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Now that we've reached the end of another calendar, in continuing a tradition I started in 2003, below is a review of my 10 predictions for 2009 and an assessment of how accurate I was on each one.

1) Microsoft Launches Windows 7 to Fanfare, Skepticism
Microsoft's two pillars of financial solvency -- Windows and Office -- have been standing on shaky ground recently. Office 2007 was a decent hit, despite it not offering much new and causing significant backward compatibility issues. But Windows Vista, on the other hand, has been an unmitigated disaster. Microsoft even had to resort to tricking users into liking Vista (Mojave, anyone?), it had developed such a bad reputation. Windows 7 will be launched late in 2009 to a general consensus of "it's better," but will not be the "wow" that Microsoft needs to regain the market share it has recently ceded to Apple. But maybe that's a good thing...having strong competitors is usually a good thing for consumer markets.

When Windows 7 was officially launched October 22nd, by any measure, it came out to positive reviews and very good, if not great, sales. Of course, following a dog of a product like Vista will go a long way towards creating pent-up demand, so it wasn't unexpected. However, if you went by the press and hype, you'd think Microsoft was the underdog to Apple instead of still appearing on about 93% of all desktops. Windows 7 has slowed the slight shift towards OS X, but it's not clear yet that any ground is being made up.  Ironically, the best thing to happen to Windows in 2009 may have been the explosion of netbooks (more on that below).

2) Blockbuster Declares Bankruptcy
This may be a bit "out there," but I see exceedingly tough times at Blockbuster. And this isn't vindictiveness...I've been a reasonably happy Blockbuster.com customer for several years, now. I just think that, given the state of its business (poor), the weakness in the economy (near-critical), the nature of its service (luxury), and the rapidity with which that industry is transforming, I think Blockbuster will file for bankruptcy protection to get out of some of its debt, sell off some property (store locations that aren't faring well), and reinvest that into developing newer and more attractive services. So, they aren't going away...yet.

After spending much of 2009 desperately raising capital and refinancing its debt, Blockbuster is trying a variety of tactics to stave off its own demise at the hands of an increasingly varied assortment of competitors.  Netflix and piracy, Blockbuster's perennial nemeses, are joined by Redbox in stressing the company's sweaty grip on life even further.  However, per part of my prediction, Blockbuster announced in early 2009 that it would be closing 128 physical stores.  That number was massively expanded late in 2009 to closer to 1,000 stores.  Additionally, Blockbuster is launching a large kiosk initiative.  It's amazing how consistently the company does exactly what its competitors do, but 2-3 years later.  However, Blockbuster did not enter into any form of bankruptcy during 2009, so I'm declaring this one a failed prediction.

3) Palm Launches New OS to Fanfare, Skepticism
We've all heard the rumors that Palm will be launching "Nova," its replacement for the ancient Palm OS, at CES 2009 in a few days. I'm pretty sure that's going to happen. I'm also pretty sure that Palm will have at least one new device, if not several, running the new OS available by the end of June. While launching phones can take a while, given the carriers' lengthy testing requirements, launching a PDA doesn't, so Palm could certainly come out with two (or more) non-phone PDAs running Nova pretty quickly. And it needs to...the TX is older than my grandmother (at least in technology years). Generally, I predict there will be more nice things said about Nova, and the new devices, than critical, and it will stack up fairly competitively with Android and WM 6.5. What I do not have a lot of faith in is Palm's ability to develop and deliver the ecology of services (e.g., app stores) that customers are now expecting their smartphones to be integrated into. Time will tell on that front.

As we all now know, Nova was introduced as Palm webOS in January, 2009 at CES.  The first device running webOS was the Palm Pre, a nifty portrait QWERTY slider with HVGA multitouch screen.  Also during 2009, a second webOS device, the Palm Pixi, was announced and launched.  However, surprisingly, there were no non-phone webOS devices released.  In hindsight, I guess that makes sense, as Palm just doesn't have the resources (technical or financial) to launch 3+ separate devices in a single year.  Looking back, it's pretty clear that webOS and the Pre were well-received.  In fact, the Pre was the only smartphone to make it onto Twitter's Top-10 Trending Topics list for 2009, something neither the iPhone 3G S nor the Motorola Droid accomplished.  The two frustrating bits for Palm in 2009 have been Sprint's performance as a sole-carrier partner (in the US) for its new devices and the slow growth of the App Catalog.  However, both of these should be resolved in 2010...for Palm's sake, I hope so.

4) Blu-Ray Players Hit $99
During 2009, I think we'll see a raft of Korean and Taiwanese off-brand manufacturers launch budget Blu-Ray players. Just like the 2008 holiday sales saw BD players hit $149 in some stores, 2009 holiday sales will see them hit $99...if not sooner.

As I type this, Wal-Mart is selling a Magnavox NB500MG1F Blu-Ray Player for $98.00.  While it's just a Magnavox, it does meet the minimum criteria for confirming this prediction.

5) Apple Launches a Tablet to Fanfare
This has been a persistent rumor for years, but I think 2009 will see it actually happen. Why? A few reasons. First, Apple is looking to multi-touch as a key differentiator in its product lines, and having a full-screen, large-display MT device would make total sense. Second, it fits perfectly with the needs of the "creative class," Apple's core customer base. And third, it fills out a hole in their mobile product line that netbooks and other devices not running OS X fill nicely, and that's not a good thing for Apple. So, the technology is ready, the market is willing...and now I think Apple will be able to meet the demand.

Ha ha ha ha...um, no.  While many, many individuals would love for that to happen (if only as additional blog fodder), Apple has not announced anything.  However, there is feverish excitement in OS X fanboy camps about the iSlate being launched at an Apple event in January, 2010.  Or not.

6) Consolidation in the Entertainment Industry
2009 will be a strange year on a lot of dimensions. Not only will the stock market be hard to predict, there will be a lot of odd relationships come out of the mess. One industry that is still poised to make things happen is the entertainment industry, where I expect we'll see larger firms (e.g., major movie studios) start to acquire smaller, but very successful, examples from the newer media (e.g., game producers). A good example of the type of transaction I'm imagining would be Vivendi acquiring Ubisoft. I think Time Warner would love to swallow up Electronic Arts, but that might be a bit too big a bite unless something untoward happens to EA's stock price over the next year.

There were a number of major entertainment industry mergers and acquisitions in 2009.  One biggie was Disney scooping up Marvel Entertainment (comic books & movies) for $4 billion. While this deal hasn't been finalized, signs point to it going through. Another deal was the spin-off and merger involving Liberty Media Entertainment and DirecTV.  Is this a baby Time Warner in the making?  Hard to say, but I doubt it.  These two deals pale in comparison to what might turn out to be a merger of tectonic proportions:  Comcast buying 51% of NBC Universal.  If this goes through (in 2010), it will continue the trend of the same companies controlling the pipes and content, which could will cause consumers serious headaches in the years to come.  Or, they'll just continue to ignore the networks more and more and, instead, turn to the Internet for socially constructed content.  In that case, pray for net neutrality...it'll be our only hope.

7) Steve Jobs Announces Transition to New Role
I think concerns over Jobs' health have more merit than most of us want to admit. In 2009, I expect him to announce that he's transitioning into a different role than President and CEO of Apple (and CEO of Pixar). Something that keeps him out of the spotlight while he deals with his health issues will be valuable to keep Apple's stock price up and customer base intact. The move towards reducing his presence in near-term product launches is consistent with this strategy. But, he's far from gone...his influence will still be felt behind the scenes, but we'll see less of him in his traditional role as Apple poster boy.

Despite many people calling me a pessimist, an Apple-hater, and worse, I stood by this prediction.  On January 5, 2009, Sir Jobs sent out this infamous note claiming that his health issues were minor and transient.  But then, just a few days later, he followed up with a bombshell that he was much sicker than that and he'd be leaving until mid-year.  Given his absence at keynotes and overall behavior reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz ("pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"), his role has clearly changed.  And I take no joy in being right; Jobs is clearly a genius and consumer electronics is better off with him at the height of his abilities.  I look forward to him giving the keynote at WWDC in June, 2010.

8) Facebook Membership Growth Flattens; Twitter Surges
Signs are pointing towards Facebook's popularity beginning to peak. Just as with everything social, when moms and dads begin to frequent the coffee shop, the kids need a new place to hang out. Facebook currently has almost 40 million members in the US. While that number has been skyrocketing since it opened up membership to anyone in September 2006, I think 2009 will see a marked deceleration in its growth. The loss of perceived exclusivity and the hassle of the relatively unprotected app space will combine to make it less appealing to many long-time users and new prospects will find fewer people urging them to get on board. Twitter, however, will see continued growth as it continues to tweak and adapt its environment to meet its core users' needs.

While I'm counting this as a miss, it's actually 50% true.  Facebook's growth did not slow significantly as I'd predicted, but Twitter certainly did have the surge I thought was inevitable.

Let's look at some graphs:

You'll notice that Facebook's growth is pretty continuous up until late 2009, where some outages and privacy issues potentially took away from its momentum.  Now, Twitter...

This is a dramatic acceleration in Twitter's reach.  2009 will clearly go down in history as the year of Twitter.  In fact, Google and Microsoft so believed in it that they both inked deals to include Twitter's stream in their search engines as real-time results.

9) App Stores Dominate Mobile Software Delivery
iPhone's app store, Android's market...these types of bazaars, managed by the sponsors/manufacturers of the mobile operating systems, are coming to be the dominant mode for software distribution to mobile users. It marks a significant break from the traditional model, where mobile developers could sell software from their own sites, through 3rd party aggregators, and through carriers. This new approach is more streamlined, making it easier for users, but also more controlled, which can make it harder to accommodate large and complex ecosystems. The fact that each of the existing app stores serves a relatively small market is why we haven't seen these problems emerge to a point where they start driving users away. 2009 will see continued movement towards these controlled markets and away from the free-form/multi-channel models that previous mobile generations (e.g., Palm OS, Windows Mobile) relied on.

Undoubtedly true. Apple paved the way with this new model and, by the end of 2009, the existence of a robust app store is a requirement for any smartphone platform to be considered a contender. Apple's App Store recently passed 100,000 apps while Android's App Market has around 15,000 titles.  Palm's App Catalog just left beta status and is closing in on 1,000 apps.  In 2009, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and Symbian app catalogs were all launched as well.  Clearly, this is the dominant mobile app distribution model for the foreseeable future.

10) Line Blurs between "Netbooks" and Notebooks/Laptops
Netbooks are currently a fairly homogeneous, and well-defined, niche of laptop computers. Most of them have an Intel Atom processor, a screen from 8.9" to 10" in size, no optical drive, weigh between 2.2 and 3 lbs, and cost $300-$500. There's a big gap in pricing then between these netbooks and the subnotebooks/ultraportables that often have slightly larger screens, way more RAM and processing power, and cost $1,500 or more. To paraphrase the old adage, markets abhor a vacuum, so I expect we'll start seeing all manner of new small notebooks come into the market in this $500-$1000 range sporting screens in the 9"-12" range with anything from 512MB to 2GB of RAM, a variety of operating systems (XP and Linux will continue to be most popular), and a range of processing and display capabilities. Not everyone needs to play Crysis on their notebook, but not everyone can get by with a 1024x600 screen and do everything inside their browser.

This was evident even early on in 2009, and now, at year's end, the trend is clearly supportive. While initial netbooks were all burdened with screens in the 8"-9" range, recently announced models have 11" and even 12" screens.  Surprisingly, the prices we're willing to pay for netbooks is increasing, too (clear up to $1,500 if you consider the impressively engineered Sony Vaio X).  Sure, it could just be that our definition of "netbook" is expanding.  But, it's hard to argue that the line between netbook and notebook is getting pretty diffused. 

So, looking back, my record for 2009 seems to be 7 right, 3 wrong...about in line with last year. Some of these were hard to determine, as I had packed in several related predictions into a single item, something I'll try not to do when I post my predictions for 2010 in the next day or two. Until then, let me know what you think in the comments below. 

