SPG - Comms / Tech News

Rumour: RIM buys DocumentsToGo, Dataviz

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:14:25 +0000

Now I've used DocumentsToGo for ages on my Windows Phone devices, favouring it over the in-built clients, especially the spreadsheet, so this news report from MobilitySite does fill me with some concern over what RIM would do with such a purchase... Hopefully, they would continue development for all platforms....

"In a move which may have far reaching ramifications for the mobile enterprise, reports are indicating that Research in Motion has purchased veteran application developers DataViz, makers of DocumentsToGo along with many other cross platform applications. Neither company has made an announcement yet but word is that Team BlackBerry bought DataViz for a cool 50 million dollars. Other reports are saying that DataViz employees are going so far as to be updating their LinkedIn and Facebook pages to list their employer as RIM. DataViz makes applications for most all major mobile platforms, such as Apple’s iOS (including special apps for the iPad), BlackBerry, Window Mobile, Android, webOS, PalmOS, Maemo and likely others. The acquisition certainly fills a hole for Blackberry which has been suffering from a lack of quality applications as Apple and Android are both pushing hard for the Enterprise market traditionally controlled by RIM, but it also opens up a lot of questions.

RIM has a history of solving gaps in the BlackBerry software with their checkbook. When RIM addressed their lack of a decent browser last year by purchasing Touch Mobile and their Iris Webkit browser, Torch immediately dropped their well-received WinMo version. Will DataViz become a BlackBerry only shop like Torch did? I had thought something was up when DataViz shut down development efforts to port DocsToGo to the latest version of webOS. This struck me as odd since it is clear that HP will be doing SOMETHING on the tablet front with the OS and DocsToGo would be ideal for that. Plus DataViz had been one of the release partners when Palm debuted the Pre.

Could this just be a sign to come as DocToGo is pulled off of all other platforms? I certainly hope not, but their competitors such as Microsoft’s Office Mobile and Quickoffice must be viewing this as a possible major windfall."

Read the full article at Mobility Site here!

More MeeGo at IFA

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 21:08:22 +0000

Following up on my previous Meego posting... Looks like someone is using the OS out in the wild... And I quote:

"Remember the WeTab? Or the WePad, perhaps? While we can't say we had much confidence in ever seeing the tablet again after a seemingly endless series of false starts and delays, it has turned up at IFA, and with something of a surprise no less -- it's running a customized version of MeeGo. Those customizations look to keep things mostly in line with the interface we saw during the device's WePad days, but it does seem to be a bit more responsive, and is seemingly in a nearly final state. Of course, it's not quite final enough to avoid another delay -- it's now apparently set to roll out in "late September." Head on past the break to check it out in action."

I think it looks like an interesting tablet concept, being that tablets seem to be the flavour of the month at the moment. This video demonstrates the device:

What do you think?

Source: Engadget

T-Mobile & Orange networks merge

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:26:11 +0000

From the 5th October, T-Mobile and Orange customers will be able to use each others mobile networks in order to get the best possible signal.

Customers will remain on their tariffs and contracts but by signing up to their respective T-Mobile and Orange sites, customers handsets will automatically switch to the best available network. Phone calls, data and sms/mms will come out of your allowances as if you were still on your own network.

Hopefully this will mean better coverage for T-Mobile and Orange customers.

MeeGo: Cheat Sheet - Silicon.com

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 12:38:28 +0000

Not our usual fayre I know, but smartphone related none the less, I found it quite interesting so I thought I'd post it here:

MeeGo? MeeGo where?

Nowhere. Sit down. I'm going to tell you about the new MeeGo operating system.

Oh alright. So tell me what this MeeGo operating system is all about then?
MeeGo is an open source Linux mobile operating system created earlier this year when chipmaker Intel and mobile handset giant Nokia merged their respective Linux projects, Moblin and Maemo, into a single offering. The birth of MeeGo was announced in February at the Mobile World Congress tradeshow.

Hang on, when exactly did Intel and Nokia get married? I must have missed that.
The love-in predates the birth of MeeGo by several months. The pair decided to enter into a long-term strategic partnership in June 2009 - to collaborate on Linux-based open source projects.

The two companies started out saying they would co-operate on developing common applications for their respective Linux software environments. As it turned out, all that working together led to the conclusion they were simply better off putting their Linux eggs in one basket.

