Mike Slocombe

BLINK: Bluetooth Simplicity From Broadcom?
If you’ve ever spent hours shouting at the little blinking blue light on your laptop screaming, “what do you mean you can’t find my phone? IT’S THERE!!”, then you may find Broadcom’s new BLINK Bluetooth software (Bluetooth-Link = BLINK, getit?) bringing your blood pressure down.
Claiming to “radically simplify Bluetooth connectivity between cell phones and PCs”, the software is the result of a collaboration between Broadcom and BVRP Software International (now Avanquest Software), and has already adopted by networking retailers such as Anycom and IO GEAR, as well as a ton of Bluetooth dongle manufacturers.
Although Bluetooth-enabled phones continue to grow in popularity, many people are put off using the functionality because of problems getting some devices to talk to each other.
BLINK software claims to soothe the troubled brows of baffled Bluetooth uses with an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) that makes complex Bluetooth-related tasks “as simple as browsing the Internet.”
“This software simplifies the use of Bluetooth technology to such an extent that we anticipate ‘BLINK’ to become synonymous with Bluetooth when connecting phones and PCs using products based on our technology,” said Scott Bibaud, Senior Director of Marketing for Broadcom’s Bluetooth products.
Beaming with confidence, Scott continued, “Once users discover the convenience of ‘BLINKing’ files and data between their phones and PCs, the true power of Bluetooth will become clearer to the millions of consumers that already have the technology built into their phones.”
Once fired up, the BLINK software serves up a graphical representation of the user’s mobile phone on their desktop or notebook PC screens.
Once connected, users can operate all the main phone functions directly from the computer, and drag and drop items from their PCs directly to their cell phones.
Via the BLINK interface, users can update and synchronise phone numbers, contact information and calendars as well as transfer pictures, music and data.
The Internet can also be accessed on the desktop via any GPRS/EDGE/CDMA cellular data links and SMS messages can be sent and received.
“Digital photos, phone numbers and calendar appointments are literally trapped inside users’ cell phones because of the complexity involved in transferring this information to PCs and other devices,” said Brian O’Rourke, Senior Analyst at In-Stat.
“Broadcom’s leading work in Bluetooth software will not only lead to greater penetration of Bluetooth hardware in a number of applications, it will also make it easier to use for these advanced tasks,” he added.
Broadcom will be shoving a copy of the software into our grubby hands shortly so check back soon.
Broadcom
27 September, 2005
E-500 (EVOLT): Olympus Launches dSLR
Competition at the lower end of the dSLR market looks set to heat up as Olympus launch their new Four Thirds System digital SLR, the E-500 (called the ‘Olympus EVOLT E-500’ in North America).
Although housed in a more traditional-looking SLR body, the new camera shares many of the same features of last year’s well received E-300, and is based around the same Kodak eight megapixel 4/3 size CCD.
It’s a fully specified beast, with Olympus introducing a range of improvements and new features including a new 49 area metering sensor (a 7×7 matrix), new high ISO noise filter, a whopping 21 preset scenes and a better control system.
There’s numerous white balance controls onboard (including WB by colour temperature and WB fine tuning) and old school OM4 users will be pleased to see the return of the two spot metering modes for highlight and shadow detail.
Dominating the back of the camera is a large, 2.5″ HyperCrystal 215k LCD monitor offering a wide viewing angle.
Three colour modes are supported – Vivid, Natural and Muted – with users able to choose from two Colour Space Settings, sRGB or Adobe RGB.
Photographers fed up with speckly bits on their pictures will be glad to see Olympus including their unique Supersonic Wave Filter, a sensor cleaning widget which blasts out high frequency vibrations to dislodge internal dust or dirt.
We only wish our Nikon D70 came with one!
Storage is taken care of by CompactFlash Type II and xD Picture card memory card slots, with the camera capable of taking up to 4 RAW/TIFF/SHQ images in a row at 2.5 frames/second; with shooting continuing until the memory card is full at HQ quality.
There’s a choice of three image formats available: RAW, TIFF, and JPEG, with the option to simultaneously record images in RAW and JPEG .
The camera looks great, the features and flexibility are at least as good – if not better – than the competition and, best of all, it’s coming with a killer price tag of just US$799 (~e665~£452) for the E-500 plus 14-45mm f3.5/5.6 Zuiko Digital Zoom Lens, or $899 (~e748~£509) for a dual lens kit with an additional 40 – 150mm f3.5/4.5 lens.
