Categories
Apple

iPod touch 2nd Generation?

There’s been a storm of news about the new iPod lineup, and of course the iPhone price drop (and refund). Some interesting things have been said. I think Gizmodo has put it best. “iPod Overload Offers Up Hard Choices, No Clear Winning Device“. Between expense, poor provider (AT&T), lack of 3G, and being new, people are hesitant to move to the iPhone. Price and a mere 16GB is keeping people away from the iPod touch. The Classic and Nano feel pretty outdated for what they cost. The shuffle could put you to sleep.

Gizmodo’s title is pretty accurate, because it illustrates the problem with this lineup. There’s no easy choice, just a lot of concessions for most people. I’m guessing a few things will change in the first half of ’08

Categories
In The News Security Spam

Coming Soon: Bluejacking

If you have bluetooth on your phone, there’s yet another reason to turn it off when you don’t use it. Besides saving battery life (which is always a good thing), and just general security you’ll be seeing more and more spam as time goes on if you keep it on. It’s already a problem in some places. Here’s an auto translated version of the linked article in English.

It’s to easy to just spam cell phones with phone book entries, video’s, text messages, pictures, etc. Even if you don’t accept them, your phone will still go off to let you know you have an incoming request. I would bet it won’t take long befor apps exist for PDA’s to automatically spam any bluetooth device in range. Then a spammer can just walk through the streets, malls or stores to send spam. Talk about discrete marketing.

What a mess, and I doubt it will be fixed anytime soon. We’re still getting email spam with no end in site.

Categories
Mozilla

In Search Of The Missing Sync?

I had another silly thought this evening, and thought I’d just mention it for anyone interested. I’ve been reading through some bugs, and wiki documents on the state of synchronization of various devices with Mozilla based products.

It would be great to have a generic XPCOM wrapper for interacting with Bluetooth support on various platforms (yes, you read that right, and trust me it’s not that crazy). It would need to have the ability to detect what Bluetooth implementation is used by the user for Windows (Broadcom/WIDCOMM vs. Windows XP), Apple’s Bluetooth implementation and of course Linux (I believe it’s Bluez, but I’m not to familiar with Bluetooth on Linux). Note that this does not mean having Mozilla drivers for Bluetooth hardware. Just an easy way for developers to interact with Bluetooth without the concept of platform specific software.

With projects like Lightning, Thunderbird maturing, and MiniMo it’s important to be able to interact with other devices for the sake of forward progress, and this may prove to be the best solution for many cases.

There are several approaches to device sync from what I’ve seen from things that are device specific likePalmSync to the more generic iSync, but the problem that comes up is that it’s a lot of work for relatively limited devices. For example, even with iSync, as robust as it is, your still limited in devices it supports, and it’s Mac only (leaving Windows and Linux users in the cold). Others still require commercial software (Palm) to work with iSync. So for all the work, all Windows users have no benefit from iSync support. For all the effort on PalmSync for Windows done thus far (and that’s a fair amount of effort), no Mac users have been able to benefit thus far. SyncML has some potential, but the lack of support thus far still leaves many without any support. Anyone without a newer device likely won’t ever have SyncML support, so again the problem is a limited device set. And still not all newer devices support SyncML, and it could even depend on your service provider, as they sometimes disable features.

The advantage of Bluetooth is standardization. Lets face it, love it or hate it Bluetooth is becoming more and more available. More and more portable devices are shipping with it. By having support for it, Mozilla products gain compatibility with devices as they come out. It also would provide good device support over multiple platforms. For example, Thunderbird’s Address Book could have a small database of device types (phone/PDA models) and the format of an address book they support (such as vCard) or Calendar (vCalendar or iCal).

It looks like Synchronization Profile (SYNC) and File Transfer Profile (FTP) would be necessary to get most devices going (seems not all support SYNC, so supporting FTP would allow you to at least dump your Address Book or just an Address Book card from time to time onto your phone.

If included with Firefox, there would be an easy way for product developers, and extension developers to add a “send with Bluetooth” menu option. Save snippets of a web page, an hCard, the possibilities are endless.

This wouldn’t work for every device (such as the iPod thus far which is Bluetooth free, but I’ve got you covered on that ;-)), but it’s a big gain with supporting 1 protocol.

I could even see this as an interesting approach to keeping bookmarks in sync. Perhaps store your bookmark file on your cell phone… well you get the picture, mobile devices are without question the future, the question we need to ask is, how do we transport data back and forth?

It doesn’t look like something I’m personally up to implementing (I’m not very strong when it comes to this stuff), but it would be pretty cool to see someone take on. The key to this is that it needs to support SYNC and FTP, as well as be as multi-platform as possible. That’s not an easy task, but the possibilities are rather impressive.

I’m curious what others think of such an idea. I’m not saying it’s 100% workable, or warrantied for any particular use. Just some idea in my head I felt like putting into text and sending down the series of tubes we call the internet.

Categories
Apple Hardware Tech (General)

LG CU500

LG CU500Tonight I replaced my 2+ year old LG vx6000 with a LG CU500 [Amazon]. Family plan upgrade time.

I haven’t had too much time to play with it. Perhaps later I’ll take a few test photo’s outside in daylight (if it’s not raining) and see how they look, and perhaps upload them.

I first setup bluetooth between my Mac and my phone, just paired them up. Took about 10 seconds. Then tried to do the same with my Thinkpad. Took about 2 minutes, thanks to slightly more confusing software (never did either). Next task was to transfer a picture from the phone to the PC. After about 20 minutes I had no success on my Thinkpad, kept being told “Sending Cancelled” by the phone. Went over to the Mac, and it took no more than 15 seconds.

Everything is easier on a Mac.

I haven’t had to much time to play with it, but here are some initial impressions:

  • WOW!!!
  • Call quality seems very clear. Good indoor reception.
  • Seems like stronger vibrate mode than the vx6000, or maybe mine just got tired after so long.
  • 1.3 MP camera is surprisingly good… will need to purchase a memory card (MicroSD) tomorrow.
  • Recording video’s is super awesome… again, will need that memory card.
  • Bluetooth on Mac: sweet. Bluetooth on Thinkpad: ugh (see above).
  • Mp3 player looks pretty solid, again need memory card, though this is a feature I’m not really that interested in.
  • Menu’s very well laid out, organized, clear.
  • Build quality seems exceptionally good. I’ve held a couple of them now, and all are rock solid.
  • Comes with travel charger, rather than one with a stand… prefer the stand on my desk, no option to buy that. Hooking up the cable is more cumbersome than slipping it on the stand.
  • Apparently supports 3GPP, so a movie could be saved to the memory card… note: buy memory card.
  • No voice dialing (though is that really so critical?)
  • Buttons on the side are pretty slim and take some getting used to… not good for gorilla’s who use cell phones.
  • Bright vibrant screen, great looking case, again, great build quality.
  • Photo’s have EXIF data! Unlike the vx6000, which was a drag.