Author: pdasnews

A Swiss company has published a datasheet for a dual-mode Linux smartphone that also integrates a GPS (global positioning system) receiver, WiFi, and Bluetooth. ImCoSys says its smartphone, a quad-band GSM design with a PDA-like form-factor, will be showcased next month at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany.The ImCoSys phone is based on a Texas Instruments OMAP 730 processor, the datasheet says. The same chip was used in another dual-mode Linux phone announced by E28 at 3GSM last month.The ImCoSys phone has 64MB each of RAM and Flash. It also has an SD Card slot, which can be used to load maps or expand storage, the company says. The ImCoSys phone sprouts a plethora of radios, including: * Quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900) with GPRS Class 10 and CSD modems * 802.11b WiFi, with WPA support * Bluetooth 1.2 * GPS receiverThe phone has a PDA-like “transflective” LCD-TFT touchscreen display supporting 262K colors and QVGA (240×320) resolutions. Listed connectivity options include a USB port, and, interestingly, an RS232 serial port. The device also supports external GPS and GSM antennas, the datasheet says.The ImCoSys phone measures 4.9 x 2.5 x 0.7 inches (125 x 64 x 18mm), and uses a lithium-ion battery of unspecified size.On the software side, the ImCoSys phone runs a Linux 2.4.20 kernel, along with user-interface software supporting German, English, French, Italian, and Spanish. Touted software features include a Web/WAP 2.0 browser, Java runtime (MIDP 2.0), push/pop/smtp email client, SMS/MMS message client, calendar, calculator, world clock, and memo applications. via linuxdevices.com

Mio technology has unveiled its plans for the upcoming CeBIT show, which will take place from 9 to 15 of March. The company plans to introduce a series of GPS-devices. The Mio C710 and Mio C510E are specialized GPS-navigators. They are similar in design and main specs. Both of them are powered by Windows CE .Net 4.2, equipped with microphones and support Bluetooth interface. The Mio C710 has more digital maps of Europe TeleAtlas onboard, it supports TMC function to track traffic conditions.

The Mio C210 is positioned as a simple navigator. It doesn’t support either Bluetooth or TMC. It is also powered by Windows CE .Net 4.2. A map of just one European region in installed.

The Mio H610 features extended multimedia functionality. Besides its battery ensures 17 hours of MP3 music playback. There are plenty of of TeleAtlas maps onboard.

The Mio P550 is not just a navigator, but a handheld PC. It is powered by a 400 MHz processor and Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system. It has Bluetooth interface and supports Wi-Fi wireless networks, so you can use it for Internet-telephony. There is an expansion slot for SD and MMC cards. Unlike the P550 the P350 handheld doesn’t support Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Besides there will be introduced a long-awaited GPS-smartphone Mio A701. It works on Intel 520 MHz processor and Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system. It is equipped with an expansion slot for SD and MMC cards, a 1.3-megapixel camera and Bluetooth interface.

There’s a nice review of Civilization over at AllAboutSymbian- “I’m not Douglas Adams, but I’m more than happy to paraphrase a really good line from the late, great man… “Civilization is big. Really big. I mean, you may think that Pathway to Glory was involved, but that’s nothing compared to Civilization.” To sum up Civ (to give it its weekday name), you’ve in control of the Earth, rather like a god. You start with massive empty rolling fields, and by building infrastructure, managing resources, and exploring other areas of the world, you can eventually achieve your aim of either landing the first settler on Alpha Centauri, or achieve complete domination in the world by conquering all the other civilizations on Earth.” via clieuk.co.uk.0>

We are pleased to announce the new release “VoiceDialIt” for Palm Treo 600/650 smartphones. This new release includes all dialing features from the older Voice Dialer Std and Voice Dialer Pro versions. In addition, we have added improvements to the Voice Recognition Engine and User Interface. To learn more about “VoiceDialIt 1.1.0” and see a Quick Start Video please click HERE.Benefits :* Allows you to dial with just your voice.* Saves monthly fees for telephony voice dialing services.* Helps prevent accidents while driving.* Keeps you focused on who you are dialing, not how you are dialing.

LG KC8100 will run the Windows Mobile V5.0 Pocket PC Premium O/S on its 520MHz Xscale processor. Bundled software include standard MS Word, Powerpoint, and Outlook. With its wireless LAN support, access Wi-Fi hotspots anywhere. The two cameras on the phone are a main 2-megapixel camera with auto-focus and a secondary VGA Camera. Embedded with 100MB internal memory add more with a mini SD card. Also inclusive is Molans’ language learning assistant program. via ubergizmo.com