Thanks, and have a great New Year!

Hottest Free Shipping MP5 recommendation: Teclast T51 PMP Audiophile Quality MP5 Player - 8GB

Gemei HD8800 Full HD PMP Player with HDMI TV-out and OTG Function - 8GB

The HD8800 is that it offers true 1080 HD (1920×1080 screen resolution) in a PMP format, has up to a 50mbps video stream and the 8GB version. It has HDMI output and can play audio (MP3 and iTunes) and video (AVI, DVDA, MKV, MP4, MPG, Realtime, MOV, Flash and WMA).

Gemei HD8800 MP5 Player Specification:

Model	HD8800(8G)
Memory	8G
Storage Media	Flash
Battery	2000 milliamperes lithium batteries
Life	Plug headphones 5 hours movie playback, 10 hours music playback
Expansion Card	Maximum support 32G TF card
Transmission Interface	USB 2.0 interface
Display System
Screen Size	4.3 inch
Screen Features	800 × 480 resolution, high-definition screen LTPS
Supported Languages	Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, English
Synchronized lyrics display	To support synchronous lyrics display function
Photo View	Support JPG, BMP, PNG and other image formats to view and support the Rotary / Slide Show
Text-reading	Support the text-reading capabilities in support of TTS voices in Chinese and English reading, support change font, font color, background color, the Bookmarks feature, support while listening to music, watching pictures look e-books and other functions
Video system
Support video formats	Support for RMVB, RM, FLV (H.263, H.264), AVI, DAT, VOB, MKV (H.264), WMV, TS, TP, MP4, PMP and so on for more than 30 formats, network all the video files of the next -play
Video playback	480P to 1080P Full HD support for any video encoding format
Video Output	HDMI 480P to 1080P Full HD output and normal AV Output
Other video parameters	Decoder chip: Chinachip CC09
Audio system
Support audio formats	mp3 , wma , ape , flac , wav
Audio	Unique 3D virtual sound field, a variety of EQ sound modes
Recording	MP3, WAV audio format
Functional FM	Support FM function of the frequency range 76-108MHZ
Speaker	Pairs of left and right channel speaker outposting
Additional features
Camera	Non
Digital companion function	Supports
Additional features	Support for song search; support for dual-threaded operation; support firmware upgrade function; video break added broadcast are free to change the background themes to customize your desktop, change the font color, picture browsing / rotation, radio stations a list of unique features such as timing off set
Other parameters
Headset Description	3.5mm stereo headphone output
Specifications	111.7×75.2×14.3mm
Accessories	USB cable, headphones, manual, warranty card

Gemei HD8800 MP5 Player Package Contains :

• 1 x Gemei HD8800 MP5 Player
• 1 x USB cable
• 1 x TV-out cable
• 1 x HDMI cable
• 1 x remote control
• 1 x charger
• 1 x Earphones
• 1 x case
• 1 x Instruction manual

Hello, Dear Craig, Gemei factory has been upgrade the HD8800 chipset and firmware, this caused the delay of the shipment, the estimated shipping date is 25th, Oct, we are so sorry for any inconvnience, you will receive the player as soon as possible. Kindly regards.

Dear Customer:

       Our manufacturer gemei has been received your orders, and all of them are in schedule to ship out in the soonest time. We are upgrading HD8800 firmware and fix some bugs to ensure the good quality of products, so, the latest shipment will expect to arrange on 30th, Oct. We will also try to ship them out as soon as possible.

       For all our Gemei HD8800 customers can receive a free strap gift together with the player, and also, you will get a free reseller membership on ownta.com once we shipped out it. So, you will get reseller prices for all your future orders.

       We are so sorry about the unexpected delay, and rely on your understanding. Ownta.com will always dedicate to provide the best products and best service, if you have any  problems, please feel free contact us at any time.

       Thank you so much & Kindly regards,

 

Arlene, L

Customer Service Department,

http://www.ownta.com

My Palm Real Reviewer stint, which lasts for about 6 months, started a couple weeks ago. The device they currently have me using is the Palm Pre, the first smartphone running Palm's all-new webOS handheld operating system.

As a long-time (since early 1996) veteran of Palm OS devices -- really, I can honestly say that I can count on two hands the number of days since May of 1996 that I've gone without relying on a Palm OS device for something -- adapting to an entirely new platform had me a bit apprehensive. But, as Palm OS is going the way of OS/2 and CP/M, I'm forced to move to something, and the Pre is pretty enticing. So, this is my first attempt at summarizing some of the highs and lows of the Palm Pre and webOS, especially as it compares to my previous phone, the Palm Centro.

1. Man, the Palm Pre is teensy! Coming from Treos weighing down my pants over the past several years, I thought the Centro was rather petite, but the Pre makes the Centro look downright beefy. Shorter, narrower, thinner, and lighter, the Pre is very compact and feels nice in the hand.

2. The slider is a bit of a hassle. Having been on Treos and a Centro since the Treo 300 first came out in late 2002, I've gotten used to having a physical QWERTY keyboard on my phone. In fact, that's reason #1 why I didn't consider getting an iPhone. Having used one (my sister's) a fair amount, plus hands-on time in the Apple store, I just didn't feel comfortable with the virtual keyboard. When it comes to typing speed and tactile feedback, there's no substitute for physical buttons. However, when closed, the Pre has only one button (which brings up the cards view) visible. To access the keyboard, it has to be slid out from underneath the display. Yes, that's reasonably easy to do and I'm getting increasingly used to doing it, but it's still not as convenient as having the keys accessible all the time. The trade-off, of course, is the extra height of the display that might have to be given up. Those extra 160 pixels are very handy, so I'm not sure this isn't a great trade-off. More time is needed for me to make up my mind on this aspect. I do like the keyboard, however...very easy and comfortable to type on, in my opinion.

3. Multitasking FTW! Seriously...I had no idea how much I'd come to love multitasking on the Palm Pre. The card view in webOS makes it incredibly easy to switch between tasks, something my old Palm OS devices never did. Opening a new app closed the previous one, sometimes losing state information, which made it less than convenient. For example, if I wanted to add a phone number for someone to a calendar entry, I'd have to stop editing the calendar item, open the addressbook, find the person, copy the phone number, open the calendar back up, navigate back to the day and event I was editing, open it for editing again, and paste the number in. With the Pre, when I use Universal Search to find the contact, I can open that entry and copy the phone number while keeping the calendar event open for editing. This is so much more efficient and convenient than non-multitasking Palm OS was. And, as I have used Windows Mobile devices off and on over the years, even though WinMo does multitask, it doesn't let the user switch among running tasks nearly as fluidly as webOS does.

4. Comparing the Pre to the Centro is interesting. There are loads of really cool things the Pre can do that the Centro cannot (e.g., GPS, multitasking, widescreen video, Synergy-based PIM syncing, etc.). However, there are several little things the Centro can do that the Pre cannot...yet. For example, here's a short list of functions that come to mind as missing on the Pre (although I'm entirely optimistic that all these minor issues will be resolved in due time, either by Palm or by a developer):
    • Can't copy text or images from websites and emails (the browser and email app don't permit that).
    • Controlling the email client with keyboard shortcuts (I was a dedicated Snappermail user, which has very powerful keyboard commands to facilitate rapid processing of one's Inbox...the Pre is missing all that and relies entirely on gestures and on-screen button presses, which are slower).
    • Heavy customization via 3rd party apps/hacks (For example, one app I always used on my Treos and Centro was KeyCaps600, which let you capitalize a letter when typing by using a long key press and get the symbol for a key by hitting it twice quickly. That's an incredibly convenient function and one I still miss dearly on the Pre).
    • Video recording. Why is that not enabled on the Pre? It has a much better camera and loads more storage space than my Centro...so why no video recording?
    • Miscellaneous settings (e.g., font size) in most apps
    • Emoticons in chat (my wife and I both thought the ones on Palm OS were cute...why'd they go away?)
    • Universal search into email messages, calendar events, tasks, and memos (this seems like a pretty obvious "to be added" item on Palm's engineering checklist)

5. The camera is WONDERFUL. I use the camera on my phone a lot...over a thousand photos in my personal collection show up as having been taken on a Pre or Centro. The 3-megapixel camera (with LED flash, even) on the Pre is terrific. Here's a shot I took out my front door just now as an example:

6. So far, I miss my expansion storage slot much less than I thought I would. I always used the SD card in my Treos very heavily, such as for capturing photos and video, storing off-board apps, and keeping some media handy. One use case where I missed it so far was when I wanted to copy a bunch of photos I took with the Pre's camera to my PC. I had to break out the USB cable, which I don't always have with me. Before, I could just pop out the SD or MicroSD card and insert that into my PC's card reader. Maybe they're equally convenient, but my laptop has an SD card reader built in, yet I'd have to carry a microUSB cable with me to connect the Pre. One offsetting feature the Pre has is the ability to upload to photo-sharing websites, such as Photobucket and Facebook, directly from the photo viewer. My Centro could kinda-sorta do that with Facebook, but not as simply and elegantly as the Pre does.

7. It's a really FUN device to use. The UI is gorgeous and nearly everything is quite intuitive, so it's no problem getting the hang of operating the phone. I can hand it to people and most can do whatever they like with minimal intervention/instruction from me. Getting it back from them is usually the hardest part. :-)

8. Unified IM/SMS is quite nice. Being able to easily switch back and forth between IM (e.g., Google Talk or AIM) and texting/SMS is nifty, especially since it shows each of your contacts as a threaded "conversation" regardless of how each message was sent or received.

9. Battery life could be better. I've found some settings (e.g., set email polling to "as messages arrive" to rely on push rather than an "every 15 minutes" type pull) that give better performance for me and am now able to get through a full day with room to spare on the battery meter. I can't go 2 days like I did with the Centro, but I tend to charge nightly anyway. Given all the tech the Pre has that the Centro doesn't (e.g., Wi-Fi, 8GB of RAM, GPS, an HVGA screen, etc.), yet they use the same 1150mAh battery, it's not surprising that the Pre's battery life is a bit worse. But that just gives me an excuse to get one of those nifty Touchstone wireless chargers. And, hey, at least I can swap in a new battery in a pinch.

10. Included out-of-the-box is a pretty nice variety of apps. One I was especially surprised and pleased by is Sprint Navigation, which basically is all the best features of a GPS unit (e.g., real-time 3-D and 2-D mapping with street name pronunciation and multiple route calculation modes). But, there's so much potential here that I cannot WAIT for the flood of apps to hit once the webOS SDK is officially launched and Palm's App Catalog is opened to the public. Based on talking with some devs I know who have access to the SDK, it's really easy to get an app fleshed out and working, so I expect we'll see a small tidal wave of stuff come out in the latter parts of 2009. And that's about when Palm and Adobe should be bringing Flash support to the Pre, which will make some really interesting apps (especially games) possible.

Overall, based on about 2 weeks of having a Palm Pre in my pocket every day, I think it is a very, very promising piece of gear and webOS is poised to be a major platform for years to come. If you have specific questions about the user experience you'd like me to address in future posts, please leave a comment. And, if you're a Twitter user, you can catch some of my shorter comments about the Pre by following CRA1G. Thanks!

Some major pre-launch reviews of the Palm Pre and their concluding thoughts:

Engadget: "Ultimately -- carriers and developers notwithstanding -- what Palm has done is not only a major feat for a company of its size (and its dire position), and we think it's an important step in the evolution of mobile computing. Just like the iPhone's notches up the ladder, and the G1's contributions, the Pre moves the game forward in a very real way."

David Pogue / New York Times: "So do the Pre's perks (beautiful hardware and software, compact size, keyboard, swappable battery, flash, multitasking, calendar consolidation) outweigh its weak spots (battery life, occasional sluggishness, ringer volume)? Oh, yes indeedy."

PreCentral.net: "Palm has hit a home run with the Pre. Probably not a grand slam, but a definite home run."

