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Wednesday, April 30th, 2003
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9:58 am - What's new: PDAs
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There used to be a simple opposition between cheap Palm handhelds and pricey but powerful multimedia Pocket PCs, but today there is a lot of overlap. The Palm side has ramped up the power by adopting ARM-based processors similar to those used in Pocket PCs, and introducing a new version of the Palm OS. Meanwhile, the Pocket PC players have launched smaller and/or cheaper models such as the Hewlett-Packard iPaq H1910, ViewSonic V35 and the Dell Axim X5.
In fact, Palm OS devices now cover a wider range of the consumer market. At the low end, there is the naff but cheap Palm Zwire, which uses the old Dragonball processor. At the high end, there are ARM-based machines such as the Sony Clié NZ-90, which not only offers Pocket PC-style multimedia, but trumps them by including a 2-megapixel camera.
Dell's Axim has made the biggest impact of the new Pocket PCs, mainly because of its price. The Axim X5 comes in two variants: a 300MHz machine with 32MB of memory for £197, and a 400MHz device with 64MB of memory and a cradle for £267. This compares with about £300 (reduced from its original £386) for an ARM-based Palm Tungsten T with 16MB of memory and a 174MHz TI processor. However, the Tungsten T has the advantage of built-in Bluetooth for wireless connection to a mobile phone.
There is much to like about the Axim. It feels solid, has a good screen, and packs in a large CompactFlash II expansion slot as well as a standard SD card slot. While the Axim feels somewhat utilitarian, its cradle is a substantial and remarkably shiny piece of high tech engineering. The cradle lets you synchronise the Axim with a personal computer, recharge the battery, and recharge a spare battery in an extra slot at the back.
Although the Axim is bulky by today's standards, it is slightly smaller than a traditional iPaq complete with a CompactFlash expansion sleeve, and much cheaper. I can foresee companies that have developed applications on a couple of iPaqs rolling them out on a couple of hundred Axims.
However, when it comes to style-conscious buyers, the Axim is trounced by HP's new H1910 version of the iPaq. This is smaller, sleeker, and has a brighter screen, though it is also more expensive at £299. It comes with stereo earphones (its voice recording works better than Dell's) and a synchronisation cable but no cradle, which is an optional extra. If you have already acquired a CompactFlash memory card and/or IBM hard drive, Ethernet networking and Wi-Fi cards and so on, tough: they won't fit.
Size does make a difference. The H1910 is 4.46in tall, 2.75in wide and half an inch thick, and weighs 4.23oz (120g). On every dimension, it is smaller than Palm's Tungsten T, and is more than an ounce lighter. The Dell Axim, by contrast, measures 5.04in by 3.21in, and it is 0.71 thick, which makes it larger all round than the Tungsten T; at 6.9oz (196g), it is also 1.3oz heavier.
The major drawback with the iPaq H1910 is the memory. Only 46MB of the 64MB fitted is available to the user, and that is without either Transcriber (the excellent handwriting recognition program) or Windows Media Player loaded. So to use those, you not only have to install them from the companion CD, you have to load them into memory that you intended to use for other things.
Other applications that have mysteriously gone missing from the iPaq H1910's built in memory include Microsoft Reader, the electronic book software, MSN Messenger instant messaging, and the Terminal Services client software, which is important to corporate users. Pocket Word and Excel have survived, but this is not impressive for a £299 machine. The Pocket PC sales pitch has always been "look how much more you get built in". In this case, it should be "look how much we've left out".
In fact, the current prize for packing the most in should probably go to Sony for the Clié NZ-90, which includes a 2-megapixel (1600 x 1200 resolution) camera and electronic flash. In other respects, the NZ-90 is much like last year's NR70V, with its 0.1mp (320 x 240 resolution) camera, but with a 200MHz ARM-style processor and the new Palm OS 5.
However, the NZ-90 has some significant drawbacks, including the measly 16MB of memory. This makes it impractical for multimedia, unless you add a Memory Stick, and they are not ideal for storing large amounts of data. Also, the camera is not very flexible, and is not well placed for video conferencing unless you want to advertise your multiple chins.
Another problem with the NZ-90 is the camera's battery consumption. You think you have many hours left, but when you switch to the camera, the system does a quick recalculation and decides you don't have enough juice to use the camera, or just the flash.
