John at myITforum.com

Would you if you could?

Tired of reaching into a purse or pocket for your cell phone, only to find it has enough juice for just one call?

Well, scientists may have found something to end that power shortage: body heat.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy and the University of California at Berkeley say recent findings point to a way of making silicon into a better thermal conductor for turning even small amounts of heat into electricity.

The secret, they say, lies in nanowires, or microscopic strands of silicon. Arranged and bent in a particular way, they channel heat energy far more efficiently than current designs for thermoconductors.  With improved efficiency comes better energy conversion, to the point that even the temperatures generated by body heat could produce enough electricity to charge the batteries in small technology.

Ideally, this finding could lead to special clothing and other wearable materials that produce electrical current for batteries in cell phones and handheld computers, or power the devices themselves.

Plugging my cell phone in to my bvd's?  Read the story here.

I've been a big fan of Audible and a customer for many years.  Amazon must have agreed that it's a great concept listening to books when you aren't able to read them and flip the pages.

Amazon announced that it has swooped to buy Audible in a deal valued at $300m in a cash tender agreement for all of its outstanding shares. Currently Audible offers over 80,000 programmes with audiobooks from the likes of Stephen King, John Grisham (*sigh*) and Jane Austen ("Oh Mr Darcy you're using the wrong spoon *titter, titter*) as well as spoken word audio content from sources including The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Harvard Business Review.

"Audible.com offers the best customer experience, the widest content selection and the broadest device compatibility in the industry," said Steve Kessel, Amazon's senior VP for worldwide digital media. "Working together, we can introduce more innovations and bring this format to an even wider audience."

"This deal brings together two pioneering companies that share a long history of ceaseless focus on improving the customer experience," said Donald Katz, founder and newly minted CEO of Audible. "We are very excited to be joining a company as innovative as Amazon.com."

Motorola to Explore Structural and Strategic Realignment of its Businesses to Enhance Shareholder Value
Company will evaluate alternatives to accelerate the ability of its Mobile Device Business to recapture growth and profitability in an expanding global market

SCHAUMBURG, Ill., – January 31, 2008 – Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) today announced it is exploring the structural and strategic realignment of its businesses to better equip its Mobile Devices business to recapture global market leadership and to enhance shareholder value. The company’s alternatives may include the separation of Mobile Devices from its other businesses in order to permit each business to grow and better serve its customers.

“All of our businesses have exceptional people, products and intellectual property and the ability to achieve category leadership in their markets,” said Greg Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer. “We are exploring ways in which our Mobile Devices Business can accelerate its recovery and retain and attract talent while enabling our shareholders to realize the value of this great franchise.”

The company does not intend to discuss developments with respect to the exploration of strategic alternatives unless or until its Board of Directors has approved a definitive transaction or the process is otherwise complete. There can be no assurance that any transaction will occur or, if one is undertaken, its terms or timing.

Full press release

Well, it looks like the love affair is back on.  After ditching the negotiations several months ago, Sprint and Clearwire are once again negotiating on WiMax.

According to Reuters:

Clearwire Corp and Sprint Nextel Corp have made progress on terms for a roaming deal for their high-speed wireless networks based on WiMax technology, Clearwire's Chief Executive said on Wednesday.  Clearwire Chief Executive Ben Wolff said the companies were also working on collaborating in other areas, but did not give details. He declined to comment on recent reports speculating that Sprint and Clearwire were looking to merge their WiMax assets with investments from outside companies.

Clearwire, a service provider founded by wireless pioneer Craig McCaw, said that it ended the fourth quarter with 394,000 customers, including domestic and international markets, despite stiff competition from cable providers.  Citing weakness in the U.S. economy, other Clearwire executives said that in the fourth quarter cable and telecom broadband Internet rivals competed more aggressively than ever on prices and network access speeds offered.

There was a time several years ago that this was the only browser we supported internally.  I remember working with my tech support team of one additional person and how thrilled we were that we could access the internet.  I don't even recall at the time who else offered internet access.  It was a true 'Oh my god' experience for me and the guy I worked with (you know who you are).

I just went through a major "remember when" reading this.

AOL has a long history on the internet, being one of the first companies to really get people online. Throughout its lifetime, it has been involved with a number of high profile acquisitions, perhaps the largest of which was the 1999 acquisition of the Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was known to many as the thought leader in web browsing, and had developed a number of complementary pieces of software that allowed for a rich suite of internet tools.

