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“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:

AT&T Inc. and Yahoo Inc. are launching a service that lets people use Cingular mobile phones to get access to their photos, e-mail, instant messaging and address books on their Yahoo accounts, AT&T said on Tuesday.The AT&T Yahoo Go Mobile service is part of the Yahoo Go brand, the Internet media company’s push to make its services available to users on a variety of devices from mobile phones to televisions.”It’s the first kind of baby steps toward this whole concept of an anytime-anywhere device,” said Matt Davis, director of consumer multiplay services at IDC, a market research firm in Framingham, Massachusetts. The phone also includes an MP3 music player and a digital voice recorder.Go Mobile, which will be available on the Nokia 6682 mobile phone, will be sold online, in AT&T’s 13-state service area and at some Cingular Wireless stores in Austin, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; and Los Angeles. Cingular, the nation’s largest wireless company, is jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth Corp..The phone costs $199.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate from Nokia with a two-year subscription to a Cingular wireless service plan. AT&T also recommends that customers subscribe to its wireless data service. The unlimited monthly service costs about $19.99 a month, an AT&T spokesman said. via news.yahoo.com

According to market sources, Sony plans to release a version of its PSP (PlayStation Portable) using NAND flash from Samsung Electronics in the second half of this year. The PSP will feature 8GB of NAND flash, the sources stated.Although recent reports stated that Sony would opt not to use NAND flash in the next version of its PSP, and would instead use a microdrive, the sources indicated that Sony was stalling to negotiate better pricing from Samsung.When rumors circulated on February 16 that negotiations had broken down between Sony and Samsung, spot prices for 1Gbit and 2Gbit NAND flash dropped 5.3% and 3% in one day, according to the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN).Deutsche Bank was also cited by the report as commenting that the failure of Samsung and Sony to reach a supply agreement will suppress NAND flash prices further and push oversupply to 10% this year.According to data from DRAMeXchange, 8Gbit spot prices have fallen from US$39 to US$34 since Chinese New Year, while prices for 4Gbit parts have fallen from US$23.36 to US$16.60 From digitimes.com via engadget.com

What’s new in iLauncher 2.3? * Captions Support * D-Pad navigation support * Look and Feel Customization * New Menu Replacement * iLauncher Settings Enhancements * Context Menu Enhancements * New True VGA hack option This option is intended for VGA devices only! * Additional Meters Path Selection * Command-line parameter support * Installer Changes * Fullscreen Mode Changes * Bug fixes and other enhancements Read more here:

British Sky Broadcasting (Sky) and Symbian announced that BSkyB selected Symbian OS for Sky by mobile, the interactive application which puts the UK’s leading digital TV service into the hands of millions of mobile phone users. Symbian develops Symbian OS, the market-leading open mobile operating system for advanced mobile phones, also known as smartphones, which is licensed to the world’s leading handset manufacturers. Sky by mobile, offers Sky digital and Sky Bet customers an value-added way to access Sky on the move at no extra cost. Once downloaded from Sky by mobile onto an appropriate 2.5G or 3G Symbian OS phone, users are presented with a viewing guide with the same look and feel as the Sky Guide, Sky’s electronic programme guide. The Symbian OS application offers a range of TV content, including sports, entertainment, news and weather and provides access to a wide range of interactive services including personalised news, sports headlines and ‘on the fly’ betting for Sky Bet account holders. In order to handle this large volume of real-time multimedia content in an effective way the application was developed using native C++ on Symbian OS to ensure the best user experience possible without compromising quality. Symbian’s market leading position underpinned Sky’s decision to select Symbian OS as the platform on which to develop its Sky by mobile application. As of Q3 2005, 13 handset manufacturers had shipped 48 million Symbian OS phones to over 250 major networks worldwide. Gartner forecasts that by the end of 2006 smartphone sales will reach 87m with Symbian OS owning 83% of the market share at 72 million. Sky by mobile is free to Sky digital customers in the UK and Republic of Ireland who subscribe to two or more premium channels or who have a registered Sky Bet account. via phonemag.com

The new Minimo is here. That would be the latest version of the Mozilla open source browser for handhelds. It’s Version 013, and it works on smartphones and PDS that are running Windows Mobile.Building on the success of its larger-screen cousins, it offers tabs for multiple open pages and a left-side screen bar with direct links to Google, RSS sites, and other popular Web destinations. A new interface completes the facelift, which is available for free download at the Mozilla website.Some industry observers have commented that the offering won’t make much of an impact in terms of dollars and cents because the number of people running devices powered by Windows Mobile is still rather small. Given the marketing muscle of Microsoft, however, that figure seems likely to rise. The Minimo update is, however, the next step in graduation from PC Web access to full-scale mobile Web access. Check it here: via mobilemag.com

At 3GSM Congress the Taiwanese company Xcute Mobile exhibited its 3 new mobile phones – the DV50, DV80 and S50. Xcute S80 has impressive specs. It’s a slim model (9 mm) equipped with a 3-megapixel CMOS camera. It supports video capture at 30 fps. Its LTPS-LCD features 640×240 pixel resolution and up to 16M colors. Besides the S50 can play video of MPEG4, AVI, ASF and MOV, and MP3 music. There is a TV-out and an expansion slot for microSD (TransFlash) cards. Measuring 105x50x9 mm it weighs 100 g. The S50 should appear on the Taiwanese market in 3Q 2006. The DV80 and DV50 are similar in specs. Both have a 5-megapixel camera, 640x240x16M color LCD, TV-out and a slot for microSD (TransFlash) cards. The D80 is packed in a slider form and supports Bluetooth. They are expected in shops in May.