Finally, although the NZ-90 has lots of neat features - including Bluetooth, a swivelling screen, a small keyboard, and a CompactFlash slot for a Wi-Fi card - it is a bit of a monster. It measures 5.6 by 3.0 inches, bulges to almost an inch thick, and weighs 10.3oz (292g). Much as I love the idea of a PDA (personal digital assistant) with a proper camera, the £600 price of an NZ-90 is better spent on two separate devices.
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| Sunday, April 27th, 2003
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10:05 am - What's new
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Mobile Phones
Tunnel vision
Vodafone says it is at the earliest stage of considering how to wire train tunnels for reception, despite reports of discussions with Network Rail. The firm says these appear to have been triggered when a Financial Times reporter was cut off during a conversation with Vodafone chief executive Sir Christopher Gent, when he went into a tunnel. On reconnecting, Sir Christopher remarked on this - giving the FT the story idea. "It is very early days," said Vodafone this week. "A solution could be a way off." Bob McDowall, a director at analyst firm Bloor Research, says Vodafone is probably the only network with the financial strength to consider such a long-term investment.
Nokia to clamshell
Could Nokia be about to launch its first clamshell phone? While such companies as Samsung, Sharp and Motorola have been successful with their flip-open handsets, Nokia has stuck with conventional flat-faced designs. Now, rumours are sweeping the industry that Nokia has been talking to four Taiwanese manufacturers about a clamshell mobile and that it intends to launch models at the beginning of 2004. Clamshell phones have proved especially popular with camera phone buyers. Sharp's GX-10, exclusive to Vodafone Live, is the UK's bestseller.
Gadgets
Trust times three
Trust is upping the ante in the budget digital camera market by introducing a model that takes 3.3 mega pixel images yet retails for less than £150. The Trust 770Z also features 3x optical and 3x digital zooms, a 4cm TFT LCD display, and five preset shooting modes including portrait, macro and landscape.
Nokia is watching
Coming in June from Nokia is a £350 Observation Camera that snaps images and sends them directly to MMS-(multimedia messaging) equipped phones or email addresses. To see the images, users send a text message to the camera, which then replies with an image of whatever is in front of it. The Nokia Observation camera is one of the first devices to uses Machine to Machine (M2M), a technology that enables phone networks to communicate with computers.
Covert snapper
With celebrity hangouts banning camera phones, taking covert pictures of the stars requires ever more disguised snappers. Budget digital camera maker L'Espion could provide the answer, as its new £80 model, the XS, is housed in a pull-open metal case that's a deadringer for a cigarette lighter.
The camera takes 0.5 mega pixel still images, up to 13 seconds of video and 12 minute of audio, which it stores on its 8MB internal memory. Lite Sync technology enhances images shot indoors, while an infrared mode enables the camera to take pictures based on body heat.
Sony's pocket cams
Sony is targeting moviemakers on the move with a pair of lightweight compact digital camcorders. The £1000 DCR-PC105 and £800 DCR-PC103 have a vertical design, are finished in blue-grey and record on to DV cassettes. The pair also feature a one click transfer of video to CD-R or DVD and, using the accompanying software, users can also record on to Video CD format discs that are compatible with most DVD players. Both models feature a 1.1 mega pixel CCD, 10x optical and 120x digital zooms, Carl Zeiss lens and Super NightShot for capturing images under dark conditions. The 105 can also take still images, which it archives on a Memory Stick storage card.
Samsung record TV
Samsung looks set to win the race to become the first to the UK market with a widescreen TV that features an integrated hard disk video recorder. Due next month, the £1700 WS32Z108R pairs a 32in widescreen set with a 40GB hard disk recorder. Also coming are a DVD-Ram video recorder, the DVD-R4000 (£450, June), a 40in LCD TV the LW40A13WX (out now, £6000) and a pair of camcorders, one of which, the VP-D33 (£450, May) records on to MPeg4 as well as digital video.
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| Friday, April 25th, 2003
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10:09 am - Horrorscopes
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"May's Horrorscopes"
Mystic Megson, the footballing astrologer says "Southampton for the Cup", the bloody fraud. What's in store for you for the month of May? Take our advice - just don't make any firm plans for June.
Aries: The common goldfish. Sweet, harmless, never a threat to life or limb. Still, you’ll have another nine fingers, so I wouldn’t worry if I were you. Just watch out for the flesh-eating bacteria - hours of endless fun!