MyPre.com: "This is first-generation hardware running a first-generation OS, and yet it delivers not only the expected functionality but an innovative UI, solid cellular performance and synchronization features that rivals are already scrabbling to counter. The Pre isn't perfect, but it's very good; when Palm start rolling out OTA updates and delivering things like video recording, it'll get even better. We've high hopes for the Pre's success, but we're even more excited about where Palm will take webOS."

Gizmodo: "The Pre may have hardware that's worse than the G1/G2, but the whole package--the software and the hardware--isn't bad. It's good. It's different. That's something we can get behind. I can''t wait to see what Palm gets dealt in their next hand."

Boy Genius Report: "The OS is great. There's no ifs ands or buts; it's really refreshing to see something that's brand new with a UI unlike anything else out there. The only problem with this is, Palm's never been a hardware company that anyone's really cared about. They have been the furthest thing from innovative since circa-2003 -- their hardware has always been second rate at best and it doesn't seem to be changing now. Couple that with the nation's underdog carrier at a $299 price-point (before rebate), and we're not sure how many people are going to be lined up overnight, yet we're pretty confident once people are able to play a real unit themselves, there will be more than a lot of happy Palm Pre customers."

PC Magazine: "Overall, though, webOS is the most exciting mobile platform I've used in quite a while, and the Pre is pretty impressive, so it nabs our Editors' Choice for smartphones on Sprint."

Walt Mossberg / Wall Street Journal: "All in all, I believe the Pre is a smart, sophisticated product that will have particular appeal for those who want a physical keyboard. It is thoughtfully designed, works well and could give the iPhone and BlackBerry strong competition -- but only if it fixes its app store and can attract third-party developers."

CNET: "Despite some missing features and performance issues that make it less than ideal for on-the-go professionals, the Palm Pre offers gadget lovers and consumers well-integrated features and unparalled multitasking capabilities. The hardware could be better, but more importantly, Palm has developed a solid OS that not only rivals the competition but also sets a new standard in the way smartphones handle tasks and manage information."

Wired: "The Pre emphatically shows that Palm has not reached the stage of suffixes. And multitasking rules!"

CNN Money / Fortune: "That means even if you're one of the folks who likes the Pre's features a bit better than the iPhone's, you might have to do without some of the cooler mobile apps for a while. If that's OK with you, the Pre is a very good choice."

Michael Gartenberg: "Palm's clearly delivered on the vision they articulated last January and the Pre/WebOS combo are clearly going to be a mobile to force to be reckoned with. It's the first platform that's really differentiated itself from the iPhone and looks to be among the few devices that could serve as competition to that most iconic of phones."

Associated Press: "Move over, iPhone. You've had two years on top of the smart phone world. Now there's a touch-screen phone with better software: the Palm Pre."

Phonescoop: "The Pre offers a lot, but has some glaring omissions. If you're willing to give up features such as video capture and don't mind being limited to 8GB of storage, the Pre will offer you excellent personal information and messaging management along with a user interface that outperforms many others in return."

FOX News: "My takeaway: The Palm Pre is an impressive device with a slick design and an even slicker user experience. It took me five minutes to learn how to use it, unlike the Sprint Instinct, which I almost threw into oncoming traffic."

USA Today: "I've been testing the Pre for more than two weeks and like it a lot. Pre is easy on the eyes. I can't think of a more comfortable cellphone in my hand. It has a lovely screen for taking in YouTube videos or browsing the Web. The "always-connected" software foundation at its core, which Palm designed from scratch and calls WebOS, is slick and rife with possibilities."

Laptop Magazine: "We've seen many smart phones come and go since the original iPhone, and the $199 Palm Pre is the first device we've tested whose user interface not only matches up well to Apple's offering, but also beats it in some areas. The Pre isn't just cool and fun to use; its highly integrated approach to calendars, contacts, and messaging, the way it elegantly multitasks, and makes apps and notifications accessible across the device change the game. However much the Pre does for you without your lifting a finger, managing the number of open apps (so you don't hit the limit) can feel like work; and we wish the phone lasted longer between charges. Nevertheless, Palm and Sprint have a hit on their hands with the Pre, and the webOS is a smart phone platform to be reckoned with."

Palm Infocenter: "The Palm Pre delivers on Palm's promise of a bringing a next generation differentiated product to market. WebOS is a powerful and compelling new mobile platform. Despite being a 1.0 product, the Pre is pleasantly functional and it users in new level of simplicity and ease of use. Coupled with the attractive hardware design and charming display, this adds up to a distinctively agreeable experience for mobile phone users. Palm has a lot riding on the Pre and it now appears to be fully back in the game with a superb combination of software and hardware."

Brighthand: "The Palm Pre has been tasked with an almost impossible job: it's the device that's supposed to put both Palm and Sprint back on course after months in the doldrums. Amazingly, it just might do it. Palm has created an operating system and a suite of software that's easy to use but powerful, and has the features both consumers and business people are looking for in a smartphone."

SlashGear: "Still, these are shortcomings in a first-generation platform on first-generation hardware, and we're happy giving Palm the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it's the threat of financial ruin, but the company seems far more attuned to user feedback than previously; there's a lot riding on the Pre, and Palm know we know it. Thankfully they've delivered a smartphone not only capable but honestly impressive and distinctive. Improvements to webOS will only make it better, but even in this fledgling state we'd readily recommend the Palm Pre."

MobileTechReview: "A most excellent start from Palm with their first new Web OS smartphone. The hardware is attractive and the Pre looks great, feels great (albeit slippery and fingerprint-y) and is smaller than the iPhone and many other touch screen smartphones. The phone is intuitive, fun and generally responsive, though there are occasional minor slowdowns. The capacitive touch screen is not only beautiful but easy to control and the Pre has all the bells and whistles of smartphone except local syncing: email with Exchange support, GPS, top notch web browser, WiFi and Bluetooth. If you're a Sprint user and have been hankering for something truly different and fun, the Pre is a go."

The teaser video featuring Roger McNamee and Jon Rubenstein arguing over how to promote Palm's forthcoming Pre smartphone is, by most standards, pretty funny. And by Silicon Valley geek standards, it's hilarious. I think Palm would be justified using Roger and Jon in some future tongue-in-cheek ads.

This video was shown at the D7 conference today. Have a look:

Acknowledgment: I owe the inspiration for the "Mac & Ruby" abomination above to this tweet by Rene Ritchie, and I'm quite sure I'll never again be invited to Palm's Sunnyvale headquarters because of it.

Shortly after Palm had announced the Pre, its new webOS-powered smartphone, Roger McNamee made the rounds on financial shows touting the product and the company. McNamee, in case that name is unfamiliar to you, is an investor with Elevation Partners, one of Palm's major shareholders.

Here's one of his interviews; he talked about webOS and the Pre, as well as EP's stake in Palm, on CNBC on March 6th, 2009. Below the video is a transcription of some of the claims he makes about the Pre.

"It has a clock, it has your calendar, and it has GPS. So it knows not only where you are, it knows where you should be. So, for example, if you were going to be late for a meeting, it not only alerts you that you're going to be late, it will automatically email ahead to the people you're going to see and tell them. It automatically downloads all of your maps each night before your meeting for the next day."

He made similar claims in another interview around this time (I cannot find that video, though), so this was not a one-off mental slip.

I don't know about you, but I've watched darn near every walkthrough and demo video I can find on the Palm Pre and have never seen these automation features mentioned anywhere other than by McNamee. If the Pre were so advanced as to be able to link its calendar, GPS, and email apps to effectuate the type of autonomy McNamee is describing here, well, I just don't think Palm would've kept it a secret until now.

What do you think? Was he exaggerating, or does Palm have a surprise in store for us come June 6th?

While using my Centro, I began wondering how much wider, if at all, the Palm Pre's screen would be. I knew it was 3.1" diagonal, but how does that compare to the Centro's square 2.2" screen? Or my old Treo 700p's 2.5" square screen?

Not being able to visualize, I whipped up a quick and dirty comparison and included two other 320x480 screen mobile devices (the iPhone and the Palm TX) just for reference:

Yes, the Palm Pre's screen is smaller than the iPhone's, but the whole device more pocketable due to being narrower and shorter overall. So, until we figure out how to pack a 20" display into something you can drop in your pants pocket, there will continue to be this compromise between screen size and overall dimensions; we want one to go up and the other to go down, and borders can only get so thin.

For another take on screen specs, check out my recent post: Mobile Device Displays: A Few Words on Pixel Density

Palm and Apple: two icons of the consumer technology industry. Over the past 15 years, they've had a complicated relationship. These firms have both learned from each others' mistakes, emulated each others' successes, and, for the first time, are now competing squarely against each other for mastery of the smartphone market.

In 1993, Apple launched what many consider to be the first serious attempt at a sophisticated PDA (personal digital assistant): the Newton MessagePad. Typically referred to simply as a Newton, it was, by most measures, a disaster in the marketplace. While it seemed like a brilliant concept, its uneven performance -- most notably, its lackluster handwriting recognition -- lead it to become the target of much mockery (e.g., several mentions in Doonesbury).

Watching all this transpire was a small group of entrepreneurs and inventors who wanted a crack at the PDA space. This foundling company lead by Jeff Hawkins was Palm. In 1996, it launched its own take on the PDA: the Palm Pilot. Palm had learned several lessons from Apple's experience with the Newton.

For example, instead of trying to transcribe anyone's handwriting (a feat difficult even for the human brain), Palm decided to require the user to learn Graffiti, a special script specifically developed for better handwriting recognition. And it worked; the Pilot soared to heights of popularity, partly because Graffiti was a much better solution to the input problem.

Apple abandoned the PDA market and, after failing to purchase Palm, their paths crossed only very infrequently over the next several years at the corporate level. However, several Apple employees left to join Palm. That trend continued; in fact, a significant percentage of Palm's employees are today former Apple staffers. Palm's Chairman, Jon Rubenstein, lead development of the original iPod while at Apple; he joined Palm and launched the program that resulted in the new Pre smartphone. That cross-breeding may be part of the reason that Palm and Apple continued to learn from each other.

In 1997, upon Steve Jobs' return to Apple, it decided it would cease this practice (for various reasons that continue to be debated to this day). Around the same time, Palm decided to start licensing its Palm OS to other hardware/device makers. Palm quickly began to understand the complexities associated with trying to run a business that sold devices while licensing the OS that ran those devices to its competitors. Diverging product lines and pressure from licensees to open up the OS beyond what Palm could readily manage eventually lead Palm to split in two; its device (PalmOne) and OS (PalmSource) sides went their separate ways with only a licensing agreement and some lingering animosity to connect them.

A few years later, Palm found that the venerable Palm OS was running out steam and chose to begin developing a Linux-based replacement. That new OS, which has been called webOS, will launch on the Palm Pre June 6, 2009.

This OS replacement situation was similar to one Apple faced about a decade ago. Around the time of Jobs' return, Apple decided to begin phasing out the original proprietary Mac OS and replace it with the new UNIX-based OS X, which launched in 2001.

Another way Palm has learned from Apple is how it handles product launches. Steve Jobs has long been considered master of the product launch. Apple tightly controls pre-launch information leaks, highly engineers new products so as to rely on minimal "patches" after launch, and puts heavy emphasis on industrial design. Palm's latest launch, that of the Palm Pre, has all the trademarks of an Apple event. Information has been, for the most part, carefully managed. Palm has taken extreme care in ensuring that the product that hits the streets on June 6 is as devoid of flaws as possible. And the trade-offs associated with form versus functionality are often skewed towards the former (e.g., the rationale for not including a removable memory card slot in the Pre was to ensure the unit was as sleek and small as possible). While both companies have less-than-perfect track records in product launches (e.g., Apple's MobileMe and Palm's Foleo), Palm is clearly learning from Apple's successes in this regard.