Treo’s built-in web browser, Blazer could sure use some sprucing up, and the folks at Opera Software say they have just the thing, Opera Mini, for use on some Treo SmartPhones. Technically, however, Mini is not a browser. It’s a Java client – big gotcha – that retrieves re-formatted, compressed pages from an Opera-savvy server. Most recent cell phone models have a small Java client built in, so Opera Mini, at about 200k, can reside in a phone’s memory. Ironically, Treo 650, a high end smartphone, does not ship with a Java client, and adding one – also mercifully free – chews up almost 2 MB, a high cost to replace Treo’s native Blazer. Actually, you can’t really “replace” Blazer, since it’s in ROM, but rather you can just ignore it and install a third party replacement and use that instead. Blazer doesn’t really “blaze,” and Opera’s potential strength is its server-side compression, which could greatly reduce the number of bytes transmitted. Translate that to smaller files, faster download, lower cost, especially if you’re on a metered data plan instead of unlimited data. Other gotchas get in the way, however, not the least of which is that the program doesn’t yet support Verizon and some other phones/networks. (For a current list of what is supported, see this page. Read this review here:

“We strive for order in our personal and professional lives and one of the tools we use is a personal digital assistant or PDA. PDA’s come with a multitude of software applications to help us keep track of mundane yet important information we might otherwise try to store in our heads or on post-it notes. Although I personally never used them, post it notes adorn my monitor and desk as others find it necessary to give them to me as gentle reminders of my inability to remember such things.. In order to appeal to the masses, the software that comes with a PDA (Palm) is designed to be easy. And to a point, limited. The programs are a great way to learn how to use a digital assistant, but in most cases, eventually you’ll need something more. Since starting using a PDA I have become more organized. Or at least I now have a place to put all of this “important” information and can get to it easily and quickly when needed. I have used a lot of programs that claim to be better at organizing my schedule. Most of them (if they are still being developed regularly) are still around in some form or another and, like my kids, are growing larger, and at times, work about as well. One of the newer programs I found is TMP (Time Manager Pad). TMP may not be as well know as some of the other programs, however, it is one of those unique programs you can’t ignore because the developer has taken the key element of the palm software (easiness) and improved it. And I have found what I think is a nice piece of software.” Read this nice review here:

Some people have said that this is what the iPod Video should have been. Unlike so many other tasty gadgets we hear about being released somewhere in Asia, the Viliv P1 Portable Media Player is actually coming to the United States. It was originally released to the Korean market last summer. Developed by Yukyung Technologies, the Viliv P1 comes with a good-sized 4-inch widescreen TFT display, which can show off everything from Macromedia Flash to MPEG 1/2/4. If the 30 gigabytes of on-board memory isn’t enough for you, you can throw in a compact flash card to keep the “unlimited excitement” (as labelled under the screen) going. Audio support comes in the way of MP3s, WMAs, and even OGGs, as well as FM radio reception.Battery life is pretty good, with 6 hours of video viewing, or 11 hours of audio. This DivX and Xvid playing PMP should be hitting American and Canadian shelves sometime this March. via mobilemag.com

“A year ago our readers had a chance to take a closer look at the first handset, featuring a 5 mpix camera – particularly it was Samsung SCH-S250. Today we’re offering you one more review of another device with 5 mpix camera onboard – this time manufactured by LG. This very model has a number of indexes, e.g. LG SV550 – non-operator index, and the mobile operators gave it the name of LG KV5500, LG LP5500 (LG TeleCom). The core difference between the latter two devices is the menu’s appearance and the label itself, but not the functionality. Since the version we are currently reviewing has been released for LG Telecom mobile operator, we will accordingly use LG LP5500 index.” Read this great review at mobile-review.

P901iTV, in black(Click to enlarge)Panasonic is shipping a Linux-based mobile handset capable of receiving digital or analog television. The “P901iTV” features a pivoting 2.5-inch color LCD, and works with NTT DoCoMo’s 3G network in Japan. Digital TV services will launch in Japan this spring, DoCoMo says.Panasonic jointly developed its Linux mobile phone stack with NEC, which also supplies phones for NTT DoCoMo’s 3G networks. Panasonic (Matsushita) and NEC have both invested in MontaVista, and use its Linux OS in a variety of mobile phone designs, such as the new dual-mode 902-series DoCoMo phones. DoCoMo is also a MontaVista investor. The P901iTV runs MontaVista Linux, a MontaVista spokesman confirmed.NTT DoCoMo says the P901iTV is its first mobile handset to receive terrestrial digital broadcasting signals, as well as conventional analog signals. It says the phone was created “in response to the planned launch of mobile digital broadcasting in April 2006.”The P901iTV features a 2.5-inch QVGA (320 x 240 pixel) TFT (thin-film transistor) LCD supporting 262K colors. The display actuates the TV receiver when it is pivoted sideways, and the display can also be twisted and folded open against the rest of the wallet-like phone. Panasonic claims that up to three hours of continuous digital TV viewing is possible, or up to one hour of analog TV viewing. More at linuxdevices.com