Matt Croydon::Postneo

Category: Web Services

  • EV-DV Sooner than you Think

    Phone Scoop brings news that EV-DV chips are slowly inching down the pipeline:

    STMicroelectronics (ST) and Texas Instruments (TI) today announced the delivery of sample CDMA 1xEV-DV chipsets to device manufacturers. In collaboration with Nokia, Korean carrier LG Telecom is testing the solution for its planned deployment of 1xEV-DV technology.

    We should start seeing EV-DV tech hitting sometime during 2005, with a more widespread rollout 2006ish.  This seems to be in line with what I learned about EV-DV at ETech.  That’s the “slow” Rev C though.  It can only pull down about 3 megabits.  The uplink isn’t that fast, but the downlink is what you’re really worried about anyway.  The uplink speed will be fixed when Rev D comes out.

    EV-DV is definitely a tech to keep an eye out for, and might hit some top 10 lists in 2005 or 2006.

  • Link ’em

  • The Clie has Left the Building

    Gizmodo is the first in my aggregator covering the story:

    Ill tidings for the Palm world as Sony announces they will be withdrawing the Clie line from the US at least throughout the end of the year.

  • G4TechTV Update

    I updated my comment from yesterday about G4TechTV.

  • G4TechTV: So Sad

    Wow.  I didn’t realize that the G4TechTV “content” was going to be this bad.  I hope that for the last few hours I’ve been seeing G4 drek, and that somewhere in all of this mess there still is some TechTV.

    Update:

    In Lieu of actual programming, the wunderbrains at G4TechTV have decided to nix the re-airing of The Screen Savers at 8am.  They also replaced quality TechTV filler with Paid Programming straight through till they pick up G4 crap programming at 9am.

    I have to conclude that G4TechTV did not do any research before jumping in to all of this.  I’m usually at work when The Screen Savers is on in the evening.  I happen to be at home getting ready for work during the 8am re-airing.  I’ve been out of my usual schedule recently, but for months on end I’ve been an almost-daily viewer of the 8am show.  I can’t be alone.  I know that the DC Market was one of the stronger TechTV markets, so the viewers had to be there.

    Ahh, it’s okay.  The Screen Savers is on the schedule twice a day: at noon and at seven pm.  Of course I’m not able to catch either of those times.  In these TiVO times aparently I should be able to “deal with it.”

    I know that I mourned the loss of TechTV a few weeks ago, but I’m really sad to see it actually happen.  I can’t decode the actual content from all the ads on the G4TechTV main page.  The, uh, Screen Savers page has about a paragraph and a half of content on it, as opposed to the old feature rich page that had more info than you can shake a stick at.

    Maybe I’m growing old and bitter.  Maybe I just miss my old friend, TechTV.

  • Link Ho!

    • CNet notes that there will be several conferences this week.
    • Newsforge points to an osViews editorial, which strives to clear up some issues between SpecOps Labs and the WINE/Crossover Office communities.
    • Reuters: Nokia Adds Cheap Camera Phone to Ailing Portfolio.
    • OSDir points to an Internet News announcement of a new version of Apache Cocoon.
    • OSNews reports that Slackware is the last major distro to drop XFree86 for XOrg over licensing issues.
    • Chris Davies expands on the question are high end phones a threat to operators?  It is common knowledge in #mobitopia that smartphone users spend more per month than non-smartphone users.  Chris’ post is definitely worth a read.
    • Vladimir notes that ATI has released a new version of their Linux drivers.  Unfortunately I don’t see drivers for my mobile ATI chipset.  *Sigh*
    • Juha is a happy Nokia 6800 user and wonders if more devices will look like it in the future.  I’d personally kill for a 6800 form factor series 60 phone.
    • RootPrompt links to a Cringley article about the wicked things that can be done with a Linksys WRT54G.
    • Speaking of the WRT54G, Rasmus has a good tutorial on installing/setting up Kismet on the WRT54G.
    • Russ rants on a Newsweek article that gets mobile phone computing wrong.  Can I have one of those pictured 6600s?  He also has some Java-related posts after his recent relaunch.
    • K5 carries a story about the recent discovery of a new prime that has over 7 million digits.
    • I shall mostly abstain from the recent purple numbers meme. #
    • El BBC reports about the recently revealed secret D-Day photos.
    • This is old news, but the Pivot roadmap is the Best. Roadmap. Evar!  More recently, Pivot 1.14 beta 2 is out.
    • I must remember to use javadocs.org.
    • Wow, Nelson has some info on Unreal Engine 3.  It looks impressive.

