Walls, bricks, mobile devices, and WiFi networks – a good mixture of stuff, not all of which plays nice together….

I’ve recently been re-architecting my home network, so that all of my mobile devices (and in those include laptop and netbook, since they are portable) can access a network easily, no matter where I am in the house. Now, I don’t have the largest of house by any means, but the surprising effects of a few decent walls are that a WiFi signal for example becomes extremely erratic.

To counter this problem, I have encrypted powerline networking running, allowing the re-hubbing of the wireless signal – since mobile device don’t have the greatest WiFi aerials, it is a case of needing to put a wireless signal in proximity of them.

Then the other day a though occurred to me – how many lots of wireless overlap do I have running? Well I reckon it’s at least 4 lots:

• Wireless network 1 
• Wireless network 2 (created because the first doesn’t reach to certain areas of the house)
• Baby Monitor type 1 
• Baby (Video) Monitor type 2

All of these operate in the 2.4GHz band, right in that sweetspot of WiFi – and then on top of that you can add another 6 networks (at least) from neighbours in the near vicinity. That’s a LOT of crossover, yet everything seems to work – for now.

So I think that’s a decent amount of overlap wirelessly, going on at home – question is, can you beat it? C’mon, post up a comment and let us know – including whether you get any interference issues….

One of these days, someone is going to come up with a decent ‘mobilised’ solution for babies – I reckon I could write a functional spec within a couple of days – after all, I’ve got the mobile experience, and I’m the proud owner of one baby – with another on the way (eeeeeeeeeeek!)…

However, for the moment I have to put up with what is one the market for baby monitoring. Of course, if you don’t have a little ‘un, this might not be of immediate interest – however, I recommend you read on, as you never know, one day you might have one!!!

If you have read posts I’ve written before on babies and monitor (audio and video),  you’ll know I am no fan – the tech in them is 10+ yrs old, and yet is charged at a stupid cost (often £100+) – because manufacturers prey on parents’ insecurities about what might happen to their precious ones….

So the other day the wife and I invested in a video monitor – it’s *new* tech (yay!) in that it sets up a wireless connection automatically (THANK GOD no manual pairing…..), and streams video over a bespoke, secured, wireless interface. It even manages around wireless (WiFi) networks

The video codec in use is H.264, and it sports night-vision, digital zoom (that actually isn’t crap), and good batteries – the parent unit is even in a mobile phone form factor!

Awesome you think… well it has omitted/not delivered on on some critical features IMHO:

* too small screen on the parent unit

* flashing light on the camera (baby) unit – why why why! 

* no temperature monitoring

* no night light

You might think these trivial, but these are the killer features you would expect on a video monitor – yet they are missed out or not delivered right. There’s a supposed additional function to have more than one camera too – except they don’t sell cameras on their own either! Sigh….

Overall though a giant leap forward in the mobile space for monitoring babies… now if only some manufacturer of baby monitors were to read this post…..

What with the advent of the supposed new iPhone, with its supposed rubber case, I thought it might be interesting to consider a selection of back cases (or mouldings) of various devices – with a view to ID-ing the best and worst in terms of medium-term wear. So readers, here are my best(s) and worst(s)

BEST: contender: BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Bold – the faux-leather effect back case actually betrays what is a very nice idea for masking the effects of scratches etc

BEST: contender: Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N95-8GB – a thin covering of rubber-like material meant that the back-case didn’t easily scratch

WORST: contender: Nokia 8800 Scirocco – the removable back case of various Sciroccos that I saw in use scratched just by putting them in and out of the ‘protective leather sheath case’ that came with the device – to be accurate, the paint job on the devices wore away very easily…. why why why?

WORST: contender: iPhone 3G – a very shiny case, that is contoured so that only the middle will sit on a flat surface, means many shallow scratches occur quickly. The bezel on my device also scratched very easily

Conclusion: is it too much to expect your device to remain reasonably scratch-free if you don’t have it in a special case? Well maybe, depends on how whether any engineering thought has gone in to the case design, as regards its wear – certainly it seems to vary between devices.

