I bought the Ericsson Bluetooth headset kit for my T28
World Phone. It seems like we have been hearing about Bluetooth for years and yet there are practically no products available. To my knowledge this headset is the first Bluetooth anything available for purchase. I've been thinking about it for some time and decided to plunk down the bucks to buy it. After all, I do these silly things so you don't have to. What do I think? Well, I have posted some of my initial thoughts here.
posted by Frank McPherson 5:20 PM |
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I found this link at PDA Buzz. Acomdata.com is selling a USB reader that supports four storage formats: CompactFlash, Memory Stick, SmartMedia, and MMC/SD. It looks like it is the size of a zip drive. The page doesn't say whether it supports Type II CompactFlash. Which reminds me, I still need to swap out my Type I CompactFlash Sandisk reader with a Type II reader.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:48 PM |
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Pocket PC Thoughts - News, Views, Rants & Raves Microsoft will not be providing an update of MS Reader for the current Pocket Pcs that supports DRM5. Read Jason's explaination and the followup discussion.
posted by Frank McPherson 3:40 PM |
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PCWorld.com - Cyberbank Readies Hybrid PDA/Cell Phone "Cyberbank missed its forecast, but now expects to ship the device priced under $500 in the U.S. market, significantly cheaper than the $800 it cited at introduction." Maybe, just maybe this will come to market. Priced at under $500 might make it a seller.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:48 PM |
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DivX for Pocket PC plays AVI files.
posted by Frank McPherson 7:19 PM |
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Key Bsquare pact curtailed BSQUARE is one of the first companies that built its existence around Windows CE. In fact, a good chunk of Handheld, Palm-size, and Pocket PCs was done by them. Apparently Microsoft is beginning to dedicate more resources to Windows CE and relying less on outside companies. I don't know if this is good or bad news.. I've heard some negative things mentioned about some of BSQUARE's work.
posted by Frank McPherson 7:01 PM |
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allNetDevices: - Two-thumb Keyboard for Handhelds Introduced The manufacturer of these keyboards are planning on making models for the Compaq iPAQ. Does anyone want one of these?
posted by Frank McPherson 3:24 PM |
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Preston Crawford has figured out how to compile Java on his Jornada 720.
posted by Frank McPherson 6:52 PM |
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allNetDevices: - AT&T Wireless Throws Down the Gauntlet in Race to 3G The roll out of GPRS in the United States has begun. Now it will be interesting to see how Voicestream and Cingular reactions. Rumor is that both have the GPRS networks in place but are being held up by the lack of handsets. We'll see. I wonder how fast the AT&T Wireless solution will be?
posted by Frank McPherson 2:29 PM |
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First there was that vest. Now we have techy pants. Is this a new style in the making? <via Pocket PC Thoughts>
posted by Frank McPherson 1:12 PM |
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PocketGamer.org has a link to a Microsoft Italian web site where you can download a free copy of Hearts. And while you are there, check out the Palm emulator.
posted by Frank McPherson 7:25 PM |
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Glenn Fleishman responded to my question about how the wireless access works in the Mobilestar/Starbucks setup. He says that you need to set up a userid & password and then log in from a web browser. Once you log in you automatically have access. Apparently neither a network id or WEP is required. SSL is used to encrypt your user id & password since you are logging in from a browser. Until Mobilestar has points of presence at more places than Starbucks this seems to be more of a technology experiment rather than something practical. There is a problem there because competing companies such as AirWave have deals with places like Airports and Mobilestar currently is not interested in establishing some type of roaming arrangement with AirWave. That means if you wanted to use both networks you would need to have userids for both networks.
I think Glen is working on a piece about free 802.11b wide area networks. The Mobilestar/AirWave solutions could be moot if these free networks take off, or if we ever actually get 3G connectivity in the United States.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:37 PM |
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Toshiba to Enter PDA Market "Mizoguchi added that Toshiba, which aims to launch the Genio in the United States this autumn and to offer a model with a built-in wireless modem sometime in the business year starting next April, eventually hopes to gain a 20 percent share of the world market." This Reuters also says the price of the standard Genio will be $560. My guess is that it will be priced to compete with the Compaq 3670. If I were Compaq I would give serious consideration to lowering the price of the 3670 to put pressure on Toshiba.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:28 AM |
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Nothing like a new product announcement to generate some buzz. Here is the official Toshiba press release about the Genio. Allthe Pocket PC sites have articles up about this. Here is my take. Why is Toshiba announcing this today? The press release says the GENIO will be displayed at Wireless Japan starting tomorrow. Apparently this is a big wireless show in Japan. That probably means there will some wireless add-ons shown with this product. I like the fact that this will ship in Japan first. It is good news for American consumers that Toshiba work out any manufacturing and distribution bugs in their home market. My guess is that this ships in the United States by the end of this year, but we don't have anything firm from Toshiba on that. Nor do we have any prices.
I like the fact that this has two integrated slots. Off the top of my head I see dropping a SD Storage card in the SD slot and forgetting about it. Just keep installing apps on the SD card and that can do a lot for storage space without having to come out with a 64 MB device. The fact that it has a Type II CompactFlash slot means it can include a full range of peripherals while still keeping storage card installed.
Or, if SD peripherals start coming out (like a Bluetooth card) the roles could be reversed. That's good flexibility. And the fact that wireless LAN cards from Symbol and Proxim will soon ship in the CF form means there is less of an issue of not having a PC Card slot or sleeve. This could also be good news for Enfora since they would be providing the only CDPD modem that would work with the GENIO, though I would expect Novatel and Sierra to work hard at fixing that should the GENIO grab significant market.
The best news about all of this, IMHO, is that it ups the bar for Pocket PC hardware. Now the ball is in the court of Compaq, HP and Casio. Compaq may be the most intriguing since I think to answer the Toshiba challenge they will have to provide some type of integrated slot, presumably an SD slot. An iPAQ with an SD slot and a 400 Mhz StrongArm processor might meet this challenge very well.
BTW, pay particular attention to the fact that the Flash ROM is 32 MB. That's good news.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:59 AM |
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