Wireless

Wireless connections

Resco Explorer Review: For Pocket PC (5/5 Stars)
With Pocket PCs offering more and more storage space and applications shunting files all over the place, it’s getting increasingly difficult to manage the data held on a handheld device.
With the default Pocket PC File Explorer being as powerful as a tired gnat, Resco Explorer 5.2 could prove a godsend for Pocket PC users keen to keep their devices in order.
Offering built-in file viewing, ZIP file support, encryption, storage card formatting, FTP capabilities and a Registry editor, this fella is like a supercharged file browser on steroids.
Serving up an arm-long list of features, Resco manages to combine the functions of a host of different applications and meld them into one sophisticated, do-it-all, integrated solution.
It may have a ton of power under the hood, but thankfully you don’t need a degree in Advanced Boffinery to get around the program.
Resco’s simple two-pane interface and hierarchical file structure makes it easy to rummage through Pocket PC files and folders (including those stored in ROM and on storage cards), and perform a range of basic actions via a menu, icon bar or tap-and-hold menu – just like a desktop PC.
Files can be encrypted from within the program (and from a desktop applet) enabling data to be organised and secured within the same interface. Neat.
Network support is built in, letting users browse the files of connected machines, and there’s also HP Mobile Printing support (via an optional free download), FTP support, tap-and-hold menus for beaming (via Infrared and Bluetooth) or emailing any file, drag-and-drop of files and folders as well as storage card formatting.
Add to that the improved support for compression – letting users save files at different levels of compression – and a new Today plug-in providing on battery status and free storage/memory and you’ve got a Five Star application that is an absolute must for all Pocket PC users.
Highly recommended.
Digital-Lifestyles score: 5/5
Price: $24.95 (~€20, ~£13.50)
Buy now online at PocketGear
Further information Resco Explorer 5.2
22 September, 2005
NEC L1 Launches. World’s Thinnest Folding Camera Phone
NEC ruled the early days of mobile phone, now with a battle cry of “Thin Is In!” NEC are waving their technological prowess around to the world with the launch of the world’s thinnest foldaway mobile phone.
Decked out in an attractive black and silver finish, the mini-marvel supports mobile-Internet and GSM/GPRS and comes with a 1.3 mega pixels digital camera onboard.
The teensy-weensy little puppy measures just 47.9mm (width) X 101.5mm (height) X 11.9mm (depth; when folded) and weighs in at a pocket-untroubling 96g.
Despite its Lilliputian dimensions, NEC have managed to squeeze in two displays, a 1.9″ (176×220 dot) 65,000 colour display, supported by a smaller, secondary organic light emitting display screen on the front of the device, handy for displaying caller information and scrolling text messages.
The clever boffins at NEC have also managed to wedge in PictBridge support, MP3 playback, Java and Bluetooth connectivity.
Lovers of kray-zee ringtones will shake their booties to the phone’s 64-polyphonic ring tone support and there’s even a movie function crammed into its super-slim frame, with the phone offering up to two minutes of movie shooting.
“This ultra-slim, clam-shell type mobile phone is a symbol of NEC’s leading position in the area of mobile technology,” chest-beated Susumu Otani, Associate Senior Vice President and head of Mobile Terminals Operations Unit at NEC Corporation.
“We will continue to strive to offer the latest, most innovative and most attractive mobile terminal solutions on the market. Boasting compact shape and the latest technologies, our phones allow our customers to choose the right phone for their individual needs in all of our target markets across the globe,” he continued, while laughing at the bulky dimensions of a nearby Motorola RAZR phone.
The phone is already available in Hong Kong, with other markets to follow.
We sense a big push from NEC, back to its mobile phone glory days. Yesterday NEC announced it will be supplying its Mobile Internet Platform (NEMIP) to O2 in the UK, so they can run their coming-soon i-mode service in the UK.
NEC (the L1 is so new, it doesn’t even have a product page!)
21 September, 2005
SPV M5000: Orange 3G Smartphone In The Shops
Orange has become the first UK operator to sell an own-brand Windows Mobile handset operating on 3G networks, with the launch of the SPV M5000 smartphone.
Manufactured by HTC of Taiwan, the phone goes under a host of pseudonyms and although o2 were the first to announce the launch of their version of the phone, the o2 Xda Exec, Orange appear to have beaten them to market (although the o2 phone looks way cooler in its neat black finish).
Aimed at business users on the move, Orange are hoping that the phone will provide a practical alternative to execs currently lugging a laptop, PDA and a phone around.
As we reported earlier this month, the phone combines 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth functionality in a chunky PDA-style device with a natty fold out keyboard and a mega-pixel camera onboard.
The silvery device stuffs in a loudspeaker and microphone for making conference calls, with a built-in modem and fax capability letting users blast off emails and check their appointments whilst making calls on the hands-free kit.
This new addition to Orange’s range reflects the company’s continuing support for Microsoft’s technology as part of its ‘Signature’ handset programme.
Philippe Bernard, Executive Vice President, Orange Business Solutions commented, “Mobility is unlocking the potential of the IT infrastructure by giving business people access to data when and where they need it. As mobile devices are increasingly aligned with personal computers, they must operate within that same environment. The SPV M5000 does exactly that by providing a powerful Microsoft Windows based connected PDA that has outstanding compatibility with IT software, hardware and powerful connectivity.”
Orange SPV M5000
21 September, 2005
Google WiFi In Testing. Free Service To Launch?
Are Google about to launch a free wireless Internet service?
The rumours are running at fever pitch as pundits scour around for clues and hints about a forthcoming Wi-Fi service by the Internet search engine giant.
What’s really excited us is a set of pages on Google describing a new test service called Google Wi-Fi, containing instructions on how to use its wireless desktop software, Google Secure Access, which sits on their subdomain wifi.google.com.
Listed as a set of answers to questions, the pages include a list of features and terms of the new service, with examples including:
Q. “Is there a fee for using Google Secure Access? A. No, Google Secure Access is free.”
Q. “Where can I go to download Google Secure Access? A. The program can currently be downloaded at certain Google Wi-Fi locations in the San Francisco Bay area.”
Reuters picked up on the story and first ran an article saying that Google was preparing to introduce its own wireless Internet service, but this was later amended to say that they’d only begun a limited test of the wireless service.
So far, Google have only introduced two wireless access points in Silicon Valley, at a pizzeria and a gymnastics centre, but it has been reported that the company were in talks with San Francisco officials about setting up public wireless networks in the city (Google currently share a single access point in Union Square in partnership with Feeva.)
Typically, the company are keeping tight lipped about their plans, but with Business 2.0 reporting that Google had “quietly been shopping for miles and miles of ‘dark,’ or unused, fibre optic cable across the country” last year, the Wi-Fi service is looking increasingly probable.
A free Google Wi-Fi service would make sound business sense, providing another way for Google to sell targeted advertising, big up the brand, maintain their popular reputation for dishing out free stuff and importantly adding location-based information to their adverts.
Although rolling out a nationwide Wi-Fi service would be a formidable task, with Google’s energy, enthusiasm (and zillions of $$$), it’s entirely possible and would no doubt be supremely popular.
Investment site Motley Fool.com are voicing doubts about Google claiming an even bigger chunk of our online life, with their article, Why I Fear Google WiFi, investigating Google’s “big and potentially scary news.”
wifi.google.com/faq.html
21 September, 2005
European In-flight Mobile Calls Next Year
British airline bmi and TAP Air Portugal have announced that they will be allowing passengers to use their own cellphones on commercial flights within western Europe from late next year.
The two European airlines will be introducing OnAir’s voice and text service for mobile phones in separate three-month trial runs.
The trials will give OnAir, a Geneva-based joint venture of Airbus and Netherlands-based technology company Sita Information Networking Computing, the chance to assess its service before a general release slated for 2007.
“With both airlines, initially there will be a couple of airplanes – two or three airplanes – equipped with this system,” OnAir’s chief executive George Cooper told The Associated Press.
“During that three months, we’ll all be evaluating how it’s going, what the usage is, how we handle the crew issues and so on,” he added.
The system will be used by TAP on its Airbus 321 model and by bmi on its Airbus 320s, with passengers able to make and receive calls using a base station within the airplane once it reaches 3,000m
“This trial will guide us on usage patterns and some of the social issues in using mobile phones on aircraft,” said bmi chief executive Nigel Turner. “It will also help us to confirm the business case for rolling the service out across the remainder of the fleet.”
There have been concerns that cellphones trying to connect to terrestrial networks might interfere with a plane’s navigation, but OnAir’s plane-based system ensures that cellphones and other devices operate at lower transmission power and thus avoid affecting avionics.
The company is also looking to sell its services to other airlines and hopes to clear regulatory hurdles for air traffic within Europe some time next year.
Cooper said the surcharge for cellphone use would be competitive with international roaming rates, costing around $2,30-$2,50 (€1,88-€2,04) per minute, with text messages charged at 50 US cents (41 € cents) to send or receive.