But the learning hasn't been all one-way; Apple has also learned quite a bit from Palm's experiences over the past 13 years. Several design decisions in the iPhone are straight out of Palm's playbook: a touchscreen, icon-based interface; an external "ringer" switch to silence the device; an application-launcher "home" screen; and so forth. While the iPhone is different in many ways from any Treo or Palm device ever made, it is clear that some elements were lifted from Palm's successful line of handhelds and smartphones. Palm returned the favor by including some multitouch gestures similar to those used in the iPhone; Apple was unhappy enough with that to threaten legal action, but nothing came of it (yet).

Apple also learned from one of Palm's main failings, which was how it managed third-party development in order to create value for its user community. While Palm had occasionally encouraged and/or partnered with software sites that catered to Palm OS users (e.g., Stingersoft, PalmGear, and Handango), there was never a centralized, easy-to-access catalog for those new to the platform. And even if the user found one of those sites, he still had to navigate downloading to a PC, sometimes unzipping and/or running an installer application, and then syncing the new app to his device. All told, it was not a thoughtfully engineered user experience suitable for the masses. Apple's App Store greatly improved all that by making the one place with all apps available directly from the device. While some might argue that the lack of an open market ecosystem retards innovation, there's no debate over the improvement the App Store approach has had on users' familiarity and usage of 3rd party software.

One area that both companies have had similarly poor performance is interacting with the fan community. Apple is notorious for suing blogs over rumors and product leaks. Palm has sued websites over naming issues. Both companies have had their share of PR faux pas when it comes to handling contentious issues on the Internet. Apple found itself in hot water over how it addressed pricing changes shortly after the 1st-gen iPhone launch. Palm messed up an opportunity with the PreDevCamp crowd over secrecy/transparency pressures (although that appears to be reconciled, now). While it's easy to make original mistakes, let's hope that both companies improve how they manage their community relations.

While I'm certainly not claiming that either Palm or Apple is beholden to the other company for its success (or failure), it seems clear that both companies have carefully observed each other and tried to learn from their experiences. Not replicating your competitors' mistakes is always helpful.

Going forward, as Palm and Apple find each other squarely in the other company's sights, it will be fascinating to watch how each move is countered and each new product is reacted to. With all the history and common blood linking these two firms, this match-up could be one of the more compelling and interesting over the next few years.

Update: Rene Ritchie pointed me (indirectly) to a list of Apple's product flops over the years, which is interesting reading to reflect on when you start thinking the company can do no wrong.

Update #2: Fortune has an interesting story on the impending rivalry: Palm fights back (against Apple)

Palm has announced something that many Palm OS die-hards have been waiting to hear: the Pre smartphone will have the ability to run Palm OS legacy applications when it launches sometime in the first half of 2009.

PreCentral.net broke this story on April 1st, meaning it took a bit more convincing than normal that this was, in fact, true.

The "Classic" emulator will be provided by MotionApps. As you can see on the graphic, they cleverly use the bottom third of the screen to represent the standard Palm's hardware buttons, meaning most functions should be usable on regular apps. Hacks and system-level utilities, such as things that change how the keyboard functions, alter Palm OS preferences, or access specific bits of hardware on the Treo (e.g., the camera) likely will not work at all.

One interesting thing is the performance gain that MotionApps' Classic will offer to legacy Palm OS apps:

Compared to Treo 700p your PalmOS apps will run approximately twice as fast on Classic.

Wow! That speaks volumes about how poweful the Pre's new TI OMAP 3440 CPU will be if it can run apps in emulation mode twice as fast as the 700p's 312 MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor.

While using crusty (in most cases) Palm OS apps isn't the main reason so many are excited about the Palm Pre, it is certainly comforting knowing that those of us who still rely on a Palm OS device as our regular smartphone, but want to move to the Pre when it launches, won't have to lose a lot of functionality while we wait on developers to port over their apps or code up replacements that are better integrated with the Pre's webOS platform.

Backward compatibility is truly the best of both worlds, the old and the new.

Update: Here's a short video of a Palm rep demoing the Classic emulator for Phonescoop:

The Palm Pre looks like it will be an amazing piece of kit, and webOS, Palm's new mobile operating system, sounds light years ahead of the now decrepit Palm OS. However, as a long-time Palm OS user (I got my first Palm OS device, a USRobotics Pilot 5000, in May, 1996), I've come to rely heavily upon, and truly enjoy, several applications that may not be ported over to the webOS-based Pre.

Here's a short list of 5 applications that I'll miss when I migrate to the new Palm Pre (assuming it doesn't come with something equivalent):

1) Capital & Function Key Customizer -- A utility that greatly increases the usefulness of my Treo's keyboard is KeyCaps600, which enables capital letters by press-and-hold and enables symbols by double-pressing the key. This is much faster than hitting the Shift and Symbol buttons prior to the keypress. Given the Pre's hardware keyboard, something like this would be a natural project for the aspiring programmer.

2) Mode / Profile Manager -- Profiles is a utility that does some amazing things. First, it lets you set up different hardware profiles, which determine how the phone works (e.g., backlight level, ringer volume, vibrate mode, etc.). For example, I have a "Meeting" profile that turns off the volume for all purposes, but enables vibrate for calls, text messages, and other notifications. Doing all those things separately would take many steps, but Profiles combines them all into a single switch. Second, Profiles lets me automatically switch among these hardware profiles manually or automatically based on triggers (e.g., calendar events, time of day, etc.). For example, I have a trigger set up to completely silence the phone and disable vibrate at 10pm so as to keep inbound calls and text messages from waking up my wife. It then re-enables all those alerts at 6am. It's incredibly handy and I'm really hoping that kind of functionality is included with the Pre...or comes out shortly after it's launched.

3) Button Customizer -- I've gotten totally spoiled by LudusP, a utility that lets me remap many of my 700p's hardware buttons. I imagine someone is already working on a way to make the Pre's one hardware button (apart from the physical keyboard) do more things than just bring up the app panel...at least I hope so.

4) File Browser -- A powerful file management app makes light work of moving, deleting, and copying media files and other content. With 8GB of onboard storage, the Pre better have a decent interface for managing all that stuff.

5) Backup -- An automated backup utility, like Backup Man, will be impossible to replicate since the Pre has no expandable storage / flash memory card slot. Hopefully, its "cloud" functionality will make this moot...hopefully.

The Pre looks like it will be an incredible device, but there's always room for improvement...or at least customization.

Sprint sent out a rather innocuous-looking notice dated February 16, which arrived at our house yesterday. Opening it reveals two interesting bits of information:

1) Sprint will be increasing the replacement fees it charges to its Total Equipment Protection (TEP) program customers based on a two-tier system; pricier phones, including all Palm devices (which, strangely, are listed under the old PalmOne brand), Blackberries, and assorted other smartphones are listed as Tier 2, meaning a $100 replacement fee (versus the $50 fee it previously charged). These changes go into effect April 19, 2009.

2) Listed among the PalmOne [sic] devices is a model I've not previously heard of: The "TREO Jones". Anyone have any idea what that is? My guess is that it's the forthcoming Treo Pro.

It's also interesting that they refer to the Palm Centro by its much less common name, the Treo 690p, which seems odd for a document meant to be read by non-technical customers.

Sloppy work, Sprint...and disappointing.

A lot has been written about displays on mobile devices; smartphones and portable media players rely heavily on their screens to both display information and allow interaction. A lot of consumers might consider display SIZE when thinking about their next mobile device purchase, but I'd like them to also consider another, slightly more technical, attribute: PIXEL DENSITY.

It's obvious that display sizes vary a lot in the smartphone and PMP world. One comparison of a few relatively recent devices showed a variety of sizes and aspect ratios:

When publishing the specs of devices, most often, we're given two pieces of information about the display:
• Its resolution, expressed in pixels along each side (e.g., 320x240)
• Its diagonal measurement, as in the diagram below

However, we're rarely given the statistic that has a significant effect on a screen's readability and our enjoyment in looking at it, which is the pixel density. Screens with low pixel density can have that "blocky" effect, which can make text unpleasurable to read and photos look, well, yucky.

So, higher pixel density is always good, right? Unfortunately, no. The human eye is limited in its ability to perceive resolution...more than about 300 dots per inch (dpi) and our eyes can no longer distinguish them from each other. High-quality print output is generally in the 300 dpi range. Photos generally don't need to be this high to convey good detail (see my Photo Printing Worksheet for more info).

So where does that leave us with device displays? Well, there's a pretty broad range of what people find acceptable. I consider myself a screen snob and am generally unhappy with displays below about 170 pixels per inch (ppi). However, as noted above, more isn't always better...a display with 350 ppi isn't going to be much better than one with 300 ppi, and may even be worse. The higher the pixel density, usually, the smaller (physically) fonts appear, making it more difficult to read.

We can calculate pixel density (in terms of pixels per inch) by knowing the screen resolution and diagonal size, but it requires a bit of algebra. So, I created an Excel spreadsheet with those calculations and whipped up a table of some popular smartphones, PDAs & PMPs to show the range of pixel densities found in mobile devices today.

This is simply a screen grab of that Excel sheet (here's the Excel file if you want to download it for your own use), but it illustrates how impressive some of these recent devices have gotten in terms of displays. Sony has a weird fetish for painfully high pixel densities, both on their phones and some of the subnotebooks, but RIM, which resisted higher-resolution displays for a long time, now has some Blackberries with really stunning screens.

Hopefully, this will help you think about the pixel density of the next smartphone or PMP you plan to buy, since the display is one of the biggest influences on how much many people enjoy their mobile devices.

In keeping an eye on the Palm Pre news, I ran across this photo on Crave's coverage of Palm's Mobile World Congress display:

Beyond the uses Andrew Lim suggests, which are all well and good, the original intent of that mirrored surface is likely to help someone position the phone so that taking photos of themselves is a bit more reliable (much better than the tiny mirrored domes on so many phones these days).

What other uses do you think it might have?

It's been about 8 months since our first Hot/Not List, so I thought I'd post an updated one:

HOT

• Logitech Squeezebox - After Logitech's acquisition of Slim Devices, a lot of fans of the smaller company's products were concerned that innovation would halt and corporate fossilization would set in, as happens in so many of these cases. Well, it couldn't be further from the truth. Slim's innovative products are benefiting from Logitech's branding and distribution muscle and the combined firm is churning out really impressive audio streaming devices. Our home audio ecosystem now consists of a Squeezebox Duet controller, two receivers, and a Boom; these three cover about 80% of the house and it's wonderful to have perfectly synced music streamed throughout without breaking the bank.
  
• Palm - The Pre smartphone was the buzz of CES and is still making strong headlines at MWC. Sprint may have a winner on its hands with this new device.
  
• Sprint - Coming off a really impressive turnaround regarding its customer service and anticipation of its 4G wireless network, Sprint could be poised for strong growth in the next few years.
  
• Aptera - So far, this innovative hypermileage boutique car-maker in California has avoided some of the pitfalls that its performance-oriented sibling Tesla Motors has made, and the 2e vehicle it should be shipping very soon looks like it could be a key evolutionary link in transforming the way we think about cars.
  
• Twitter - Easily the most addictive thing I've tried recently.
  
• Windows 7 - Sure, it's still in beta, but I am SO looking forward to its release. As much as I've panned Vista over the years, I think 7 will be a winner.
  

NOT

• Cloud-Based Contact Management - Even with Google's recent improvements to Gmail Contacts, there are no really excellent cloud-friendly contact management solutions available. The best I've found is ClearSync, and that isn't as widely compatible as most would like.
• Battery Technology - Seriously...scientists and engineers have been working on this for decades and we're still not fundamentally better than we were 20 years ago.
• Obese Netbooks - Almost by definition, a "netbook" should be incredibly lightweight. Why, then, are we seeing netbooks weighing over 3 lbs released to market??
• Winter - by definition. I am quite ready for Spring, thanks very much.
• Digital Transition Delay - We set the date for February 17th, and now Congress is pushing it back to June 12 for those stations that want extra time. Why? Delaying it doesn't solve anything and, in fact, actually increases the costs of the conversion and sows more consumer confusion. Clearly a lose-lose proposition.

As a longtime ClearSync subscriber (see my review of ClearSync 1.0 from 2006 here), I was excited when John Tanner, the company's CEO, announced that a ClearSync client for Chumby was forthcoming.

Remember Chumby, that quirky, plush nightstand/desk/kitchen counter companion that streams Internet content to its touchscreen? Chumby is an ideal device for places where you need access to online content but where a laptop just doesn't fit or is "too much" machine (not that I'm sure that's ever possible). To the right is Chumby on my bedside table.

Here's a screenshot of what ClearSync on Chumby looks like:

You get access to some key ClearSync Calendars features, including:
• Viewing multiple calendars in a single, color-coded view
• The ability to enable/disable any combination of calendars
• Date selection (just tap the time/date header to bring up a calendar-style date picker)
• Automatic cloud-sync with your online/handheld calendar updates

Those of you who live and die by your daily calendar know how critical it is to always have it within arm's reach. Now, it can be right in front of you at all times, even when you're sleeping (which is important if you're like me and have literally woken up in the middle of the night in a mild panic because you can't remember what time an important meeting is the next day).

ClearSync for Chumby is available for free to all ClearSync subscribers who own Chumbys.

There has been a lot of talk about the Palm Pre and how its name is meant to invoke the phone's ability to anticipate your needs and act upon them before you ask it to. A couple of concrete examples have come straight from Roger McNamee, head of Elevation Partners, a tech-centric venture capital firm which now has 20% of its fund in Palm, in this video interview:

"...but better than that, it does stuff for you. When you wake up in the morning, it has taken your calendar, if you ask it to, downloaded the maps for your whole day, downloaded the Wikipedias for the people you're going to visit and the companies you're going to see. Why is it on PCs you have to go and do all that? And when you're late -- get this -- when you're late, it -- remember, this thing has GPS, it has a clock, and it has your calendar, so it not only knows where you are, it knows where you're supposed to be and when -- and so when it realizes you're going to be late, it says, 'hey, not only are you going to be late, but I can take care of it for you. I can send an email to your assistant, or to the people in the meeting...which would you prefer? And oh, by the way, here's the map.'"

To many, this sounds like something that blurs the line between magic and sentient robots (witchcraft meets Skynet, if you will). To others, it's the logical culmination of converging technologies, and, frankly, they're not sure why it took so long. One such person is Don Norman, an industrial designer with a resume a mile long; he's worked at Apple and HP, is a design professor at Northwestern University, and is co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group.

Don Norman gave the keynote at the 2005 PalmSource Developer's Conference (the last year the event was held). In that speech, he professed amazement and dismay at his car's inability to put to good use the basic technologies already in and around it. Paraphrasing (from memory) that portion of his speech:

"So my car, a BMW, has a computer on board that lets me know when the oil needs to be changed. What does it do with this information? It illuminates a little light on the dashboard and then expects me to respond appropriately. Why not provide a little more information? Instead of just an idiot light, why can't it use the GPS it has to tell me the phone number of the nearest BMW dealership? Let's take that one step further. The car has Bluetooth so I can send and receive calls through my cellphone when I'm driving. My cellphone also has my calendar in it. Why doesn't my car, sensing it needs an oil change, look at my calendar, figure out a 2-hour period when I'm not busy, add an appointment, call the dealership, make the appointment, and then let me know all that's been done? The technology is there...we just need to integrate it and make it talk to each other."

Clearly, if the Pre comes out with the type of precognitive powers Roger McNamee is describing, the Palm engineers and designers working on webOS took Dr. Norman's comments to heart.

Of course, given the efforts Jeff Hawkins (inventor of the Palm Pilot and founder of Palm) has put into mapping cognition and other fundamental activities of the brain, as well as his close ties to Palm even now, he may have been even more influential on this amazing capacity for anticipatory assistance.

Personally, I'm hoping webOS and the Pre are as revolutionary as the Pilot was back in the Spring of 1996. It's been 13 years...we're due for something exciting from Palm.

A friend reminded me of a device that, at its time, had no equal in the PDA landscape and had some features that no handheld (or phone) has ever had since: the HandEra 330.

One of the more innovative features was the presence of dual memory slots; the 330 had both a CompactFlash slot and an MMC/SD card slot (which was very new at the time). It also ran on either 4xAA cells or a Li-Ion rechargeable battery pack. Ounce-for-ounce, the 330 packed in more features than any PDA I ever came across.

Back in May, 2001, I posted a rather lengthy review of it on MemoWare.com, the PDA document site I ran at the time. Thinking of the 330, I realized I still had the files, so I tossed the page on my personal server for old time's sake.

If you like, check out the review and be AMAZED at what cutting-edge tech in 2001 looked like. Clearly, the 330 has not aged gracefully.

A mere 12 days ago, I posted GearBits' Predictions for 2009. To my surprise, some of them are already coming true:

3) Palm Launches New OS to Fanfare, Skepticism

I predicted that Palm would announce its new OS and show off at least one device at CES, which they did...in spades. While most coverage has been off-the-charts positive, there have been some nattering nabobs of negativism who feel there's just can't be a way for Palm to come back. Palm's next big hurdle is actually getting the Pre through FCC approval and into Sprint's stores.

7) Steve Jobs Announces Transition to New Role

My guess was that Jobs' health concerns were more serious than the public was being led to believe. Today, Jobs announced he was taking some time because his "health-related issues are more complex than [he] originally thought." Given Jobs' recent statement that his weight loss was due merely to an easily treatable hormone imbalance and expected no change from the status quo, this announcement shocked everyone. We hope for his quick recovery and return to doing the job he does so well.

10) Line Blurs between "Netbooks" and Notebooks/Laptops

My prediction stated that we would start seeing new models fill in the gap between the low-end netbooks and traditional (i.e., full-featured, more powerful, and more expensive) subnotes. At CES, there were a variety of netbooks announced. While most played the familiar tune of 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, a hard drive, and an 8-10" screen running 1024x600, there were a couple of standouts. The most discussed was the Sony Vaio P, a 1.4-lb netbook (even though they don't want you to call it that) that rocks a 1600x768 screen and runs Vista (albeit slowly). At a price point of $900 (for the low-end unit), it clearly is aimed at the gap between typical netbooks and upscale ultraportables. Another, more obscure one that fills this gap is the Olidata Conte, a very capable machine that, when it comes to market, may cost around $1,000.

Update (1/25/09): Apparently, AMD (via Engadget) agrees with me; CEO Dirk Meyer said in an earnings call that "the distinction between what is a netbook and what is a laptop is going to go away...there will be a continuum of price points and form factors." Good to know the C-suite is listening to me. ;-)

If you're just as curious as I was how all the press coverage of Palm's Pre / webOS launch was so overwhelmingly positive, watch the entire presentation on Palm's website and you'll soon see why everyone loved it.

Today at CES 2009 in Las Vegas, Palm launched their new mobile operating system, webOS, and promised the first device running webOS, the "Pre" smartphone, will be available on Sprint sometime in the first half of 2009. Exact timing depends at least partly on FCC and carrier certification, but you can bet Sprint will be eager to get this thing into its stores.

Some key features of the new webOS, according to Palm's presentation:
• Apps can developed using just CSS, HTML, and/or JavaScript
• Multi-tasking
• Internet-centric, integrated throughout all functions (e.g., search)
• Synergy technology combines contacts from online accounts (e.g., Facebook, Gmail) and local applications (e.g., Outlook), aggregates and syncs them on the phone, and eliminates duplicates
• All-new multi-instance web browser (buh-bye, Blazer)
• A notifications bar
• Integrated SMS and IM (via Synergy)

The Pre smartphone lists some impressive hardware specs:
• 320x480 HVGA multi-touch screen
• Slide-out QWERTY keyboard
• Rollerball for one-handed input
• 802.11b/g Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth with A2DP wireless audio
• 8GB of internal flash memory (can act as USB host)
• Texas Instruments' latest OMAP processor
• GPS
• EV-DO Rev. A
• Full-sized 3.5mm headphone jack
• 3MP camera with flash
• Removable battery (take that, Apple!)

And to just round out the wow factor, the Pre will come with be compatible with an optional wireless charger. Yes, wireless charger. You won't "plug in" the Pre, you'll just sit it on the Touchstone charging base and, through the magic of inductive power transmission, the phone will be recharged.

All in all, a very impressive new offering for Palm. If they can execute on this and get it into Sprint's stores quickly, they'll be well-positioned for a comeback.

Here's the full press release.

Once again, here are GearBits' prognostications for the coming year. If you're interested, check out how our predictions for 2008 panned out, or previous years' predictions.

1) Microsoft Launches Windows 7 to Fanfare, Skepticism
Microsoft's two pillars of financial solvency -- Windows and Office -- have been standing on shaky ground recently. Office 2007 was a decent hit, despite it not offering much new and causing significant backward compatibility issues. But Windows Vista, on the other hand, has been an unmitigated disaster. Microsoft even had to resort to tricking users into liking Vista (Mojave, anyone?), it had developed such a bad reputation. Windows 7 will be launched late in 2009 to a general consensus of "it's better," but will not be the "wow" that Microsoft needs to regain the market share it has recently ceded to Apple. But maybe that's a good thing...having strong competitors is usually a good thing for consumer markets.

2) Blockbuster Declares Bankruptcy
This may be a bit "out there," but I see exceedingly tough times at Blockbuster. And this isn't vindictiveness...I've been a reasonably happy Blockbuster.com customer for several years, now. I just think that, given the state of its business (poor), the weakness in the economy (near-critical), the nature of its service (luxury), and the rapidity with which that industry is transforming, I think Blockbuster will file for bankruptcy protection to get out of some of its debt, sell off some property (store locations that aren't faring well), and reinvest that into developing newer and more attractive services. So, they aren't going away...yet.

3) Palm Launches New OS to Fanfare, Skepticism
We've all heard the rumors that Palm will be launching "Nova," its replacement for the ancient Palm OS, at CES 2009 in a few days. I'm pretty sure that's going to happen. I'm also pretty sure that Palm will have at least one new device, if not several, running the new OS available by the end of June. While launching phones can take a while, given the carriers' lengthy testing requirements, launching a PDA doesn't, so Palm could certainly come out with two (or more) non-phone PDAs running Nova pretty quickly. And it needs to...the TX is older than my grandmother (at least in technology years). Generally, I predict there will be more nice things said about Nova, and the new devices, than critical, and it will stack up fairly competitively with Android and WM 6.5. What I do not have a lot of faith in is Palm's ability to develop and deliver the ecology of services (e.g., app stores) that customers are now expecting their smartphones to be integrated into. Time will tell on that front.

4) Blu-Ray Players Hit $99
During 2009, I think we'll see a raft of Korean and Taiwanese off-brand manufacturers launch budget Blu-Ray players. Just like the 2008 holiday sales saw BD players hit $149 in some stores, 2009 holiday sales will see them hit $99...if not sooner.

5) Apple Launches a Tablet to Fanfare
This has been a persistent rumor for years, but I think 2009 will see it actually happen. Why? A few reasons. First, Apple is looking to multi-touch as a key differentiator in its product lines, and having a full-screen, large-display MT device would make total sense. Second, it fits perfectly with the needs of the "creative class," Apple's core customer base. And third, it fills out a hole in their mobile product line that netbooks and other devices not running OS X fill nicely, and that's not a good thing for Apple. So, the technology is ready, the market is willing...and now I think Apple will be able to meet the demand.

6) Consolidation in the Entertainment Industry
2009 will be a strange year on a lot of dimensions. Not only will the stock market be hard to predict, there will be a lot of odd relationships come out of the mess. One industry that is still poised to make things happen is the entertainment industry, where I expect we'll see larger firms (e.g., major movie studios) start to acquire smaller, but very successful, examples from the newer media (e.g., game producers). A good example of the type of transaction I'm imagining would be Vivendi acquiring Ubisoft. I think Time Warner would love to swallow up Electronic Arts, but that might be a bit too big a bite unless something untoward happens to EA's stock price over the next year.