  • Windows XP SP2 and Bluetooth

    PocketPC Thoughts links to a PDA Guy post about Bluetooth in Windows XP Service Pack 2.  I have the beta of SP2 running on my laptop, though I have not had a chance to check out RC1.  I didn’t notice anything different about bluetooth connectivity under the beta of SP2, but I was still running the stack that came with my Belkin F8T003.

    There are so many Windows Bluetooth stacks out there, and I was hoping that having One True Bluetooth Stack would make things easier, but if it does indeed not support networking, it is broken.  Of course BlueZ rocks my Bluetooth-enabled world under Linux.  It Just Works, and it rocks.

  • Link and Run

  • Clearing the Linkcache

  • Merry Christmas: Wonderfalls on DVD

    Hoorah!  Via Keith, it looks like we’ll be getting Wonderfalls on DVD for the holidays.  I caught bootlegs of Episodes 6 and 7, and they’re doozies.  I’ll be waiting in line at midnight somewhere on this one.

  • Treo 660: Subtle Changes for the Better

    While this prototype that may or may not be a Treo 660 does not look significantly different than the Treo 600, take a closer look.  The phone-first design is starting to come out even more.  Not only does it look like a flattened Sony Eircsson T616, but the overall look and feel of the phone is about as trimmed down as a phone with a qwerty keypad can be.

    It just screams “phone that also happens to be a PDA” so much more than the Treo 600 does.

  • Tomorrow is Towel Day

    Thanks to Frank for the heads up, tomorrow is Towel Day.  I found out a day too late last year, but I’ll be observing it this year.

  • Unit Testing for Symbian C++

    NewLC points to SymbianOSUnit, an open source unit testing architecture for Symbian C++.  This is awesome.  More information can be found at the project summary.  I’m glad that someone finally just did this, as it’s something that I had been thinking about off and on for quite some time.

  • T-Mobile and Cingular Cut Ties

    CNet:

    Wireless carriers Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile USA said Tuesday they will shelve a three-year-old network infrastructure joint venture, based on the former’s pending buyout of AT&T Wireless.

    Does that mean that my reception with T-Mobile is going to get worse when I’m in San Francisco, or better?  I’m hoping for the latter.

  • The Monkey Links

    • There is a new version of mjabber, a J2ME jabber client, out and about.
    • This blog software breakdown is a nice at-a-glance comparison of some popular blogging platforms.
    • From the WS-Whatever department, Infoworld covers WS-MessegeDelivery.  In related news, Sam Gentile is excited about WSE 2.0.
    • Steve Olechowski notes the release of some new Moto iDEN MIDP 2.0 phones.  I for one knew that the i830 was on its way.  It’s a polished i730, which is A Good Thing.  I wonder if the other new phones are any good.
    • OSNews notes the torrentability of Mandrake 10 Official. *Slurp*
    • CNet: Mobile customers want streaming video.  I’d settle for working streaming audio on my 3650.
    • Wi Fi Networking News links to Wi-Fi penetration and demographics.  Also worth reading is the story of how Glenn got the scoop on the Cometa story.
    • I must listen to The FCC Song later.
    • OSNews links to a CNet story about CA open sourcing its Ingres database as well as partnering with several open source communities.
    • There are licensing issues with MySQL 4.x.
    • Mark deals with the aftermath of Freedom 0.  He was also slashdotted today.
    • Game Daily interviews Nada Usina about all things mobile gaming (via the awesome moconews)
    • El Reg reports that Sun is going to share Project Looking Glass Real Soon Now.
    • Simon Fell meditates on tool-generated WSDL.
    • Erik had a pulse today.

  • A Grand Don’t Come for Free

    I heard about the closest thing to a positive review of music by The Streets (aka Mike Skinner who is aka The Streets) on NPR of all places last night.  Let me be more specific.  I’ve heard and read tons of great things about him/them, but we’ve just got no clue about good music over here in the US.

    A few months ago the morning show at WHFS, the local non-Clear Channel (which means CBS) rock station, listened to a song from Original Pirate Material along with a few other songs.  It’s a game they play every few months.  The music director brings in a few songs and “The Junkies” rate each song either hurt-ing, top-40, or top-10.  I got all excited about the enthusiasm that the music director had before he played The Streets.  I share his enthusiasm.  It’s great stuff that isn’t the same old pop/rock/neometal/rap that you’ve heard a million times.  It’s really different.  It’s really good.

    Sadly “The Junkies” know the pulse of America and hated it.  A brand new twist on a genre that’s never gained popularity over here just wasn’t going to cut it.  The really garage (pronounced garidge not ga-raj) stuff from Craig David’s album never made it to the radio waves.  I’ve never heard Artful Dodger on the radio either for that matter.  I think I heard an Audio Bullys song once.

    I bought a copy of Original Pirate Material shortly after it became available in the US (MONTHS after it was released elsewhere in the world).  Luckily, the new one, A Grand Don’t Come for Free is already out here.  I’ll pick it up as soon as I can.  I just hope that we give it a listen over here, and don’t just dismiss it because it’s not the same old same old.

    It might be better off for us to just ignore this one too.  It’s a concept album.  A story.  It’s not rap, but not garage, but not the same as the previous album.  It’s a whole thing altogether.  I’m not sure if we’re ready for it.

  • The Other AT&T Wireless

    The Baltimore Sun:

    After Cingular Wireless completes its purchase of AT&T Wireless this year, AT&T Corp. will begin a new wireless phone service using the network operated by rival Sprint Corp.

    If that sounds confusing, it’s part of the plan.

    AT&T Corp. has a “window of opportunity to take advantage of the confusion to win as many customers as they can,” said Michael Grossi, a consultant with Boston-based Adventis. “Confusion is absolutely the cornerstone of AT&T’s strategy.”

    Wow.  This is going to be painful.  AT&T Wireless will cease to exist as a brand, folding in to the Cingular brand.  Almost immediately, AT&T the parent company that spun off the AT&T the wireless company a few years ago will start offering service on Sprint’s network.

    That’s so wrong.

    It’s going to confuse the crap out of consumers, and they’re banking on it.  It’s a shame that the current AT&T Wireless (soon to be just another part of Cingular Wireless) is spending a chunk of change on its GSM America ad campaign.  They’re pretty much campaigning for the other guy at this point.  It’s a shame too, because the ad campaign (at least the ad I’ve seen on TV) looks pretty good, the plans and coverage sound good, everything is solid.  I just don’t see the merit in prolonging and strengthening the AT&T Wireless brand any more at this point.  Wouldn’t those ad dollars be better spent strengthening the Cingular brand that they will so soon be a part of?

    Neither AT&T makes any sense to me.

  • Monday Morning Link Deluge

  • Mobile Linkdump

    We had quite the linkfest in #mobitopia today.  After Martin and the other Euros went to bed, I scared up quite a decent collection of mobile links.  Here they are for your enjoyjment:

    There are other link gems hidden among the 130 or so links from today.  Keep digging!

  • Supercharged Series 60

    Wireless Developer Network:

    MALMO, Sweden, May 13, 2004 — Teleca announced today it will supply leading Symbian OS and Series 60 support for the Intel(R) PXA27x family of processors aimed at customers developing mobile phones, PDA’s and other wireless devices.

    To most people, PXA27x is just a random alphanumeric phrase.  I assure you that it’s a ton more than that, and bringing Symbian/Series 60 to that platform is going to be big.  Really big.

    Luckily the announcement of the PXA27x family flew by my radar the other day.  Take a look at a few monster specs and you’ll know why I’m excited to see Symbian/Series 60 on this platform:

    • Scales to 624MHz.  That’s like a PII/PIII running Symbian/Series 60.
    • Lots of memory, up to 64 megs.
    • Speedstep in your pocket.  Here’s hoping for lots of power and long battery life.
    • Lots of connectivity options.  Series 60 Wi-Fi anyone?
    • It has a really nice mobile co-processor with a lot of really good codecs

    Now don’t expect to see this tech in your Series 60 phone any time soon.  Teleca just got approval to start working on this stuff, and for the near future will only be working on reference designs and concepts.  For all we know, this project could be shelved in six months.  I hope that it ends up in our pockets instead.