Very cute video from Google...

Plazes - a small step towards location-based mobile presence

I just started checking out Plazes, a small company that Nokia just acquired. In general their service is about the same as Twitter, giving the ability to enter (by web or SMS) a quick update of what you're doing. The difference is that they work hard to tag each update with a location.



Yesterday I sent in an SMS update saying "Playing with plazes @ STRI" where STRI is the shorthand for the office I work in. Within a few seconds the following appeared as my status:

It had my status as "Playing with plazes" but more importantly gave me a location: It parsed out the location after the @ sign, compared it to the locations that I had defined previously on the Web, and gave me map coordinates in a town in Israel.

For some reason there's no map of that town at the resolution they're showing, but that's another thing. The key point here is that they've geo-tagged me from a simple SMS.

I assume that this feature will soon be incorporated into other mobile blogging systems, including Twitter, Facebook, and Blogger. In the meantime, check it out!

Sony Ericsson rumored buying HTC

Rumours of a Possible Sony Ericsson Purchase of Taiwan's HTC

There are a series of unconfirmed reports that Sony Ericsson may be about to announce the purchase of Taiwan based smartphone manufacturer, High Tech Computer - or HTC. The reports are selective, ranging from a short article in a Swedish newspaper, Elektronik Tidningen to various reports of meetings with HTC being cancelled at short notice and without explanation, and although business meeting cancellations are not uncommon an excuse is usually provided.

HTC is best known for its range of smartphones and being an early developer of Windows based smartphones, although the history of how it leapt into that market is controversial. The company, which initially focused on operator branded handsets has been building up its own profile recently and started selling phones directly under the HTC brand name. The company is also reportedly working on an Android-based phone, dubbed the Dream, that will be on the market by the end of 2008.

HTC has denied the rumours, saying that they "have no truth". However, early last year, Peter Chou the company CEO did say that he thought that Sony Ericsson would make for a good partner should an acquisition occur.

Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1 will be manufactured by HTC - and will be the company's first Windows Mobile smartphone. The company has traditionally stuck with Symbian based smartphones.

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/31534.php

HTC Touch Pro pictures

HTC Touch Pro - announced but not yet available

Touch Pro Press release
HTC Touch Pro Bridges Mobile Work With Mobile Play

Taipei, Taiwan - June 4, 2008 - HTC Corp., a global leader in mobile phone innovation and design, today unveiled its advanced next generation business phone, the HTC Touch ProTM. Bringing a beautiful new angle to mobile business productivity, the HTC Touch Pro utilizes similar styling and functionality of the highly anticipated Touch DiamondTM and introduces a variety of business-focused enhancements that make getting work done on the go quick and easy.

“The HTC Touch Pro and Touch Diamond have created a new generation of HTC touch devices that make the promise of the one-hand, one-touch mobile Internet a reality,” said Peter Chou, president and CEO, HTC Corp. “HTC Touch Pro is for those customers that demand the ease of use and enjoyment of TouchFLOTM 3D and want the styling of the Touch Diamond but also need the powerful mobile business experience that HTC delivers.”

A New Dimension To Touch - One hand, one touch

HTC has taken a great leap forward in touch screen innovation with its 3D touch interface called TouchFLO 3D. TouchFLO 3D provides a stunningly intuitive way to zip through common tasks like messaging, calendar appointments or making calls with just one touch. Delve a little deeper to find that your music, photos, contacts and surfing the web are also responsive to the touch. In addition, the Touch Pro includes a new innovative touch-sensitive control for device interaction.

Making The Mobile Internet Useful and Fun

With the introduction of Touch Diamond and Touch Pro, HTC delivers an entirely new mobile Internet experience that utilizes broadband-like speeds with HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA wireless connectivity. Committed to improving Web browsing, HTC provides a new customized mobile Web browser that enables easy viewing and effortless navigation of Websites in the way they are designed to be viewed on a PC. As part of this browsing experience users can zoom and pan Websites with one-hand and automatically view optimized content that has been specially created to fit the display. Turning the device sideways automatically rotates the web page view from a portrait to landscape view.

In addition to Web browsing, the Touch Pro includes an HTC-developed, YouTube application for watching a variety of user generated video content as well as including Google Maps for mobile for mapping and traffic data.

Unmatched Style With Complete Productivity

Like the Touch Diamond, Touch Pro is crafted with precision to fit comfortably in a user’s hand and brings together elegant touch screen response with the direct precision of HTC’s trademark sliding keyboard design. Introducing a new five-row QWERTY keyboard layout that makes typing-intensive tasks like composing email or working on Microsoft Office® documents quick and easy. Built-in TV-out functionality means users can deliver the perfect PowerPoint® presentation from the Touch Pro.

