Archives: July 2009

CBS Radio News White House correspondent and prolific Tweeter Mark Knoller (@MarkKnoller) was on a guest this morning on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. Knoller talked about how he uses Twitter to report the minute-by-minute updates from the White House:

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.

Photo courtesy of Nokia Conversations

If you were one of those people shaking your head in disappointment because Nokia didn’t include a Xenon flash in the N86 8MP smartphone, you might want to read this item in Nokia Conversations…

Head to head – N86 8MP Vs N82

…and you most definitely want to watch this slide presentation on SlideShare comparing photos taken with the N82 and N86 8MP under various lighting conditions. The photos and accompanying technical explanations in the slideshow were produced by Damian Dinning who designed the camera component for both phones. You don’t get a better expert than that to explain why the N86 8MP doesn’t need a Xenon flash.

I know I’m convinced the N86 8MP camera doesn’t need a Xenon flash after reviewing the slideshow a couple of times.

According to DSLReports.com Charlotte, North Carolina and Dallas, Texas can expect to see WiMax in their area sometime this fall…

Time Warner Cable Plans Mobile WiMax Launch

WiMAX is based on the 802.16 protocol and can provide relatively high data rates wirelessly over large areas. Time Warner Cable, like Sprint before it, is partnering with Clearwire. The interesting thing about this announcement is that Time Warner’s announcement clearly points to the mobile service instead of the cable and dsl competing fixed service.

The question is how will Time Warner bundle it with their wired broadband services. And, how much more will they charge for WiMAX mobile data service?

It looks like the iPhone is not the only phone in peril of an SMS attack…(from Technologizer)…

Your GSM Phone is (Probably) Vulnerable to Malicious Text Messages

The article says that the exploit discussed for the past few days as targeting the iPhone can actually may also be able to attach other GSM based phones. In the US, this means phones used with AT&T and T-Mobile. Verizon and Sprint use a wireless voice technology named CDMA.

Technologizer reports that the demo of this exploit at the Black Hat conference going on this week showed a single iPhone app that could attack iPhones as well as Windows Mobile and Android based phones. Ouch!

Have you ever watched someone use a smartphone and wonder how what looks like random behavior does not break a mobile app? One tool that helps Windows Mobile app developers is a free tool from Microsoft that stress tests apps by simulating random user behavior…

Hopper for Windows Mobile 6.5 Released!

The tools full name is: Microsoft Hopper Test Tool for Windows Mobile. And, as you can see from title of the Microsoft Windows Mobile Blog entry above, it has been updated to work with the upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 release. Applications submitted to Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Marketplace for Mobile must complete and pass two hours of Hopper induced stress testing.

You can find and download Hopper from the Microsoft Download Center…

Microsoft Hopper Test Tool for Windows Mobile 6.0, 6.1, and 6.5

Hopper’s official description starts with these sentences:

Hopper is a software test tool that simulates random user input on mobile devices providing a sometimes meaningful mean time to failure (MTTF) number. It is designed to find bugs and is not intended to run scenario tests or do “specific user things” – it is completely random. Hopper stresses the entire device and will execute anything accessible through the UI many, many times.

Quickoffice released a new version of Quickoffice Premier 6…

Quickoffice Releases Newest Version of Mobile Office Suite for Nokia Symbian Devices

…for Nokia smartphones. This updated release brings three major changes to the product:

1. It can now view PowerPoint 2007 slide decks
2. Some Nokia phones which came bundled with the view-only version of the product can upgrade to a version that provides editing features
3. Its price has been lowered from $39 to $19

Do you ever wonder if giant firms like Apple, Adobe, Microsoft and Google actually listen to their customers’ rumblings and grumlbings? I know I do. So, I found it very interesting to read this rather lenghty commentary in the Google Mobile Blog…

We’re Listening

It starts by describing the outcry that resulted from pulling the high-end version of iGoogle for Android in January and continues on with a discussion about feedback about Google Maps for mobile that helped fix problems and guide enhancements.

The main lesson learned from this blog item is this: If you want a complaint, request or witty comment about a Google Mobile product heard, and possibly acted on, by the Google Mobile Team, go to the…

Google Mobile Help Forum

…and participate in the discussions there.

As AppleInsider so rightly points out, AT&T finally removed their needlessly complicated WiFi hotspot authentication scheme for iPhone and then found that…

AT&T sees big increase in Wi-Fi connections following iPhone 3.0

AT&T WiFi hotspot usage rose 41% compared to the previous quarter. AT&T might find that if they let iPhone customers also use notebooks and netbooks at hotspots, there might be less of a clamor for iPhone data tethering and generally slamming their network (note that AT&T had two extended regional outages in the past week).

I must admit that now that I can type email messages in landscape viewing mode (without using 3rd party software), that I’m using the iPhone even more these days and do use it at WiFi hotspots.

MySpace has begun the global beta rollout of MySpace Mail, the first major feature upgrade for the social network since the company laid off a good portion of its staff and announced that it would be focusing on innovation from here on out. And MySpace may have actually achieved something notable with this one, starting with the new user interface. It’s nice and well thought out, while also able to take advantage of some of the new capabilities that MySpace Mail has to offer.

For instance, the big selling point of the new MySpace Mail is the Mail activity stream, which summarizes all of your mail activity on your mail dashboard, or message center. This gives you a quick run down of what’s been sent to you and when, as well as real time updates as to your friends’ activity. The purpose behind the Mail activity stream is to give a continually flowing stream of accessible data points surrounding the communication threads between you and your friends.
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T-Mobile HTC Touch Pro2

T-Mobile USA released a product photo and technical specifications for the HTC Touch Pro2 Windows Mobile touchscreen phone in their message board area…

Introducing The T-Mobile Touch Pro2

The Touch Pro2 has been available outside of the US for a while now. So, there’s no surprises in the detailed product information table.

What is new and potentially useful to prospective Touch Pro2 owners is T-Mobile forum discussion area dedicated to the Touch Pro2….

T-Mobile Forums : Windows Mobile : Touch_Pro2

It is amusing to note that there’s few comments focused solely on the fact that the only color available for the Touch Pro2 is an odd (some same ugly) brown color.