Lucky chicken: Foghorn Leghorn
Taurus: Destiny sees you held hostage by desperate members of 80’s beat combo “Bucks Fizz”. Whatever happens, just don’t let them leave you alone with Cheryl Baker.
Lucky biro: Bic
Gemini: An encounter with a mad scientist sees your genes spliced with those of Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs. Just don’t leave the house until your lifetime’s supply of Immac arrives
Lucky DIY warehouse: B&Q
Cancer: With the sun in Uranus, it’s only a matter of time before your boss sees the positive energies you’re putting into your work and gives you the financial rewards you deserve. Only joking. It’s Ebola again.
Lucky country: Qatar
Leo: It’s a lucky, lucky news week for you! You will be appointed the new Iraqi Information Minister.
Lucky cheese: Jarlsberg
Virgo: Is there life after death? Are the living able to communicate with those on the other side? Look, we don’t want to alarm you, but when you get the chance, knock twice.
Lucky President: Calivin Coolidge
Libra: With the moon rising in Uranus, your life will descend into the cruel parody of a country and western song. Keep your pecker up - prison food isn’t as bad you you think, and Big Bubba’s just dying to share a cell with you.
Lucky marsupial: Kangaroo
Scorpio: Congratulations! You’ve won second prize in a beauty contest - a season ticket to see Celine Dion’s Las Vegas show. Sorry about that.
Lucky dictator: Alexander Lukashenka
Sagittarius: You would have thought that giant killer robots from space are the thing of science-fiction comics and the imagination of small boys and George Lucas. In your final, very painful moments, you may like to reflect on the pleasing fact that humanity is not alone in the universe.
Lucky Dr Who: Tom Baker
Capricorn: Devil worshippers, dark rituals invoking evil creatures from the darkest pits of hell and blood-drinking human sacrifice. If I was you, I’d give the Hamilton’s cheese and wine evening a miss.
Lucky Tweenie: Jake
Aquarius: Andy Warhol once commented that “everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes”. In this context, your twenty-seven years as “the elastic foreskin man” does seem a little unfair.
Lucky Devon town with an exclamation mark: Westward Ho!
Pisces: Biblical showers of fish. People just don’t seem to appreciate the pain of being hit by a rock salmon dropped from a height of 20,000 feet, so it may come as a surprise to you for a very, very short time.
Lucky cutlery: Spoon
If it’s your birthday: People will talk about your birthday party for weeks and months to come. Don’t worry, we’ll record the Newsnight specials and pass them on to what reamins of your family. Who’d have thought one clown would have such an appetite for human brains? Live and learn.
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| Tuesday, April 22nd, 2003
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5:14 pm - Directory Opus 6.2
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Directory Opus goes beyond the simple file manager metaphor, and offers you a complete replacement for Windows Explorer plus many other programs for handling FTP, ZIP, Viewing files and images, running slideshows and more. It provides you with all this within user-friendly and fully-configurable environment within which you can access and manage your important data.
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Product Details
Company: GPSoftware
Web: www.gpsoft.com.au
Limitations: Trial
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| Monday, April 21st, 2003
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5:03 pm - Answer Tool 1.01
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Answer all your support email with ease!
If you spend your life on the Net to the extent that you deal with dozens of emails every day, you probably suffer from digital déjà vu, where you find yourself typing the same phrases over and over again. The worst afflicted often end up writing oddly similar messages, time after time.
If the tedium of typing the same email several times a day is getting you down, Answer Tool is here to help. Neither the idea nor the program itself could be simpler: rather than having type the same phrases many times, you can simply select a piece of text from a list you've labeled and organized yourself. If you work in a business where you have to respond to the same questions from many different customers, for example, Answer Tool is ideal for storing each response in a convenient format. Even more useful is the ability to share the same repository of answers with your colleagues, so that everyone is able to provide consistent information.
All your text extracts are stored in a highly legible list of folders and Question entries. You just type a piece of text once to create a Question entry. Later on you can select the entry that contains the text you need, and then paste it into your favorites email program. It's easy to organize entries inside folders, with the entire list presented in a familiar-looking, Windows-style format. You can also move entries between folders and nest one folder inside another, creating a structure that suits the way you work.
