The FIC the affiliated undertaking of OpenMoko will not evolve open-source smartphone Neo Free Runner any more. OpenMoko had to reduce the number of employees to be able to stay active in the market. The only rescue is to bring another device to the market but not a phone.
It wonders me not that the development of this project was stopped. The idea in itself, an open-source mobile phone is the right one, as it can be seen from the success of G1. The problem is that this device until the present time is not ripe. As far as I see, the OpenMoko developers wanted to work out the mobile phone with the help of user feedbacks. Unfortunately, it has failed, as the development of the device required too much time. The device is also still quite buggy. The design of OpenMoko is also a weak point of the device. Somehow, this situation reminds me on Linux problems. The operating system is great, but it is too difficult to operate it. I am a student of computer science and I find Linux really great. I use Linux as a server to host my web pages, but I will never install this OS as a home system. At least not until the design and usability will be reviewed for normal people. The Linux community has a lot of things to do. Maybe someday I will make my contribution, who knows. In our university there is an option – “man-machine communication,” where problems and solutions of usability of software products are the matters of studies. Unfortunately, I have not enough time in this semester to visit this decepline, but perhaps I will do it in the next one. There must be someone who after all solves the eternal Linux problems
That was obviously a joke, but the topic of design and usability is very burning question in the Linux community.
The student of Institute of Massachusetts, David Merrill demonstrates in this video a new technology called “Siftables”. Siftables is nothing else than a collection of small cubes with integrated OLED display, Bluetooth and flash memory.
These cubes are in a position to speak, count and play.
I can hardly imagine how the evolution of technology will go in a future and what our children will have as toys, but this looks really impressive.
I belong to the generation, in which childhood the technique was not able to compete with the imagination. Today it is exactly the opposite.
Today I decided finally, to renew my contract. I wanted instead of the old tariff Genion – new Genion L with student discount and HTC Diamond.
Because I locked my old SIM card because it were lost by post or by my ex (no idea who of these two is really responsible for this, but it is does not matter now), I was not able any more to use free hotline. I thought that I am already aware of what I want to discuss and therefore the call would not be too long.
Unfortunately I did not expected that after all these holidays too few advisers will be available on the hotline. I waited 15 minutes for a free people, then I simply had no time, because otherwise I would have missed my bus and I put down the phone receiver.
I thought during the day once again about it, and decided not to renew the contract. Instead, I wait a year and porting my number to some discounter.
Conclusion: If you make a customer waiting too long, to earn a little by telephone charges, you can lose as result much more money.
Actually, I thought that something like that can not happen to me. Recently I was so busy because of my study at the university that I had almost no time to think on something else other than Java and all these subjects, we have. When I realized that my contract expires soon, I wanted to resign from it. I’m actually quite happy with my prepaid calling card and I find that a contract for me is no longer interesting. In the past, I used a contract to buy a mobile phone on time. If you calculate the fee for O2 Genion, you will come on the price of their phones. Nowadays the phones costs at O2 damned expensive. The offers are rather uninteresting to me. I’m also not a woman and talk not for hours on the phone. I’m able to say my thoughts clearly and quickly, so I will usually need for that maximum of 2 minutes, often even only a minute.
Unfortunately, I realized too late that it is time to terminate my contract and now I thinking about what I should do next. The one possibility I could do is to extend my contract and get a new phone. The problem here is that the mobile phones, that O2 offers, are usually more expensive than if you buy those phone with a credit card. But, if I do not extend my contract, it will be extended automatically for one year, and I will pay 10€ fee monthly for the services that I do not use. The best thing that I could do at this moment – I can wait until February, with the hope that O2 will make their offers better. Pity that O2 offers no pure data tariffs which I could really use. That would be a solution for me. I use the Internet more frequently than phone function in my phone.
Recently, I read an article in Spiegel Online, that is very unusual for this online newspaper. It is a kind of comparison test between 2 smartphones: Samsung flagship Omnia and Pearls Simvalley XP-25.
Spiegel Online offers a lot of articles for young people. This shows that Spiegel realized that many young people use the Internet to get information about different things. That’s why Spiegel tries to win this people with different tests and news from high-tech world. The problem seems to be that this orientation for editors of Spiegel is fairly new and the articles of the relevant sections still pretty unprofessional, if you compare them with same articles from C’t or Golem. It also happened with the test of Samsung Omnia and Pearls Simvalley. Under Simvalley hides a device, of the Russian company Rover PC. In the article of Spiegel I found no mention about thic fact. I would also like to criticize the kind of comparison of these two phones. I found the test very superficial. Some disadvantages, such as older operating system on Simvalley should, in my opinion, not be discussed because Pearl offers an opportunity, to update the operating system for free. This is an important point, because not every mobile phone manufacturer offers this possibility and it is impossible to take a Windows Mobile operating system from another device, because each mobile phone model has a customized system. In addition, I would say that there is no sense to compare mobile phones if they have so different prices. The same effect you will get if you try to compare 2 graphic cards. An AMD recently introduced 4870 X2 graphics card and Nvidia GeForce 6200LE for example. Both are good for the purposes for which they are intended. So 4870 X2 is a dream for gamers and GeForce 6200LE would fulfill its work in an office PC very good.
