Tag: mobile

Cheap, hackable Linux smartphone?

Prototype Linux smartphones

One of the world's largest computer and consumer electronics manufacturers will ship a completely open, Linux-based, GPS-equipped, quad-band GSM/GPRS phone direct, worldwide, for $350 or less, in Q1, 2007. First International Computing's (FIC's) “Neo1973” or FIC-GTA001, is the first phone based on the open-source “OpenMoKo” platform.

When I first heard about this, I didn't think much about it but then I started to check out the specs. It sounds and looks a lot like the Windows Mobile devices made by HTC. And to be honest I like the devices but I'm not super keen on the mobile windows operating system. However Symbian for me still isn't great.

The Neo1973 is based on a Samsung S3C2410 SoC (system-on-chip) application processor, powered by an ARM9 core. It will have 128MB of RAM, and 64MB of flash, along with an upgradable 64MB MicroSD card.

Typical of Chinese phone designs, the Neo1973 sports a touchscreen, rather than a keypad — in this case, an ultra-high resolution 2.8-inch VGA (640 x 480) touchscreen. “Maps look stunning on this screen,” Moss-Pultz said.

The phone features an A-GPS (assisted GPS) receiver module connected to the application processor via a pair of UARTs. The commercial module has a closed design, but the API is apparently open.

The Neo1973 will charge when connected to a PC via USB. It will also support USB network emulation, and will be capable of routing a connected PC to the Internet, via its GPRS data connection.

Moss-Pultz notes that the FIC-GTA001, or Neo1973, is merely the first model in a planned family of open Linux phones from FIC. He expects a follow-up model to offer both WiFi and Bluetooth. “By the time one ships, the next one is half done,” he says.

Like most things, its maybe best to skip the first generation and wait for the next one. There's no way I'm getting a phone with no Wifi or Bluetooth. But that super rich VGA is certainly worth checking out.

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Nokia most stolen phone

NOKIA mobile phones are the most-frequently stolen handsets in London, reveals The Mirror. They made up half of all thefts, with seven models featured in the top 10. The Nokia 6230 was the most-stolen phone, Samsung D500 second and Motorola.

From the Mirror of all sources. Either way, there is a reason why my mobile has never been stolen, maybe this might have something to do with it. I tend to pick not so beautiful and popular phones. In the usual way, I pick features and functions over style and brand.

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The Orange project revealed

Tom sent me a link to the guardian article titled Public get to star in Orange ads. It outlines exactly what the Orange project was about. Because of the registration I'll blockquote the important parts.

Orange has turned to Pop Idol-style auditions to find members of the public to appear in an advertising campaign, with the chosen “stars” encouraged to record footage to be put on websites such as YouTube.

Candidates for the ads, which launch on August 1, were found through a text message and press campaign asking for people to take part in the filming of “a secret project in a stunning location”.

The campaign will form the latest stage of the mobile operator's “Animals” campaign – featuring a raccoon, canary, dolphin and panther – with each designed to represent the usage habits of different types of customer.

People who responded to the ads were interviewed and divided into the each of the animal personality groups. For example, dolphins are fun-loving people like Cheryl Tweedy and Charlotte Church, while raccoons are more like Carol Vorderman or Gordon Ramsay.

The four groups of people will be given a Big Brother-style task and the ads will film the different ways they tackle them.

The campaign, created by the agency Mother London, will comprise one 60-second “introductory” commercial and four 30-second spots focusing on the performance of each animal group.

Orange is hoping the posting of “making of” clips by consumers online will drum up word-of-mouth publicity about the campaign.

The ads are being filmed in Spain.

And to be honest it all makes sense when you look at the questions they asked you for while signing up. But generally its a let down and I'm kind of glad I didnt get on it.

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Orange are up to something…

The Orange Project

Recieved a email from Orange the other day. All it said was…

We’re creating an something. Something secret. Something big. if you’re interested, click here

This leads to a page with the following details.

On July 17, 18, and 19 we'll be working on a unique project at a secret foreign location and would love your help. You will work as part of a team constructing an amazing installation in a stunning landscape. You'll be expected to get your hands dirty – but don't worry, you don't need specialist skills, enthusiasm is enough. The whole thing will be filmed and broadcast on national television, as well as reaching an international audience on the internet.