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Upgrade
You can upgrade from Answer Tool version 1 to version 2 for just US$23.95 (approx. RM92), which is a 20% saving on the usual upgrade price of US$29.95.
To take advantage of this special deal, visit
Upgrade Ver 2
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Product Details
System Requirements: Win 98, NT, Me, 2K (and 10 Mbs HDD space)
Web: Upgrade ver 2
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| Sunday, April 20th, 2003
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1:17 pm - Survey Power 4
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Create and analyse surveys, questionnaires, and opinion polls with Survey Power™. Perform complete, demographic, correlation, and statistical analyses of survey responses. Includes training tutorials, web survey question creation, charting, email survey data entry, and survey data export. Create surveys with 12 Question Types.
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Product Details
Company: WISCO Computing
Web: www.wiscosurvey.com
Limitations: Trial
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| Tuesday, April 15th, 2003
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5:00 pm - Added email protection
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Do you really need the added email scanning features offered by some programs, or will a standard virus scanner do the job?
With many product such as PC-Cillin, Norton Antivirus and McAfee VirusScan claiming to offer superior protection from virus threats transmitted via email message, is there any reason to feel less secure if your chosen anti-virus package doesn’t offer this sort of feature? We don’t necessarily think so, and it’s time we explained why.
Packages such as the three above supposedly add extra protection by installing a pseudo-POP3 email server on your computer. Rather than connecting to your ISP’s mail server, your mail client connects to this local proxy, which in turn collects and scan your messages and attachments before delivering them to the program itself.
Since all antivirus suites utilize real-time memory resident scanning, any infected attachment should be flagged as soon as your mail client tries to open it or save it to disk. Technically speaking, a competent and properly configured anti-virus application should always spot and trap an infected file like this, even without a local proxy server. Certainly in our long experience of testing virus scanner, nothing has ever slipped by inside an email message unless the scanner itself had problems detecting that particular virus.
So if your scanner traps email-borne threats, why do manufacturers feel the need to add these proxy mail servers?
Finally, these proxy mail servers only work with the standard POP3 method of email delivery, which is to say 99% of ISPs. If you’re an AOL subscriber these features are useless to you anyway, since AOL uses its own proprietary delivery system. This is tested all clients with AOL 7 and all managed to catch the infected test messages before they executed-so if you subscribe to AOL, don’t feel that you’re more at risk than if you had one of the proxies installed.
current mood:  shocked
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| Saturday, March 22nd, 2003
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11:48 am - SONY CLIE NX70V
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Manufacturer: Sony Corp
Distributor: Show
Type: PalmOS handheld computer
LCD: 65,536 colour transreflective TFT LCD screen (320 x 480 pixel)
Dimension: 72.3 x 136.6 x 23.5 mm
Weight: 220
Specifications: 4MB Flash ROM, Memory Stick / MagicGate slot, Wireless Communication slot, infrared port, USB cradle, lithium-polymer rechargeable batter, integrated digital camera
Software Bundled: N/A
Processor: Intel PXA250 200MHz XScale processor
Operating System: PalmOS version 5.0
Memory: 16
Flash Rom: N/A
System Requirement: Pentium II 400MHz or better, Windows 98SE/Me/2000 Professional/XP, 96MB RAM minimum, 200MB free hard disk space, USB port, CD-ROM drive
Remark: N/A
Price(RM): 2,188.00
Website: N/A
Courtesy: Sony Malaysia
Review(s)
A handheld just got handier
Pros: Built-in digital camera; build quality is very high; MP3 playback.
Cons: Relatively bulky; high price.
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11:20 am - Success of Web journals heralds an even bigger future
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The online diaries known as Weblogs, or "blogs,'' seemed like a lot of inconsequential chatter when they surfaced a few years ago.
But as more people have embraced the concept, what once seemed like a passing fancy has morphed into a cutting-edge phenomenon that may provide the platform for the Internet's next wave of innovation and moneymaking opportunities.
"Just like the Internet was 10 years ago, blogging is popular with an underground culture that is doing it for the love and passion,'' said Tony Perkins, who edited the recently folded Red Herring technology magazine and last month launched a business blog called Always On Network.
"Now there are people like me coming along and trying to figure out how to package it,'' Perkins said. "It's time to take it to the next level.''
Other notables seeking to capitalize on the rise of the Web's so-called "Blogosphere'' include Terra Lycos, America Online and Google.
