As we further approach the complete all-in-one electronic device that fits in our pocket we get to see some pretty cool stuff. Example: The video below!
The latest step in this direction is from the developers at Unify4Life, a company dedicated to tweaking out your smartphone and pushing its abilities to the limits. As seen in the video below they have turned a Blackberry Storm into a universal home theatre remote using the AV | Shadow.
The device will work with your Blackberry phone to give you touch access to a multitude of home theatre components such as your TV, TiVo, Satellite Box, DVD, PVR and much more.
It is pretty much the ultimate in cool to whip out your phone, turn on the stereo, dim the lights and cue up a DVD.
Windows Mobile 7 is becoming more and more of a reality. With Windows Mobile 6.5 due out later this year, the next version of WinMo 7 is slated to be released sometime in 2010. This was confirmed by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in an anaylsts meeting at Microsoft.
The stated goal of the new OS is to get around the more technical nature of the previous Windows Mobile systems and optimize interfaces for a more media geared crowd. Also, they are looking to become a more competitive player in the bursting touch screen smart phone market.
Some of the announced features for Windows Mobile 7 that have caught our eye:
Excellent touch screen keyboard interface
Tabbed browsing using Internet Explorer
Shake control plays a major part in UI
Cool motion gestures for touch UI
With a major reliance on motion and touch gestures for the use of this system it is likely that this new OS will greatly change how we use our mobile phones. It will also give Windows Mobile the right stuff to get into the market and really compete with that touchscreen juggernaut the iPhone 3G.
We don’t like to start arguments around here or try to ruffle anyone’s feathers, but we’d like to bring you to the attention of a new Blackberry commercial.
The commercial advertising what we assume is the Blackberry Storm is an obvious shot at the current touch screen king, the Apple iPhone 3G.
Regardless of what side you fall on in the debate, the ad looks pretty damn cool! We’re hoping this will start an ad superwar between the two. As we all know the marketing power of Steve Jobs.
Here we start our top 5 BlackBerry Applications countdown :
5) GOOGLE MAPS: If I had to recommend just one application to add to your BlackBerry, it would have to be Google maps : Real-time traffic — Find out exactly where the traffic is and estimate delays in over 30 major US cities.Detailed directions — Whether you plan to walk or drive, your route is displayed on the map itself, together with step-by-step directions.Search for local businesses — You can search for a specific business name or a general type of business. You can even type in an address. Movable Map — It’s very easy to zoom in or out scroll side to side. Satellite imagery — Get a bird’s eye view of what you’re looking at in the map.
4) WORLDMATE LIVE: It’s simple. You send them your travel plans, they create your itinerary, automatically synced between your personal Web site and mobile device.
2) SLACKER FOR BLACKBERRY: Streaming-radio needs, packed with preprogrammed genre stations, custom stations, album art and reviews,and song skipping. The base version of the application is free, but subscription add-on services are available if you want the bells and whistles.
Do these words ring any bells for you: Solitaire, Minesweeper, MS DOS? Well get back to your roots and do it with mobility.
Some clever hacker - who perhaps has a little too much time on his/her hands - has retro fitted Windows 3.1 onto a Nokia N95 device. The screen shots are quite beautiful (unfortunately only in Polish for us Anglos) and bring back some fond memories of constant crashing and uni-tasking.
There’s no word on how to do this to your phone, but we really appreciate the sentiment.
It also begs the question why? Why? Who cares?! it looks cool and appeals to our hipster retro chic!
Does anyone have any other requests for old school OS’s to appear on mobiles? Let us know.
Motorola is a dominant force in the mobile device world, but they still haven’t made their mark in the smartphone territory. A rumored model appears to indicate that they will.
Details are scant as usual, but as seen from the pictures sourced from engadget above Motorola has plans for a full touch screen phone. Engadget Mobile reports that the phone will come with a Kodak-branded 5MP camera and sources also indicate that this may be Motorola’s first Android OS device. Making it the second brand to officially adopt the OS after HTC’s G1.
If Motorola can get this off the ground it may be the shot in the arm that they need to really make waves in the smartphone market. So far they are lagging behind in technology and cool, but a full touch screen phone such as this and also the possibility of the Android OS would give them a good chance to enter the fight.
“We’ll very much be releasing a 12MP camera phone… However, it’s important that people realise when taking 12MP images, they’ll be using huge amounts of data, and it will be more difficult to do things like send such files.”
Back then it was only available for the 8900, Storm, & Bold. Now the iStockManager is compatible with 8300 Curve and 8800 series devices.Using this application, you have access to your TD AMERITRADE account where you can check the market as well as place trades (equity & options trading). You can also access streaming data, real time balances and positions, news and more.
I think the word Google now means ubiquity, because we’re seeing it pretty much everywhere. I can’t wait until my coffee becomes full Google integrated!
But in all seriousness they’re really wrecking shop when it comes to making our mobile phone usage easier. Now they’ve done so with our Windows Mobile devices with Google Mobile. This handy app lets you start Google searches from anywhere in your phone without waiting for a browser, lets you browse your own phone for files that you need quickly and gives you speedy access to all of Google’s other features such as maps.
This greatly improves the Windows Mobile Experience and proves further the point that the future of mobile phones is software and not hardware. So check out the video below and download the app. It will work great with any HTC Windows Mobile device and we’d strongly recommend it for any Samsung i900 Omnia users.