At the time of the acquisition, the Netscape team had begun working on converting their flagship product - the Netscape Communicator web suite - into open source software, under a new name: Mozilla. AOL played a significant role in the launch of the Netscape 6 browser, the first Mozilla-based, Netscape-branded browser that was released in 2000 and continued to solely fund the development and marketing efforts of Netscape-branded browsers. In 2003, an independent foundation was created to support the continued development of the open source web suite. AOL was a major source of support for the Mozilla Foundation and the company continued to develop versions of the Netscape browser based on the work of the foundation.

While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Recently, support for the Netscape browser has been limited to a handful of engineers tasked with creating a skinned version of Firefox with a few extensions.

AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be. Given AOL's current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox.

Brought tears to my eyes.  Netscape is no more.

Read the blog post here.

Why is it that almost all news these days related to the RIM Blackberry is geared towards the consumer markets? 

Research In Motion has leapt into the retail consumer market with products such as its pink BlackBerry Pearl, a candybar-shaped e-mail phone stuffed with multimedia goodies, exposing itself to shoppers' fickle tastes and competition from Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPhone. 

Its devices now include more "lifestyle" features like television, music players, cameras and Facebook social-networking software for broad appeal.

"I think the whole social networking phenomenon is quite substantial," RIM's co-Chief Executive, Jim Balsillie, told Reuters in an interview.

His comment highlights a big shift for the Canadian company, which first made its name supplying blocky handsets that executives, lawyers and politicians used to send secure e-mails to their offices and clients.

Their growth is now coming primarily from consumers, not enterprises.  Have they given up on enterprise customers?

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that in 2008 the company will begin an international rollout of Amazon MP3, Amazon's DRM-free MP3 digital music store where every song is playable on virtually any digital music-capable device, including the PC, Mac(R), iPod(R), Zune(R), Zen(R), iPhone(TM), RAZR(TM), and BlackBerry(R). Amazon MP3 is the only retailer to offer customers DRM-free MP3s from all four major music labels as well as over 33,000 independent labels.

"We have received thousands of e-mails from Amazon customers around the world asking us when we will make Amazon MP3 available outside of the U.S. They can't wait to choose from the biggest selection of high-quality, low-priced DRM-free MP3 music downloads which play on virtually any music device they own today or will own in the future," said Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President of Digital Music. "We are excited to tell those customers today that Amazon MP3 is going international this year."

A group of hackers calling itself "Anonymous" has hit the Church of Scientology's Web site with an online attack.

The attack was launched January 19 by Anonymous, which is seeking media attention to help "save people from Scientology by reversing the brainwashing," according to a Web page maintained by Anonymous.

Anonymous claims to have knocked the Church's Web site offline with a distributed denial-of-service attack, in which many computers bombard the victim's server with requests, overwhelming it with data in the hope of ultimately knocking the system offline. True to its name, Anonymous does not disclose the true identities of its members.

Read more

Google has announced that YouTube for Mobile is expanding to target 3G mobile phones from companies including Motorola, Sony Ericsson, LG and Nokia. 

YouTube offers a downloadable Java application for some mobile phones in the UK and US that support J2ME MIDP2. These include the Sony Ericsson k800, w800, Nokia e65, n95, n73, 6100 navigator and 6120 classic.

http://m.youtube.com

Wow that's a lot of mobile phones.  According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global mobile phone shipments grew 12 percent year-over-year, to reach 1.12 billion units in 2007.  Who's got the biggest share?

Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola. 

• Motorola registered 12.3% global share in Q4 2007, down sharply from 22.4% in Q4 2006. A failure to replace the popular Razr model has been the main cause of decline.
• Samsung went from 11% of the market to 14% of the market year to year. 
• Sony Ericsson continued to slow down. Its annual growth rate has plunged in recent quarters. Improved handset portfolios from Samsung, LG and Nokia are starting to have a competitive impact on Sony Ericsson.
• Apple shipped 2.3 million iPhone units worldwide (they say in the 4th quarter).  Let's see.  I believe that calculates to .006 of the total mobile phones shipped.  Yep, .006 of the total.  Only roughly 21 million more phones to sell to break the top five.

