John at myITforum.com

HP released an advisory on July 27. 

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HP has released a ROM upgrade for the hx4700.  It apparently fixes an issue with CF memory cards and I/O cards that do not respond.  It also “improves performance”, but no specifics are offered.

Use an extended battery?  Take Note:

PLEASE NOTE:

• After this ROM update has been installed, it is also necessary to install the HP iPAQ hx4700 Pocket PC Series Firmware Update for ROM Version 1.10 to restore the extended battery capacity value to its original, setting. If the Firmware Update is not currently available for your language, please do not install this ROM update if you are using the extended battery.
  

Taking a look at the top5 Cell Phone-PDA chart over at PC World.  The Treo 700p and the T-Mobile Sidekick 3 were both rated an 80.  Rounding out the top 5?  The T-Mobile MDA (79), the Palm Treo 700w, and the Motorola Q (both at 78).  Three out of the top 5 are Windows Mobile devices.   

I blogged a few days ago about the profits from BP.  Now Exxon has posted their results and guess what?  Quarterly profit surged 35% to more than US $10 BILLION.

It was the second largest quarterly operating profit ever posted by a US company, just shy of the Texas behemoth's own record fourth-quarter profit reported in January.  The results sailed past Wall Street forecasts and sent its shares to an all-time high, but triggered a fresh bout of outrage from US lawmakers and consumer groups angry at Big Oil's handsome profits in the midst of high petroleum prices. 

Fresh bout of outrage?  At multiple BILLIONS in profits?  Now why would that cause outrage?

Following the likes of the Motorola Q, HTC, the makers of such phones as the 8125, MDA, 6700, etc., have opened up their own wiki for end users to share information.  Check it out.

http://htcwiki.wetpaint.com/

Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA Inc. tied for the top spot in the most recent J.D. Power & Associates survey of wireless carrier customer care performance.

Both carriers scored 104 points on the company’s scale, while the industry average was 99. Alltel Corp. came in second with 99 points, and Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and Sprint Nextel Corp. tied for fourth with a score of 95.

Overall, looks like T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless are also fighting for the top spot in call quality.  What about all those Cingular commercials for fewest dropped calls?  Maybe they have the fewest dropped calls but the worst reception?

Check out all the results here.

Brighthand is reporting that Palm source missed deadlines.  According to the article, in Palm’s annual report there is a note that PalmSource and its new owner Access have failed to meet the established milestones for royalty payments. This has the effect of voiding the licensing agreement between Palm Inc. and PalmSource after December 2, 2006.

The annual report goes on to mention that Palm is negotiating with PalmSource to "expand our development and distribution rights to the current version of the Palm OS. If we are unable to successfully conclude these negotiations, it may adversely affect our ability to develop and distribute new products based on a next-generation version of the Palm OS."

Nokia, the world largest handset maker, has begun testing technology in a Finnish city that lets users to make calls on both cellular and Wi-Fi networks and switch between networks without interruption.

Nokia's new 6136 phone automatically transfers voice or data connections from GSM networks to Wi-Fi when the device recognizes a compatible wireless network, Doug Dawson, a spokesman with Nokia, says. And, vice versa, when users make a call or data transfer via Wi-Fi and step out of the Wi-Fi network's coverage area, the connection is transferred to a GSM link without interruption.

Download while you can…

Microsoft plans next week to charge a nominal fee for Office 2007 Beta 2 downloads, in a move that runs counter to the practice held by most software companies.

Consumers who download the 2007 Microsoft Office System Beta 2 will be charged $1.50 per download, beginning next Wednesday at 6 p.m. PDT, a Microsoft spokeswoman said.

"Since the end of May, Beta 2 has been downloaded more than 3 million times...That's 500 percent more than what was expected," the spokeswoman said. "The fee helps offset the cost of downloading from the servers."

You know who you are.  Checking email, blogging, reading news, all from your PDA, then letting the device sleep with you. 

Apparently you aren’t alone.

The New York Times is reporting that wi-fi in cell phones could be a big problem for cell phone companies?  Why?  More and more are beginning to use wi-fi for their connectivity and VOIP solutions, driving down the number of cell phone minutes needed.

The phones, while a potential money-saver for consumers, could cause big problems for cellphone companies. They have invested billions in their nationwide networks of cell towers, and they could find that customers are bypassing them in favor of Wi-Fi connections. The struggling Bell operating companies could also suffer if the new phones accelerate the trend toward cheap Internet-based calling, reducing the need for a standard phone line in homes with wireless networks.

Scott Dillon, manager of global IT infrastructure support at SanDisk Corp., said this week that he has grappled with the problems of worker mobility and has hit on a solution that works well and is popular with users.

SanDisk has deployed about 170 Palm Inc. smart phones that provide cellular voice connectivity, e-mail and contact data using GoodLink software from Good Technology Inc. The rollout has so far cost about US$150,000 and is improving personal productivity, Dillon said. "The masses here have adopted it, and people say they can’t go a day or even a couple of hours without the smart phones," he said.

SanDisk uses T-Mobile USA as its cellular network provider.

The Unwired is reporting the Star Trek is coming to Cingular.

the::unwired - NEWS: HTC Star Trek Coming to Cingular as the 3125.

Two California State University, Northridge, students have been accused of hacking into a professor's computer, giving grades to nearly 300 students and sending pizza, magazine subscriptions and compact discs to the professor's home.

Lena Chen, 20, of Torrance, and Jennifer Ngan, 19, of Alhambra, are to be arraigned Aug. 21 on misdemeanor charges of accessing computers illegally and other counts.

NFL fans and fantasy football players can now take the NFL with them wherever they go. Available only to Sprint customers, NFL Mobile is the perfect companion for the NFL fan offering the widest array of football information including real-time statistics, scores, injury reports and other updates. And it's all available to Sprint PCS Vision® and Sprint Power Vision(SM) subscribers free of charge.

Google has announced an update to Google Maps for mobile that will enable consumers in the U.S. to view comprehensive information on traffic conditions in more than 30 major metropolitan areas and partial information in many others, right from their mobile devices.

After downloading Google Maps for mobile through their mobile phone's web browser, users simply move to the desired location within the application and select "show traffic" in the menu. The most up-to-date traffic information will be sent directly to the users' mobile device, and will highlight the conditions on the covered commuter routes using red, yellow, and green overlays.

In addition, when mobile phone users search for driving directions, they will now see the expected drive time as well as any unexpected traffic delays, making travel planning much easier and more effective. And another new feature - the ability to store their favorite searches and driving directions - will allow users to access frequently used routes and compare traffic conditions on them.

Google has also announced that users now have the ability to customize the content that appears on the mobile version of their Personalized Homepage, making it even easier for mobile phone users to quickly get the information they need when away from their computers.

When users log in to Personalized Home on their desktop and click on the "mobile" link, they will be able to customize the content they see the next time they log on to their Personalized Home on their mobile device. Not only can they customize content, but users can also specify the order in which content on their mobile device appears.

Have you seen this yet?  How many times are we told that gas prices at the pump are going up because the costs are going up?  That’s all I ever read, either that or “fears” that the costs will go up.  Well, Fox News is reporting RECORD profits for BP Oil.

Get this now.  BP Oil is reporting a record $6.11 BILLION dollars in PROFIT.  That’s right.  Profits in excess of $6 BILLION dollars.  I guess revenues increased just a tad bit faster than costs…

Are the rumors true?  Is the Palm OS dead?

Somehow, a rumor started a couple of weeks ago about the resurrection of Cobalt/ Palm OS v6.1.

As usual, it started a chain reaction of wild speculation.
As usual, no one bothered to check with the source (in this case, PalmSource).

PalmSource was good enough to answer a series of written questions for Palm Addict's readers (that means you), and I thank them for that.

