08:31 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Boeing has created a wireless "hot spot" inside a Boeing 737 and came to Atlanta this week to sell Delta Air Lines executives on the advantages of surfing the Net and exchanging e-mail at 39,000 feet, according to this article. In other words, if we are lucky (well, those of us who can afford the the $10-$30 fees), Delta could soon become the first domestic airline to buy into Boeing's Connexion network.

Chris McGinnis, an Atlanta business travel consultant, says there's a ready market for aerial Internet. "I know that I, personally, would kill for something like that on a flight to Europe," he said. "I spoke with a person the other day who closed a real estate deal while he was flying from Seattle to Tokyo. It's something business travelers want and are willing to pay for."

Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, said executives long ago gave up the notion that airplanes provided the last refuge from work: "No one wants to get to their hotel room and have 80 e-mail messages waiting for them."

Deal says market data Connexion has gathered in Europe and Asia should convince U.S. carriers that Web access is a necessity for business travelers. Voice-over-Internet phones and videoconferencing could follow.

06:07 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Mobile Sites

Recently we mentioned Maxpedia.org, a free proxy for mobile WAP access to Wikipedia. Florian Amrhein now sent us word of his site Wapedia, which goes even one step further: Wapedia brings Wikipedia content not only to WAP devices, but also to other mobile devices like PDAs supporting HTML.

Supported devices:

- autodetect: en.wapedia.org
- WAP1-Mobiltelephone: wap.en.wapedia.org
- WAP2-Mobiltelephone (requires xhtml browser): wap2.en.wapedia.org
- PDAs: pda.en.wapedia.org
- Webbrowser: www.en.wapedia.org

German and French languages are also supported!

I am especially in love with the Current Events section. Well done, Florian!

04:42 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Tillanosoft's SmallMenu is one of the better cascading start menu replacements for Pocket PC.

The latest update fixes some incompatibilities with WISBar Advance, Magic Button and ActiveSync. Download here.

04:18 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Are gadget makers such as PalmOne and Apple turning a blind eye on elderly people and in general on people with disabilities? You don't have to be old to find it a struggle to read the tiny type on your iPod, PDA or cell phone, but aging doesn't help matters.

Today I stumbled over the following article from Marketwatch analyzing the situation:

As much of today's advertising makes clear, product makers are intent on getting young, tech-savvy trendsetters to buy their goods.

That may be a mistake, given that the 50-plus market controls as much as $750 billion to $2 trillion in discretionary income, according to market researcher Brent Green, author of "Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers."

"Companies are doing themselves a disservice if they don't go after" older Americans, said Danielle Levitas, a senior analyst with IDC, a technology-research firm in Framingham, Mass. "It's a demographic with disposable income and ... it's ripe for the opportunity.

PalmOne is taking notice:

When surveying its customers, PalmOne found about one-third of those over age 50 are new adopters of handhelds and smart phones.

"They are for the first time purchasing these handhelds and smart phones, which makes a lot of sense as technology is becoming more and more a part of our lives," said Rose Rodd, director of product line marketing at PalmOne.

PalmOne (PLMO: news, chart, profile) is responding by making easy-to-read screens and products that are simple to use out of the box, she said.

PalmOne handhelds come with a "setup poster with just three steps, large type, large pictures, very simple language," she said.

03:34 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Despite recent rumors that Sony might be releasing a successor model of the TH55 soon, it now appears that Sony's long-term plans are to shut-down the Clie production. Our friends at 1src write:

Impress Watch has an article that says Sony will stop producing the Clie after July 2005. They will continue to provide parts and repair services until six years after the last production. Clie support desk will stop service after 1 year and support and repair will continue to be provided by the Vaio Customer Support Center after that. Clie related software sales and network services will continue for the time being.

With today's announcement, Sony is officially pulling the plug on Clie platform. However, according to the article in Impress Watch, Sony commented that "although the Clie platform has come to an end, we will continue to work on the 'entertainment oriented
mobile information devices' concept". No one can tell what this statement means. It can be that they will develop more services and functions on devices like the Playstation Portable or mobile phones or perhaps we can dream of Sony is preparing a new genre of
mobile devices. Whatever it is, the Clie platform that we have come to know and enjoy in the last 4 years has come to the end of its journey.

More at Impress (Japanese).

03:43 PM by Laurens in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

GSPDA to Make the First Palm OS Cobalt Smartphone (Brighthand)

For the first time, a company has said it will definitely release a Cobalt device before the end of this year.

Over the weekend, Group Sense PDA (GSPDA) made a presentation of its latest smartphone, the Xplore M68, to the Paris PUG.

At this, Tim Wong, GSPDA's General Manager of Business Development, was asked if his company was going to release a smartphone running Cobalt. Mr. Wong responded by saying that not only will GSPDA release a Palm OS Cobalt smartphone, it will be the first company to do so.

Mr. Wong did not give an estimated time for when this device will be released, but he did say it would be before the end of this year.

He also said that while GSPDA will release the first smartphone with Cobalt, some other company may release a Cobalt handheld first.

Well, it's about time! The last statement is tantalizing, to say the least. Maybe PalmOne is developing a Cobalt-based PDA after all.

10:47 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Illium Software's NewsBreak, my favorite feed reader for Pocket PC, has just been updated. NewsBreak V1.0.1 adds support for Google Gmail and other feeds that require authentication, as well as improved storage card functionality.

Thanks to WM247 for the tip.

05:39 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The ROAD S101/S101K looks like an interesting device. Advertised as the perfect all-inclusive solution for everyday business, the Linux-based S101 combines a mobile phone with the functionalities of a desktop PC (at least that is the claim).

The relatively unknown German company ROAD GmbH, who is partnering with Trolltech AS and Siemens AG , has also two more smartphones under development, which are based on the S series, but will have a larger keyboard plus additional hardware feature (and run either Symbian or Windows CE instead of Linux).

Credits go to PalmAddicts for the news.