Fizz Traveller 3.0 is the next generation of the Award Winning Fizz Traveller program. With Fizz Traveller 3.0 we have taken your travel information needs to the next level. No other program offers so many possibilities to it's users, with numerous personalisation options and all the features that you could possibly ever need, all combined in a visually stunning package. Localised in English, French, German, Italian & Spanish.

Special Introductory Offer - Normally $29.95 - Get 15% Off - Use Code SPECFT3

Available for Standard, Professional & Classic devices.
Supporting Windows Mobile 5 & 6

And the press calls it trying to find money by digging around couch cushions and coat pockets...

Sprint (NYSE:S) announced today the filing of four patent infringement actions in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas in its continuing effort to enforce its Voice over Packet ("VOP") patent portfolio. The lawsuits are against NuVox Communications, Inc., Broadvox Holdings LLC, Big River Telephone Company, and Paetec Communications, Inc. Sprint alleges that each of these companies has infringed at least 6 VOP patents by selling VOP services that utilize the Sprint patents. Sprint seeks monetary damages from these companies and an injunction that would enjoin the companies from ongoing infringement.

The clustering team is looking for two new Program Managers.  Interested?  Visit: www.microsoft.com/careers and search for job codes: 220546 and 220547.

Check out the latest on the Palm Blog:

Just last month we announced that the Palm Treo 755p smartphone is available on Verizon Wireless and I wanted to provide some clarification around the Treo Voice Dialing software included.

The Verizon Wireless Treo 755p includes a full version of Treo Voice Dialing at no additional cost. You can find the Treo Voice Dial application in bonus software, either directly on your device by opening the MyTreo application, or from your PC by following the bonus software link of the CD.

Later on in the blog...

As one commenter on the original blog post points out, the Treo 755p on Sprint uses a different voice dial application. The Sprint Treo 755p comes with a trial version of Nuance Voice Control, which provides more advanced features like short email/SMS dictation. After the trial, users can subscribe to Nuance Voice Control service at an additional charge.

So, why do Verizon customers get a full version of voice dialing, but ut appears Sprint users get a demo version and subsequently have to pay for it?

What's slightly funny (probably not for Palm) is reading some of the comments in the original post here, such as,

Posted by: NN
God, it's so dated. Do you have a design team or are you using copy and paste?

Posted by: roman
what happened to a higher capacity processor, more memory, wider screen with all those previous functions and add the capability of calling a phone number from any part of the phone (calendar, notes, word etc)

Posted by: bob
Here's a reason why Verizon should never be given exclusivety lock on a smartphone. By the time it is released to the public, testing took so long that it's already very dated.

 

Let's hope Palm does in fact stage a comeback and give us some decent phones.

Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and the UK (£269.00) can now get an unlocked Treo 500.

For sale in the Palm Europe EStore

Southwest Airlines has announced they will begin to test in-flight Wi-Fi as of the summer of 2008. Following on the heals of JetBlue and American Airlines, they are the latest to announce the start of a testing period. The access is a satellite-delivered service that will be provided by Row 44, who claim to be the current leader in airborne broadband communication. Initially the testing phase will be on just four planes and will allow passengers access to e-mail, music, shopping and virtual private networks.

Row 44 is also preparing to work with Alaska Airlines this Spring. In addition Virgin America is also promising in-flight access. Maybe in-flight Wi-Fi will be a good thing and catch on, hopefully the in-flight use of cell phones will remain a no-go. As of now the roll-out date for Southwest has not been announced.

Seen this?

I can't even really listen to what Bono is saying watching Scoble trying to take pictures and the big guy next to him eating.

The sky is falling, the sky is falling...

Two events going on with Palm.  Has Palm really decided to close it's retail stores?  I've searched other news feeds and can find no other news but

Thursday brought news that the company's 34 stores--eight Palm-branded locations and 26 stores that were inside Airport Wireless outposts--will have to go by the end of the current quarter. "We continue to focus our company around core business initiatives and are consolidating more resources behind fewer programs in order to compete most effectively and build world-class, category-defining mobile solutions. We have therefore made the decision to close our retail stores," the company said in a statement regarding the retail move.

It's also facing a class action lawsuit from Treo owners.  The lawsuit is detailed here: http://www.palzasettlement.com/.  The link is a very small link in the bottom left corner of their US website:

Palm announced on Wednesday that Treo 600 and 650 owners who have had their units replaced or repaired at least twice are eligible for cash rebates on new Palm smartphones, as part of a settlement of a class-action suit filed in 2005. The company will also repair any Treo 600 or 650 that hasn't failed twice, but is outside of the original warranty.

