Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...
We live in a very mobile-oriented society. With laptops and mobile phones in hand, Americans are increasingly more willing to coordinate their lives using mobile technology. Cellphones, in particular, are becoming more and more important to the everyday American. Case in point, a new survey, commissioned by Best Buy, indicates that 6 in 10 Americans (60%) would choose to give up alcohol for a week if it meant they could hold onto their mobile phone - a shocking 15% would even opt to have their teeth drilled in exchange for keeping their mobile phones in their pockets. The survey also highlights that many Americans (47%) haven’t yet made the switch to the smartphone way of life because they’re just too confused about models and features.
The Best Buy survey shows that, while mobile phones are quite important to the average Joe American, there is still a lack of smartphone adoption. Almost half (49%) of US citizens without smartphones think those with smartphones are “too connected to their job” - whatever that means.Interestingly, only 62% of those surveyed said they used text messages as a “convenient and quick way to communicate.” We would have expected this particular statistic to be a little higher.
And, to hammer home the notion that men don’t like asking for directions, even from gadgets, the Best Buy survey reveals that women are much more likely to use the GPS features of their mobile phones - 51% of women versus just 33% of men.
Best Buy surveyed 1,000 Americans, half men and half women all over the age of 18, was conducted by telephone May 29-31 by GfK Roper, a division of GfK Custom Research North America.
When it comes to super-slim and sexy smartphones with enough computing power to take over the world, the Toshiba TG01 takes the cake. Thanks to a power-packed Snapdragon chipset, the TG01 speeds along at 1Ghz clock speeds while playing with a hefty 256MB of RAM and a 4.1-inch WVGA (800 x 480) touchscreen display. The kicker - the TG01 stuffs WiFi, GPS, 3.2-megapixel camera and 3G data connectivity into a package barely 10mm thick! And, it’s coming to the UK next week.
We’ve been keeping an eye on the Toshiba (OTCPK: TOSBF) TG01 ever since we had a chance to put hands on the super-thin smartphone in Barcelona. Despite having pulled the plug on Japanese production, Toshiba looks to be going strong with their TG01 roll-out. Check out our in-depth Toshiba TG01 hands-on here.
While those of use in The States will have to wait for the Toshiba TG01 to get all official, it looks like the UK will be the next market to get the Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone. Come July 9th, Toshiba will be showing off something really cool in London. Given Toshiba’s Summer launch window for the TG01, it’s highly likely we’ll see Toshiba unleashing the Toshiba TG01 on British soil next week.
Like to take trips to foreign locales, do you? Don’t forget your iPhone! Armed with the right iPhone apps, your iPhone can be an invaluable tool to help you organize your trip and find your way around not-so-familiar terrain. Who better to help you find those iPhone travel apps than the globe-trotters at National Geographic? The renowned travel/exploration publication has posted their Top 20 iPhone Travel Apps for your perusal, and it’s a good’n.
From free iPhone apps like “Room” to paid apps like “Packing,” Nat Geo has all the your travel needs covered. Common travel apps like FlightTrack and Google Earth are staples of any would-be traveler, but less popular apps like Babelingo (300 common phrases in 11 languages), Room (helps you pack for your trip) and Cheap Gas (um, self-explanatory) also deserve a quick mention.
The Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre’s biggest downfall is the network technology that it uses - the US-only CDMA standard. That fact alone limits the Palm Pre to the US. American GSM users and just about everyone else on Planet Earth will have to wait for Palm to launch the GSM variant that we spied in Barcelona.
The good news is that the GSM Pre may not be too far off. A newly leaked set of pics shows the Palm Pre clearly rocking a SIM card under the battery cover. The removable SIM bodes well for a near-term release of the GSM Palm Pre. Sooner is better than later.
The iPhone OS 3.0 is a bit buggy. With stories of bugs and general instability floating around, the inevitable iPhone OS 3.1 update is looking pretty nice. Thankfully, we may not have to wait too long for Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) to go public with the iPhone OS 3.0 update. Apple has today seeded an iPhone OS 3.1 beta and accompanying SDK to the iPhone dev community!
iPhone developers can get their hands on the first update to the all-new iPhone 3.0 OS, but mere mortals like ourselves will just have to wait for Apple to push the update through iTunes. Bug fixes, here we come!
The dedicated do-it-yourselfers out there will probably have already slapped together an iPhone tripod using some spare toothpicks and a fork, or two. The rest of us haven’t even considered making a DIY iPhone tripod. For those of you in that second category, iPhone-modder Scott Patrick has posted a DIY video that explains how to make an iPhone tripod using a Contour Case and a few hardware knick-knacks.
Contour Case used for this DIY is the most expensive component you’ll need. It’s $30 and you can grab one here.
Skype users rejoice! The Skype 3.0 application for Windows Mobile has officially matured past “beta” status, and is now available for download. If you haven’t yet tried Skype 3.0 for Windows Mobile, we’d suggest taking a quick look-see. The 3.0 version features an SMS messaging feature that is supposed to cut down on international texting fees as well as a file-sharing feature that basically does what it you’d expect.
The Skype 3.0 Windows Mobile app also rocks an updated UI and presumably does away with some of beta-bugs.