Clearly, the Palm OS is not coming back, but there will be a Garnet layer on ALP, which will allow "properly written applications" to run. There are also hints that traces of Palm's DNA may provide a bit of Zen once ALP comes to town. But, you should make that decision for yourself.

Read the full interview here.

 

Orange's upcoming smart phones got an airing this weekend, revealing the carrier will be bringing Samsung's QWERTY keyboard-equipped, 3G-connected Windows Mobile 5.0 device, the i320, on board.

Joining the i320 will be the SPV C100, a quad-band candybar phone, again running Windows Mobile 5.0 with push email support. It's based on a 200MHz Texas Instruments OMAP 820 processor and contains 64MB of Flash ROM and 48MB of RAM with a Mini SD slot for memory expansion. Like the i320, it has a 1.3 megapixel camera. The C100 - HTC's 'Oxygen' phone - supports a new Orange technology, 'SIM+', which enables special SIMs with additional storage capacity, with 512MB SIM+ cards already being in existence, and larger on the way.

Interesting article posted on the International Herald. 

As of July 1, Microsoft began issuing company-owned cellphones and mobile devices to employees who request them, a change from its previous policy of supporting workers' personal devices on an ad hoc basis. Part of the reason, Markezich said during an interview during a trip to Paris, is that employees are going to get them anyway, and company ownership gives Microsoft greater control over access to its internal network.

RIM has nearly doubling the number of BlackBerry subscribers from just under 3 million this time last year to about 5.5 million today. The latest report?  They expect to do the same as it possibly heads towards 10 million accounts next year; signing up 680,000 new users during its last fiscal quarter ending June 3rd, and predicting 675,000 to 700,000 more during the current one.

Is there that much play in the PDA market?  Even with Windows Mobile 5 devices coming out faster than most can keep up with?  And the release of new Palm devices?

Time will tell, but I’m pretty skeptical.

Motley Fool recently reported on Palm’s outlook.  The results?

So, what's the problem? Palm did miserably in terms of real cash earnings in Q4. Huge increases in accounts receivable and inventory turned cash flow negative for the first time since 2003. That troubles me because Palm doesn't typically build up working capital in Q4. I checked earnings statements for both last year and fiscal 2004, and in neither case did it look anything like what transpired at the end of fiscal '06. Indeed, while inventory saw a triple-digit increase last year, accounts receivable growth trailed sales growth by 9%. And during 2004, inventory declined year over year, while A/R kept pace with sales growth. Now, contrast that with Q4 2006, in which A/R was up nearly 46% while inventory ballooned by 63%.

For me, that means it's time to consider a darker possibility -- that incursions from Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Nokia (NYSE: NOK), and a resurgent Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) are having more impact than many of us, including yours truly, had thought possible. Except, that is, for Nelson. Hmmmmmm. Maybe it is time to sell, after all.

My take?  Accounts Receivable are up because they shipped so many durn phones to Europe at year-end to beat the clock on the cutoff, you know, the one that says you can’t ship if your phones are harmful?  I think they also wanted to prove that they’re still shipping more phones year-over-year, regardless of whether they’re still actually selling.

Nortel has been selected to supply Verizon Wireless with one of the industry’s most advanced CDMA 1xEV-DO Revision (Rev.) A technology beginning in the third quarter of 2006. This upgrade will provide data speeds significantly faster than current capabilities and meet customer demand for more high-bandwidth, real-time wireless services such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), video telephony and advanced multimedia applications. Financial details of the agreement are not being disclosed.

Verizon Wireless today announced second-quarter 2006 net customer additions of 1.8 million, all of which are retail customers, that is those customers that the company directly serves and manages. This is the 8th consecutive quarter in which the company has added more than 1.5 million retail net customers.