Was there not much difference between Moblin and Maemo then?
Yes there was - but apparently it was a complementary difference.

You can find the rest of the article here!

Orange HD Voice announced

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:32:45 +0000

Orange today announces the biggest advance in voice calls in 20 years with the launch of its mobile High Definition (HD) Voice service, enabling businesses to benefit from the next era in mobile communications. Increased call clarity and the filtering out of background noise make important business conversations possible no matter where they are conducted.

Call clarity has emerged as a necessity for many businesses. Recent research^*from Orange has shown that 75% of business owners believe clear call quality to be the most important aspect of their mobile device; with 33% saying they routinely struggled to hold phone conversations due to the noisy environment they work in. With HD Voice, neither a noisy work environment or being out of the office are barriers to a successful call with customers, colleagues or suppliers.

Orange HD Voice also eliminates the perceived distance between callers making it easier to hear the emotions in people’s voices. According to the research, this is seen as crucial with 80% of business owners stating that it is very important to hear people’s emotions when conducting a conversation. Almost one in five (18%) even admitted that they had lost a deal because of a misunderstanding over the phone as they couldn’t hear what was being said.
HD Voice also opens up new opportunities for better ways of working in business. In addition to benefitting industries with significant background noise like construction and manufacturing, the arrival of HD Voice is hotly anticipated by the broadcasting industry, which believes that the service could reduce both its reliance on expensive ISDN lines and the need to ferry guests to studios for interviews.

The BBC is trialling the solution as a low cost alternative to the traditional methods of live contribution for both its reporters and potentially for guests and to improve the sound quality for breaking news reports which will often be done using a mobile phone.
Robert Ayres, Raycox Turf, said, “Having trialled HD Voice for a number of weeks, I was impressed by the difference it made to my phone calls. The ability to have a faultless call experience regardless of where I was made important business conversations that much easier and meant I didn’t have to worry about being in a quiet space to make any calls.”

Martin Stiven, VP of Business at Everything Everywhere, the company which runs Orange UK, said: “HD Voice is going to change the way businesses are able to communicate through our business mobilesfrom conducting calls in places that were not previously possible to the ability to hear emotions in people’s voices. We’re about bringing people closer together and HD Voice does just that, making business colleagues feel as if they’re speaking face to face. People are going to love the clarity of calls and the lack of background noise. Once you’ve used it, you will want to keep it.”
HD Voice for business is now available on the Nokia E5 and the Samsung Omnia Pro B7350 handsets with more HD enabled handsets to follow in the coming months.

For more information on HD Voice for business please visit: www.orange.co.uk/business/hdvoice

HTC Peep dead in the water!? (Now working again!)

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:48:55 +0000

It looks like the software engineers at HTC forgot to take into account the new Twitter authentication system (OAuth) which has been brought in by Twitter. The deadline for the change over to using the new system has been known about for many months now, and even been moved back a number of times. However as HTC had not coded it into their application suite this has stopped Peep and Friendstream from logging in.

The question is can this be fixed OTA (Android) or are new ROM builds for WM and Android needed?

CoPilot® Live™ GPS Navigation adds ActiveTraffic™

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:44:33 +0000

New intelligent traffic service combines real-time traffic flow information with advanced routing technology to dynamically avoid traffic congestion and find the fastest route to any destination

ALK Technologies Inc. today launched ActiveTraffic™, a groundbreaking real-time traffic service that integrates dynamic traffic flow information with advanced routing technology to more efficiently guide drivers to their destination. The innovative service is available in ALK’s popular CoPilot Live GPS navigation smartphone and iPad apps in the U.S.

CoPilot Live ActiveTraffic uses real-time traffic flow information provided by INRIX, the leading international provider of quality traffic information and driver services in North America, to intelligently calculate the best route to avoid traffic congestion and provide an accurate estimated time of arrival (ETA). It continuously monitors your route for delays as you drive and alerts you if a faster route is available. If a faster route is identified, CoPilot Live will indicate the estimated time you’ll save and provide an option to preview the new route.

ActiveTraffic is designed to make even your daily commute more predictable, providing an at-a-glance display of real-time traffic conditions along your route. Sections where traffic is traveling freely are indicated green, those with moderate congestion in yellow and severe congestion in red. CoPilot Live takes all of this information into account to maintain a realistic estimated time of arrival based on actual road conditions.