I am still without a mobile phone. I simply can not decide which one to take. There are so many and none that fit for me. I don’t know whether I really need a mobile phone with water- and dust-resistaion or one that offers many functions. Previously, I was skeptical about phones with PDA-functionality, but after the purchase of iPod touch, it is always very complicated, to take so many devices with me every time. So I really think about buying a mobile phone that runs on Windows Mobile and designed for surfing and music listening. HTC Diamond would be an attractive solution. The only thing that is a problem for me is a SAR-value. The problem with the value is that different websites shows completely different information about it. Some values are fairly harmless, while others value are very high. The phone covers my needs completely. It offers GPS tracking, Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system, music player and a combination of a resolution of 480×640px and Opera Mobile 9.5. It makes surfing, as on the iPhone, right comfortably.
I could extend my contract in mid-August and take XDA Diamond for about 220 Euro. It would not be really cool if I would be able to switch from my existing tariff rate to student rate. I would have 20% discount on monthly bill. Unfortunately, I can’t do this operation over the Internet. Maybe the hotline of O2 will help me. If I decide for this phone … Because I is still don’t know. I would have again a contract for 2 years. But I can keep my old number. I like my number very much. Sure, I could also port it, but it costs much money and time.
A few weeks ago I flew to Portugal to see the Atlantic Ocean and make my feet wet in it. There problem is, I made not only my feet wet, but also my cell phone. The cell phone was dead immediately. I was very angry because I suddenly lost my phone book, I was not able to make calls, and I didn’t have my alarm any more.
Now I finally want to buy a new mobile phone. Since I know the cause of the death of my old cell phone, I don’t want that my new mobile phone will have the same destiny, I think about buying a water-resistant mobile phone. This type of mobile phones is called “Outdoor”. Some outdoor phones have certificates. Those certificates means a guarantiee of the protection of certain external influences. The only problem is that I am looking for a cell phone that is not only well protected from foreign influence, but brings a certain functionality. It is important for me that the mobile phone supports a modem so it could be used with my PDA to establish an Internet connection.
There are two mobile phones in the moment which are insteresting for me. One of them is Sonim XP1 BT. This phone is very robust and IP54 certified. But it is very simple and, unfortunately, has no functions that I need. The second phone is Samsung M110. This phone costs only 67 €, compared with Sonim (about 232 €) are much cheaper. Samsung M110 also has a much lower SAR. The multimedia functions, including modem are also available. There is even a camera, but only with VGA resolution. I would prefer that this mobile would not have a camera. Today I also discovered the new LG mobile phone with DVB-T receiver. That led me to think about it. However, I fear that the quality of LG mobile phones is not very good and because my aim is to buy a cell phone which provides a good protection, I think, I will return to choice between Sonim and Samsung.
Few No mobile phone manufacturer was able to create so much excitement about their product. The iPhone is not a simple mobile phone, as some people think, but a powerful smartphone with a 400 MHz processor and more than 100 megabytes of RAM. The operating system is limited but very powerful version of MacOS. Apple initially does not planned, or not wanted to advertise, to open the system for third-party software programmers. After a while, it was possible, to hack the mobile phone by an error in the processing of images in Safari, and so to open the back door to install programs on iPhone. Apple had unsuccessfully tried to close all leaks. Each new firmware was cracked within hours or days.
Immediately formed a huge worldwide fan community, amateur programmers began to develop their own programs for iPhone and Ipod touch. Most of them are free, but there are also several commercial projects.
As an example of a successful commercial project I can call the game Labyrinth. This game imitates the toy, where you should guide the ball through a labyrinth, without falling into the intermediate holes. The game uses motion sensors of Iphone to find out what position the device is kept by the user.
Meanwhile, you can find SIP software for iPhone, with it you can make free or cheap calls through internet. Incidentally, Apple had announced the possibility for third-party programmers to develop software for Iphone. But if you want to develop software legally, you must buy a license. In addition, the programs will be distributed only via iTunes so Apple will have a good possibility „to make money from air“. At the moment I can see only one weakness, the operating system on Iphone, don’t support multitasking.
The name of the new platform is Motomagx. It is based on Linux and developed with an aim, to give third-party developers a possibility to develop applications for Motorola mobile phones. For those purposes the programmers of Motorola are working now at some kind of framework that should make developing of applications for Motomagx more simply.
Are the guys from Motorola afraid about competition with OpenMoko? Or, they want to attack iPhone? The one of the most serious problem of iPhone is an absence of support of third party applications…
I don’t know what was a real reason for Motomagx developing, but I think that Motorola tacked a good decision and they will benefit of it.
LG has developed a new communicator with support of WiBro (analogue of WiMax for South Korea).
Handy.ru reports that this phone is based on Windows Mobile 5.0, has Marvell XScale PXA320 prozessor with 806 MHz, 512 ROM and 128 RAM. This mobile phone can work in: CDMA, EVDO and Mobile WiMax (WiBro)
Unfortunately LG-KC1 will be available only on South Korea.
