Recently in Gadgets Category

Wired is reporting rumors about Apple preparing a new version of the iPod touch that includes a camera and microphone, which when combined with Skype for the iPod touch would negate the need for a home phone line. VoIP on an iPod touch? That's just heresy! Essentially, the iPod touch becomes an iPhone without the need for an AT&T contract.

The article then points out you can add a portable Verizon MiFi 3G wireless access point, which shares your 3G connection using WiFi to finally bring the iPhone experience to Verizon's 3G network. -- and without AT&T's locked-in contract obligations. Of course, you'll need a Skype account with SkypeOut minutes plus a SkypeIn number, which aren't exactly "free". Or you can use another SIP provider using a SIP softphone for the iPod touch. Both fring and Nimbuzz offer SIP capabilities built-in, and there are other apps as well.

According to the Washington Examiner, D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier is "irked" that Americans are using an iPhone application to outwit speed traps and traffic cameras which uses GPS to pinpoint the location of the cameras & speedtraps and warns users as they drive. Interesting that the article mentions PhantomAlert, which is a paid subscription that lets you download their database of speed traps and cameras when their are free options such as Trapster available. I don't believe PhantomAlert is even available on the iPhone. I don't see it in the App Store when I searched for it.

According to the article, Lanier said that the technology is a "cowardly tactic" and "people who overly rely on those and break the law anyway are going to get caught" in one way or another. She went on to say, "I think that's the whole point of this program. It's designed to circumvent law enforcement -- law enforcement that is designed specifically to save lives."

Wait a second here. If I'm using this iPhone application and it warns me about speed traps, traffic cameras, etc. and it influences me to slow down, isn't that serving the same purpose as receiving a traffic ticket, but without the associated ticket costs? If the end goal is to cause people to respect the speed limit for safety reasons, then if anything the iPhone application does a better job than speed traps or traffic cameras. After all, a police officer can only pull over so many speeders, while the iPhone application on the other hand will encourage users to slow at every potential speed trap or traffic camera. I use Trapster for the iPhone myself and it warns me about speed traps. It does cause me to drive slower in these areas.

In fact, before I had this application, my heavy foot (former Dodge Viper driver) would cause me to drive pretty fast on highway roads or even rural areas. Now with Trapster warning me, I'm driving much slower in these areas, thus reducing the risk my speed might injure myself or someone else. Of course, personally I don't buy into driving 70mph in a 55mph zone is causing any additional risk to the public or myself. The fact that I like to eat McDonald's french fries is probably increasing my risk of an earlier death than going 15mph over the speed limit.

So the D.C. police chief should be thanking these types of applications if the end goal is to cause people to follow the law. Of course, we know the real purpose of speed traps and traffic cameras - it's to fill the coffers of the local city, which according to the article Montgomery County expects to make $29 million from its red light and speed cameras. Update: The article states, "The greater D.C. area has 290 red-light and speed cameras -- comprising nearly 10 percent of all traffic cameras in the U.S., according to estimates by a camera-tracking database called the POI Factory." 10% of all nationwide traffic cams just for a city? That's just insane!

It's a speed tax - plain and simple and they don't like the fact that these "warning applications" for mobile devices and GPS units may cause you to drive slower and adversely impact their revenue stream. I for one can't wait till teleportation is invented so we can get to point A to point B without "the man" writing out a $300 ticket for doing 70mph in a 55mph zone.

Google just added location info to Safari on the iPhone allowing you to see local businesses very quickly with a simple search. For instance, search on "coffee" and see the closest coffee shops or search on fast food places like Burger King or McDonald's. You can see local results (Norwalk, CT) in the screenshot to the right, along with the ability to manually enter a location, update current location

It works with the new iPhone 3.0 software. All you have to do is go to Google's homepage in Safari and you'll see text that reads, "New! Try My Location to find restaurants, shops and bars near you!"

When you attempt to allow Google to use your location info within Safari for the first time, the iPhone will pop open the usual message about sharing your location info with Safari which you have to accept or reject.