7) Steve Jobs Announces Transition to New Role
I think concerns over Jobs' health have more merit than most of us want to admit. In 2009, I expect him to announce that he's transitioning into a different role than President and CEO of Apple (and CEO of Pixar). Something that keeps him out of the spotlight while he deals with his health issues will be valuable to keep Apple's stock price up and customer base intact. The move towards reducing his presence in near-term product launches is consistent with this strategy. But, he's far from gone...his influence will still be felt behind the scenes, but we'll see less of him in his traditional role as Apple poster boy.

8) Facebook Membership Growth Flattens; Twitter Surges
Signs are pointing towards Facebook's popularity beginning to peak. Just as with everything social, when moms and dads begin to frequent the coffee shop, the kids need a new place to hang out. Facebook currently has almost 40 million members in the US. While that number has been skyrocketing since it opened up membership to anyone in September 2006, I think 2009 will see a marked deceleration in its growth. The loss of perceived exclusivity and the hassle of the relatively unprotected app space will combine to make it less appealing to many long-time users and new prospects will find fewer people urging them to get on board. Twitter, however, will see continued growth as it continues to tweak and adapt its environment to meet its core users' needs.

9) App Stores Dominate Mobile Software Delivery
iPhone's app store, Android's market...these types of bazaars, managed by the sponsors/manufacturers of the mobile operating systems, are coming to be the dominant mode for software distribution to mobile users. It marks a significant break from the traditional model, where mobile developers could sell software from their own sites, through 3rd party aggregators, and through carriers. This new approach is more streamlined, making it easier for users, but also more controlled, which can make it harder to accommodate large and complex ecosystems. The fact that each of the existing app stores serves a relatively small market is why we haven't seen these problems emerge to a point where they start driving users away. 2009 will see continued movement towards these controlled markets and away from the free-form/multi-channel models that previous mobile generations (e.g., Palm OS, Windows Mobile) relied on.

10) Line Blurs between "Netbooks" and Notebooks/Laptops
Netbooks are currently a fairly homogeneous, and well-defined, niche of laptop computers. Most of them have an Intel Atom processor, a screen from 8.9" to 10" in size, no optical drive, weigh between 2.2 and 3 lbs, and cost $300-$500. There's a big gap in pricing then between these netbooks and the subnotebooks/ultraportables that often have slightly larger screens, way more RAM and processing power, and cost $1,500 or more. To paraphrase the old adage, markets abhor a vacuum, so I expect we'll start seeing all manner of new small notebooks come into the market in this $500-$1000 range sporting screens in the 9"-12" range with anything from 512MB to 2GB of RAM, a variety of operating systems (XP and Linux will continue to be most popular), and a range of processing and display capabilities. Not everyone needs to play Crysis on their notebook, but not everyone can get by with a 1024x600 screen and do everything inside their browser.

So, there you have it...GearBits' predictions for 2009. Some are probably pretty safe bets, and some are bound to be wrong. What do you think will happen?

Each year, we at GearBits post some predictions for the coming year. And then, in the interest of honesty, fairness, and self-deprecation, we take a look back to see how we did. Each of our predictions for 2008 are listed below, along with an update on what actually happened.

1) Blu-Ray Wins the Format War
Yep, I'm going to pick a winner and it's going to be Blu-Ray. The one-two punch of Warner Brothers's move to Blu-Ray exclusivity (from its Switzerland-like neutrality of supporting both formats) later in 2008 and Apple's announcement that BD will be the only HD format available in its products will cement HD DVD's demise. And none too soon. I don't really care which wins...just make it snappy so that prices on players and media can plummet, thanks.

As of now, the end of 2008, it seems like forever since Blu-Ray trounced HD DVD in the format war. But back in early January, it was anyone's guess. But then, on February 18th, Toshiba officially threw in the towel. Interestingly, the Warner Bros. move I thought would happen eventually was actually announced the day after I posted my predictions. Of course, Apple hasn't yet released any products with any form of HD optical drive, so that bit wasn't exactly spot on. And I'm still waiting for my $99 Blu-Ray player. But, overall, this prediction looks pretty solid.

2) Google's Android Shakes Up Phone Industry
For a while now, the cellphone industry has been fairly static. A few smartphone and mobile OS makers have generally tussled for market share, but the overall industry has been pretty evolutionary. Google's entry will prove to be a watershed moment, with open source finally making a big impact in the handheld space (and no, I don't consider the Zaurus to be a big deal...sorry). Actual handsets running Android will be announced, if not available, before the end of 2008.

Depending on your threshold for "shaking up" the phone industry, I think most people would agree that Android made quite a splash in 2008 when the HTC G1 was launched on T-Mobile in the US on September 23rd. And we've already heard of around a dozen hardware makers signed on to release Android handsets. While handset sales still pale in comparison to the iPhone, 2009 looks like it just might be the year of the Android.

3) Palm Supports Android
This is more of a hope than an actual prediction, as I just don't know whether the egos at Palm will let the company do the right thing and admit that their next-generation OS (which has been under development since 2004!) will be a viable contender against Android (which has essentially the same technical details but scads more developer support). But, if cooler, more rational heads prevail at Palm, they'll announce that they're plans will be to produce at least one Android-based product (probably to come out sometime in 2012 :-/ ).

Ouch...I couldn't have been more wrong. While I still think Palm would have been smart to advance their product refurbishment by a full year (maybe more) by going with Android instead of continuing to pursue Nova, the company stuck to its original, go-it-alone plans. We'll see how well that pans out in 2009.

4) Microsoft's HD Photo Replacement for JPEG Image Standard Goes Nowhere
I'm not saying it's a bad idea technically; I'm just saying that JPEG is so entrenched now that replacing it would be about as reasonable a thing to try as would be replacing MP3 with any of the multitudes of better formats. JPEG, like MP3, isn't great, but it's adequate (at least for consumers) and ubiquitous. We'll still be saving all our photos in JPG (and maybe RAW) at the end of 2008...and likely long after that.

JPEG XR, the official name of Microsoft's HD Photo format, has generated essentially zero traction in the camera industry. Part of that is Microsoft's less-than-swift transition of JPEG XR into its quasi-open licensing portfolio, a move that will have to happen for camera makers and developers to trust that they won't be bitten by huge licensing fees in the future if they move their products away from RAW to JPEG XR.

5) Subnotes Will Explode in Availability (and Maybe Popularity)
I've always been a fan of tiny, sub-3-pound laptops, but I think 2008 will see a huge number of these clamshell devices come out of every corner of the consumer electronics space. The Asus EeePC and the OLPC XO Laptop are two examples. While Microsoft had a good idea in its UMPC (Ultra-Mobile PC) concept, the hardware was just never executed all that well. Frankly, I think a 7" touchscreen for Windows is just too difficult. But, going with the traditional clamshell design and using cheaper and/or smaller technologies (e.g., flash memory instead of a HDD) will bring us a raft of interesting (and some good) designs at <$500 price points. Bring 'em on! And I think we'll start to see a lot more people toting these things along that traditionally avoided laptops for whatever reason (cost, weight, etc.).

Bingo. If the shelves at Best Buy and Circuit City are any indication, these "netbooks" (the now-favored term...at least by everyone except Psion) have multiplied faster than Tribbles on Cialis. One glance at the huuuge list of netbooks over at small-notebooks.com is enough evidence to suggest that this prediction was spot on.

6) The GPS War Heats Up
TomTom, Nokia, and Garmin will exchange hostile fire over the GPS market due to convuluted agreements regarding mapping data as well as market-share for hardware. Products will continue to decline in price and improve in functionality, and >50% of cellphones will have some form of GPS functionality available on them. I guess that's two predictions in one...oh well.

I'm going to give myself this one. While we haven't heard that much more about the complex licensing agreements involving the big three, you need only walk through a Staples, Radio Shack, or Target to see a vast assortment of portable GPS units now available for under $150, most even having text-to-speech and other advanced functions. That's in direct comparison to late last year, when it was difficult to find a decent unit for under $300.

7) DRM Hits Choppy Water
2007 saw some movement away from DRM (digital rights management), especially in the music industry, but I expect we'll see similar initiatives in all areas of media. DRM has been proven again and again to be little more than an expensive technological boondoggle, and the leading innovators at the consumer media interface (e.g., Apple, Amazon, and Google) will make some headway into reversing the trend of more encumbrance for our media. The RIAA and MPAA will continue to fight it...they know how to do nothing else...but economic results will start to demonstrate that DRM actually hurts profitability.

Nope...we didn't hear much consistent with my prediction. While some markets moved towards offering DRM-free downloads, most are still heavily laden. And the RIAA actually reversed its strategy and is now no longer suing everyone and their mother for alleged downloading. So that's two different ways I was off on this one. Just goes to show that there's no telling what the content owners are thinking.

8) Major Tech Stocks End 2008 Up Significantly
These are bound to be wrong, but what the heck...nobody pays me for stock tips. I think Apple will end 2008 at 235, Google will be at 960, and Microsoft will finish the year at 50. As for other stocks, iRobot will end up at either 46 or 12 (can you tell I'm a cynical shareholder?), IBM will show tepid growth to 112, and RIM, hurt by the continued weak US dollar and facing increasing competition, will struggle to match its 1-year high of 127.

Uh, no. While I doubt many saw the massive downturn in stocks coming, tech stocks are decidedly not even slightly better off than most. Let's see how my specific price predictions held up:
  • Apple (AAPL): Predicted = 235; Actual = 86.29
  • Google (GOOG): Predicted = 960; Actual = 303.11
  • Microsoft (MSFT): Predicted = 50; Actual = 19.34
  • iRobot (IRBT): Predicted = 46 or 12; Actual = 8.95
  • IBM (IBM): Predicted = 112; Actual = 83.55
  • Research in Motion (RIMM): Predicted = 127; Actual = 38.77
In summary, do not ask me to manage your stock portfolio...you would be better served by setting your money on fire, as then you could at least stay warm for a while.

9) I Buy a New Laptop and Am Disappointed
My Panasonic CF-W2 is now three-and-a-half-years-old and I'm starting to cringe every time I turn it on (my luck with hard drives makes me skeptical of many living past their 4th birthday). I've been looking at possible replacements (e.g., Toshiba R500, Panasonic W7, maybe the Lenovo IdeaPad U110 or the rumored Apple subnote) and so far every single one has some significant trade-offs. So, I expect I'll get one and it will turn out to be not significantly better than my aging Toughbook. You'd think in nearly four years that two grand would buy something markedly superior. We'll see...

Unfortunately, I was right on this. The Fujitsu LifeBook P8010 I ended up purchasing in February is a good laptop...don't get me wrong. It's just not a heads-and-shoulders better laptop than my ToughBook was, and that's what I was expecting given the nearly 4 years newer technology and the $2500 it cost. And, given that I've already had to send it in for a repair (the power button broke off), I'm guessing the durability won't even come close to that of the Panasonic (which I still use regularly around the house).

10) Major Changes in Automotive Industry Announced
While the car business makes actual change only very slowly, we'll see some huge announcements in 2008 that will fundamentally change the future of that industry. Things like record oil prices, an increasing attention to sustainable/green technology, and significant ownership changes will substantially change the competitive landscape. Make no mistake; Toyota will continue its ascent and eclipse GM as #1 car-maker in the world. But, we will see several major announcements that will start affecting actual consumers in 2009 and beyond.

While I didn't get the stock predictions exactly right (OK, not even close), I think it's safe to say that the US automotive industry has been shaken up with major changes during 2008. We saw record oil prices (check!), more attention to green tech (check!), and the bottom dropping out of US consumption didn't leave them anywhere to go except to the Congress for help. And Toyota did indeed become the biggest carmaker in the world in 2008, just as predicted. Let's hope the Volt truly is something special...for all our sakes.

So, there you have it: our final score is 7 winners and 3 losers. I'll take it. :-)

In a couple of days, I'll be posting GearBits' predictions for 2009, so make sure you come back and check those out, m'kay?

Another medical professional has come out publicly warning those who will listen that cellphones may cause cancer. Or they may not. They're not sure, but why risk it, right?

"I don't know that cell phones are dangerous. But I don't know that they are safe."
   -- Devra Lee Davis, Director of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Environmental Oncology

Next week, the University of Pittsburgh will be issuing warnings about the possible cancer-causing side effects of:
• Cheddar cheese
• Paperclips
• Lingering too long in the grocery's produce aisle
• Sudoku
• Your aunt's meatloaf (actually, that's probably true), and
• Reading medical news stories late at night

Check out the full article (CNN.com)

Mitch, seeing my Hot/Not list from yesterday, compiled his own, so here it is:

HOT

• iPod Touch - I tried the Archos 605 Wi-Fi first and its mediocrity makes the Touch that much more delightful. I really love well done user interfaces and this one is first rate. My only complaint is its picky eating habits when it comes to video formats.
  
• iMac - I waited longer than any other tech purchase to finally go with Apple's all-in-one desktop PC. I opted for the top of the line 3.06 GHz 24" model and have been completely blown away by it. So far I have found no flaws. It is stunning.
  
• High Gas Prices - Innovation rocks and if it takes $5/gallon gasoline to get us out of this oil addiction then I'm more than willing to pay my dues. Fewer SUVs and pickups, electric cars, solar energy, alternative fuels, more big butts on bicycles, less traffic congestion; I'm all for it. Let's drop our consumption by half and let OPEC drink their devalued crude.
  
• Synology - A NAS will soon be as ubiquitous on a home network as the router is today. The clever, feature-filled offerings from Synology are the best of the breed. I'll have a DS508 please!
  
• Subaru - Totally agree with Craig here. I've been
  in Imprezas now going on six years and I still feel like I'm cheating when I share the road with normal cars. Scoobys are fabulous.
  
• Ken Follett's Historical Novels - "The Pillars of the Earth" and "World Without End" are two of my favorite books of all time and I just took them in this Spring. I listened to both on my iPod (over 40 hours each) after downloading them from Audible and they made a month of 1000 mile weekly commutes totally enjoyable. Masterful stuff.
  
• CrossFit - I was in good shape 20 years ago and at 44 I can wipe the floor with my 24 year old self (if that was possible). I've been CrossFitting for almost a year now and some of the things I can do now would have seemed outlandish back then.

NOT

• General Motors - If you Google dinosaur, out of touch, lethargic, and unimaginative you should pull up GM's home page. I used to be a fan, but they have been disappointing me for 25 years now and don't seem to be planning any big changes. The sooner they finish themselves off, the better off we'll be.
  
• Labor Unions - Working in the industrial world I cross paths with unions
  of all sorts way more than I would like. I completely understand why our manufacturing sector is fleeing to other countries. I have never seen such a lazy, selfish, destructive, regressive bunch of people in my life. They can't all be like that, but the ones I've met surely are.
  
• Sheeple-Filled Corporate IT Departments - My 26,000 strong corporation is going to switch to Vista because they don't want to be left with no anti-virus support for their XP platform. Goodbye nice warm frying pan and hello fire.
  
• Cable/Satellite TV - I'm SO tired of paying $80 a month for a bunch of
  garbage that I would never watch even if I had the time. It won't be long until I cut that cord and start rolling my own TV. If I could just decide which way I want to do it!
  
• Global Markets - I realize that even the lowliest trader in/on most investment banks/trading floors/commodities exchanges is smarter than I am, but I would really love to see them use those brains rather than run with every emotion that riffles through the world markets. Do investors even pay attention to P/E ratios or supply and demand or is it all about what the hot analyst is saying or the sheeple are doing?

I've been remiss on posting, so I thought I'd assemble a whole mess of opinions in one place. Over the past several weeks or so, I've come to appreciate some things/companies and have come to be disappointed in others. So, here's a quick run-down:

HOT

• Shutterfly - always gets me great-looking prints/books in a timely manner at low prices.
  
• Google - just keeps rolling out the innovative, useful, and well-designed web apps
  
• Subaru - they just make terrific cars...durable, high-performing, and affordable
  
• Amazon.com - with reasonably good, if not great, prices, excellent customer service, and a stellar website, what's not to like?
  
• Subnotes - The sudden rash of low-power, low-weight, cheap laptops coming out (which I predicted would happen back at the beginning of the year) is a joy to behold...portable computing for everyone!
  
• NPR - Always informative, enjoyable, and worth supporting.
  
• Logitech Cordless Presenter - Have had it for two years now, am still on the first set of AAA batteries, it has taken tons of abuse, and it still works perfectly. Amazing!
  
• Private Electric Car Companies - It's as if we're on the cusp of another time like the 1920's, when every town seemed to have a local car manufacturer, except now they're all electric, hybrid, or alterna-fuel vehicles (a very good thing).

NOT

• Archos - if my 605 Wi-Fi completely hangs on me one more time, I swear I'm going to chuck it off an overpass (I'll post more about this later)
  
• Palm - if my Treo 700p resets on me one more time, I swear I'm going to chuck...aw, who am I kidding? It'll probably reset before I finish this post. C'mon Android...fill this void in my gadget-hoarding soul, will you?
  
• Megalomaniacal Corporate IT Departments - I hope the day comes soon when we can definitively show that the TCO actually improves when you let corporate tech users select their own personal devices.
  
• Flash memory format proliferation - I mean, seriously, do we really need SD, MiniSD, and MicroSD? It's getting as bad as the dang Memory Stick (and that's saying something).
  
• Download-only music stores - I may be in the minority, but I just don't like the DRM associated with most online music stores. And even without the DRM, the cost seems too much if I'm not getting permanent physical media, liner notes/art, etc. Call me old school if you like...go ahead, it only hurts a little.
  
• Intel's Marketing department - Seriously, guys, could you make keeping track of your product lines any more difficult and confusing?
  
• Getting older - I am no longer the kid I still think of myself as being.
  

So what are your Hot and Not?

Yesterday at lunch I demonstrated for a colleague a rather ridiculous, Rube Goldbergian reminder mechanism consisting of Web 2.0 information management and communication tools.

I called Jott and told it to contact Sandy with a message to feed the parking meter in 30 minutes. A half hour later, Sandy sent my Twitter account a direct message, which ended up arriving to my phone via text message. I also had an email message waiting for me, just in case.

Sure, it's absurd to do something like that for a task so trivial as reminding yourself to refresh a parking meter, but it does demonstrate how amazingly interconnected these mobile/web tools are becoming.

"...I began to wonder about the phenomenon of text messaging as a whole. Sometimes it seems that it would make more sense to call or send an email, but that crap is for old people."

I think the biggest drawback I see to texting is the whole temporal retention issue. I rely extensively on my ability to search through my emails, both professional and personal, sometimes going back years to look up something. In contrast, I don't know anyone who saves their text messages for even more than a few months. I asked a classful of college seniors how long they kept text messages on their phones. Less than 10% keep them longer than a week!

Do I txt? Yep, everyday, but I still use email a lot more. I'm not going to pull the "age = wisdom" card and claim that "old people" (per the Gizmodo story) use email more because they're wiser (I'm not even sure I'd be considered "old"), but my perception is that email offers a lot of advantages that texting just can't match right now.

The 605 WiFi, a fifth-generation portable media player from the French electronics firm Archos, is an impressive device. It boasts a vivid, high-res 4.3" touchscreen, 802.11g Wi-Fi (more on that later), and the ability to handle a reasonably broad array of media formats (although the larger, more expensive Cowon A3 handles far more). Plus, the 605 WiFi is available with hard drives of 30, 80, and 160 gigabytes or with 4GB of flash storage (the flash model also sports an SDHC slot for unlimited expansion). This review focuses on the 4GB flash version, which can be had for under $200 online and at a few brick-and-mortar electronics retailers.

Our One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) device arrived in the mail today. We participated in the Give One Get One campaign (we bought two; one was sent to us and the other was donated to a developing area of the world somewhere).

After less than an hour with it, I'm pretty amazed at the hardware that's packed into this little guy, especially for the price of <$200. Sure, the processor is a little slow for handling complex Flash-enabled websites, and you won't win any speed races initiating apps, but it has just an amazing mesh Wi-Fi interface (which allows instant sharing amongst other OLPCs of most activities on any one of them), an embedded webcam, and a whole host of pre-installed applications (from a music mixer to drawing to a web browser to a journal/notebook and so on).

I'm not sure it is a better solution for a kid's school laptop if that kid has access to regular electricity and his/her parents can scrape up the cash for an Asus EeePC or cheapie Dell (I just saw one in a flyer for <$370), but as it was designed for children in third-world countries, I think it should be a great fit for any kid 5+ who wants to just explore what computers can do.

Update: I just noticed that our unit does not have the two "keyboard LEDs" shown in the above pic. I wonder why not...they'd be handy for nighttime 'puting.

I've not posted about much technology recently. For that, I truly apologize. This is, after all, GearBits. So, to fill that void, here's a brief recap of some gadget and gear acquisitions over the last six months or so (and why they're my picks).

GPS: Garmin Nuvi 370
After borrowing Mitch's Garmin for a recent roadtrip to the Smoky Mountains, I was hooked. The Nuvi 370 is a terrific combination of features and portability. Text-to-speech keeps my eyes on the road and the bright screen and simple menu system makes it an easy-to-use travel aid. Plus, it's small and light enough to take with you on a walkabout, as I did recently when hiking around San Francisco.

TV: Samsung LNT-5271F 52" 1080p LCD
Yeah, this is a bit over-the-top, but I told my wife that I reserved the right to redo the basement TV setup if I got my promotion at work (I did). So far, it's a really nice TV. The first one died on me (the screen went weird a week into the relationship), but this second one is doing fine. Discovery HD Theater has never been more impressive, although crappy SD cable channels now look just as crappy, but bigger. Now I just need to start working on a way to justify getting a Blu-Ray/HD DVD combo player.

A/V Receiver: Onkyo TX-SR705
As part of the upgrade of the basement TV area, our old receiver just had to be replaced. It was ca. 1996, so its idea of "A/V" meant two composite video inputs. The Onkyo is a nice balance between performance (100W x 7 and 3 HDMI inputs + upconversion) and bulk. It definitely is more capable than the Yamaha it replaced (although the Yamaha still sounds great).

DVD Player: Oppo DV-981HD
The new TV quickly showed just how awful our previous DVD player was. I shouldn't have been surprised, really. After all, it was a Sony VHS + progressive scan DVD combo unit that I got from Woot.com for like $40 last year. Man, the video signal it put out, even over component, just made my eyes bleed. The Oppo, on the other hand, makes standard-definition DVDs look really quite excellent, even converting them to 1080p and outputting via HDMI. Its video-processing circuitry is optimized for getting the best possible picture quality off those 480p discs we all know and love. And it's way cheaper than a high-def DVD player.

Media Streamer: DivX Connected (Beta)
I was invited to be part of the public beta of the DivX Connected wireless/wired media streamer concept platform that the DivX folks are currently refining in preparation for licensed production with D-Link. Suffice to say that it's a really nice user experience; much, much better than all of the other media streamers I've used that are supposed to handle video. I hope DivX and D-Link do well with it...I'd definitely consider buying one.

Networking: TRENDnet TEG-S80TXE Gigabit 8-Port Switch
I know, wired networking is a little tame, but when you can get a reliable, all-metal, 8-port Gbit switch for $23 (after Newegg.com rebate), it's worth noting.

Oh, and I've found that MonoPrice.com has some terrific quality cables and audio parts (e.g., speaker mounts) at really excellent prices. Shipping is fast and cheap, too.

So, that about wraps it up for now. Any questions about these items, feel free to post a comment.

At least according to woot!, who is once again offering the much-maligned Zune at its lowest price to date...just $129.99. That's even lower than the very impressive $149.99 they had less than a month ago.

