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.

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.

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.

• 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.

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 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.

• News in Distrowatch land:
• Fedora Core 2 is available via BitTorrent.
• Linux From Scratch 5.1, with kernel 2.4.26, GCC 3.3.3, and glibc 2.3.3 is out
• There’s a new drop of Cluster Knoppix out and about.
• OSNews covers scripting languages.
• xmlhack, nap in peace.  So long, and thanks for all the fish.
• PCLinuxOnline notes that Wide Open Magazine is changing its subscription model.
• Netcraft tracks changes in the blogging world.  Take a look at the WordPress Sourceforge stats.  I noticed a huge spike the other day, but the data may be suggesting that the meme is over.
• ACM queue: Nutch
• IronPython is still vapourware with fast numbers attached to it.
• Linux Today has a roundup of KDE releases.
• Via RootPrompt, Maintaining Linux Firewalls looks like it is worth a read.
• Nu Cardboard: Java Coding Standards
• From the Orient moves to WordPress.
• Gentoox is a Gentoo port for the Xbox.
• Linux Journal: Desktop Publishing with OpenOffice.org
• kuro5hin: The New Kilogram.  We keep a couple of standards in the Maryland suburbs.
• Dave and Userland plan on releasing Frontier as open source.  They’re not sure what or when though.

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:

• The Motorola MPX is due this summer for about 750 Euros.
• This XHTML-MP tutorial isn’t breaking news, but it’s a solid introduction to XHTML-MP.
• psy.geo.CONFLUX looks like a cool get together.
• Javalobby picked up on a new release of JTGL (Java Tiny Gfx Library) which includes support for MIDP 1.0 and MIDP 2.0.
• About 2.6 million people have taken advantage of mobile number portability in the US.
• Yahoo is going to publish BREW apps.  That’s big news hiding amongst a bunch of links.
• Via My-Symbian, Sprawl is a UIQ port of an Amiga emulator.
• N-Gage/QD News:
• Nokia pushes N-Gage-ing Games
• Lost Remote: Nokia N-Gage QD: a better sequel
• Pathway to Glory looks like it could be a platform-making game.  I take back all the bad things that I’ve said about it now that I’ve seen some screenshots.
• 8 new N-Gage games are going to round out the lineup quite nicely.
• Nokia PDF: Tip Of The Month: Usability Is The Heart Of Development v1.0
• Motorola and Avis launch a mobile navigation system.  One of the moto cels (either new or upcoming) has turn by turn directions.  It’s an impressive feature.

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

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.

Following the announcement of SNAP, and the fact that it will first be ready for Series 60 MIDP 2.0, the question is out there in plain sight: What about Enterprise SNAP?

No really, I’m serious.  Why not use SNAP as a platform for enterprise apps?  With MIDP 2.0 you’ve already got an extremely easy form-based user interface.  Writing a basic MIDP 2.0 form is just above the complexity level of creating a VB form.  Really, it’s simple.

How much of a gaming framework can be used in the enterprise?  Quite a bit actually.

The presence info could be killer.

“Where’s Johson?”
“One second, let me check.” <our geek hero glances at his 6600> “He’s online, I’ll have him call in.”

After that, our geek hero can send Johnson a quick message using SNAP’s instant messaging API.

SNAP may be a useful extension to traditional J2ME->J2EE enterprise solutions, or it might just be useful for some enterprise hacks.  Either way, I can’t wait to take a look at it.

Scoble is defending the Tablet PC team from an article at Microsoft Watch.  I wish that there wasn’t so much to defend.  Tablets are one of those things that I’ve wanted to see take off since the 486 Fujitsu days.  Every few years someone has a go at it, and Microsoft (along with their hardware partners) have a better shot at it than anyone before them.

But there are problems.

Price is probably the number one factor that is keeping the Tablet PC install base down.  I’ve looked at a few TabletPC models at my local Micro Center, which usually has a few in stock, and their sales guys know much more than your standard CompUSA or Best Buy.  I played with a Tablet PC.  It was a compelling experience.  Unfortunately it wasn’t two grand compelling.  It wasn’t twice as much as I ended up paying for a higher spec’d but bigger (and non-tablet) laptop that I ended up getting.