If you'd like the chance to be selected for the casting session, which takes place on Wednesday 12 July in London, and to be part of filming this amazing experience, click on the 'next' button below.

This opportunity is available to anyone over 18. You must have a have a valid passport, be free from 16 to 20 July and be willing to pay for your travel to the casting session in London.

If you are chosen for the final project then we'll be paying for you to fly abroad to our secret (European) location and we'll put you up in a hotel. However, you'll have to pay for your travel to Gatwick Airport.

Entry form closes at midday 10 July.

And curiousity may have killed the cat, but I've signed up deciding that I can drop out at anytime if I really wanted to. Anyway, I'll have my camera to hand if I do get invited to the casting session this Wednesday. Oh and for those interested, I signed up as a self-confessed work-a-holic.

update I got my orange email today saying I was not selected for the orange project. Oh well, I'm sure it was something very naff anyway.

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Why is there no EDGE coverage in London

When I was in America. I was suprised when my little data service icon on my SPV M500, changed from G (gprs) to E (edge). Generally GPRS delivers ISDN type speeds while EDGE delivers closer to slow Cable Speeds. In actual life, I was getting about analogue modem speeds (33.6k) on GPRS and single channel ISDN speeds (64k) on EDGE. Which isn't bad, because that's about the same as I got on 3G with my Sanyo S750. But what I don't get is why there is no EDGE coverage in London? I've been around and never noticed the icon change ever. While on Cingular in America I was always on EDGE and even out here in Bristol, EDGE is available once you get closer to central Bristol. Maybe it is the 3G networks pushing out inbetween technologies like EDGE? I do kind of miss having 3G (UMTS) on my phone but having Wifi is a huge plus and I'm honestly finding more use for Wifi than 3G recently.

Talking about EDGE and America, I'm a little worried about my next Orange bill. See I didn't use the phone much for phoning but I did use the data services a lot. I was trying to arrange the @media Social venue from outside the country and needed to email back and forth. When I looked at the Cingular roaming call charges on the Orange site, it seemed to be about 10 for a meg which is a super con but I'm hoping that I never touched that 1meg limit. I mean the phone was on EDGE a lot but wasn't actually transfering any data, so it should be ok. Anyway, I'll find out within the next 2 weeks exactly how much it all come up to. I'm expecting a large one but mainly because of calls from here to the America, ironically.

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The cloud finally becomes a real alternative?

The Cloud

I actually saw this in Tom's blog. Mobile operators face wi-fi challenge. The crux of the article is here

The UK's mobile phone networks will come under attack today as wireless internet provider The Cloud announces a low-cost tariff for unlimited web access, making it easier for people to make free calls through the web from big cities, rather than use their mobile phones.

The Cloud is Europe's biggest operator of wireless technology, commonly called wi-fi, and its network is used by companies including BT, O2 and Nintendo. It is offering an £11.99 a month “all you can eat” internet deal covering 7,000 hotspots in Britain.

That will allow low-cost internet telephony in cities including London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. Using the internet to make calls has already disrupted the business models of fixed-line telecoms operators such as France Télécom.

And my feelings are, that this is a good thing. Competition is great for the market and this may shake the hold Orange, O2, Vodafone, 3 and Tmobile currently have on the wireless/mobile space. Yes I'll still be paying some other corp for the access but hey I don't mind paying for Wifi if its in 75 percent of the places I go in London. And to be honest 11.99 per month isn't bad if your out and about a lot. Compare it to GPRS or even 3G data costs and 11.99 for a months worth of unlimited data is a bargin. Even compared to a broadband connection of say 20 pounds per month its actually not that bad. Some people may beable to even dump there broandband connection if they live close enough to a hotspot and the service is reliable (big question that).

Theres no douht in my mind that central London is pretty much covered with Wifi but funny enough even out in SE18 there is a selection of wifi near myself. One of those pubs is only 2mins away from my house.

Hey there is a reason why I picked a phone which supports Wifi out of the box. Skype may not run well on it yet, but give it time, plus lets not forget theres other VOIP solutions and always online instant messenger sounds great to myself. Once there is a symbian version of Skype the required cpu speed will drop and my phone will run skype like a dream. Till then I still have my wifi ipaq which runs Skype right now.

Don't forget to sign up if your interested in 11.99 pound unlimited wifi.

