TechAgility

So here in Australia we might be one of the first countries to have the iPhone unlocked and provided by two Carriers? (Optus and Vodafone) BUT - only if you are prepared to wait until the end of the year? Please…..  anyone I know who is seriously interested in the phone has already arranged one from elsewhere.

BTW, a colleague recently found out how delicate the glass screen is, OUCH!!

So I would have provided more of a quote for this story but it appears that MISaustralia.com has come up with a mechanism where when you highlight a section of text it then drops every second character …. 

Optus confirms iPhone plans

MISaustralia.com - Optus confirms iPhone plans

written by dcaddick

So from a note on Jason Langridge’s blog about Mobile 2.0 I started looking deeper at some of the recent developments in the mobile world.

Of particular note is the presentation embedded below from Rudy De Waele of m-trends.org and I would encourage anyone who is remotely interested in where things are heading with regards to mobile usage, Internet and information services to review this.

| View | Upload your own

Rudy definitely appears to have a finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the rapidly changing landscape of mobile technology?

Understanding Mobile 2.0

On the eve of Le Web 3 in Paris - and one month after the Web 2.0 Summit concluded - it seems like an appropriate time to explore the world of the mobile Web, a.k.a. mobile 2.0. There has been a lot of discussion lately on this topic, a good deal of it inspired by the mobile 2.0 event - a one-day event held on 6 November 2006, organized by Daniel Appelquist and Mike Rowehl.

Carriers and Mobile Operators are taking notice…

In the closing session about carriers and operators at the Under The Radar: Mobility Conference on 16 November 2006, I heard an Executive Director from Verizon Wireless using the term "Mobile 2.0". Also Orange (France Telecom) is sponsoring one of the biggest web 2.0 related conferences in Europe, Le Web 3 in Paris. The fact that carriers/operators are now linking their brand name to web 2.0/mobile 2.0 related content and conferences, shows that progress is being made. Web 2.0 inspired projects going mobile and/or mobile 2.0 projects have been considered as things to avoid for carriers/operators up till now, since they are disruptive to their current business models.

So does this mean, with the carriers/operators entering the space now, that mobile 2.0 is finally taking off?

…..

What is Mobile 2.0?

It’s absolutely necessary that more connections are made between the players in the web 2.0 sphere (a.k.a. next generation web apps & services) and what some Mobilists are calling mobile 2.0. What we mean by ‘mobile 2.0′ is another (r)evolution, already started, that will dramatically change the web and the mobility landscape that we currently know. The idea is that the mobile web will become the dominant access method in many countries of the world, with devices that become more hybrid and networks that become more powerful - everywhere in the next decade to come.

…….

Well Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, put it very well in a Financial Times article in May this year (subscription only):

"Mobile phones are cheaper than PCs, there are three times more of them, growing at twice the speed, and they increasingly have Internet access. What is more, the World Bank estimates that more than two-thirds of the world’s population lives within range of a mobile phone network. Mobile is going to be the next big Internet phenomenon. It holds the key to greater access for everyone - with all the benefits that entails."

…..

Mobilist blogger Enrique C. Ortiz sees another hindrance (and I think he’s right): the lack of open standards and tools to build your own mobile 2.0 applications. He says:

"Web 2.0 is based on user intelligence instead of technologies, i.e. by giving users smart tools that enable them to apply human semantics to information provided, you get a more intelligent web. This can only be done in a massive (thus useful) way with open standards and protocols that are inclusive and inviting to everyone. Now, as I see it, this ‘open-source’ story is an aspect seriously lacking from mobile platforms."

Carriers/operators need to cover their investments and so they want to be compensated by any 3rd party using their network. This is fair enough, but the fact is that operators are losing more and more control over mobile devices - because these devices can communicate with other devices over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Wimax, NFC, etc. That is, more options are becoming available for mobile users to access the web over networks other than the closed networks of the operators.

…..

Mobile Startups

There’s definitely a lot of movement around on the mobile start-up front. Besides Yahoo with Flickr and Google with YouTube going mobile, there are some very interesting start-up companies resolutely going mobile. Many of them are building easy-to-use mobile web apps and services. Here’s a starter for ten to check out (too many to link to, but just google them!):

• BluePulse
• ComVu
• Funambol
• Gizmo
• Loopt
• JuiceCaster
• Mobo
• Mystrands
• Plazes
• Plusmo
• Sharpcast
• SlingMedia
• Shozu
• SoonR
• TalkPlus
• Widsets
• Winksite
• … and many others. 

In fact please add your name/project to the list here in the comments, so someone can start categorizing them

…..

Conclusion

To conclude, check this nice mobile 2.0 definition from Daniel Appelquist:

"Mobile 2.0 is not "the Future." it is services that already exist all around us. These services are maturing at an amazing rate and what they are doing is effectively knitting together Web 2.0 with the mobile platform to create something new: a new class of services that leverage mobility but are as easy to use and ubiquitous as the Web is today. These services point the way forward for the mobile data industry."

It took the internet a couple of years after 1994 to reach its maturity on the technology side, not to forget the business side of things. I believe the time has come for another exciting period, the Mobile Web. Some carriers/operators are finally starting to act - how about you?

Written for Read/WriteWeb by Rudy De Waele of m-trends.org.

Understanding Mobile 2.0 - ReadWriteWeb

written by dcaddick

So is there anything you can’t do with the iPhone now? I might even have to reconsider and get one myself to see what all the fuss is about?

Video of the iPhone Pwned project in action

Posted Mar 29th 2008 8:38PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Cellphones

Those crafty kids on the iPhone Dev Team have already hacked the 2.0 firmware, but now they’re getting ready to release the oh-so-creatively-named PWNED tool, which takes iPhone hacking to the next level by patching the bootloader to let you load any firmware image you want — even images not signed by Apple. That means custom patched firmware can now be loaded directly from iTunes, which simplifies the jailbreaking / unlocking process tremendously, and also means that a patched version of the 2.0 firmware is coming soon. We’re putting the tool through its paces right now and we’ll have a hands-on with it (and the Dev Team’s patched 2.0 firmware) as soon as we get it all working, but check out some highlights after the break, and hit the read link for more info.

Video of the iPhone Pwned project in action - Engadget

written by dcaddick

Well this is interesting? If I read this right it sounds like the new Firmware for the iPhone has been well and truly hacked before it’s even made it out the door?

I can’t help wondering how many IT dept’s are going to be plagued with requests to update the Exchange System so that it can now support iPhone’s on ActiveSync connections?

Cisco VPN     Exchange Settings

iPhone 2.0 “sneak peek”

John Biggs

There has been a lot of talk about the new iPhone firmware and its enterprise capabilities. Well, the iPhoneDevTeam has cracked the 2.0 (actually 1.2) firmware and created a version of the firmware that works with any GSM SIM card without difficult incantations and installations. The firmware isn’t out yet — they’re sitting on it until the final version comes out — but this is what iPhone 2.0 will look like a few months from now. Watch it just so you can send it to your IT guy to convince him to buy iPhones for your team. After all, it does run Exchange.

iPhone 2.0 “sneak peek”

written by dcaddick

So things have been quite quiet for me over the break in some ways as I took advantage of the fact that my Father-in-law made late changes to go over to Perth for the Xmas/New Year break and that unexpectedly left a 42 foot fly bridge cruiser at my disposal for use on the Sydney Harbour - but I digress….

Anyway, I’m now catching up on all the feeds from bloglines and I came across this tasty little snippet of all the work that Microsoft looks to be pouring in to developing the SmartPhone side of things - one might almost surmise that they have been stung in to action based on the hype around Apple’s iPhone? Surely not?

Way more at source…

Microsoft is currently developing Windows Mobile 7, the first revolutionary change to its mobile device operating system. Recently, I was given a document by a source inside Microsoft that details the touch and gesture plans for Mobile 7. This document is a confidential internal use only document, used to explain the plans for Mobile 7, and contains well over a hundred pages of designs, ideas, and changes to the way we interact with our mobile devices.

Below, you’ll find over 3,000 words detailing my notes from the document. I can’t publish the document here, at least not until after the product is announced, to protect my sources. I will provide the document to trusted journalists in order to share and show proof of this information. If there is anything I leave out, please don’t hesitate to ask and I will try to provide a screenshot or answer.

The document appears to be from the past summer, and some of the details may change before the product is announced. However, the touch and gesture plans appear to be set in stone, and will be the focus of Windows Mobile 7.

What’s New

Windows Mobile 7 will dramatically change the way we use mobile devices. It will emphasize the use of touch on the device, as well as motion gestures created by using the device. It is, absolutely, Microsoft’s effort to beat back the iPhone, and the iPhone is referenced several times in the document.

Windows Mobile 7 will use touch gestures, similar to how the iPhone does. You will be able to flick through lists, pan, swipe sideway, draw on the screen. A lot of emphasis has been put on making navigation easier and doing away with scrollbars, including a new scroll handle that allows for multiple ways of finding items extremely fast.

Windows Mobile 7 will use motion gestures, something the iPhone does not. It will not use an intricate and complicated series of gyroscopes and accelerometers. Instead, it will use the camera on the phone to detect motions and create appropriate actions. You will be able to shake, twist and otherwise manipulate the phone and get things done. The phone will be able to perform actions when placed face down on a surface, and it will know when it is in your pocket or bag.

Windows Mobile 7 will have an exciting locking screen, that will allow you to play around with it, draw on it, shake it and completely otherwise mess with it.

Windows Mobile 7 will have dramatically improved visuals, different from the iPhone and much more similar to the dark and futuristic visuals of Windows Vista. It will feature graphical transitions, subtle effects, and other things to make it more interesting to look at. This is not detailed in the document, but featured in the multitude of screenshots.

Windows Mobile 7 is designed to use the finger, not the stylus, though many devices will be required to include a stylus. It is designed to be easy to use with the hand, including one-handed, and to be fun to use and easy to understand. It is designed to be used on devices with no buttons, few buttons, lots of buttons, full keyboards, and devices without touch screens.

Windows Mobile 7 is clearly designed for better media playback, with screenshots indicating a much-improved Media Player and photo gallery application. There is talk in the document of a games mode. Mobile Internet Explorer runs full-screen web pages in a minimalistic interface, and has “tabbed” browsing, except you can switch tabs by shaking the phone.

The keyboard has been improved, but plans for a full touch keyboard, a la the iPhone, have been shelved until a future version of Windows Mobile.

Below are my detailed notes. Some of it is raw, some of it is very detailed. It is accompanied by screenshots direct from the document which show off other features planned for Windows Mobile 7.

Click on any image to view it full-size. They’re all high quality images.

more at source…

» Exclusive: Windows Mobile 7 To Focus On Touch and Motion Gestures » InsideMicrosoft-part of the Blog News Channel

written by dcaddick

Holy Smoke Batman, what wont you be able to do on the go? Considering that this quite likely eclipses the resources that you would have typically used for a Server a decade ago?

What with Samsung now looking in to running a hypervisor on mobile devices and the ability to actually run a web server as well - it make me wonder what’s next?

The only thing that’s still missing is a new and innovative way to communicate to the device, I’d love to be able to bypass the keyboard if we could just find a better faster way?

Qualcomm unveils 1 GHz mobile phone processors

Nov. 14, 2007
Qualcomm has unveiled the first two products in its "Snapdragon" family of chipsets aimed at next-generation mobile phones. The dual-core QSD8250/8650 chipsets clock to 1 GHz, include a "universal modem" claimed to support "all 2G and 3G mobile broadband standards," and are being demonstrated running Windows CE- and Linux-based OSes, the company said.

According to Qualcomm, the QSD8250 offers HSPA data rates of up to 7.2 Mbps on the downlink and 5.76 Mbps on the uplink, with full backward compatibility. The dual-mode QSD8650 offers HSPA, as well as CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev. B, again backward-compatible with WCDMA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE.
Both chipsets include an ARM-based 1 GHz "Scorpion" microprocessor with 128-bit SIMD (single instruction multiple data) capability, plus a 600 MHz low-power, "low-leakage" DSP. According to Qualcomm, they also offer WiFi, Bluetooth, and a "universal broadcast modem" that can receive broadcasts in MediaFLO, SDMB, ISDB-T, TDMB, and DVB-H formats.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips offer a wide array of functionality
(Click to enlarge)

Other multimedia capabilities are said to include XGA display support, WVGA (800 x 480) encode/decode, and audio support for MP3, aacPlus, and enhanced aacPlus. In addition to supporting GPS, the QSD8250 and QSD8650 also support cameras with resolution up to 12 MB, Qualcomm says.
In addition to offering "unsurpassed mobile processing performance," the new chips also provide extended, "all-day" battery life, claims Qualcomm.

Qualcomm unveils 1 GHz mobile phone processors

written by dcaddick

So it’s an interesting way of Google to release their mobile offering in an Emulator/SDK download to stimulate interest before the actual hardware - and it certainly won’t hurt that they’ve put $10m up for grabs for potential developers?

Android - An Open Handset Alliance Project

Getting Started

1. Learn about Android
2. Download the SDK
3. Join the community. Participate in our discussion group through email or the web.

The Android Developer Challenge will award $10 million to developers who build great apps for Android. Learn more!

Featured Videos

Sergey Brin and Steve Horowitz discuss the availability of the SDK, that it will be open source in the future, and demo some applications.

Three part overview of the Android architecture and APIs

First look at building an Android Application

more videos

The Open Handset Alliance, a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies, is developing Android: the first complete, open, and free mobile platform. To help developers get started developing new applications, we’re offering an early look at the Android Software Development Kit.

Android

written by dcaddick

So based on two recent announcements it might actually be possible shortly to host your Virtual Web Server from your PDA? Seriously, it might not be possible today - but don’t bet against it being real in the next year or so?  

Turn your phone into a file and web server

When you want to connect to your Windows Mobile phone you’ve got a few options. You can either use ActiveSync via the supplied cable or you can remotely connect over the WiFi with applications like Pocket Controller. Now there’s another way - how about turning your phone into an FTP server? Mochasoft FTP Server is a free piece of software that’ll do just that. Whilst it may not work on your 3G / GPRS connection (because a lot of networks don’t use publicly available IP addresses), you can play around with it on your home WiFi. It offers authenticated logins and the ability to specify login folders too.
This free software obviously has the advantage of being able to connect more freely to your device when your on a seperate wireless connection, but you can also (should you wish) use this in conjunction with software like Compact Web Server from Chili Software to turn your phone into a full web server that you can upload to!
Watch this space, because this gives me a few ideas for a project!

more at source… CoolSmartPhone.com - Turn your phone into a file and web server

Samsung is working on a Xen version for PDAs

Monday, November 12, 2007   |   0 Comments

EarthWeb interviewed former XenSource CTO, Simon Crosby, about future of new Citrix XenServer and competition with VMware. In one answer Crosby revealed a major news:

…

Q: The XenSource applications are based on open source. In terms of the virtualization market, what are the pluses or minuses of an open source approach?

Open source is an extremely valuable tool for innovation. One of the key things about the Xen code base is that it can be delivered to market by multiple vendors, and will be.

One of the biggest challenges that the hardware vendors have had is that vendors like Microsoft take five years to get new features to market for them. But of course we have support on Day One. So the day that the first Intel VT CPU ships, we have the support. The day the hardware virtualization [launches] we have the support. So we’ve become the industry’s first and best support for an enhanced hardware experience.

And at the same time, we’ve been very anxious to make sure that Xen as an engine was open sourced, but that multiple different vendors could have economic business models built around that. So we commoditize the "engine" - it’s the code base that everyone agrees should be commoditized - and then it has much broader applicability.

So, for example, Xen runs on [certain] PDAs, and Samsung is doing work with those as a product prototype. But it also runs on supercomputers from SGI. That way, we don’t have just one "car" - thereìs everything from Porches to Minis. So you don’t limit its applicability…

Read the whole interview at the source.

written by dcaddick

I must confess that I noticed a colleague with a HTC Touch a few weeks back and was instantly drawn to "Touch" it, it wasn’t the actual Touch interface that did it, it was the size and elegance of the design - very sweet, almost like a case of "if Apple did black mobile handsets, this is what it would/should look like"

So I recently made a slight deviation on the way to a Clients just to call in a shop that has the Touch so that I could have another look and feel - and I have to say that my gadget lust has not diminished one bit - the only issue now is that I haven’t had a chance to see the other two flavours in the flesh down here in Australia.

I’m still using my trusty Orange C600 (iMate SP5) that I brought back from the UK and the size and format with just the numeric keypad is very nice and I’m very used to it, so I’m really loath to head off and get the Touch when what I really might find is that I can’t live without the Dual - and now there is the Touch Cruise? When will it ever end…. <sob>  ;-) 

HTC Touch Cruise Announced - Hands on video and pics!
By Gears. Published on 12 Nov 2007.