Smartphone Thoughts is reporting that the first clam-shell Smartphone from the HTC camp has been cleared by the FCC and is now ready for the US launch. Even though this Smartphone is now available in some markets in Asia and the Middle East, HTC has requested the FCC to keep the product photos and user guide confidential till August 25 2006. The only reason for that would be to keep the carrier branding a secret; but an earlier news leak about Cingular's future product road map showed the HTC STRTrk positioned for August/September launch. Does that mean that around August 25th Cingular will launch this RAZR inspired beauty? So are you eagerly waiting for the launch? If you are then there is one good news, this clam-shell model will be available in two flavours - with and without the camera.   The FCC test report confirms the two models.

 

Want to know more about the Motorola Q?  Check out BusinessWeek’s article to get the “inside” scoop.

SanDisk Corporation is introducing a 4 Gigabyte (GB) SD High Capacity (SDHC) card to the market. The new cards, which support capacities of 4GB and higher, are rated Class 2 for speed and performance and can store more than 2,000 high-resolution pictures, more than 1,000 digital songs or up to 8 hours of MPEG 4 video, according to the manufacturer.

The 4GB SDHC card will be bundled with the MicroMate USB 2.0 reader at no extra charge. These new readers work with both SDHC and SD cards. SDHC cards require an SDHC-compatible reader.

SDHC is the new designation for SD cards larger than 2GB that adhere to the SD 2.00 specification, a completely new design that is required for cards and hosts to support 4GB to 32GB capacities.

The specification was developed by the SD Association, an industry standards board, which also defined three speed classes for speed and performance capabilities. These cards adhere to the SD Speed Class Rating specification which defines a minimum sustained transfer speed for SDHC cards.

Though standard SD and SDHC cards look identical in size and shape, only SDHC-compatible products will be able to accept the new SDHC cards. SanDisk differentiates its new cards with the new SDHC logo on the card and retail package.

Pocket Informant 2007 has entered public beta.  Get it here.

New Features in Pocket Informant 2007:
• WebIS and Franklin Covey have teamed together to provide a full syncing solution with the upcoming Plan Plus for Outlook
The new features that this sync solution (provided in the box with PPO4.0) include PPO Projects, Percentage Complete, PPO Status, ABCD/0-99 priorities, task regeneration and Daily Notes. PPO is not required for the features to work within PI.
• New Franklin Covey Project Task list
• New Franklin Covey Daily Task List
• New Franklin Covey Master Task List
• Ability to set and see visually the percentage completed of a task
• Ability to set and see visually the In progress, Delegate status
• Daily Notes
• TimeZone picker for new appointment creation
• Appointments can have multiple alarms including PPC only alarms, Outlook 0-duration appts, and Travel Time (Before and After)
• Overhauled settings application
• Redesigned Journal with rich text support
• Preview windows (half screen) are now clickable
• Redesigned Date Picker with one handed use design
• Redesigned Summary screens for easier one handed use (especially Contacts)
• Visual Macro Editor
• Reworked interface for streamlined use, simpler access to features
• Fully soft key enabled and one-hand use designed
• Even with all this, PI actually uses about the same amount of memory and disk space as PI 2005 did

Sprint/Nextel and Motorola release the i580.  This iDEN phone sports a 1.3 megapixel camera and microSD memory card slot in a ruggedized clamshell body. Other features include Bluetooth, speakerphone, WiDEN high-speed data, advanced Push-To-Talk, MP3 player, and GPS for location-based services.

It has a color screen with 18–bit color, at 176x220 pixels, and claims 165 minutes of talk time, and 2.9 days of standby without recharging.  25MB of internal memory without expansion.

Use a Mac and want to use a Windows Mobile 5 phone?  The Missing Sync has been updated to version 2.5 and now offers support for Windows Mobile 5 devices.

Mac users shouldn't be missing out
Windows Mobile devices are becoming more and more common every day, especially smartphones and Pocket PCs with cell phone capabilities. However, none of these devices include connectivity or synchronization software that supports the Mac. That's where The Missing Sync for Windows Mobile comes in. With ActiveSync-like capabilities for the Mac, The Missing Sync lets you easily connect and synchronize your important information with Windows Mobile 2002/2003/5 Pocket PC and smartphone devices.

More info here.