Finally, all of you that held out hoping AT&T and Samsung would post your upgrade to the original Blackjack.

Get it here:

http://www.samsung.com/us/i607/windowsupgrade

Michael Kwan has been doing some math...

First, Apple said that a total of 3.7 million iPhones were sold over the course of 2007. AT&T also told us that they have about two million iPhones subscribed to their service. Add in the European subscribers (O2, Orange, and T-Mobile) and you've got a total of about 2.4 million folks who subscribe their iPhones to the appropriate service provider.

When you divide 2.4 million by 3.7 million, you get just shy of two-thirds, meaning that over one-third of iPhones out there are not "legally" activated, instead being unlocked and used on other networks (like T-Mobile USA). These are rough figures, of course. Looks like Steve Jobs is missing out on some of his, ahem, supplementary income.

Read here

Why is it that Apple gets so much press on so many iPhones being sold, but the Touch selling 2 million units goes almost unnoticed?  The Touch was released a couple of weeks prior to the iPhone, and has only recently been offered in the US, and a GSM version in the US hasn't even been made available yet. 

The Yahoo News posting on the Touch is here, but strangely the headline reads "iPhone Rival Touch Sold Half as Many Handsets".  If you read through the release, not a mention that Sprint PCS just started selling it, and the GSM version in the US isn't out yet.  Let's wait until the Touch is available on a worldwide standard here in the US and then we'll see.

New wireless subscribers came to AT&T Mobility in record droves during the fourth quarter; the carrier added 2.7 million net new customers to the rolls -- an all-time record high among U.S. wireless carriers. The growth was well ahead of even the most optimistic forecasts.

Profits soared to $3.14 billion, a 62% increase from $1.94 billion a year ago. 

The nation’s largest carrier ended the year with 70.1 million customers. Retail postpaid net additions reached 1.2 million during the quarter and accounted for just over 55 million of the total customers on the carrier’s network at the end of the year. More than half of the remaining new wireless customers during the quarter were from prepaid channels and resellers. AT&T Mobility’s acquisition of Dobson Communications, which closed in mid November, also brought 1.7 million customers into the company fold. Overall, the carrier grossed an additional 6 million new customers in the quarter, which also set the industry’s best-ever quarterly gross in new wireless subscribers, the company said.

Microsoft just published a report that compares vulnerabilities and security updates over the last year for Windows Vista, XP, Linux and Mac OS X. In the report, Vista came out on top.

Jeff Jones, Director in the Microsoft Security Technology Unit.

This paper analyzes the vulnerability disclosures and security updates for the first year of Windows Vista and looks at it in the context of its predecessor, Windows XP, along with other modern workstation operating systems Red Hat, Ubuntu and Apple products.

The results of the analysis show that Windows Vista has an improved security vulnerability profile over its predecessor. Analysis of security updates also shows that Microsoft improvements to the security update process and development process have reduced the impact of security updates to Windows administrators significantly compared to its predecessor, Windows XP.

By this chart...

Can anyone identify the Linux Redhat lines?

 You can download the report yourself here.

Isn't this a surprise...

Mac users, get ready to fend off new malware threats: Hackers have set their sights on you, says a report from security vendor Sophos. Until 2007, criminal cybergangs had largely overlooked Mac users for the low-hanging fruit: all the poorly protected Windows PCs available. But as Apple computers gain traction with both consumers and businesses, hackers see potential profit in targeting Macs. And this means Mac users may have a rough year ahead, according to the report.

As an illustration, the report points to the one of the new families of malware attacks seen in 2007: the OSX-RSPlug attack of November, which redirected DNS queries to a compromised website. The site could detect whether a visitor was a Mac or a PC, and launched a custom attack accordingly.

The full report is here, and is quite an interesting read.

Check this out.  Etch A Sketch for your giant plasma TV...

Relive the childhood fun of Etch-A-Sketch® by drawing on your television! Simply plug the controller into your TV and explore 4 activity modes: Cool Drawing Tools, Trace A Pic, Super Sketch and Connecting The Dots.

The image you draw with the controller magically appears on the screen and you just shake the controller to make the image magically disappear from the screen! All ages will enjoy the fun!