Terra Lycos last month introduced publishing tools to help people launch their own blogs. America Online is expected to offer a similar service to its 35 million subscribers later this year.
"We want to take what has been an underground phenomenon and introduce it to the masses,'' said Charles Kilby, Terra Lycos' director of product marketing.
Google, the maker of the Web's most popular search engine, created the biggest blogging stir of late by snapping up San Francisco startup Pyra Labs, which runs the biggest network of Weblogs. Pyra's Blogger.com has more than 1 million members, including 200,000 running active blogs.
The people self-publishing these blogs are an eclectic mix, from trendy teenagers discussing their body piercings to nerds swapping high-tech insights, celebrities sharing their everyday lives and activists staking out positions on Iraq.
While blogs are inherently personal, others offer an important communal element by soliciting reader feedback and providing links to other Weblog entries and content.
Complex blogs like the technology-focused Slashdot.org have extensive links to news articles, online discussions, even other blogs.
This phenomenon is spreading largely because of inexpensive blogging software that is designed to make it easy for just about anyone to publish an online journal.
No technical skills or knowledge about computer coding are required.
Organizing blogs doesn't require much thought or labor because the software automatically sorts things in a chronological sequence, starting with the most recent entry and working backward.
Perkins says he spent just $150 to license the software for his Always On Network. Joining Always On is free for now, although Perkins eventually hopes to charge $4.95 monthly subscriptions in the U.S.
"With blogging, all you really need is an articulate point of view and some dedication to reach a very broad audience,'' said Todd Copilevitz, director of Richards Interactive, a marketing firm that has studied blogs extensively.
The way bloggers link and influence each other's thinking could lead to a collective thought process, "a kind of hive brain,'' said Chris Cleveland, who runs Dieselpoint, a Chicago maker of search software that recently worked with Blogger.com.
The hive brain is a science fiction theme most famously explored in the 1996 Star Trek movie "First Contact,'' but Cleveland believes blogs can turn the concept into reality with the help of Google's sifting skills.
Mountain View, California-based Google hasn't provided specifics about its future blogging plans since buying Pyra Labs for an undisclosed amount in mid-February.
In a posting on Blogger's Web site, Pyra Labs' principals said they decided to sell after concluding "there were some sensible, cool, powerful things that we could do on the technology/product side with Google that we couldn't do otherwise.''
Cleveland thinks Google might parlay its search engine expertise to develop technology that will analyze which blogs are getting the most links and pinpoint the most compelling material.
Some sites, such as daypop.com, use search engines to highlight the most popular blogs, but the indexes are limited.
If Google were to introduce a more effective search tool, the best bloggers might be easier to find, helping them emerge as influential trendsetters and shape public opinion - roles traditionally filled by mass media.
Cleveland describes this as "content Darwinism,'' a process that will push the most compelling news and views to the blogging forefront.
Others take a less exalted view of blogging, likening the format to a cross between reality TV and the give-and-take of an online auction.
"This is the `eBayization' of the media,'' Perkins said. "You create a compelling arena and then let the real entertainment come from the participants themselves.''
Because blogs tend to focus on specific subjects and attract people in similar demographic groups, they could be huge for advertisers hoping to target their pitches.
Dr. Pepper/Seven Up is already testing this theory by mining the Blogosphere to launch an unusual marketing campaign for a new flavored milk drink called Raging Cow.
The beverage, currently available in five test markets, is aimed at teens and young adults, a demographic that has embraced blogging.
To create a buzz about Raging Cow before its national launch, Richards Interactive culled through 300 blogs to find the ones that appeared most influential.
The teens writing the blogs, including the likes of boymeetslife.com, italianize.com and sparkley.net, are getting some merchandise and Amazon.com gift certificates in exchange for testing the milk and expressing their opinions online during the next few months.
Richards Interactive also created a blog, ostensibly written by the raging cow herself, punctuated with the slogan, "The Revolution Will Be Homogenized.''
"If you read these sites long enough, you see points of intersections where the opinion makers gather,'' Copilevitz said.
"It's a phenomenon that's not on the mainstream radar quite yet, but it will be in six months.'' - AP
On The Net:
http://www.blogger.com
http://www.alwayson-network.com
http://www.dieselpoint.com
http://www.bloggerproject.com
http://www.ragingcow.com
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