HTC have just announced the latest addition to their range - the Tom Cruise. Sorry.. HTC Touch Cruise. It’s that HTC Polaris we saw some time back and it looks set to replace the HTC Artemis (T-Mobile MDA Compact III etc).
It comes complete with the enhanced finger-poking HTC TouchFLO technology plus the funky new HTC Album and keyboard additions we saw on the HTC Touch Dual. You also get the HTC Home system with real-time weather, large clock, quick app launcher and access into ringtone settings. Oh, and let’s not forget that this comes with a new-style wheel system and built-in GPS functionality and software to get you from A to B quickly and easily.
The Qualcomm MSM7200 CPU drives Windows Mobile 6 Pro at 400MHz and there’s 256MB ROM/ 128MB RAM. Quad-band 3G / HSPDA connectivity, Bluetooth 2.0 and 802.11 b/g WiFi will keep you online.
Now, as you may have spotted before, we managed to get one of these devices a few weeks back. Read on for exclusive pictures, press release and a hands-on video of the HTC Touch Cruise ! We’ll have a full review up soon, so keep it locked!

CoolSmartPhone.com - HTC Touch Cruise Announced - Hands on video and pics!

written by dcaddick

I’m not suggesting it’s the smartest thing to do, how would anyone know the URL for instance? What is interesting though is the possibilities that this starts to open up? It has been mentioned before that the idea and concept of a hypervisor and multiple virtual machines running in a SmartPhone (or iPhone for that matter) is a real possibility, so when you start thinking that there is a way of also hosting a web server in there as well then it starts me thinking about all the other possibilities?

So what possibilities are there if I buy a cheap low end Thin Client running WinCE for say $200 that has no fan or HDD (but you connect a cheap USB storage as Drive D?) but can now potentially act as a cheap Branch Web Server? Could we also get that to act as a File and Print server? OK, how about just the Print then?

There is a lot of talk these days about making the Branch connections more efficient with WIFS and WANscaler etc, to the point that you can reduce the amount of servers in the Branch - but is this actually feasible? - there always seems to be some technology point that stops the Branch server from being removed. Perhaps what is needed is a slightly different approach to what hardware is needed to support the Branch server?

With newer Thin Clients getting more powerful, and SSD Storage (and USB Flash) getting cheaper and cheaper, is it time to think about a Branch Server based on Thin Client hardware?

Windows CE Web server targets embedded apps

OpenNETCF Consulting has announced a small-footprint Web server that runs on Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0. "Padarn" provides a subset of Microsoft’s ASP.NET application framework, and can be used to create Web-based front ends for almost any embedded system, the company claims.
OpenNETCF says Padarn lets embedded developers leverage existing ASP.NET code and developer resources. Using Padarn also helps facilitate sharing code bases across platforms, the company adds.
"Padarn web pages have full access to device resources, so they can inspect and affect hardware, they can use databases or write files or just about anything that any other application can do," the company said in its announcement. Additionally, as long as a device has network connectivity, it can be reached from any browser running on any platform.

Padarn running on a Windows CE-based server

The company cautions that Padarn is not suitable for enterprise Web servers, e-commerce, or any other type of usage that will have a large volume of clients attached at once. On the other hand, Padarn is said to be ideal for remotely configuring, updating, and querying data.
According to OpenNETCF, developers creating web-based interfaces for Windows CE devices previously had two options: creating an ASP 3.0 web page, or creating an ISAPI filter. "Both are very challenging to debug since you cannot attach the Visual Studio debugger to the server, making development frustrating, time-consuming, and very expensive," the company added.
In contrast, OpenNETCF says, Padarn is a managed assembly that can be added to a "smart device" project, providing all the debugging capabilities of Visual Studio 2005. "You can set break points, step through code and use all of the other debugging tools that developers have come to rely on," the company said.
The company has two demonstration Windows CE Web servers online, both running on limited-resource, embedded style hardware. The first, running on an eBox-2300 with a 200 MHz Vortex86 processor, is available here. The second, running on an Applied Data Systems Sphere with an ARM-based Cirrus E9315 processor, is available here.
According to OpenNETCF, Padarn ships with full source code and project files for a sample Web site that can be used as a template. The included developers guide walks through setting up a solution that allows easy debugging, the company says.
Padarn is available now, according to the company. Pricing information was not provided, but licensing information may be obtained from the company’s website, here.

Windows CE Web server targets embedded apps

written by dcaddick