The iPhone helped popularize the smartphone. The iPhone’s user-focused UI and more natural capacitance-based touchscreen has changed the mass-market’s expectation of what a smartphone should be. It’s just too bad Windows Mobile has yet to catch on - it’s still fully backing resistive touchscreens (you might know them as “squishy” touchscreens). Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has been making excuses for not overtly supporting capacitive touchscreens by spouting higher hardware costs and lesser hand-writing recognition accuracy. Given Windows Mobile’s ancient UI and fairly disappointing user experience, a squishy touchscreen is the least of Redmond’s problems.
That doesn’t mean a capacitance touchscreen wouldn’t go a long way to making Windows Mobile work and feel more like a modern day touchscreen smartphone. In fact, Microsoft seems to be aware of “some device manufacturers” that are “considering options to ship capacitive screens” on their Windows Mobile smartphone.
A recently-posted developer article first makes a case for using capacitive touchscreens:
Capacitive technology has several advantages: zero pressure is required to make an input because nothing needs to be deformed and this leads to a much more natural interface experience; although additional material is laid onto the screen, there is no air gap so optical clarity is much improved reducing the need for backlighting making power draw lower; multiple touch points can be supported; things like touch size and pressure can be extrapolated from the capacitive data.
Microsoft then makes excuses for Windows Mobile smarpthones using resistive touchscreens:
However they do suffer in other areas: in general the cost is currently higher than the equivalent resistive screen; supporting a stylus is hard because it must be made of conducting material and must make sufficient contact to change the capacitive property of the screen; in several areas the accuracy tends to be lower than resistive e.g. around the edges of the screen, combined with the lack of a stylus and lower sample rates makes things like handwriting input very hard.
But, there’s hope yet. The article clearly states that a Windows Mobile 6.5-powered handset featuring a capacitance-based touchscreen is at least an option that’s being considered by hardware manufacturers:
Windows Mobile 6.5 has primarily been designed for resistive screens because some input areas still rely on small controls and require a high level of input accuracy that can’t be easily achieved with a finger and require a stylus; however some device manufacturers are considering options to ship capacitive screens.
HTC showed the world that Windows Mobile smartphones don’t have to suffer from small-buttons-and-awkward-UI Syndrome. HTC’s TouchFLO 3D II UI not only replaces the traditional WinMo homescreen, it also replaces many of the awkward UI elements that makes resistive touchscreens necessary. With enough customization to the WM6.5 UI, it’s possible that HTC will roll out Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphones equipped with capacitive touchscreens running HTC TouchFLO 3D II!
The HTC Snap has already proven itself a top choice for cost-conscious smartphone fans looking for a Windows Mobile smartphone with a good QWERTY keyboard. But, with Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard running the show, the HTC Snap is going to feel a little dated when Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) launches Windows Mobile 6.5 later this year. Unless, that is, HTC decides to bless the Snap with a Windows Mobile 6.5 update - as hinted at by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG).
For those of you that don’t yet know, the Bluetooth SIG is a Bluetooth certification body that, well, certifies, uh, Bluetooth. Anyway, the Bluetooth SIG website can be a goldmine for leaked tid-bits on upcoming mobile phones. The latest leak makes reference to the HTC Cedar (HTC Snap’s codename) running “WM6.5.” It’s not clear if HTC intends to release a WM6.5 update for both HTC Snap/Cedar variants, or if the update will only be available for the recently spotted HTC Cedar100. Still, the mention of an OS upgrade for the Snap is intriguing.
With a little luck, HTC Snap owners might be treated to a Windows Mobile 6.5 upgrade in the near future.
The US Census Bureau is getting ready to conduct the most wireless, high-tech census in US history. And, they’ve tapped none other than No. 3 US wireless carrier Sprint (NYSE: S) as the exclusive wireless provider for all their “census-ing” needs. The wirelessly connected Decennial Census will kick off in 2010, and promises to be the most accurate account of the US population in the history of the US Census.
You might recall seeing the HTC Census passing through the FCC, on it’s way to some half million (500,000) Census enumerators. HTC created the HTC Census specifically for the US Census Bureau’s Field Data Collection Automation (FDCA) project, which aims to collect and transmit census data back to a central database.
Armed with this EVDO data-only Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC, and integrated GPS, the enumerator’s job of collecting absentee census information will get nice and streamlined. As a high-tech plus, the built-in GPS unit also keeps the enumerator honest.
Makes me wish I had an HTC Census during my stint as a US Census enumerator back in 2000.
We live in a very mobile-oriented society. With laptops and mobile phones in hand, Americans are increasingly more willing to coordinate their lives using mobile technology. Cellphones, in particular, are becoming more and more important to the everyday American. Case in point, a new survey, commissioned by Best Buy, indicates that 6 in 10 Americans (60%) would choose to give up alcohol for a week if it meant they could hold onto their mobile phone - a shocking 15% would even opt to have their teeth drilled in exchange for keeping their mobile phones in their pockets. The survey also highlights that many Americans (47%) haven’t yet made the switch to the smartphone way of life because they’re just too confused about models and features.
When it comes to super-slim and sexy smartphones with enough computing power to take over the world, 
Like to take trips to foreign locales, do you? Don’t forget your iPhone! Armed with the right iPhone apps, your iPhone can be an invaluable tool to help you organize your trip and find your way around not-so-familiar terrain. Who better to help you find those iPhone travel apps than the globe-trotters at National Geographic? The renowned travel/exploration publication has posted their Top 20 iPhone Travel Apps for your perusal, and it’s a good’n.
The iPhone OS 3.0 is a 