"ActiveTraffic is a significant enhancement to CoPilot Live and our existing traffic service," said Michael Kornhauser, Managing Director, CoPilot Live at ALK Technologies. "With our uniquely integrated connection to INRIX’s high-quality dynamic traffic information, drivers can be assured they are taking the best route to their destination—one that is based on actual real-time road conditions and not an incident reported a half hour ago. It’s a breakthrough technology that has the potential to dramatically improve a user’s driving experience."

INRIX ensures drivers receive the most current information on local traffic conditions through its Smart Driver Network that includes a mix of consumer vehicles and commercial fleets – the majority of which provide continuous real-time speed and location reports to INRIX every minute for an average of 7 hours per day, per vehicle. The result is a service that updates traffic information to drivers every minute ensuring they always know the best route, expected travel time and ETA for any destination.

"INRIX traffic information makes navigation more useful every day," said INRIX Senior Vice President of Business Development Kush Parikh. "Whether commuting to work, running errands across town or traveling cross-country, CoPilot Live with ActiveTraffic is a must have app for anyone who wants to save time, money and travel hassle-free everywhere they go."

New and existing CoPilot Live v8 Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows Mobile customers in the U.S. will have the opportunity to try ActiveTraffic with a 14 day free trial and then buy a subscription for 12 months use at the special price of $9.99. Current CoPilot Live v8 U.S Traffic subscribers will be upgraded to ActiveTraffic™ free of charge. ActiveTraffic is available immediately for iPhone and will be available for the other platforms the first week of September.

A gallery of images of CoPilot Live ActiveTraffic is available at: CoPilot Live ActiveTraffic Gallery.

ALK Updates CoPilot Central 2.0

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:26:07 +0000

I got an email this afternoon from ALK advising me to update my PC's CoPilot Central application to a new build, with the following message:

For Windows Mobile and Android customers using CoPilot Central 2.0

Since the weekend, if you've tried to launch CoPilot Central 2.0 on your desktop, you may already have discovered that it does not start up properly. You may see an Unhandled Exception error message when you launch CoPilot Central 2.0 and we would like to apologise for any inconvenience this is causing you.
However, the good news is that we have been working hard to fix this and we now have a new version available which resolves this issue.

To get the latest version of CoPilot Central 2.0, you will first need to uninstall any previous version and install version 2.2.0.28. Please follow the short instructions below – it will only take a couple of minutes, we promise!

There's no real information about why the previous version has suddenly stopped working, or whether there are any other changes, but anyway you can find the update page Here

Woman uses Galaxy S and SWYPE to break text messaging world record

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:35:21 +0000

Melissa Thompson, a 27-year-old British woman who just smashed the Guinness World Record for the fastest text message ever.

Thompson wrote the phrase “the razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human” in 25.94 seconds, beating the old record held by 24-year-old Franklin Page who wrote the same phrase in 35.54 seconds earlier this year.

What phone did Thompson use to destroy the old record by nearly 10 seconds? A Samsung Galaxy S. And if you thought that the quickest or easiest way to bang out a text message or e-mail was by using a physical keyboard, you’d be wrong. The record was broken using a touchscreen keyboard with SWYPE, a feature that allows users to write words and phrases by sliding their fingers across the screen.

Crosstalk- Multi Platform, Multi Protocol IM Client coming soon

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:00:55 +0000

This snippet was posted on WMExperts as WP7 news, but it seems it could be a lot bigger than that if all goes to plan!

BluePlanetApps plan to release their new IM client on Android and Blackberry over the coming two months and a recent Twitter message mentions iOS and WP7 shortly afterwards. It's planned to be free of charge too!

The need for a good, robust IM client for Windows Phone 7 will be one of the first things consumers look for when launching that Marketplace.

If all goes to plan, Blue Planet Apps will have their 'CrossTalk' IM client ready to go by the time WP7 launches.

'CrossTalk', available soon for Android and Blackberry, supports GoogleTalk, AIM, MSN, Facebook and even Blackberry Messenger (BBM). That last one is pretty huge in our book and could go a long way to woo Crackberry addicts from their devices. Talk to any Blackberry user and they'll tell you BBM is one of the reasons why they stay with the aging platform.

Here's hoping the app runs smoothly and fills our needs. Below are some screen shots from the Android app. No word on how similar it will look on WP7, but we'll keep an eye on it.