See here

Check out the specs.  A 624 MHz processor and 1 GB of flash memory.  Mobile Planet is offering them unlocked for $499.  That's pretty cheap for an unlocked phone. NIce specs too.

Technical Details

• Operating System : Microsoft® Windows Mobile® 6, World Wide English

• Processor : Intel XScale® PXA 270 Processor at 624 MHz

• Dimensions:
- Approx. 106(L) x 58(W) x 18(T) mm
- Weight with battery: 145g

• Operating Time :
- Standby up to 200 hours (GSM)
- Talktime up to 4 hours (GSM) / up to 2 hours (UMTS voice calling)
- Battery operation time is dependent on user's usage, system settings and configurations

• Memory :
- 1GB Flash ROM
- 64MB RAM
- MiniSD expandable memory

•Audio :
- Speakerphone
- Stereo speaker
- SRS WOW HD (surround sound experience)
- FM Radio with RDS function

•Display :
- 2.7" TFT QVGA LCD display with touch panel
- 240 x 320 dots resolution
- Supports 262K colours (65,536 effective)

•Connectivity :
- Built-in Wireless LAN 802.11b/g
(Actual data transfer speed is dependent on range, connection rate, site conditions and network) - Bluetooth® SIG version 1.2
- Infrared IrDA

•Network Frequency :
- Tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900
- UMTS 1900/2100
- EGPRS (EDGE)
- HSDPA
(device connection is operator dependent)

•Camera :
- 2 Megapixels CMOS Macro-focus camera
- Preview mirror for self portrait
- White LED strobe flash
- Supports still image and video capture
- Secondary VGA CMOS camera for video calls

•Microsoft® Windows Mobile® 5.0 applications:
• Microsoft® Office Outlook® Mobile with Direct Push Technology
• Microsoft® Office programs for Windows Mobile®
• Pocket MSN®
• Internet Explorer® Mobile
• Windows Media® Player 10 Mobile with Equaliser controls
• Windows ActiveSync® 4.2
• Calculator
• File Explorer
(Actual data transfer speed is dependent on range, connection rate, site conditions and network)

Others features:
• Code Wallet® Pro
• GPRS Monitor
• Jeyo Mobile Extender 2.0 (Available on Companion CD)
• Jeyo SMS Backup
• Java™ 2 Micro Edition (J2ME)
• MMS Client (integrated)
• PDF Viewer
• Self Diagnostics
• Video Telephony
• Wireless Manager
• WorldMate®

Will we find out mobile phones will be the death of us all? 

The study, funded by mobile phone companies, suggests radiation from the handset can cause insomnia, headaches and confusion.  It may also cut our amount of deep sleep - interfering with the body's ability to refresh itself. The study was carried out by Sweden's Karolinska Institute and Wayne State University in the US.

Funded by the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, the scientists studied 35 men and 36 women aged between 18 and 45. Some were exposed to radiation equivalent to that received when using a mobile phone, others were placed in the same conditions, but given only "sham" exposure.  Those exposed to radiation took longer to enter the first of the deeper stages of sleep, and spent less time in the deepest one.  The scientists concluded: "The study indicates that during laboratory exposure to 884 MHz wireless signals components of sleep believed to be important for recovery from daily wear and tear are adversely affected."

And...further in the story...of course...

However, the researchers said they could not rule out the possibility that long-term use may raise the risk of cancer.

BBC has the full story.

This week -- specifically on January 22 -- Microsoft will make its Adobe-Flash-alternative Silverlight 1.0 available to corporate users via Windows Software Update Services (WSUS), as well as via Microsoft Update (MU).

3 plane passengers arrested for failing to turn off phones in Italy

Police arrested three passengers on an Alitalia Linee Aeree Italiance flight after they refused to switch off their mobile phones, according to Italian media on Sunday.

ROME, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Captain of the flight, about to take off Saturday from Milan, asked three times for passengers to shut off their phones after he found the aircraft navigation system was affected by cell phone signals.  But the three passengers failed to comply with the request, leading to captain's decision to abort take-off.  Police boarded the plane and arrested the three identified by the flight crew. They are confronted with the prosecution for violating safety regulations and will face up to three months in jail if found guilty.

Here it is folks...prepare to support...

https://www.wireless.att.com/business/iphone/