Bursting with Innovation

The Touch Pro delivers an unrivalled combination of features and functionality. The 2.8 inch display provides near-print quality viewing that enables beautiful Web browsing and viewing of photographs. The built-in camera includes an optical auto-focus lens that ensures the photos you take will be clear and consistent. Advanced wireless and auto sensor screen pivoting are just a few of the features that make the Touch Pro experience a stand out.

AvailabilityThe HTC Touch Pro will be available to customers across all major European, Asian and the Middle East markets in late summer. The North American and Latin American versions of Touch Pro will be available later in 2008.

Key HTC Touch Pro Specifications:

• Size: 102 x 51 x 18.05mm
  Weight: 165 g
  Connectivity: WCDMA / HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA
  Operating system: Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
  Display: 2.8-inch VGA touch screen
  Camera: 3.2MP, with video calling
  Internal memory: 512 MB flash, 288 MB RAM
  Expansion Slot: microSDTM memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
  Keyboard: Slide-out 5 row QWERTY keyboard
  Bluetooth: 2.0 with EDR
  Wireless: WiFi 802.11b/g
  GPS: GPS/AGPS
  Interface: HTC ExtUSB (mini-USB and audio jack in one; USB 2.0 High-Speed)
  Battery: 1350 mAh
  Talk time: GSM: up to 8 hours
  Standby time: GSM: up to two-weeks
  Chipset: Qualcomm® MSM 7201A 528MHz

Great sale price on 8gb memory card for TyTN (microSD)

TyTN owners and others using microSD memory cards: There's too good a price to miss at Amazon on 8gb microSD cards on sale for only $48!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012Y2LLE?ie=UTF8&tag=tytn-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0012Y2LLE

And 4gb is only $18!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000SMVQK8?ie=UTF8&tag=tytn-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000SMVQK8

This much memory makes it possible to carry around a lot of media, both music and movies, on your TyTN or other device that can take MicroSD cards. I recently got a full-length movie down to about 70mb by sizing it for the TyTN, so 4gb or 8gb makes the TyTN a pretty solid media device.

Site for mobile blog browsing: mippin.com

I'd like to suggest that anyone browsing here on a cellphone or mobile device check out http://www.mippin.com/

It's a site for browsing on a cellphone that restructures sites, especially blogs and news sites, to fit well on a cellphone-sized screen. Their biggest innovation is working specifically with blogs and news sites, using RSS to get just the content.

Here's how the Harry Potter and Torah blog looks through Mippin:

Each article can be browsed and read easily, and note that the picture at the bottom is shown at a size that's appropriate for the screen.

But when I browse to the blog directly, instead of using Mippin, I see the following rendition of the blog, as written for a computer screen but shown on the cellphone:

and then when I scroll down, I see this:

All in all, Mippin makes blogs and (reportedly) news sites much easier to read.

Recommended!

Back to mobile blogging...

Got to say, having tried mobile blogging both in this blog and on YouTube, I find mobile blogging on Twitter, by SMS, a heck of a lot easier and faster.... But obviously it's just shorter text, no pix or videos...

Dual-SIM smartphone (but not from HTC)

The following looks pretty nice, although it's not enough to budge me from HTC. It sure would be nice if HTC would add dual-SIM to their bag of tricks!

http://ces.cnet.com/8301-13855_1-9847071-67.html

Haier's dual SIM card phone

Haier's booth was way in the back of one of the halls at CES, but we wanted to swing by to see if (and when) the company would be bringing its cell phones to the United States. The PR rep wasn't exactly forthcoming, but we did get a brief tour of the models the company is hoping to bring here. The most interesting of the bunch was the HG-N99, and we can only hope that it actually arrives on our shores (Haier says it is in talks with U.S. carriers).

The Windows Mobile handset may look like your average smartphone, but it ups the ante in a big way by offering double SIM card, double standby functionality. That means you'll be able to put two SIM cards in the phone, which will enable you to use the HG-N99 for two phone numbers at the same time. No, you won't be able to place calls simultaneously, but you can receive calls to both numbers at any time. While such a concept is hardly original to the HG-N99, compatible phones are pretty rare in North America.

Other features on the GSM device include support for GPRS and EDGE, a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, messaging, polyphonic ringtones, a mini-USB port, a WAP browser with Java support, and a microSD card slot.