BMI chief executive Nigel Turner was enthusiastic about the new service, “Our research tells us that our premium passengers have two key concerns: getting quickly through the airport, and the ability to carry on working during their journey.”
“This trial will guide us on usage patterns and some of the social issues in using mobile phones on aircraft, and will help us to confirm the business case for rolling the service out across the remainder of the fleet,” he added.
Much as we love the idea of firing off texts while we’re quaffing champagne at 20,000 feet and chatting to earthbound chums, it’s worth pointing out that the demand for in-flight mobile calls hasn’t matched expectations.
In a recent poll by IDC, only 11 percent of its 50,000 survey respondents wanted the ban on using mobile phones on planes lifted.
20 September, 2005
GetMeThere: Pay As You Go Mobile GPS Launches in UK
GetMeThere.co.uk has launched what they are claiming is the first, free to install, Pay-as-you-go Mobile Satellite Navigation solution in the UK.
A joint venture between Toyota GB and IS Solutions, the TARA (Traffic Avoidance and Routing Application) Mobile SatNav is aimed at mobile and smart phone users in the UK.
Customers won’t have to buy expensive hardware or annual licences to use the Satellite Navigation system as the TARA Mobile SatNav works with any compatible mobile phone and a GPS receiver.
Instead, punters pay on a per-journey tariff, with TARA Mobile SatNav charging £1.50 ($2.70, €2.22) to the mobile phone bill for each destination, with users allowed to update their route to check traffic conditions, take an alternative route or to re-calculate the journey if they have the orienteering skills of an alcoholic amnesiac
The system offers a comprehensive suite of features, including full turn by turn navigation, voice commands, traffic avoidance, auto-zooming maps as a junction approaches, hands free use, European road network coverage with full address, house number, street and postcode search.
All route calculation and traffic avoidance is processed remotely, with the data automatically downloaded onto the mobile via GPRS.
Jon West, Director of GetMeThere.co.uk said “With over 4.5m navigationsystems expected to be sold this year across Europe, TARA Mobile SatNav has arrived just in time to provide a low cost, quality solution for the intelligent motorist. With GPS devices now available at around the £50 ($90, €74) mark, SatNav has become a must have for all motorists”.
TARA mobile SatNav is available as a free download from GetMeThere.co.uk and is compatible with a long list of mobiles including popular Nokia models such as 3650, 3660, 6260, 6600, 6670, and 7610,T-Mobile’s MDA II and Compact and O2’s XDA II range.
GetMeThere.co.uk
20 September, 2005
Mobile Phone Subscriptions Pass Two Billion
There are now more than 2 billion mobile phone subscribers in the world, according to a report by Wireless Intelligence, a collaboration between analyst house Ovum and the GSM Association.
Martin Garner, director at Wireless Intelligence said, “The total number of mobile connections is now equivalent to nearly a third of the estimated world population of 6.5 billion.”
A large caveat should be added here. Although the numbers suggest that every third person on the planet is busy texting their chums and chatting away on a mobile, the figure is seriously skewed by the number of people owning multiple accounts (i.e. phones for work, home, posing and dodgy dealing) – so the actual number of individual subscribers will be substantially lower.
Garner was still impressed, “Although total connections are higher than the real number of users due to multiple connections, or inactive pre-paid connections, this is still a significant landmark for the industry.”
Not surprisingly, the bulk of the growth is happening from large, less well-developed markets such as China, India, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa.
Western Europe is pretty much overflowing with mobiles, with penetration expected to exceed 100 per cent in the region by 2007.
Although it took twenty years to reach the first billion mobile subscriptions, it’s only taken three years to double that figure to two billion.
World leading mobile manufacturers Nokia, who sold nearly 32 per cent of all phones in Q2 this year, have predicted than it will take another five years until mobile subscriptions total three billion.
19 September, 2005
SMS: It’s Time To Get Pregnant
A new text-messaging service called EggAlert wants to help women to keep better track of their menstrual period. The service calculates a woman’s next ovulation time and sends a tet message (SMS) to her cell phone altering/warning her she at the hight of her fertility. While the Website of EggAlert focuses on women who want to become pregnant, we’re thinking the service could also be used as a form of contraception.
According to EggAlert.com the service can also be used both as a Notifier for the upcoming premenstrual symptom, to schedule certain events around the time of menstruation and as a reminder for women who want to do self breast examinations.
