your iPhone just slides in and locks in to place via the serial port; there are no modifications needed and you can remove it at any time. So far CraigX and his team haven't put on the Start and Select buttons on this version but don't worry they will be in the final set up. The current system is slightly smaller than the PSP and feels very nice to hold and use.

They've been quite strict and confidential on how iControlPad will work, how it'll cost or when the actual product is going to be released. But according to their official statement at their
website, the iPhone is locked perfectly in place when in the control pad. And they plan to release full source code and SDK support as well, that means iPod Touch is going to enjoy the same privilege with this iControlPad too.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Create your own web sites with Google Sites

Google is going to full throttle their dominance over web services once more, their latest offering is Google Sites. Which according to Caroline McCarthy (Webware), Google Sites was previously limited only for businesses with Google Apps accounts and who have their own domains had had access to Google Sites.

It's basically a free web creation tool, where your website will be hosted by the search giant; Google. It's very easy to use, and you don't have the knowledge of HTML at all to create a user friendly sites because Google Sites already prepared tools for you to do that. For more infos on how to make your web sites right away with Google Sites, just take a look at video presentation below by Andrew Zaeskee; the Google Sites' engineering manager himself.

It's amazing on how Google keep innovations coming, and as long as they all are free; then we don't mind using them. ;-D But one thing that's still lack of innovation; I've tried creating a new web sites with Google Sites and accessed it with my Treo, but looks like the Pocket IE can't correctly open my new web site. Hope those smart Googlers will optimized Google Sites to be opened with smartphones in the future...



[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Days of widgets

It's been a long week for me, everything seems like moving in snail paces. Especially because I often trapped in Jakarta's awful traffic jam, so I felt like I'm getting old in the car on the street instead at home in front of a computer... ;-p

I couldn't get my works done even after few days here, worst of all is I can't get enough access to the net because I don't have a laptop anymore. So I would have to wait till I got back to my cousin's home and borrow his computer, and I still have to wait until my cousin's children stop using it.

That's why I think I owe an apology to all of you who have been waiting for news update, and of course to you who have been waiting for my email replies. I couldn't get to review all of those web widgets, web sites & applications that y'all have sent to me. But I do my best to try them all one by one, even if it takes my resting times.

So far I've installed four new web widgets into my weblog here, I'm going to introduce them to you before I write some reviews about them in the future. The reason is very simple: I need to try these widgets first myself, and I need you my dear readers (and you who listen to my weblog's podcast too) to try them while you visited my weblog. Here they are:

Google Translate
You've probably already read about Google Translate news here at my weblog, and as you can see it at the right side of my weblog. To use it, just pull down the options window and click on the language you wish translate it to.

Odiogo
Now this one isn't exactly new, but for you who have missed it then don't forget to check it out at every posts I've made. The Odiogo widget is placed right under the post's title, so you can instantly listen the post right from your web browser. Or you may even subscribe to my weblog's podcast by clicking on the Odiogo widget button on the right side.

VocalFruits
I've been informed by nikko about his new web service called VocalFruits (vFruits in short), which basically transform my weblog into podcast. But you'll need to sign-up to vFruits first, before you can enjoy my blogs in various podcast languages. Check out vFruits web site to find out, and to see whether you can start enjoying my blogs in your native tongue.

firefly
Now I get a very nice support from Billy Chasen for this free web service, called firefly. So I'm very much wanted to know how firefly will work in my weblog, where according to infos I read from their demo; firefly will allow visitors of my weblog to interact with each other. You don't need to install anything at all, all you've got to do is click on the firefly chat button on the right side. I'm pretty sure you won't have even a hard time to use this new firefly chat widget ;-) You can discuss my blogs or anything you want here, just don't use any foul languages or words while you're here, okay?

Okay, I've re-arranged my weblog view and the next thing is I need your help. Please give me inputs on each of above widgets; do you like to use them, or found any bugs while using them, or perhaps you have new features you would like to see in each of those widgets? Don't be shy to leave comments at this post or email me, I'll definetely will look and read every of your thoughts later. And if your comments are good, I will pass them to each of their developers and credited you along.

Thank you and have a nice day y'all!

[blogged with my Treo 750v]