Twice the price is no big deal if the price itself does not concern the buyer.  Unfortunately we don’t all drive 7 series BMW’s and we can’t all write it off as a business expense.  I could quite easily pick up a well endowed mid-range budget notebook (like the $1000 HPs, Compaqs, E-Machines, etc) plus a good desktop and a LCD panel for the price of one of the Tablet PCs that was on display.

I know that Tablet PCs are different.  They’ve got to be a little lighter, they’ve got to have a detachable keyboard or that cool little rotating double swinging hinge thing that rocks so much.  That’s more expensive.  They also tend to use the (more expensive) little low-powered chips from Intel.  I know that all of the more expensive components combined with a big R&D bill equals a higher price tag.

But dude, we can’t afford it.

If there had been a $1000 Tablet PC right next to a $1000 laptop, I’d pick up the Tablet PC, hands down.  I’ve never seen such a thing in the flesh though.  I would so rock a Tablet PC.  It’d be with me ready to whip out at a moments notice.  Tablets promote casual everyday use that you just can’t do with a laptop.  You can cradle the tablet in your arm while scribbling, while I can assure you that balancing a laptop and typing while moving is no easy task.

The moral of the story: make these things cheap.  It’s the only way you’re going to get market share.  There are lots of people that would buy a Tablet PC in an instant, they just can’t afford the tablet tax.

• OSDir pointed to a new and improved Markup Validation Service at the w3c.
• Jeremy pointed to these Pine first use statistics and thinks that we can extrapolate the adoption rate of Unix-like systems from it.
• I’ve subscribed to the official Google blog.  I’m pretty sure that the version of Rawdog that I’m running can handle it.  Also of note is the recent Blogger relaunch.
• I just installed the latest version of PmWiki.  I’m still really impressed with the quality of this wiki.  It reminds me a lot of JSPWiki but it’s extremely lightweight (no database requirements)
• Mobiletracker points to a news story about a Sony Ericsson phone that is 9 cm tall, 3.9 cm wide, and 1.9 cm thick.  That’s a small phone.  It weighs about 69 grams.  NEC also has a slightly larger but much thicker camera phone.
• FreeCache is the poor man’s Akamai.  More cool stuff brought to you by The Internet Archive.
• Slashdot carries the news of the first BMW-numbered Pentium M: the M755.  It’s nice to see Intel bit by The Megahertz Myth.
• Wireless DevNet reports that RenderWare is coming to the N-Gage platform.
• Michael Yuan has the skinny on the J2ME MultiMedia API on the Nokia 6600 and 6230.
• The Symbian Q1 2004 results look good.  Very good.
• Gizmodo links to an article at USA Today.  Will the real Nintendo DS please stand up?

Last week we all found out that Comcast is firing 285 TechTV workers.  Today Slashdot linked to G4TechTV.com and a FAQ.  I have problems with the purchase and the merger on so many levels.  It looks like Leo will be out of the picture entirely, as Call for Help was not picked up on the new network.  I have no idea what The Screen Savers is going to look like when the new channel goes live on May 28.

I used to catch TechTV in the background over satellite and cable years ago, and it’s been a part of my geeky existance off and on ever since.  I’ll have The Screen Savers from last night on while I’m getting ready for work today.

I’ve always had a bit of a problem with G4.  They have a few solid hours of programming each day, but their filler far outweighs their content.  That’s not to say that TechTV doesn’t have its fair share of filler, but most of the time it’s half way decent.  I guess that I’m just not a hardcore enough gamer to watch the same old filler.

I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to watch the new network once it goes live later this month.  The Screen Savers is already loosing my attention now that Leo has left.  If he leaves the network completely, my motivation level will lower further.  I may stop watching completely out of disgust.  I’ll definitely have to send a complaint on to mergerinfo@g4techtv.com.