05:19 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Nobody can question Google's expertise when it comes to building search applications. The company's latest brainchild: Google Local for mobile, a downloadable and free application that lets you view maps and satellite imagery, find local businesses, and get driving directions on your phone. At this time, Local for mobile works with most Java-enabled (J2ME) phones offered by Cingular, Spring and T-Mobile. Alas, connected Blackberry and Palm devices are currently unsupported.

You should probably note that while Google doesn't store information that can directly identify you, it does associate a unique identifying number with your phone (I hear privacy advocates already sounding the war drums).

Update: Direct download links posted in this thread.

[via SearchEngineWatch]

04:39 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The long-prophesied Nokia 770 Linux handheld has finally arrived, and Reggie already posted a round-up of recent reviews and thoughts. From "a perfect must-have for any geek out there" and "a refreshingly different device" to "it was quite slow" and "it's not a Smartphone or PDA but it sure is useful", the Nokia receives a mixture of negative and positive responses, whereas the latter definitely dominates.

Related: Nokia 770 comes to US on Nov 10

04:24 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Palm hopes to take a big bite out of the European PDA market with a special packaging of its LifeDrive. The LifeDrive Showtime Limited Edition includes the Philips SBC HS520, a 24k gold-plated ear plug, and bonus video software for converting and watching videos and DVDs on the LifeDrive. Details on various European Palm sites: Palm Great Britain, Palm Netherlands, Palm Spain.

03:02 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

TCPMP has recently won the Pocket PC Mag 2005 Best Software Awards as the best open-source media player that supports AVI with DivX or XViD video, MP3 audio and many other formats. Although now officially a celebrity, Picard shows no signs of slowing down and continues to release improved upgrades. Changelog for TCPMP 0.66k:

-PalmOS: T|X LCD tweak options
-PalmOS: "safe event checking" setting saved
-WinCE: asf streaming fix
-WinCE: mjpeg web camera stream buffering turned off
-s263 (with 3gp) fix and support for h263 extended width/height
-PalmOS: T|T storage memory tweak fix
-better low memory handling with mpeg1 files
+support for half/quater resolution decoding (video quality)
+h263 elementary stream support
+Win32: ascii console video mode
+Win32: screen saver disabled during video playback

06:02 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Been away? Fear not! Here is your chance to check out what appeared on our frontpage this week:

Announcements
Mobileread welcomes Evan to the team!

Browsers
Skweezer wins 2005 Mobile Star award

Current E-Books Trends
On ideal paragraph and sentence lengths for e-books
School to provide lectures notes through cell phones

General Chat
Astraware offers Sudoku for PalmOS and Pocket PC
Former PalmSource CCO speaks out!
Palm's third business line - Baby Palm!
Sony taking DRM too far from a programmer's viewpoint

Other Gadgets
Nokia 770 comes to US on Nov 10

Other Readers
Cerience RepliGo 2.0 for PPC updated

Palm
MiniMusic Software Available for PalmOS
PalmAddicts blessings
PalmSource Director makes the news
Washington Post on how Palm forgot to wow spectators

Pocket PC
Pocket PC 2005 Best Software Awards
ScummVM V0.8 update for Windows Mobile
TCPMP programmer "Picard" interviewed by PA
WM 5.0 upgrade for Dell Axim X50 arrived

01:35 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Palm Addicts is reporting the good news that the Noka 770 Linux internet handheld tablet device is going to be available in the US on Nov 10. There should be a flurry of news about it very soon, and I'm really looking forward to all the information. A nice early review by Mike Cane is available here.

We've been expecting it in the range of $350, but I haven't heard a final price or street pricing. Visit the European Nokia site here for lots of details and pictures.

So with the introduction of the Gamepark GP2X and this Nokia 770, I think it's fair to say that the race to a brand new Linux generation of handheld computing is officially underway!

09:42 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Congratulations to Dave Garr, Marketing Director at PalmSource!

No, he did not just create a brand new version of PalmOS. Nor did he talk Bill Gates into doing advertisements for PalmOS. But he is causing quite a stir, nonetheless, in the San Jose area with a very creative marriage proposal to his new fiance, Elizabeth Pearson, a local documentary filmmaker.

In true Silicon Valley marketing form, Dave spent four months creating the web site DaveLovesElizabeth with a declaration of his love, his proposal and a lot of humor. Elizabeth said "yes," and the rest is history. Now the rest of the world is learning of the story and it has even just appeared in the Mercury News newspaper. (Free registration required.)

Check out the full story at his web site, and don't miss the rap video! If you want to share in the good wishes, you can add your congratulations in the blog comments available towards the end. Looks like one very happy couple. Our best wishes go out to Dave and Elizabeth for their continued blessings together!

Edit: Just a small clarification... despite what the newspaper article says, it turns out that Dave is in IT, and his correct title is Director of PalmSource.com.

08:54 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Michael Mace has filled a number of key roles in the mobile computing industry, most recently with PalmSource as their Chief Competitive Officer. He provided us some very interesting thoughts while in that role by sharing freely and generously in forums and interviews (such are the one he did with me for this five-part MobileRead article.)

You may already know that Michael is one of my favorite PalmSource "alumni." So it is with great delight that I can share with you the links to his blog sites, MobileOpportunity and MapTheFuture. He's currently also in the process of writing a book on business strategy that will surely be very interesting.

No, there's no dirt on Palm or PalmSource or anything like that, but there's a lot of interesting thoughts on mobile computing and ideas about the future and business strategy. These are definitely sites worth keeping bookmarked.

(Thanks Dave!)