Olympus
27 September, 2005
Music Video Album Released On Mobile Memory Card By V2
Virgin’s ‘independent-style’ record label, V2 Music has teamed up with mobile video solutions developer Rok Player to announce the release of an ‘indie music video album’ for playing on mobile phones.
The videos are stored on a memory card which simply plugs into compatible mobile handsets for full-screen play, so there’s no need to download or stream the content.
Using Rok Player technology, indie kids can play back audio-visual content preloaded on memory cards at an impressive 24 frames a second (full screen) on compatible mobile handsets.
Rok Player-compatible mobile phones include the latest Nokia handsets such as the 6630 and the 6680 and the N-Gage series.
“This is such an exciting development in the distribution of music videos” enthused Beth Appleton of V2 Music “as nearly everyone has, or will have, a compatible mobile phone and ROK Player turns those into portable DVD players. So now, for the first time, people can watch as well as listen to their favourite artists perform”.
The video album includes music videos from Brendon Benson, Ron Sexsmith, Bloc Party, Stereophonics, At the Drive In, Charlie Mars, Cut Copy, Dogs Die in Hot Cars, Mercury Rev, Paul Weller, The Cribs, The Rakes and The Datsuns.
Bruce Renny of ROK , commented, “We’re already seeing tremendous interest in our music video albums for mobile phones, and to be able to include this new title in our portfolio is tremendous. We’re expecting the V2 album to prove very popular indeed because of the high quality of the artists it features”.
Although we’re equally impressed with the line up, £16 ($28.5, €23.5) for 13 tracks sure seems a lot of dosh to shell out to squint at a compilation album on a tiny screen. Is this the price teenage cool these days?
ROK Player
27 September, 2005
Windows Based Palm Treo On The Way
To the sound of a thousand wailing Palm Pilots, Palm has unveiled a version of the classic Treo smartphone running on Windows Mobile 5.0.
Possibly called the Treo 700w (or maybe the Treo 670 – details are scarce!), the new phone will initially only be available from Verizon Wireless, running on the carrier’s EV-DO broadband network.
A series of ‘first look’ photos on Engadget shows the new Treo to be slightly narrower than the Treo 650, but at the cost of what looks like a smaller 240×240 pixel display, instead of the usual 320×320.
Confirmed specs include Windows Mobile 5.0, a one megapixel camera, EV-DO, Bluetooth and 64MB of memory.
Palm users still waiting for the Wi-Fi card categorically promised at the Treo 650 UK launch in April will be mightily miffed to learn that a SD Wi-Fi card worked straight out of the box with the Windows Treo – a classic example perhaps of why people are leaving the Palm OS.
Formerly bitter rivals, Palm and Microsoft’s collaboration looks to add the security and functionality of Microsoft’s new Window Mobile 5.0 OS to the solid and well-respected Palm Treo 600/650 range.
Palm president and CEO Ed Colligan called the Windows Treo an “historic” product, adding, “We’ve long believed that the future of personal computing is mobile computing, and our collaboration with Microsoft is an historic step in delivering that vision to a larger market.”
Already, pundits are suggesting that the introduction of the Windows Treo marks the end of the Palm OS Platform, still reeling from the withdrawal of the technically groundbreaking Sony Clie range.
Carmi Levy, Senior Research Analyst at Info-Tech Research Group commented that the new Treo signals a massive shift in the handheld/smartphone market, adding that “when viewed in conjunction with the sale of PalmSource earlier this month, it’s an acceleration in the demise of the Palm OS platform and final confirmation that its once-dominant position in the broader handheld market is gone for good.
“As popular as Palm has traditionally been with end-users, it has always been a marginal corporate player,” continued Levy.
The Palm OS has traditionally lacked robust corporate security features, making the Windows Mobile platform more attractive to corporate IT departments.
What Microsoft has lacked, however, is a killer piece of hardware, something they’re likely to now have with a Windows Mobile-based Treo.
There’s been no release date set for the Windows-based Treo yet, but it is expected to be available “very early” in 2006.
Palm plans to bring the Windows Treo to other wireless carriers in the second half of 2006, including GSM/GPRS carriers in Europe and Asia.
Treo
Engadget Treo pics
27 September, 2005
Pocket Informant Review: Pocket PC (4/5 Stars)
Pocket Informant 2005 is an integrated Pocket PC application that replaces the built-in Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Notes, Journal programs and adds a Timeline view.