What do you think readers? Do you try and keep your devices nice? Do you use a special case for your device? Has your device scratched easily? Let us know!

My fave tech-lingo site, NetLingo, has come along with another classic phrase:

digital native

as opposed to a digital immigrant

A “digital native” refers to a person who is born after 1984 and uses computers. As opposed to a “digital immigrant” –one who had to learn their way around the Internet– digital natives have always been surrounded by the culture of online technology.

Crumbs! That means I am a digital immigrant – and in fact when I think about it, there were walkmans when I grew up, PCs ran on Command Line Interface, and Mobiles ran on an analogue network – getting older is a terrible thing

[Via: NetLingo]

Now I might be going slightly mad, but I could swear that my BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Bold battery lasts longer when charger through the Laptop/USB cable, than it does when charged via the mains…. go figure! 

In an entirely unscientific set of tests, I have been charging the Bold via the mains, and also via the Laptop/USB cable, and then seeing how fast the battery gets thrashed, assuming average use between each charge.

(Related points to note at this juncture are that I have my Bold set to 2G only, because it preserves the battery generally. Also, making voice calls on the Bold for extended periods drains the battery way faster than if just used for Email…..)

Anyhow, charging through the Laptop/USB seems to take hours – hence the reason I call it a “trickle” charging – because the battery is filled up at what seems like a trickle. Mains charging is usually quite a bit faster. But then running the device for periods with normal usage, it would appear that the trickle charge makes the battery last much longer!

What have the IntoMobile readers founds? Anything similar? Or am I off my rocker?!

So what does my fave tech-lingo site have to offer today? Well, howzabout a marginally scary concept of the digital trail you leave whenever you choose to interact in today’s uber-connected world: 

data shadow

Every time you use a credit card, send an e-mail, browse the Web, or use a cell phone, small traces of digital information are left behind. This is referred to as a “data shadow”.

The concern in UK newspapers (perhaps some scaremongering, perhaps not….) is that certain Internet entities are gathering information (such as email, web activity, etc) about us, and it won’t be long before they correlate these axes of information to get a very accurate multi-dimensional picture of us. Even more worryingly, if criminal minds are also piecing information together, they have better means with which to commit illegal acts – be they fraud, ID theft, or other.

[Via: NetLingo]

I read with interest a recent story that relayed some of Motorola (NYSE: MOT)’s First Quarter results, along with the re-affirmation of their focus on Android in the coming months. Now before I continue can I say that I am looking forward to the recovery of Motorola just as much as the next man… however I was wondering whether Motorola can address their current issues in time – namely (in my view):

•    Drop multiple Operating systems and focus on just two – previously Motorola has played with multiple Operating Systems – I can think of their own fixed O/Ss, WinMo, Symbian, and Linux at least – and I’m sure there are one or two others. Ultimately this led to a completely un-maintainable (and incoherent) set of Operating Sytems, that didn’t form any sort of products/platforms strategy. The goal has to be to drop support for most of these O/Ss, and consider serving low/mid tier devices with a (good) fixed O/S, and then mid/high tier devices with the Android O/S (if that is in fact their chosen Smartphone O/S)

•    Hire new hardware design talent, and get them focused on the new devices – the RAZR was an iconic device, but the styling it introduced years and years ago is now looking so so tired – particularly those acid-burned-in keypads! What’s needed now is someone/people to make Moto devices sexy again – whether that’s avant garde design, edgy touches, or just nice clean lines is for them to figure out, but the current hardware designs are looking tired compared with the innovating competitors.

Motorola has a very powerful Marketing team, who have previously produced some class-leading styling, and great use of catchphrases – they now need products which can fill the void left by the likes of the first-gen RAZR…

Come on Moto – show us that you can be big once again – get the house in order and lets see some simply magnificent Android devices coming by year-end!

[Footnote: I’ve left the chatter about the management issues (or not, as they may be) at Moto out of this piece, since that’s oft-discussed anyways]

[Image via: Vodafone.co.uk]

are they going to make this bad boy smaller?

First it was the rumours following Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) that they were/are going to release a mini version of the iPhone – something like what the iPod Nano is to the iPod Classic. Now it’s the turn of more rumours regarding Palm (NSDQ: PALM), with a mini-device (the ‘Pixie’ if we are to believe rumours) that could be in the offing. Clearly, the strategy here is to shrink a smartphone – which is an interesting concept, if perhaps flawed in some respects.

The other end of the argument (and a more traditional one to-date) is that small form factor handsets have a reduced (fixed) feature-set, and truly are very small indeed.

So then which is best? Are you best off cramming smartphone features in to a physically-smaller device, or should you put a basic O/S in there, and make it truly tiny (leaving your smartphones to larger form-factors)?

Well, there are multiple arguments for and against for each option, and probably in truth all have a place in the market. However the difference for the newer Smartphones we are seeing (the Palm Pre and Apple iPhone) is that there is a solid platform being put in there, to allow the form factor of devices (and their feature-sets) to be scaled simply and easily.

My personal feeling is that if I want a tiny device, I’m happy to treat if for voice and text, and then carry a smartphone (which should be media-savvy and well-connected) for the heavy lifting. I think when you try and cram ALL features  in to one device, you end up with a device that isn’t great at anything!

What does the ‘IntoMobile massive’ say? Is the way of the future going to be a few platforms and O/Ss, with scaling of the physical device? Or are we going to see basic/small devices prosper – answers on a postcard please……

I’ve just bought a new car – and it’s got Sat Nav (of sorts) inside – maybe I should clarify what exactly is in there. It’s a CD-driven system, running off what I believe may well be a TeleAtlas set of maps. The entry of destinations is via a scroll wheel, with a “head-up style” of display in between the speed/revs dials.

Anyway, what I have found is that this Sat Nav is faster and more accurate than both a dedicated Sat Nav system or a Mobile phone with GPS on-board! I have been conducting an entirely unscientific experiment over the last few days, running the car’s system against Sat Nav units, and some mobile devices over the last few days – this has leads me to some interesting conclusions:

•    Accuracy – the cars system is more accurate, that’s for sure. It will announce when to take turns at precisely the right moment, rather than remaining quiet until after the turn, as other portable units do

•    Laggy – the car’s Sat Nav is fast with the calculations required both initially to plan a route, and also with dynamic route updates whilst driving – both portable Sat Nav units and mobiles are slower at calculating / changing routes.

Why could this be? Well I could postulate:

•    More processing power available in in-situ car unit (+ mains powered)
•    Better/more satellites reception enabling better accuracy
•    No Graphical display to update (well not a 3D map anyway), so runs faster

It might well be a combination of some or all of these reasons, but nonetheless, the car’s Sat Nav is a quicker unit, with accurate directions, that rarely falters.

Have any of you compared your car’s Sat Nav with those packages that Mobile Handset offers? What’s your opinion – should cars come with it as default? Let us know!

[Image via: Which.co.uk]

Following on from my post last week, I am again disconnected, this time aboard a plane! Fortunately in this instance I am in business class (all very nice…!), so the environment is pretty good – but still there’s no connectivity of any kind!

So that is no GSM/3G/WiFi resident on board the plane, and (supposedly) with good reason – after all, we are told that it’s very dangerous for wireless devices to be on, especially during take-off and landing. The reality is that many people leave their GSM/3G mobile devices on, and likewise Bluetooth/WiFi radios enabled too.

The argument for these devices being turned off is moot as far as I am concerned, but that still doesn’t get us any closer to having some form of coverage in-flight. Of course numbers of carriers are trialling systems for both voice and data access – but nothing is widely rolled out as yet.

I’m travelling on business, and it’s an obvious inconvenience not to have coverage – flying is one of the last few bastions of disconnection in an otherwise uber-connected wireless age.

From a personal perspective it would certainly be useful to have the option of data access, as fortunately/unfortunately all of my work comes in via email – it’s scary to say, but really these days in many jobs, constant connectivity to your inbox is needed to do your job …

But what are your views on allowing voice/text/data on-board planes? Do you think it should be enabled, or would the all-to-familiar-beep of a text coming in drive you to ultimate distraction? We want to hear from you!