After accepting, you'll see a dot below the search box with your location info. Next, perform a search and Google will return local results. Even cooler, it appears to work in the popular Google app for the iPhone as well, which I prefer for quick local lookups since it supports fast (and accurate I might add) speech recognition searches as seen here:

Since Safari runs in the background this could potentially open the door to some interesting location-based services (LBS), since the alternative is 3rd party iPhone location apps which must remain running in the foreground, thus limiting their usefulness. In theory, a developer could write a hosted web app that tracks your current location and shares it with your spouse or buddy list. One could hope such an app is forthcoming - or maybe not depending on your privacy perspective.

With yesterday's news about the new Nimbuzz for iPhone app and the launch of a Nimbuzz Mac client, I contacted Tobias Kemper, Head of Communications for Nimbuzz and asked him a question about DTMF/touch-tone support in any pending release.

Any plans for DTMF support?

Noticed when I tested it by calling my Skype for SIP account matched up to my corporate PBX that I couldn't reach my extension since there is no dialpad once the call is initiated.

I know touchtones are tricky when sent over an IP connection, which is what RFC 2833 is for. However, RFC 2833 is probably impossible for you guys to support.

However, I've found if you simulate the exact frequency tones and send that as a long tone - say 0.5s long, 99% of the time it gets transmitted just fine. Can often get away with ¼ of a second as well. Thoughts?

He wrote back, "I will send you the official news in a few mins - WITH more stats and data! DTMF is a great next step for us but I cannot speak to it yet."

Ok, so he's not admitting to DMTF support in the future, but he isn't ruling it out either. That's good news, since I really like Nimbuzz. It features SIP capabilities, so I can register it with a SIP-based PBX. Though oddly enough, I had a minor issue with the Nimbuzz for iPhone app with case-sensitivity. I have some test SIP accounts with the format SOFTPHONE01, SOFTPHONE02, etc. all in upper-case. The Asterisk-based trixbox PBX is case-sensitive, so it is expecting the username in uppercase. Well, although I was able to enter in SOFTPHONE01 into Nimbuzz in all upper-case, it wouldn't register. So I SSH'ed into the trixbox server and ran "asterisk - r" to see what was going on. I attempted to register again, and immediately saw the problem in the Asterisk console. Nimbuzz converted my SIP username to all lowercase. Thus, I had to add a new SIP account that was in all lowercase. Looks like they need to update their back-end database to support mixed-case for the SIP username. It's pretty common to use a mix of upper & lowercase letters to help secure the SIP account.

In any event, Tobias also told me, "We developed a Mac client (download) in combination with a new iPhone version (download) because we got massive traction since releasing the iPhone client and have a huge number of active users. (official press release below)  We did it Apple style, focused on slick UI and usability! "

He added, "(Here are) a few stats on why we made the decision to deliver something specific for the Apple fans out there:"

• In just 9 months since launch, consistent Top 10 ranking on all iTunes AppStores in Europe, Latin America & the Middle East, including regular No. 1 What's Hot positions in influential iPhone markets such as the UK
• Achieved massive penetration and popularity.  For example, 1 in 5 iPhone users in France and in the Netherlands are using Nimbuzz!
• Average 848% growth in downloads of iPhone & iPod touch apps in key European markets since the iPhone OS 3.0 update
• One of just 5% of Apps to boast more than 100,000 active users, with an active user base of more than 41% (AdMob Metrics)
• Massive nearly one million newly registered users per month growth across all Nimbuzz clients

With the new Nimbuzz Mac you can connect and interact with friends from the most popular instant messaging communities and social networks like, Facebook, AIM, MySpace, Google Talk (Orkut), Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger (MSN), ICQ and many more, right from your (i)Mac or MacBook (Pro).  It also lets you call your buddies on Nimbuzz, Windows Live Messenger (MSN), Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk.

The iPhone and iPod touch upgrade lets you share photos, music and videos. The beauty of it is that the files are stored online so you have access to your files from your Mac, iPhone or iPod touch! That also saves device memory.

Push Notification for iPhone and iPod Touch - with home screen alerts of incoming calls or chats, effectively keeping you available to the rest of the world even though the app itself has been closed.

We also introduced another much requested feature: location sharing.  Now you can share and retrieve the location of your Nimbuzz buddies on the go. This makes it easier to find your friends and set up face to face meetings.

