[Mobilepartners] External News: 12/7/2006

[Andrew Yu]

Greetings!

Thank you for those who attended Mobile Devices Presentation for IT Partners. In case you were not able to make it to the presentation, the content is available at the following URL:

http://tinyurl.com/uzlvk

I would like to solicit ideas for the next Mobile Partners Meeting (12/15). Depending on your interest, I would like to cover either one of the following topics:

Topic 1: BlackBerry Devices: General Overview

Topic 2: Mobile Web Sites: Examples, Guidelines for Coding, How to test, etc.

Please let me know which topic you would be interested in seeing by Monday (12/11).

Now for the News...

Here are some external news items regarding mobile devices:

1. Palm Licenses Palm OS Garnet Source Code (finally)
2. Consumer Reports "Best Cell-Phone Deals"
3. New Devices
4. Favorite Mobile Site


1. Palm Licenses Palm OS Garnet Source Code

Palm, Inc. extended its licensing agreement with Access (a Japanese software company that owns Palm OS via its acquisition of PalmSource last year.) that gives Palm, Inc. a *perpetual* license for the Palm OS Garnet (Palm OS 5.x) source code.

URL (Palm Infocenter): http://tinyurl.com/y2mvbl
URL (Access): http://www.access-company.com/developers/press/palm_faq.html

[IMPACT ON MIT]
Prior to this recent announcement, Palm, Inc. had license to the operating system only until 2010, leaving a lot of doubt for the future of the OS, especially since Palm, Inc. was releasing more Windows Mobile devices in recent months. Unfortunately, IMO, this does not resolve the issue of which direction Palm OS will head in the future. 

OS 5 is showing its age (i.e. the "refinement" is unlikely to include fundamental architectural change is needed to support personal certificates and multi-threading, etc.), but Palm, Inc. now has at least the option to continue selling Palm OS 5.x devices beyond 2010 and make minor refinements.

2. Consumer Reports "Best Cell-Phone Deals"

Thanks to Joni Cyr for pointing out a useful article on January 2007 edition of Consumer Reports that provide thorough review of cell-phone service, devices (including smartphones), and tips.

Full article is available on the magazine or via online with paid subscription, but here are some snippets:

Smart phones
http://tinyurl.com/y68ujo

Ratings Smart phones: 
http://tinyurl.com/vaamf

CR Quick Recommendations:
http://tinyurl.com/tnef7

Best cell service: 
http://tinyurl.com/vdgws

3. New Devices:

A. Palm Treo 750 (Cingular: Windows Mobile Pocket PC: EDGE/HSDPA):
Cingular and Palm sent me a new Treo 750 that is expected to be available to Cingular customers some time this month. The data speed on HSDPA feels faster than EV-DO (as I was downloading 2.5 MB email attachment at twice the speed compared to EV-DO enabled Palm Treo 700p side-by-side). I like the form factor of the new device along with its rubberized shell.

[IMPACT ON MIT]
Besides Treo 750, Cingular offers two other devices 8525 (Windows Mobile Pocket PC) and Samsung BlackBack (Windows Mobile Smartphone) that include HSDPA connectivity. Competition to VZW and Sprint's EV-DO has finally arrived, and we might be seeing some MIT users (especially those who travel abroad) to prefer Cingular's offering of these Windows Mobile devices.

B. Black Motorola Q to be available from Verizon Wireless in December
A refinement to the previous Q. Besides the color change, it supposedly has improved battery life and minor software updates to the original Q. 

Engadget Article Link:
http://tinyurl.com/y2hcdb

C. Cingular launched its own BlackBerry Pearl
Follow up to T-Mobile recent launch of consumer targeting BlackBerry Pearl, Cingular also announced the new device. 


4. Favorite Mobile Site:
Google Mobile
Go directly to http://mobile.google.com on your mobile device's browser.

If you already have a Google account, Google Mobile is a very useful site that allows you to access various Google services (including personalized home) that is friendly to mobile devices. If you perform Google search from the mobile site, some of the resulting pages (but not all -- that are not built for mobile sites) will be translated to be "mobile friendly" (e.g. collapsing annoying navigation menus, paginating content to make the browsing experience faster. Also, RSS feeds that you define from your desktop browser (via personalized Google site) will be available as well. (e.g. news, weather, sports, etc.).

Please do check out and enjoy!

Andrew

_______________________________________
Andrew J. Yu
Mobile Devices Platform Coordinator
Software Release Team
Information Services and Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Building W92-140B
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307

Phone: 617-324-8985
Fax: 617-258-8736
Email: AndrewYu at mit.edu
http://web.mit.edu/swrt