Everything and the Mobile Software Universe…

I’ve just come accross this remote control design:

Inspired by the easy navigation and use of a book, the book style remote control was created. It was designed to tackle the current problem we face with existing remote controls for the elderly, interface being complicated and several remote needed to operate various machines. Consisting of three pages on the book remote to identify which are DVD, TV and Audio. With these label attached, we eliminate any misunderstanding that may otherwise have occured.

Designer: Chen Hung Ming

I get good comments from June on this post about Ultra Low Cost phones, about issues related to text entry for her native Kenyan language (Swahili I assume) : she gave me some great material about the impact and development of the mobile phone uses in Kenya. To write this article I’ve then wandering about the net to get some information about the Kenyan way of cellphoning … surprising.

Mobile Subscriptions Skyrocket: Africa far outpaces the rest of the world in average annual growth of mobile phone subscriptions. According to the International Telecommunication Union, from 1999 through 2004 Africans signed up for cellphones at a far greater rate than Asians and nearly three times as fast as Americans. Most of that growth was in the sub-Saharan region [left].

IEEE Spectrum: Africa Calling

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s done, kind of officially : first this one

Palm pays $44m for Palm OS source code license

Everything and the Mobile Software Universe… » Palm pays $44m for Palm OS source code license | Reg Hardware

Then this:

PalmInfocenter reports that Opera and Palm have cinched a deal to deliver the Opera 9 browser on future Palm products
…The Blazer browser that Palm has used in most of their products for years is a customized version of NetFront that they license from ACCESS…

Software Everywhere » Palm distances itself further from ACCESS

To finish here is, I think very good news for palm

Palm Announces New Linux Based Mobile Platform Posted By: Ryan Kairer on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 6:24:15 AM Today at Palm Inc’s Analyst Day, Palm CEO Ed Colligan officially announced that Palm will deliver a new Linux and open source based mobile computing platform combined with Palm OS Garnet technology on new products later this year…Colligan also revealed that this was a new platform that Palm has been working on, in house for a number of years. He stated that Palm would not license this new OS to outside hardware companies, meaning this will be a Palm exclusive platform…Colligan said that “clearly we [Palm] have been working on a major new area that has been speculated about in the press and talked about by Jeff Hawkins. Hawkins previously dropped major hints that he would reveal more details for Palm fans at an upcoming conference in May.

Palm Announces New Linux Based Mobile Platform

Here are some Ed Colligan slides on the subject:

So to sum-up:

• Palm get the old PalmOS back in house for 44 Millions $, meaning they want to sell millions of phones using this OS (as it or as a Linux layer?)
• Palm licensed Opera, and not access browser for its future products (and not webkit??? why such a move?? perhaps for the opera widgets approach?)
• Palm was working on its own OS for YEARS! and so they will have again full control over their product! why iPhone looked sooo good? because software and hardware were so well integrated and in control…
• I can’t wait until May when this new class of devices will be revealed….so perhaps I won’t buy an MS smartphone

Here is a little Open-Plug video that shows only the “step 0″ of our technology, here are some remarks:

• This is a real-time one, so it may be long at moment…especially when loading a new system (this is the case after the red and blue UI).
• The first UI (the red and blue one) HAS NOTHING in common with the second gray and red one called OPUS, really, only the porting layer and our application framework are left on the board, and on the SD card you have all the components that are implementing the UI and its services.
• As you can see it is an NXP board (platform: 5210), we do exactly the same on other platforms also (TI locosto and Neptune for the publics ones )…and on all the platforms, the code is the same, developed on our PC simulator, and it is C/C++ not java of course!
• I say “step 0″ because this demo is basically showing a complete MMI replacement (the O-phone demo), but our offer is in fact completely dynamically modular, as shown briefly with the sudoku download
• Yes Doom is there up and running : intern has ported the SDL library …and so Doom was in the package, sweet to have Open-Source code on such a platform in a matter of days!
• You can see some background play features: MP3 is in the background you edit a message and an icoming call is poping up: applications and services doesn’t know each other, the multimedia player doesn’t know anything about the call, nor the messager. The sound of the MP3 is autmatically prehempted for the call, but not by an ad-hoc way like in many high level OSes, you can see it as a window manager for the sound. Our focus is really on integration and modularity:
  • For static code with our component based technology
  • For services integration with a really original and system wide resource management system.
• We like Placebo

So have a good show

Found at cnn via engadget but it seems that the last cord has been cut by the folks over at powercast:

Powercast’s platform uses nothing more complex than a radio–and is cheap enough for just about any company to incorporate into a product. A transmitter plugs into the wall, and a dime-size receiver (the real innovation, costing about $5 to make) can be embedded into any low-voltage device. The receiver turns radio waves into DC electricity, recharging the device’s battery at a distance of up to 3 feet.

Powercast’s technology cuts the electric cord – April 1, 2007

Powercast has already “signed nondisclosure agreements to develop products with more than 100 companies (Philips, for instance), including major manufacturers of cellphones, MP3 players, automotive parts, temperature sensors, hearing aids, and medical implants.”

Powercast looking to bring wireless power to reality – Engadget

So yes this is it, I have just one concern, in our time of power saving and global warming, what would be the ratio of the received energy versus the dissipated one? Really I’m not sure if the yield of this technology is ecologically correct , and of course you will always forget to disconnect your RF chargers …. Anyway this is exciting!

I’ve missed this one:

Nokia has just unveiled a new dual-touchscreen concept phone, called “Achieve”, which allows users to quickly and easily share ideas. Video after the jump.

Members of an architectural firm work feverishly together to win a competitive new project. Virtual teamwork is made effortless through smart wireless conferencing and remote presentations. Bluetooth audio ensures strong and clear communication. When mobile technology ascends to this level, we will achieve great things together

TechEBlog » (Video) Nokia Unveils Dual-Touchscreen Concept Phone

Always fun to see this kind of UI concepts…