Here is a demo video to check out before trying : ) 

TerreStar Corporation (NASDAQ: TSTR) announced that TerreStar-1, the world's largest, most advanced commercial communications satellite, has been successfully placed into its assigned orbital slot in the geosynchronous arc and has successfully deployed its 18 meter 2GHz S Band reflector, the largest commercial satellite antenna ever deployed. TerreStar remarked "TerreStar-1 is now poised to deliver the voice, data and video services over TerreStar's all IP next-generation mobile broadband network that combines the power of TerreStar-1, an all-IP core network, and the latest in smartphone technology."

One of the first advanced smartphones the satellite is designed to handle is a new Windows Mobile designed with their partner Elektrobit (EB). The mobile device can handle all of the major wireless specs, including: Dual-band WCDMA (850 and 1900), TerreStar WCDMA HSDPA 2.2 GHz, and Quad-band GSM/EGPRS (850, 900, 1800 and 1900). What this means is that this is a worldwide phone -- and if their isn't a cellular tower in the vicinity, you can switch to a satellite connection.

Apple iTunes is experiencing some severe outage problems today. I was trying to install Truphone and Skype on a coworker's iPhone when I noticed I couldn't search the App Store on his iPhone. Rich Tehrani also tried installing a gaming app I recommended called Blowfish, but it wouldn't accept his password.

My IT administrator then proceeded to try and register a new iTunes account within the iTunes PC software for this iPhone and that wouldn't work either. Perhaps the Michael Jackson resurgence phenomenon is overloading iTunes? According to CNET, "On iTunes, the Web's largest music service, 8 out of the top-10-selling albums for download were from Jackson, with a compilation album, "The Essential Michael Jackson" in the No. 1 spot."

Late last night I saw an update notifications on my iPhone 3GS for Skype. New version? Sweet! I updated it and checked out the release notes for Skype 1.1 for the iPhone and iPod touch. It sports some new languages and now includes Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish and Traditional Chinese and of course English.

The bigest new feature is the ability to send text messages (SMS) using Skype credit. They also added voicemail support and improved dialing help when calling phones.

According to the official Skype blog, "we've made some improvements to the look and feel, particularly when calling phones using the dial pad."

You can download the update in iTunes, or even better just launch the App Store on your iPod touch or iPhone and then tap Updates to get the latest version of all your apps!

Some things I would have liked to seen in this release:

• Push notifications (Skype might have to haggle with Apple on this one since Apple places restrictions on third party apps that can run in the background on the iPhone. Though I should add 'push notifications' is Apple's compromise between a full background app and the ability to at least get 'notifications' that something happened in an app that isn't technically running in the background)
• Video conferencing support - Though that probably isn't coming any time soon.

So what would you like to see in a future release of Skype for iPhone?

One phone charger for all? There can be only one! According to Reuters, telecom firms have backed standard phone charger in Europe. No, hell hasn't frozen over. Yes, you will finally be able to use a single charger that works with any future mobile phone you purchase - at least in Europe anyway. That's one less charger to pack when traveling and one less charger to throw away when you upgrade your mobile phone. The top mobile telephone suppliers, including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and others have agreed to back an EU-wide standard for phone chargers. New mobile phones will use a standard micro-USB socket to ensure compatibility.

Motorola, LG, NEC, Qualcomm, Research in Motion, Samsung and Texas Instruments have also signed the agreement. Interestingly, Apple has also signed on. You mean Apple which charges licensing rights for their proprietary docking cable is on board too? Well, well... Isn't Apple fighting Palm over the Pre emulating an Apple iPod to enable iTunes support? Seems against Apple's nature to support a connection standard that has enabled such a huge third-party cottage industry for Apple's iPod and iPhone products. For example, Apple licenses their connector to FM transmitters, iPod external speakers, and more.

So one charger for any mobile phone - surely there's a catch...

WildCharge, makers of wire-free charging skins for various mobile phone models today has announced a wire-free skin for the iPhone and iPod touch, which enable the popular Apple devices to be charged instantly simply placing them on the WildCharger Pad™ or on other surfaces that are embedded with the WildCharge technology.