Loaded with customisation options, the program lets you dabble with just about everything and anything you can see on screen – typefaces, font sizes, font colours, categories, category colours, icons – the lot!
Although this seem a bit like overkill, the different screen sizes and resolutions available on PocketPCs means that controlling font sizing can come in very handy.
So, how does this do-it-all Personal Information Manager (PIM) shape up? Let’s take a closer look.
Calendar
The Calendar view offers a host of different views, displaying one day, seven day or whole month views on one screen, with the Agenda view presenting a user-selectable number of days of appointments in a list format, with the option to filter out ‘free’ days.
New appointments may be added by tapping and holding on a day’s title bar. Double-tapping on an entry opens its detail screen for viewing, editing or adding alarms.
Regularly recurring meetings can be set up as templates to speed up text entry (e.g. “Going to pub.”)
As soon as an event has passed it is displayed in italics, making it easy for the easily confused to see what events are remaining in the current day.
As with all the components in the Pocket Informant suite, a global navigation bar sits at the bottom of the screen, offering instant access to diary views, contacts, notes, to-dos and filter and search options.
Contacts
The Contacts screen opens up with a tabbed alphabetical row along the time allowing nifty access to contacts.
Inputting new contacts is straightforward enough, with the program auto-filling in frequently-entered text.
A whole host of fields are available to include every possible detail of your new contact, with the option to associate mugshots with contacts, and assign multiple categories.
The search facility is particularly clever, with users able to specify that the program looks for entries that start with the search text or for entries that contain the specified text.
Once a number is located, it can be dialled IR, Bluetooth, DTMF or Serial.
Naturally, there are options galore for listing contacts, including First/Last name, Last/First name, providing a picture list, and grouping by company, department, city, state, country, and category.
Tasks
As you might have guessed by now, the Tasks interface comes with a shedload of options, with entries being sorted/grouped by category, importance, priority, progress, completion, or date.
There’s the usual filtering and grouping options available, with users able to set up nested hierarchical tasks.
Tasks may be dropped on others to establish relationships, child tasks can be created by tapping and holding on a task and the hierarchical display may be expanded or collapsed.
Tasks can also be set to repeat with nagging reminders and start and completion dates entered.
Notes
Here’s where we were very disappointed.
Unlike the simplicity of Palm’s ‘Memos’, the handling of notes is a real half arsed affair in Pocket Informant – the display is a real dog to get around, and everything seems needlessly complicated.
Sure, the improved text formatting is a nice touch, but finding, organising and categorising notes seems a needlessly tiresome chore.
I hope the Pocket Informant developers – who have a well earned reputation for listening to their punters – take a long hard look at how programs like Agendus on the Palm handle notes and learn from their experience.
Conclusion
Apart from the clunky horror of the Notes interface, it’s easy to see why Pocket Informant has become the most popular PIM application on the Pocket PC.
The program does an admirable job of making it easy for users to search find, organise and display content on the small screen of a Pocket PC and provides excellent value at $29.95 (~€24.5~£16.50).
With its extraordinary amount of user-configurable options, the program can be tailored to fit individual requirements, and with ample power under the hood, it can easily grow with the user’s needs.
Although the sheer range of options can confuse new users (us included), the intuitive, usable defaults make it easy to get started with the program.
Whether many users will ever get around to discovering the true power of the program is another matter, however.
We still think, however, that it’s the best PIM application available for the Pocket PC with only the poor support for Notes preventing it getting our very top rating.
Digital-Lifestyles score: 4/5
Price: $29.95 (~€24.50, ~£16.50)
Buy now online at PocketGear – Special Offer $22.95 until 30 Sep.05
Further information Pocket Informant
26 September, 2005
i-mate K-JAM Smartphone/PDA Announced
Building on the success of their hugely popular JAM phone, i-mate have announced the new K-JAM smartphone/PDA.
Powered by a TI OMAP 850 200MHz processor, the quad-band smartphone features a nifty slide out keyboard, with a form factor of 108mm x 58mm x 23.7mm (roughly the same size as an i-mate JAM, but with a deeper case).
The keyboard slides out from the left side of the phone, with the screen rotating into landscape mode for typing.
Built-in storage capacity has been increased to 64MB SDRAM RAM and 128MB ROM (for programs and user’s storage), supported by a miniSD memory expansion slot.
The display comes in the form of a 2.8″ QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) 64k Transflective screen, and the device runs on the latest Windows Mobile 5.0 OS.
Wireless connectivity is taken care of via integrated Bluetooth 1.1, InfraRed and – delightfully – built-in WiFi
Like its predecessor, the phone sports a 1.3 megapixel camera with a new video/flash light. We hope it’s the not the same one that shipped with the i-mate JAM because that one was spectacularly rubbish.
Equally rubbish was the low-volume distorto-matic speakerphone, but i-mate seems to have addressed this issue by adding new dual speakers with 3D surround sound.
The phone offers support for a wide range of music formats, and claims 10 hours running time in PDA mode and 4-5 hours talk time.
As with other HTC-manufactured phones, consumers can expect the K-JAM to emerge under a panoply of different names over the coming months, depending on the service provider.
i-mate
26 September, 2005
XpressMusic Brand And Nokia 3250 Music Phone Released
Finnish mobile giants Nokia have come up with the Nokia 3250, a new music-driven mobile phone featuring dedicated music keys and storage for up to 750 songs.
The phone was announced at Nokia Trends, an electronic music festival in Berlin, Germany over the weekend.
Like Chubby Checker in a hula-hooping competition, the unique design twists 180 degrees around to transform the phone keypad into dedicated music keys.
Through its onboard microSD memory card slot, the Nokia 3250 can store up to 1 Gigabyte (750 songs) of high quality music with a battery life quoted at 10 hours of music play (talktime of up to 3 hours).
The music player supports a wide array of digital music formats such as MP3, WMA, M4A and AAC, with the ability to download songs over the air.
Songs can be converted from CD and transferred from home PCs using the “drag and drop” Nokia Audio Manager software.
There’s also a beefy two megapixel camera built into the triband GSM 900/1800/1900 phone, with an FM radio with Visual Radio client complements rounding off the main feature list.
The camera is activated in the landscape mode by twisting the Nokia 3250’s phone’s keypad around 90 degrees, and images can be shared by MMS or printed on a compatible printer via Bluetooth.
The Nokia 3250 is based on the popular Series 60 platform and Symbian OS, which gives users access to a wide range of third-party applications.
Nokia XpressMusic
The Nokia 3250 phone features the new “Nokia XpressMusic” mark, a dedicated feature brand designed to make it easy for punters to identify products in Nokia’s growing music-optimized mobile range.
Devices emblazoned with the logo share key features like dedicated music key(s), music pause/resume on incoming calls, ‘substantial’ storage, support for standard 3.5 mm headphone connectors and an extended battery life.
“Nokia connects people to their passions – music – and as the world’s largest manufacturer of digital music players, Nokia is leading the charge to make mobile music widely accessible. The XpressMusic feature brand, also introduced today, makes it easier for consumers to identify those Nokia devices which are specifically designed to listen to music,” purred Kai Öistämö, Senior Vice President, Mobile Phones, Nokia.
“One of the first devices to feature the XpressMusic mark is the Nokia 3250, which is going to stop music fans in their (favourite) tracks. Its unique twist design makes it quick and easy to switch between the music keys, the regular keypad and the camera mode.”
Nokia
26 September, 2005
Music Video Shot On Mobile Phones
An Australian production company has made what they are claiming is the first music video shot entirely with mobile-phone cameras.
Brisbane-based company Film Headquarters filmed the video for US band the Presidents of the United States of America (P.U.S.A.) in a one day shoot in a studio in Seattle, US.
A multiplicity of mobiles (which look like Sony Ericsson k750i’s to us) were set up on frames and tripods with handheld footage recorded by four crew members who wandered around the band as they played, with the footage being sent via Bluetooth to laptops.
It was discovered that the quality of the video footage captured on the phones was so bad, the band had to perform at half-speed so that the phones could decently record their movement.
After filming, over 12 angles were added together in post-production to make up one composition or shot.
So what, you may ask, was the point of recording a video on such a crappy medium (phone footage is 1/3000th the quality of standard broadcast) when high quality digicams could have been purchased for a few quid more?
The director of music video, Grant Marshall from Film Headquarters tries to explain, ‘We came up with this idea 18 months ago but couldn’t find a band that would embrace the risk and vision. P.U.S.A loved the concept and were brave enough to undertake the risk. This was a fantastic experience for all of us. The band was fabulous and incredibly professional.”
‘The result is great and the look reminiscent of the movies available on Quicktime in the 90s. The funniest part of the shoot was to see a mobile phone sitting on a tripod-it’s quite a sight. With mobile phone camera resolutions doubling every few years, people will probably look back and say this idea was ‘so 2005′,’ he added.
Thing is, we love the idea of DIY media, but with the footage spending two weeks in expensive post-production after shooting, this video hardly marks the dawn of a new age of mobile phone-authored pop videos.
Link to the video
Film Headquarters
26 September, 2005
UltraMon Review: Multi-Monitor Utility (5/5 Stars)
Following on from his review of the Viewsonic VP191s, Mike covers a software utility that works your two screen setup hard.
It wasn’t long ago that fancy twin monitor sets ups were the sole preserve of hotshot traders, high-flying graphics pros and, err, security guards, but recent price crashes have seen flat-screen multi-screen set ups becoming more affordable.
Although XP comes with basic twin monitor support as standard, keeping track of all your open applications over two (or more) screens can soon become a pain.
Under XP, arranging windows on each of the different displays involves dragging and dropping them all over the place, and with the taskbar only appearing on the primary monitor, things can soon get confusing.
Ultramon is a smarty-pants application that helps sort out your desktop chaos, making it a breeze to work with multiple displays.
With support for more than ten monitors, UltraMon adds a raft of user-configurable tools to help users get a manly grip on their acres of screen real estate.
The program adds a taskbar to each monitor, and only shows applications from the monitor it is on – so you won’t have to rummage around a single taskbar any more.
If you drag an application to a different monitor, its taskbar button will be moved to the corresponding taskbar. Neat.
Moving programs around the screen is also made easier with the addition of two new buttons to the title bar.
These little fellas let you quickly shunt programs across to other screens with a single click, or maximise a single window across the entire desktop.
Shortcuts can be configured for moving and maximizing windows, with UltraMon’s full range of options available by right clicking on the icon in the taskbar.
Amongst its multifarious options, you can create shortcuts that open programs on a specific monitor or at a specific position, or even configure the program to change the display settings before launching an application and then restoring them when the program is closed.
These settings can also be configured by opening the properties of an existing Windows shortcut and fiddling about in the new tabs added by UltraMon.
Keyboard shortcuts can be set up for moving and maximising screens, with ‘display profiles’ letting you quickly change the settings of one or more monitors for each user.
The program also lets you stretch desktop wallpapers and screen savers across multiple screens or set a different picture and screen saver for each screen, which can look way cool!
After running UltraMon for just a few minutes we realised that we could never go back to the clunky, fiddly ways of Windows, so for anyone look to get the best out of their multi-screen set-up, we can thoroughly recommend the program.
Score: 5/5
UltraMon
Cost: $39.95 (~£22~€33)
23 September, 2005
Oxford Mobile TV (DVB-H) Pilot Starts
UK operator O2 has announced a mobile TV pilot letting 400 customers in Oxford to choose from 16 channels, featuring popular shows such as Lost, EastEnders, Coronation Street
Having originally trailed this story over a year ago when it was announced that O2 were to trial DVB-H video to mobile phones, then again four months ago when the DVB-H trial content partners were announced, we were pleased to see that it’s scheduled to commence next week.
The pilot is a collaboration between Nokia and Arqiva (formerly NTL Broadcast) and is expected to last for six months, tasked with measuring user reactions to the new technology.
Participants in the trial will be dished out Nokia 7710 smartphones, which are compatible with the Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds (DVB-H) technology used for the TV transmissions.
Arqiva will be providing a DVB-H transmitter network that will cover an area of 120 sq km centered around the dreaming spires of Oxford, and will also be responsible for aggregating the content and operating the trial service.
During the trial, users will receive free BBC and BskyB TV streams to their mobile phones, but voice and data calls will be charged under their existing tariff plan.
Favourite programmes can be selected from an on-screen service guide, which also lets users search for specific items and set alarms on their handset to remind them a specific show is starting.
O2’s chief technology officer, Dave Williams, feels that the trial will help in establishing a model for more projects in the future, commenting. “By establishing relationships through activities such as this, we hope that potential challenges will be minimised and mobile TV becomes a commercial reality sooner than is currently possible.”
Although some video content has previously been made available to mobile phone customers, so far they’ve taken the form of short clips and previews, rather than true television broadcasts.
With time-rich punters spending an estimated £250,000 on downloading clips of this summer’s season of Big Brother, there’s clearly a growing demand for video content on mobiles.
o2
Arqiva
23 September, 2005