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SPV E600 came yesterday, thanks Orange

Like Orange promised, the SPV E600 did come on Monday and I'm now a proud owner of one of the best little mobile phones you can get at the moment.

Poil asked for a list of my installed applications, well here you go.

  • PocketRSS 2.x (RSS reader)
  • iMov Messenger (jabber)
  • Minimo 0.14 alpha (WWW Browser)
  • Dynamo 2 (task switcher) – might remove this
  • Keypass (password keeper)
  • Betaplayer (video player)
  • Agile Messenger (jabber) – can't get it connecting over xmpp at the moment
  • VNC viewer (vnc)
  • Wififofum 2.2 (wireless scanner)
  • Wifi Tunes 0.4 (itunes browser)
  • GSPlayer 2.x (music player)

My only gripes so far have been the power button which allows you to put the M600 in standby mode as well as power off. Standby mode also stops any music which you may have been playing. Its not a big issue because GSplayer and even windows media player 10 have display off options. Another beef is the Today screen which has been hijacked by Orange for there weird menu thing. Oh and one last thing, my Bluetooth Keyboard doesn't have drivers for Windows mobile 5, so it fails to work at the moment. Otherwise I'm totally happy. Simple things like the ability to automaticly restart music after a phone call is great. You can check out all my SPV M600 pictures here. Thanks again Orange, hopefully next time I come to upgrade the process won't be so painful.

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A update on the SPV M600 query

I got it! yep and it was well worth the wait!

So a quick update on whats happening with the SPV M600 which I'm still currently trying to get. So expansys emailed me on Wednesday and said they have 9 phones in stock, would you want us to deliver it to you tomorrow. I decided against it because it would mean a change of contract and everything would have to go through expansys instead of Orange directly. This may seem stupid if I really wanted the phone that badly but actually the new contact would have cost me extra every month, therefore ignoring all the time and money I've spent with Orange for the last 3 years. So I thought I would search the London Orange Business stores for M600's. I visited the Holburn, Cheapside, Oxford Circus and Woolwich business centres multiple times this week, after getting some hot tips about the M600 being delivered to those stores. Obviously all the trips ended up in no phones. I think the closest I got to the M600 was the Woolwich store, where they sold out the evening before I phoned up.

Anyway I decided do things a little differently after reading Dan's comment about holding Orange to ransom about moving to Vodafone. I decided to call Oranges, I'm moving to another network line. And it worked out well for myself.

They agreed to keep me on my current contract but change the amount of free text messages I get every month and give me the phone for free. At the time (yesterday – Thursday) I was dismissive of the offer because I thought the phone wouldn't be in stock for another month. So agreed that Orange should call me when theres actual M600's in stock which they can deliver the next day.

I decided to keep search and phoning Orange stores looking for any left over stock of the M600, just incase (i ride past 3 of them in the mornings). But the same women who I spoke to yesterday on the phone at Orange, called me mid morring and said what I've been waiting for months. We have stock of the SPV M600 would you like me to send you one on a free upgrade? I almost started laughing, yes indeed!

So now Monday at sometime my new phone should come and I will finally have the phone I've been waiting for. I just hope Orange don't jack me around because I know Expansys have another deliver of M600's on Tuesday and I will be very tempted to just call them up, unless one of the stores gets it in first. Geez sounds like a endless loop, doesn't it? Lets just hope Orange delivers on its promise. As I have a load of applications ready to install on it.

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Orange why can I not have a strikingly compact M600?

SPV M600

Orange are simply taking the piss now. Not only do they have the phone I want in stock but they will not sell it to me because its classed as a business phone. Yeah how stupid is that? Tell me Orange what about the SPV M500, SPV M2000, 3G mobile Office card and the SPV M5000. Hummm well Orange? What adds to the insult is the fact that Orange France are selling the SPV M600 as normal and that Orange UK won't be releasing this phone out of the business tarrif till sometime in Summer at least (so I've been told). Anyway, I've bitten the bullet and bought the phone via a 3rd party. Expansys reckon they have the phone ready to go, so I've bought it from them under the understanding that I can return it within 30days if I'm not happy with it. I can also cancel the order if Orange get it before Expansys, but I very much douht it. So yeah goodbye to the Nokia N80, its a good phone but its not coming on to Orange till late May now I hear, Vodafone in May.

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