"The market is demanding a move towards wire-free charging, and WildCharge is thrilled to answer that call in adding Apple devices to our lineup of commercially available products," said WildCharge chairman and CEO Dennis Grant. "With the addition of these two designs to our reference design library, both of which are Apple "Made for iPod" and "Works with iPhone" approved, WildCharge is solidifying our position as the leading, wire-free charging developer in the industry."

The WildCharge Skins are durable, protective, form-fitting cases that when placed on the WildCharger Pad, transfer wire-free power from the Pad to the device inside the skin. The soft cases provide the same protection consumers already enjoy from traditional skins, but have the added value and convenience of enabling a wire-free charge. The WildCharger Pad, used in conjunction with the skins, delivers full power to multiple devices, allowing them to simultaneously charge together on the Pad while eliminating the clutter caused by multiple chargers and power strips. The iPod touch skin is available today and the iPhone skin will be available in early July. WildCharge Skins are also available for the Blackberry Pearl and Curve, and all are sold for $34.99 at WildCharge.com. I have a review unit headed my way to test on my brand spankin' new iPhone 3GS, so I'll do a review once I get it.

In addition to the WilCharge Skins, WildCharge recently announced a Universal Adapter for mobile devices that works with the WildCharger Pad. The Universal Adapter is able to charge over 150 different cell phone models from major brands such as Motorola, RIM, and Nokia through the use of interchangeable tips, with the list of compatible devices constantly expanding.

WildCharge claim that provide the only commercially available technology that enables licensing partners to deliver wire-free charging to a variety of devices that require varying amounts of power. From cell phones that require only a few watts of power to laptops that need over a hundred watts, virtually any device that has a rechargeable battery can be powered from a single, contiguous, and non-discriminating charging surface. WildCharge technology has met the industry's most stringent regulatory and safety standards, including UL, CE, FCC, RoHS, and has been certified across all of the GSM bands.

Smartphones, netbooks, smartbooks, and Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) while very similar feature-wise, each has their own distinct advantages. Smartphones such as the iPhone have been widely successful, while the MID market has been a bit slow to take off. Elektrobit Corporation (EB), based in Oulu, Finland aims to change that with their new MID reference design that combines the "pocketability" of smartphones with the power of PCs/netbooks since it can run desktop Linux applications. Picture an iPhone that can actually run full version Linux applications such as Firefox, Opera, OpenOffice, Thunderbird, SSH client, and more. That's exactly what you'll get with Elektrobit's (EB) new MID reference design. EB's sleek, media-centric MID reference device takes the power of the PC and makes it pocket-able so you don't have to compromise on mobile capabilities.

I spoke with EB's Vesa Kiviranta Vice President, Mobile Internet Device Solutions, Wireless Solutions BU about their new reference design. Vesa explained that it's based on Intel's next generation Moores­town platform. The reference design includes touch-screen support with multi-touch (cool!) support. It uses the latest 3D and high resolution capacitive sensing touch screen (3.97") powered by EB Touch & Feel technology. Because the screen measures nearly 4 inches (3.97"), it fits into the MID category, while smartphones have screens smaller than 3.9 inches and netbooks have screens larger than 5 inches.The reference design relies on a Linux-based OS with EB's MID UI & Application framework based on QT. It also features EB Navigation Suite with integrated GPS.

It supports two cameras (front & back of phone) so not only can you snap photos, it can also easily support videoconferencing/videochat. I asked EB about support for Skype video chat  and they told me it will indeed be supported in their MID design. In fact, they tested it using the Linux Skype application in their labs. As far as I know, this marks the first time a pocketable mobile phone can perform Skype videoconferencing! Cool stuff! I know many iPhone fans were very disappointed the new iPhone 3GS didn't add a front-facing camera (myself included), which would allow for videochat capabilities. Of course, the current Skype for iPhone client doesn't support video, but my sources tell me it's in the works. It will be very hard to have a videoconference if you have to turn the iPhone around so the camera is facing you, but not the iPhone screen. Basically, they'll be able to see you, but you won't be able to see them - unless you spin the iPhone back around.