What could this Microsoft Patent Mean?

Dial-a-Phone has posted details on a patent filed by Microsoft that looks as if it could be for some type mobile dating service. Weird huh? Read on…

An interesting patent has surfaced today indicating that Microsoft might be planning to enter the mobile dating industry. The patent, entitled Image-Based Face Search details how Microsoft could be developing complex facial recognition software. The patent explains how a photo could be uploaded from a mobile phone or PC and compared with millions of other pictures to find similar matching faces.

Imagine a dating site that allowed you to upload a photo of a certain hot celebrity and then returned profiles of all the users who looked like them?

So, if they are reading this right, and I concur that they are… you find an ex or a celebrity that you like upload the photo and get visual search results with matches that look like her? Weirder… I don’t know if I like that idea. hehe… Read more about it at Dial-a-Phone

iPhone/iPod SDK To Be Limiting… Oh Boy…

According to iLounge, they have sources that share some details about the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch SDK….

According to several sources familiar with Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch software development kit (SDK) plans, the company will use a March 6 event in Cupertino, California to formally announce a number of potentially controversial limitations on application development and publishing. Our sources spoke on the condition that their comments were not for attribution, independently confirming the following details, and offering differing opinions of their importance.

They go on to detail the following keypoints of interest…

• iTunes Store as hub
• Apple as application picker
• No accessory connectivity

Well, after reading all the Apple fans call to arms to defend these items, I can understand parts of it. You know, keeping the shady developers from creating applications that could cause harm to the device or even harvest personal information for more devious intent. I guess I can understand that, but I sure as hell hope that making the devs use their iTunes store for distribution doesn’t take money away from these developers.

I have said it before and I will admit it again. The iPhone is a great consumer phone. It’s got a few shortcomings for a business user though. The main issues I have with the iPhone, one of which is why mine collects dust in the guest bathroom, is the lack of push email support. The other major issue I didn’t like was the lack of 3rd party application support. This was to be resolved with this SDK, but it looks like Apple might stifle the creativity of developers with some of these limitations. I don’t think it will kill development for sure. The iPhone has one heck of a following already and 3rd party support is much needed.

Just hurry up and get a nice push email solution and I might have to make some choices on what phone to carry.

Source: iLounge

Office Live Workspace - first feature update

Office Live Workspace launched last December and just got it’s first update, what’s new:

• A new Activity pane to help you keep track of what’s happening in your workspaces and email notifications so you always know when the people you share with make updates. This feature is a lot of fun and makes it easy to see at glance the changes happening in your workspace and in individual documents. Now you’ll know when someone comments on your document, adds a note, or updates an important list.
• New support for adding multiple documents to your workspaces. The Add multiple documents button makes it is easier than ever to bring your documents into a workspace by browsing and selecting files from your computer or dragging and dropping files on the document uploader.
• New permalinks for sharing direct hyperlinks to your workspaces and documents. Now you can bookmark individual workspaces and items in your workspace using the “add to favorites” tool in your web browser or copy the address bar and paste those links into emails to share with others.
• A new Share workspace UI to easily invite others to your workspace. With the improved address book buttons you can quickly add people from your Windows Live addresses book (contacts from Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger) and people you have shared with before. You can also include more details in your invitation with the larger message box and choose to CC yourself on the invitation.

Besides these, other fixes and improvements have been made and the Office Live add-in has been updated.

Note on Office Live Workspace Registration:
US pre-registrants are invited into the beta on a first-come, first-served basis as quickly as possible. The service will be opened to the world and offered in other localized languages in 2008. You can pre-register at http://www.officelive.com/, when your workspace is ready you will receive an email.

Source: LiveSide.net blog

Think In Lines …but think quick! Time is Limited!

If you want a pretty cool game to play on your Pocket PC device then you want to head over to the Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine blogs and check out the post that Werner Ruotsalainen about Think In Lines ( and two other Java productivity application that you can get for free at mobile2day.de) – today only!

The time is limited … less than 12 hours remaining so you need to ACT FAST!!  You will have to register and it is in German but Werner has a link to a tutorial that you can use to figure out the registration.  Hey I did it ….that means you can!!

The following titles are offered for free (only TODAY, 02/29, Central European time – that is, you have exactly 12 hours to grab the title(s)):

Think In Lines; code: TIL100. This is ONLY for Windows Mobile Pocket PC, NOT touchscreen-less MS Smartphones, as opposed to what the mobile2day.de state: “Exzellentes Denk- und Strategiespiel für PDA und Smartphone

READ Werner’s Tutorial for registration.  It will make it a lot easier if you don’t understand German.

Werner … THANK YOU!!  I love the game!!

Find out how to get the game here

A Guided Tour of the IPAQ Classic Handheld 110

In this video, I take you through several different screens and options as I explore this WM6.0 Pocket PC.

 

Credits:

Pocket PC theme image created from the John William Waterhouse painting entitled “My Sweet Rose”

Video created using My Mobiler V1.2 & Windows Media Encoder 9.0

Mozilla Plans Mobile Firefox by Year End

Mozilla is in talks with mobile operators, plans versions of mobile Firefox for Linux and Windows Mobile by year end.

From PC World:

Mozilla is in informal talks with mobile operators about its mobile Firefox project, which the organization hopes will shake up the market as much as the introduction of the desktop browser did in 2004.

“Mozilla’s mission is to break open a closed market,” said Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla’s vice president of engineering, during a visit to London earlier this week. But “it won’t happen overnight.”

The impact, however, will be felt before year’s end. By then, Mozilla is aiming to release a mobile browser for two operating systems: embedded Linux and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.

At this point, operators and carriers “want to know how much it will cost,” Schroepfer said. That’s an easy answer: mobile Firefox will be free, Schroepfer said.

But the introduction of a free mobile browser is potentially threatening to some operators. Some handset manufacturers and carriers rigidly control applications and services, maximizing their revenue by creating so-called “walled gardens” where only their own for-fee services can be accessed.

[Read more]

Hurry up and Enroll at Abilene Christian University and get an iPhone or iPod Touch!

Thanks James for reminding me about this. I have starred this story with Google Reader 2 other times already, but with all the work on the site I have been doing, I had not had a chance to share.

Anyhow, Freshmen at Abilene Christian University will get an iPhone or iPod touch for learning purposes…

An Apple iPhone or iPod touch will become a central part of Abilene Christian University’s innovative learning experience this fall when all freshmen are provided one of these converged media devices, said Phil Schubert, ACU executive vice president.

I am pretty sure that they are paying for it via tuition anyhow, but at least they don’t have to talk mom and dad into it in addition to tuition. Either way, it’s pretty cool. I love seeing technology being used for learning.

Sources in order of bookmarking: Gear Diary, Crunchgear, and JKontheRun

locr and Skyhook Wireless to Jumpstart Geo-Tagging

Partnership the First to Bring Accurate Wi-Fi Positioning to Photo Market

locr, the geo-tagging focused photo-sharing community, and Skyhook Wireless, provider of the Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS), today announced a partnership to bring Wi-Fi positioning to locr’s geo-tagging community. This ground-breaking partnership will bring location awareness for photos to millions of Wi-Fi handsets and also improve the accuracy and availability of location information for a significant number of existing locr users. locr and Skyhook Wireless will be demonstrating this technology next week at CeBIT 2008, hall 15, booth D34.

“Geo-tagging, or marking photos with precise location information, is poised to move into the mainstream,” said IMS Research Analyst Matia Grossi. “Today, camera and cell phone makers are exploring ways to support geo-tagging in their devices.”

One innovative way to bring location capabilities to devices is GPS. However, GPS can sometimes have issues with coverage indoors and with accuracy in urban environments and around tall buildings. Combining Skyhook Wireless’ Wi-Fi Positioning System along with GPS addresses many of these problems by optimizing location accuracy, coverage, and time to fix in the environments where GPS is weakest. In addition, the WPS provides geo-tagging capabilities for devices that support Wi-Fi but do not have other location technology.

[Read more]

ABI Research: Mobile WiMAX Faces a Diminishing Time-to-Market Advantage

Service providers with the right spectrum, available capital, and access to enough sites to place base stations are in a great position to take advantage of WiMAX’s headstart on the 4G market. But LTE (Long-Term Evolution) and UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband) are vying for 4G as well – and even though mobile WiMAX has a time-to-market advantage over LTE, delays in certifications by the WiMAX Forum (coupled with delays in network rollouts) could narrow that window of opportunity.

ABI Research is confident that UMB will not gain traction, as the true battle for 4G blossoms between mobile WiMAX and LTE.

“The biggest opportunity for mobile WiMAX is the chance to develop a wider device ecosystem and worldwide subscriber base before LTE starts to do the same,” says ABI Research principal analyst Philip Solis. “However, LTE remains a potential threat to WiMAX since 3GPP-backed LTE will become the dominant 4G technology and is progressing quickly toward standardization. Additionally, LTE is seeing early trials take place while moving into TDD (as well as FDD) spectrum territory.”

GSM-based networks represent the primary radio access network technology deployed, with over 80% of the installed base of base stations worldwide; so WCDMA networks generally will migrate to LTE (with Verizon Wireless being a notable exception). Eventually, this will translate to wider deployment at a faster rate than WiMAX. ABI Research forecasts that LTE subscriber numbers will surpass mobile WiMAX subscribers after 2015.

Around the same time that LTE rolls out, 802.16m, or WiMAX 2.0, will make its way into products. Just like LTE, 802.16m will be part of the IMT-Advanced set of technologies.

[Read more]

LG Glimmer - a quick look

There was a post on HowardForums by a user that put up two links for pictures showing the LG Glimmer that Alltel Wireless will carry. 

Some of the features of this device will include:

• Touch screen with haptic feedback (vibration on touch)
• Large 240 by 400 display
• Slider reveals number and text entry
• Extremely thin compared to other touch screens
• 2 Megapixel phone

Specs after the break

[Read more]

Datastick Ships handheld SiteConnex VSA-2215

First Handheld Vibration Analyzer with Integrated Internet-Enabled Smartphone in a Single Instrument

Datastick Systems, Inc., announced today the first customer shipment of its handheld SiteConnex VSA-2215 Vibration Spectrum Analyzer, which allows machine maintenance personnel to collect and view vibration waveform and spectra measurement data, email measurement data, converse on the VSA smartphone, and send an receive e-mails or text messages.

“We believe this to be the first handheld vibration analyzer with an integrated, Internet-enabled smartphone in a single instrument,” said Penny Melrose, Datastick CEO. “The VSA-2215 enables immediate connectivity between inspection site and decision site for fast collaboration, so technicians, decision-makers, and consultants can work together seamlessly.”

The VSA-2215 SiteConnex Vibration Spectrum Analyzer and Collaboration system is a high-performance handheld vibration analyzer/data collector with a maximum frequency of 20,000 Hz and FFT resolution of up to 3,200 lines, and uses a Palm® Treo™ smartphone. It joins Datastick’s VSA-1215 Vibration Spectrum Analyzer for the Palm TX handheld computer, and its recently announced VSA-1225 for the Hewlett Packard hx2400-series or hx2700-series handheld Pocket PC running Windows Mobile®, due to ship in March.

[Read more]

Microsoft cutting price of Vista

I read the news today in another Spanish site and I ran to find a confirmation in any other site and here is what I found at BBC News.

Although no exact date has yet been given, Microsoft said price cuts would be introduced in 70 countries.

In the US, the cost of the most expensive version, Vista Ultimate, will be reduced to $319 (£161) from the current retail price of $399.

I have to say that as MVP I have transmitted to Microsoft my concern about the excessive and abusive prices on all Microsoft products. Prices that are pushing OEMs to find other solutions from the point of view of Operating System installed. There are even OEMs that have been selling their products without any OS to make them more appealing. And I have the experience that products that were very hard to sell with Microsoft OS became best sellers as soon as they were sold without OS.

The time where Microsoft could do something to have their OS in all OEM machines sold around the world is over and it’s time for Microsoft to understand that. There are more and more machines coming out with Linux.  And they are being sold. The time when Microsoft could stand and say that they have the best OS in the World and that was the reason why it was installed in 100% of all computers sold is over. Today users are glad to go with something “less perfect” but a lot cheaper. Less pretty but cheaper. They prefer to go with Linux instead of Vista or they prefer to install Open Office than Office. In both cases they do the job and they do it right, which is more important.

I’m glad that you are listening Microsoft because personally I love you… 

SanDisk Cruzer Fleur USB Flash Drive 8GB

Cruzer Fleur USB flash drives are designed specially for women. The sleek, feminine, cap-less design, make it ideal for women of all ages. Cruzer USB flash drives are fun and easy to use. Just plug the drive into your USB port and you’re ready to go. Store all your digital documents, pictures, video clips and MP3 files and take it with you, wherever you go.

Features:

• Sliding cap design to prevent lost caps
• U3 Smart enabled. For a list of U3 compatible PC programs, go to www.U3.com
• Hi-Speed USB 2.0 certified (backwards compatible with all USB 1.1 ports)
• Compatible with Windows® 2000 SP4, XP and Mac OS X v10.1.2+*
• Certified Windows® 2000 SP4, XP and Mac OS X \

^* U3 functionality only supported on Windows 2000 & XP OS

Note: 1 megabyte (MB) = 1 million bytes; 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes. Some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions, and thus is not available for data storage

Suggested retail price $79.99

Source: SanDisk

Resco releases Resco MobileBusiness Toolkit for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 add-on for mobile application developers.

Resco, a supplier of advanced developer tools and components for mobile devices, today announced availability of Resco MobileBusiness Toolkit, a Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 add-on for mobile application developers, especially Sales Force Automation/Field Service application creators and Enterprise Resource Planning/Customer Relationship Management integrators. The resulting mobile application can be run on rich variety of Windows Mobile-based Smart phones.

“We understand that developer companies tend to use suitable software components to speed up the development and thus reduce the costs” said Radomr Vozr, director of Resco, Enterprise Solutions. “By releasing Resco MobileBusiness Toolkit we provide the developer community a well-documented solution dedicated for mobile business application development which can be easily customized using the features of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.”

The whole solution consists of:

• MobileForms Toolkit — set of versatile Visual Studio 2008 controls for the Microsoft .NET Framework designed specifically for mobile devices.
• MobileBusiness Controls — set of Visual Studio2008 user controls that demonstrate how to solve typical problems that developers of mobile business applications run into. MobileBusiness Controls are provided with the Microsoft Visual C# source code.
• MobileBusiness Forms — set of forms which serve as a container for MobileBusiness Controls as well as other components which all together create MobileBusiness mobile application. MobileBusiness Forms are provided with the Visual C# source code.

“Microsoft is pleased to see that Resco created a solution using Visual Studio 2008 that helps developers build basics of a mobile business application,” said Jay Roxe, group product manager for Visual Studio, Developer Division, at Microsoft Corp. “By using the features of Visual Studio 2008, Resco MobileBusiness Toolkit demonstrates how simple it can be to fit a mobile application to particular requirements.”

Resco MobileBusiness Toolkit is now available. The Standard Edition is priced at $1,799.95, the Professional Edition at $3,599.95, and the Enterprise Edition at $5,399.95. Resco offers this product with 1 year of free support and upgrades.

For more information, please visit http://www.resco.net/developer/mobilebusinesstoolkit/overview.aspx.

Source: Resco press release

Bluetooth Stereo headphones… only 10 quid!

Last year I thought i’d got a fantastic bargain… A pair of Jabra 320S bluetooth stereo headphones for £20.

 

This year you can go £10 better and get a pair of A2DP stereo earbuds (which you can plug your own headphones into) for only £10 including delivery.

Bluetooth compliance: Bluetooth 1.2 supporting A2DP and AVRCP profiles, headset (HSP) and hands-free (HFP) profiles Supported Bluetooth profiles: Handsfree (default) and Headset Bluetooth profiles.

 

• Supported special features: Pair with up to 8 devices, Answer calls, End calls, Reject calls, Voice dialing, Last number redialing, Call waiting, Place call on hold and Mute.
• Standard 3.5 mm plug to connect with your favourite headphones
• Phone and Music remote control in one clothing clip
• 2 different wearing styles: integrated clothing clip and lanyard carrying strap

Operating range: Up to 10 metres (30 feet)

• Talk time/music streaming: Up to 6h (subject to phone)
• Stand-by time: Up to 160h
• Charging time: Approximately 2 hour

For full details pop over to the Orange website

http://www.orangeaccessories.co.uk/bt320_stereo_bluetooth_headset.html