Some Questions are left open: According to the Website, the service is available worldwide, but seems only be on-hand for customers with a billing address in the US and Canada. That’s why we could not get through to the signing-up process to check if more than one cellphone number could be handled. As it would be nice to send a message to the partners cellphone too.
While claiming that the service “increases your ability to naturally select a boy or a girl.” PDA Healthware, Inc. does not provide any statistics about happy customers, nor any testimonials. We would love to hear about the first Text Message enabled pregnancy.
We can see a long term merging of with company will be a quick dating service when it’s linked with location-based data.
EggAlert
19 September, 2005
Nokia 6630 Music Edition Announced
Acting like they’re fearful of not appearing hip to the mobile music revolution, Nokia have added their own rival to the Apple/Motorola ROKR and Sony Walkman phones, a special edition of the highly rated Nokia 6630 – despite having had music-playing on their phones for yonks.
Shipping later this month, the Nokia 6630 Music Edition offers a new music player and a bundled memory card to offer “enhanced music functionality.”
The updated music player bundles in a 256mb RS-MMC (with memory card support up to 1 gig), which Nokia claims will hold up to 15CDs of music, giving it an edge over the 100 iTunes song limit on the Motorola ROKR.
Music can be transferred to the phone using the included Nokia PC Suite software or with the bundled Nokia USB MMC/SD reader, with the Nokia Audio Adapter letting users plug in their favourite headphones (or “cans” if you’re a DJ) into the standard 3.5 mm stereo jack.
“The Nokia 6630 Music Edition is a fantastic combination of music, smartphone and 3G,” frothed Tuula Rytilä-Uotila, Director, Imaging EMEA, Nokia.”
“You can carry a good portion of your music collection with you wherever you go and with the Nokia Audio Adapter, you can quickly connect your favourite set of music headphones,” Tuula added.
The phone comes in two colours – Aluminum Grey for hip, fast living, city slickers and Rustic Red for cow-bothering, straw chewing, country types.
Being based on the well-rated Nokia 6630, the phone also includes a 1.3 megapixel camera, mobile broadband access with WCDMA networks, mobile email and streaming video.
Nokia have also launched the Nokia Music Pack, a bundled package of enhancements for mobile music, which includes the Nokia Audio Adapter, the Nokia 256 MB MMC Card, the Nokia USB MMC/SD reader and Nokia Stereo Audio Cable.
The only question we’ve got – is where’s the Nokia N91 we got excited about last month?
Nokia
19 September, 2005
Vodafone Targets Mass Market With New 3G Phones
Vodafone plans to unleash a swarm of new 3G mobile handsets in the run-up to Christmas as the company tries to turbo charge mass market adoption of its third-generation (3G) mobile service.
The world’s biggest mobile operator will adding a total of 15 phones to their portfolio.
Ten of the new phones will be exclusive to Vodafone, with six targeted at entry-level customers in an attempt to encourage the mass market take-up of its 3G services.
“We are confident that this is going to be a 3G Christmas,” ho-ho’d Chief Marketing Officer Peter Bamford.
This rings (festive?) bells with us, giving us a very strong feeling of Deja Vu as we heard ‘Vodafone’s betting heavily on 3G this Christmas‘ in November 2004. Perhaps Vodafone thing that saying it two months earlier this year (Sept vs Nov) will ‘make it happen’.
The period before Christmas is traditionally a bumper trading period for mobile phone operators, and Vodafone is confident that its festive offering of MP3 playin’, video and audio streamin’, video call-makin’ 3G phones will send sales soaring.
The new phones
The entry-level phones will include two handsets each from Sharp and Samsung and one each from Motorola and Sony Ericsson – all exclusive to Motorola.
The non-exclusive handsets will include the hugely popular Motorola RAZR V3x phone, the Nokia N70 and 6280, and Samsung’s SGH-Z500V and SGH-Z140V phones.
Four of the new handsets – two each by Sharp and Toshiba – will be targeted at the well heeled, with the Limited edition Sharp 902 Ferrari serving up exclusive Ferrari content for those folks impressed with that kind of thing.
All of Vodafone new 3G phones will offer new services, with the company hoping to tempt users to regularly dip into their catalogue of 500,000 full-track music downloads and mobile TV services and content.
Vodafone launched their 3G service in November 2004, and was reporting 3.3 million 3G customers by June this year.
The company expects big things from their 3G service, forecasting 10 million customers across its businesses to be using 3G mobile video and picture phones and high-speed laptop cards by the end of this financial year in March 2006.
Vodafone
16 September, 2005