Operators and handset makers are moving toward standardizing on just a few mobile phone operating systems. They’re likely to choose relatively open platforms with large developer groups, according to experts at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona on Wednesday — but that doesn’t necessarily mean that end-users will soon be able to freely download lots of new applications, they said.Network operators are pushing handset makers to look for new operating system options on their mass market phones because the operators want to be able to sell customized handsets. Making changes to mass market phones that typically run on very old operating systems is increasingly difficult, said Peder Ulander, vice president of marketing for MontaVista Software, the developer of a Linux based operating system for mobile phones. In addition, operators want to try to standardize on just a few phone operating systems which would make it easier to offer consistent services across a wide range of devices. Vodafone Group currently supports handsets based on more than 15 different platforms, said Dirk Wierzbitzki, group director of terminals portfolio and services at Vodafone. Tweaking each application to work on each platform is expensive, and because the operator must work to the lowest common denominator, it’s not offering the innovative services that it wants, he said. As a result, Vodafone is looking to standardize on two or three platforms, he said. The company announced on Monday that the Symbian OS will be one of them. It may be some time before operators like Vodafone start pushing for Linux-based handsets, however, despite growing momentum from the Linux community for mobile products. “All big operators are considering handsets made with Linux,” said Wierzbitzki. “But there’s not one solution under the head of Linux that constitutes a phone.” He said that the Linux space is too fragmented still in the mobile market, without a single platform that provides all the components necessary to build a phone. “What’s needed is an effort to shape how Linux in mobile should work,” he said, noting that some such initiatives have already begun. Another option for low-end phones, being showcased at 3GSM, comes from Intrinsyc Software International, which offers handset makers a platform for developing mass market phones based on the core of Windows CE. Intrinsyc and Linux-based developers like MontaVista tout the large developer community that can create innovative applications for phones based on their operating systems. However, operators are at least currently reluctant to enable users to freely add new applications to their phones. “As an operator, we like openness but we want a certain degree of, I wouldn’t like to say control, but ability to innovate,” said Wierzbitzki. Operators are worried about increasing their support costs if users can download anything they want and they’re also concerned about opening up the potential for viruses, said Randy Kath, vice president of mobile software products for Intrinsyc. “But the operators will have to make that leap,” he said. Operators will need to rely increasingly on third party developers as demand grows for new types of services, he said.

E28 Limited has successfully demonstrated together with Bridgeport Networks server solution, a dual mode (GSM+WiFi) Linux smart phone performing on-line active call GSM-WiFi hand-off technology on an IMS based environment. The E28 dual mode device successfully performed GSM-WiFi seamless roaming, as well as the active call GSM-WiFi seamless hand-off.The successful demonstration makes the E28 Limited Dual Mode device the World’s First IMS capable mobile phone. The design target of this dual mode device is not to sacrifice any of the characteristics of today’s GSM single mode device in terms of – System stability, easy of use, talk and standby time, size, weight, cost and an attractive form factor. The user interface is further optimized with touch screen for easy “Data” access and navigation, as well as a number keypad for easy “Voice” dialing with a large LCD screen.It is obvious that E28 limited is right on the wave of this revolution and it proves to the world that the Fix Mobile Convergence is becoming a reality. People can be connected wherever they go, whenever they desire and at whatever cost budget they choose.The VP of Marketing & Chief Software Architect of E28 limited, Michael Chu said that E28 GSM platforms are based on TI OMAP 730 Chipset, running on Linux OS. Together with this single chip, tri-core architecture plus E28 limited’s smart phone design know-hows and Linux mobile software ensuring the compactness of the device, and sufficient performance to drive the demanding multimedia and VoIP applications. Features: Dual Mode (GSM Triband / WiFi) MontaVista Linux 262k colors screen QVGA resolution 64 MB flash memory 830 mAH battery VoIP Touchpad 1.3 megapixel camera Transflash slot Mini USB Connection MP3 player Video recording Java

” There is the only color solution – modern black color. The plastic is glossy as in Motorola MPx200. Fingerprints stick to it easily, however it’s not that noticeable. There is a groove of uneven plastic at sides, so the device rests well in hand, not slipping down. The assembly quality is high, there is no backlash. We can’t either call it monolith (plastics gives way in some places, if press there) or say we have complaints. Design has something in common with HTC Magician, the influence of the latter is obvious, the location of key elements and proportions coincide.” Read this review here: