October 2005 - Posts
If you own, buy more. If you don’t, buy?
Microsoft's net income rose 24%, fueled by strong corporate and consumer demand for computers that run its software, as revenue climbed to $9.74 billion. The company also said it is accelerating a previously announced stock-repurchase plan, aiming for $19 billion in buybacks by the end of 2006.
I can only imagine what the share price will do as shares are bought back…
Sales of Handheld Devices Without Voice Plummet Consumer sales of handheld devices without voice communications slid for the seventh consecutive quarter, a market research firm said Thursday.
Shipments fell in the third quarter 16.9 percent from the same period a year ago to 1.6 million units, International Data Corp. said. Quarter-to-quarter, shipments dropped 8.8 percent.
Google confirmed that it is testing a new service called Google Base that could be used for classified advertising, putting the search giant squarely in competition with eBay.
According to Digiwhack.com, XBox 360’s are averaging $3,750 each on ebay (because of the shortage of the consoles), with one bid topping $10,000. Would you pay that much?
I did a search on ebay to see…no way I’d pay these prices.
Smartphone.net is offering a free pdf reader for smart phones. It converts pdfs to plain text, but its free, and gives smartphone readers the capability of reading pdfs. More details
here.
The IE team posted a few of the changes to IE 7 on their blog, with a call to action for web site owners.
Catch it here.
Singapore-based Qool Labs has announced its latest multimedia mobile device, QDA Oh!. The new handheld runs on a Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition OS and is based on the Freescale iMX21 266MHz processor.
The company says the QDA Oh! is capable of processing capability similar to that of other handhelds based on a 500 MHz CPU. The platform has a bus master interface (BMI), which reduces the overhead to external graphics chips that enhances the 2D & 3D experience.
More info at Geekzone.
Cingular Wireless, the nation's largest wireless carrier, today announced the availability of two enhanced services: Mobile Email and Mobile IM.
Now, for the first time in the US market, Cingular customers can gain access to their existing email or IM accounts from AOL, MSN and Yahoo! through a set of simple, easy to use applications which can be accessed through a standard mass market phone. Both the Mobile Email and Mobile IM applications are available for free on a download basis through the Cingular MEdia Mall to Cingular customers who have a compatible phone. These new applications will give Cingular customers easy-to-use, pre-configured access to their email and IM accounts without the need to be tethered to their desktop or having to purchase a high-end, PDA-like device.
Not all handsets are supported yet, but more will be added soon.
To learn more about Cingular's Mobile Email service visit http://www.cingular.com/email
To learn more about Cingular's Mobile IM service, visit http://www.cingular.com/im
This is a little unusual for T-Mobile, which leads me to wonder what’s going on. Normally, they do a great job of getting new devices, and making announcements of new devices. I checked the T-Mobile website this morning, and there’s nothing. If you click on the link for Handhelds, they have several Blackberry offerings, but no Pocket PC/PDA’s. T-Mobile International has several, so what’s going on with T-Mobile in the US? I don’t even see a T-Mobile Treo listed.
We’ve all heard of the complaints from disgruntled iPod nano users over the easily scratching of its screen. We’ve even experienced it when we reviewed the new player from Apple, but we never thought that someone would be that aggravated by it that they would sue Apple over the problem.
Well, that is what is happening in America. Lawyers this week filed a class action suit against Apple Computer on behalf of those who have purchased the new ultra-small MP3 player. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday on behalf angry iPod nano owners, alleges that Apple violated state consumer protection statutes, as well as express and implied warranties.
Cingular has apparently started selling the D307. It’s a tri-band, GPRS/Edge device weighing in at only 4.3 oz. The screen provides 176x220, 262k color resolution, and a full qwerty keyboard. For only $199, not bad!
T-Mobile has apparently initiated sales of the SGH-T309 from Samsung. A tri-band GSM 850/1800/1900 MHz handset, the SGH-T309 measures in at 3.7 x 1.9 x 1 inches and weighs 3 oz, incorporating among other features a 0.3 Megapixel camera capable of shooting stills at resolutions up to 640 x 480 pixels.
With 4x digital zoom, the camera of the handset also offers a self-timer which can be set to 3, 5 or 10 seconds and a multi-shot function which snaps 6, 9 or 15 shots at normal or high speed. Post-snapping, effects and frames can be added to images, whilst editing functions include rotation and brightness adjustment, with the SGH-T309 also offering a night mode and LED flash. Also capable of video playback on its 65K TFT internal colour display with a resolution of 128 x 160 pixels, the SGH-T309 sports a monochrome external display to provide users with basic information.
Microsoft confirmed on Thursday that devices running its newest mobile software are unable to connect to a PC in some cases. The software maker said some users of ActiveSync 4, the latest version of Microsoft's synchronization software, are unable to link up to their PC, particularly on systems running firewall or parental control software. The problem occurs in devices based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5 operating system, including recently released handhelds from Dell and HP.
In addition to the troubleshooting guide that I blogged about earlier, Microsoft is apparently preparing a fix for ActiveSync 4.
The next couple of weeks should prove interesting for Cingular customers waiting for new devices. Apparently, there are at least three data devices releasing. A Blackberry 8700, and apparently an HTC 2100/2125, and an HTC 8100/8125 (the HTC Wizard and HTC Tornado). The HTC Wizard is similar to the PPC-6700 from Sprint PCS. The HTC Tornado is similar to the c600 from Orange. We’ll see if they materialize.
One thing (I know Rod, there’s more than this that bugs you) that bugs me about Cingular. Most wireless carriers pride themselves on their devices, so they rush out and make announcements on what they will be releasing months before they’re available. They all do it, with one exception. Cingular doesn’t ever confirm rumors, doesn’t ever announce what devices they’ll be carrying until right before they’re available for sale. Why is that?
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