Check out today's woot! entry for a Steve Jobs iPhone rebate parody as well...terrific stuff.

I've always felt my Treo was a splendid phone/handheld, but often thought a bigger screen might be nice. I recently bought a used Palm TX to use as a PMP and, much like the whole "Your peanut butter is in my chocolate" moment, I wondered how the Treo might look with a wide HVGA screen.

I was having a hard time imagining exactly how big such a beast might be, so I 'shopped up a quick-and-dirty visualization:

Well, I think it's clear that that just won't work. You'd need a leg-holster, nay, a scabbard, just to carry it around. Oh, well...it was a fun five minutes.

A little less than a year ago, Microsoft launched its iPod competitor, the Zune, for $250.

Within 7 months, the price had fallen under $200. Now, 4 months later, the Zune is $150 and being sold through Woot.com, the online equivalent of the Dollar Store.

I think it's safe to say the Zune wasn't exactly a home run.

Of course, an alternate explanation is that Zune version 2 is on its way and Microsoft is just clearing out the last of its old inventory through a lower-visibility channel. We shall see...

Update: Turns out that Woot had 6300 units and sold all of them over a 21-hour period. Seems demand for Zunes might be fairly elastic.

Discovery.com has a cool story about how PDAs are being used in African wildlife conservation efforts.

Aug. 1, 2007 - In Africa, one might expect to see a lion with a fresh kill, a baboon with a toothy grin, or an elephant with its herd. But a Bushman with a PalmPilot? It's possible.

Expert hunters and gatherers such as the Bushmen, the indigenous people of the Kalahari Desert, are being equipped with smart phones with special software for tracking plants and animals. Called CyberTracker, the free program combines a database of icons of animals and plants with GPS software to allow people who cannot read or write to record complex information.

Conservationists use the information to create maps and charts of animal movements and feeding habits, which can help improve environmental research and park management.

Read the whole story (Discovery.com)

	Palm Treo 700p	Apple iPhone
Display	2.5" 320x320-pixel Touchscreen 180 ppi	3.5" 320x480 Multi-Touchscreen 160 ppi
Cellular	CDMA with EvDO (3G)	GSM with EDGE (2.5G)
Wi-Fi	None	802.11b/g
Text Input	QWERTY Keyboard	On-screen Keyboard
Onboard Memory	128 MB	4 or 8 GB
Expansion Slot	Secure Digital (SDHC) (up to 8 GB)	None
Battery	Removable 4.5 hrs talk time 300 hrs standby	Non-replaceable 8 hrs talk time 250 hrs standby
Weight	6.4 ounces	4.8 ounces
Thickness	.9 inches	.46 inches
Multi-Media Messaging (MMS)	Yes	No
Stylus Included	Yes	No
Camera	1.3 Megapixels	2.0 Megapixels
Video Capture	352 x 288 @ 15fps	None
Screen Auto-rotation	No (not necessary)	Yes
My impressions of the two devices:
Overall UI Speed	Fast to Pokey	Very Fast to Fast
One-Handed Use	Excellent to Good	Good to Poor
Browser	Good (Blazer)	Excellent (Safari)
Text Entry	Excellent	Fair (No highlighting or cut/copy/paste)
Third-Party Support	Excellent (Thousands of apps)	Poor (Other than browser applets, Apple is sole provider)
Customizability	Excellent	Fair
Fun to Use	Good	Very Good

While the table doesn't say it in so many words, my impression so far is that the Treo 700p and the iPhone do nearly all the same things, but in very different ways. With its dedicated keyboard and strong text-editing functionality, the 700p is much more of a productivity-centric communication device. In contrast, the iPhone does amazing things with audio/video/photo playback, so it is more of a media/entertainment-centric device.

However, that distinction is far from absolute. The Treo can handle audio and video playback in more formats than can the iPhone, and it also has the 3G chops to stream both audio and video over its cellular connection, so it's more flexible in those regards. But, the iPhone has some productivity tricks up its sleeve, such as its ability to multitask (e.g., pull down email in the background) and the excellent Safari browser (which emulates a desktop browser's capabilities fairly closely).

The iPhone's biggest new innovation -- the multi-touch screen -- seems like it could be something incredibly powerful. The current device seems to underutilize this feature, as it's useful only in rare situations (e.g., resizing/zooming a photo). Moreover, multi-touch inherently requires two-handed use, so it's not something someone is going to make use of all the time. But, if future software enhancements can really make strong use of this feature, then we may look back on this launch as actually meriting all the hype.

So, while I have no desire to get an iPhone for my own use, I'm glad the iPhone is out. Innovation pushes all players in the market to bring us consumers their best products, so I look forward to seeing how Palm, Nokia, HTC, Motorola, and the rest respond to Apple's new phone.

Last month, I became fed up with the increasingly disgusting state of my LCD screens. Both my laptop and my two LCD desktop panels at work were just rife with dust, lint, and macroscopic unmentionables. Just gross.

So, I thought I'd grab a screen cleaner and wipe them off. Turns out that's not as easy as one might imagine. Most everyday cleaners you find in grocery stores have alcohol, ammonia and/or other chemicals in them that do not play nicely with the plastics and coatings involved in LCD and other portable electronic displays.

So, I did what any conscientious tech blogger would do: I ordered three of the more commonly recommended cleaners to do a comparison test. KlearScreen, Purosol, and Mirachem Optix were all purchased from online retailer Photodon (who provided no monetary or other support for this test other than selling me all the cleaners at their standard price). I also purchased a bottle of the Photodon house brand LCD cleaner just to see how it stacked up. I also bought a brand new microfiber cloth to use in the testing.

Read on for details on the four candidates and the results of my month-long test for performance, endurance, and overall value.

Today, Palm announced its new Foleo smartphone companion (shown, next to the Treo). You can learn about it at the Palm website and read some first impressions here, here, and here.

I'm going to reserve judgment on the Foleo until I get some hands-on time with it (you hear that, Palm? Bump me up a few spots on the review unit list, will ya?). It has some interesting points, but I'll admit to being skeptical that the market for this device exceeds a few thousand people.

But it did get me thinking just what would have been a better product (or products) to announce today that would have served a similar purpose (i.e., extending the usefulness of a smartphone like the Treo...or the iPhone)? Here are some ideas that I've seen proposed various places today:

1) Linux-Powered Tablet Treo -- Combine the radio and multimedia functions of a Treo with all the open-source goodness of a Linux kernel and a big touchscreen display.

2) Bluetooth Virtual Display -- Giving the user a better bigscreen view of her Treo's data while only adding a few ounces to her bag seems like an interesting idea. Just one question, though: How do you interact with the Treo if your eyes are blocked by the display?

3) Clamshell Treo -- Proposed by the many who wish the Treo's 2.5" square display was a shade larger yet still pocketable, a clamshell Treo could even have two displays (a la Nintendo's DS) for double the productivity.

4) A Universal Treo-Laptop Interface -- Some have suggested that what Palm really needs to offer is a piece of hardware that would connect a Treo to any PC's USB port and automatically broker data and Internet sharing between the two devices. Imagine a continuous "smart" syncing between the two devices so that the PC could be used as an interface to the Treo's contents, or vice versa.

What's your suggestion? What should Palm have released instead of the Foleo? Or do you think it really is a viable new product category?

If you're a biker or a hiker and you like to keep your gadgets charged while on the go, you might want to check out the Solar-Rider by Twisted Road Cycle Gear. It uses foldable solar cells to charge up a 3600 mAh power pack.

It's a little pricey for a charger solution, but not compared to that new Kona you just bought.

Over the weekend on a work trip, the headset jack on my 700p started acting up and the unit was going to have to be replaced.

When I went to my local Sprint store Tuesday evening, they told me, sorry...I would have to go to a special Sprint store that had a technician in it. The nearest one was several miles away.

So, today, at 11:30am, I show up at the Sprint store. I wait 20 minutes just to talk to someone. I give him my phone to hand to the tech to verify that it was, indeed, a bad headset jack. 15 minutes later, the tech verifies that as the problem and says he can't fix it. No sweat, I say, since (a) it's still under Palm's 1-year warranty, and (b) I have the phone repair/replacement warranty on top of that. So, I expect them to hand me a replacement 700p.

Nope. Sales dude Jeff tells me that they have no Treo 700p's in stock and they have to get it from the warehouse, which takes 3-5 days. In the meantime, I will just have to use the wired headset whenever I want to make or receive a call or check my voicemail (which is the only way they'll alert me that my replacement phone is available).

However, I get back to my office today and call the store. I talk to sales dude Mike and ask if they have any 700p's in stock. He cheerily tells me that they have several 700p's in the store and to come on in and pick one up (they're open until 9pm!).

So, what's up, Sprint? I'm paying you nearly $100 a month plus a $6 per month replacement service fee just so you can make me wait an extra 3-5 days while you'll give a new customer my phone today? Sprint sucks.

It's really no wonder that a recent MSN-Zogby poll ranked Sprint as having the worst customer service across all industries. It's times like this that I really miss T-Mobile.

Update: I called Sprint's telephone support and they said they weren't sure why the store said what it did, but that I could go back to the store and ask to speak to the manager. Rather than driving clear up there again tonight, I called and was told that the phones in stock in the store were new phones and that they couldn't give out new phones for replacements (only refurbished models are available for existing customers). I asked the girl if she thought that giving better service to a potential Sprint customer (e.g., someone wanting to sign up for service and buy a 700p outright, who would be handed a new phone immediately) than a current Sprint customer (e.g., me) was the right thing to do. She said, "I'm not going to answer that." Yes, welcome to Sprint...ethics optional.

According to this CNN story, a 13-year-old was crowned National Texting Champion for typing in "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (from 'Mary Poppins') on his phone in 15 seconds.

Just now, I was able to do the same on my Treo in just under 9 seconds. And I wasn't even trying especially hard to be fast, just accurate (I didn't want to have to do it over again).

I'm not saying this to brag, but merely to make a point: a numerical-keypad phone will never be considered a productivity-minded business communications tool until we no longer need to enter text via keys. It just won't do to have to type out lots of even short emails if you have to do so by hitting up to three keys just to get a single character. And let's not even consider adequate (let alone proper) punctuation.

According to TWICE, a recent study suggests that phone-based photo-sharing is declining:

Camera Phone Image Sharing on Decline
By Greg Scoblete -- TWICE, 4/6/2007 9:24:00 AM

Jackson, Mich. -- Despite a sharp uptick in the number of households with camera phones, fewer consumers than ever are sharing their camera phone images, according to a new study from the Photo Marketing Association.

In a January survey canvassing 5,985 families, 35 percent reported owning a camera phone, up from 26 percent in the previous year. Of that figure, only 24 percent reported sharing images via e-mail or wireless transmission, down from 28 percent in 2005 and 36 percent in 2004.

The percent of camera phone owners who print their images was unchanged at 4 percent.

More than 80 percent of camera phones on the market are under 2-megapixels, PMA said.

I see two likely reasons for this trend (if it is, indeed, an actual trend). First, cameras are increasingly found in all manner of phones, from the priciest smartphones to the freebie disposables you get with a new contract. That means a wider variety of individuals are using cameraphones. So, given that a camera in one's phone may be a new feature to many who have it now for the first time, they may be less familiar and less likely to use it. Also, many who now have cameraphones got the phone with no intention of using the camera function -- it just happened to have a camera in it. Both of these user demographics factors would tend to lower the percentage of cameraphone owners who actually share photos with the cameraphones.

Second, and perhaps more sinister, is how difficult, cumbersome, and unpleasant most carriers have made it to actually share photos using their cameraphones. Take Sprint, for example. In order to share a photo from my phone, I have to submit it through the Sprint's proprietary Picture Mail service. Once uploaded, say, via MMS, the recipient gets a text message pointing him to a URL (yes, a website!) at which the photo can be viewed. This requires starting an actual web browser and burning through lots of overhead packets downloading things like menus, background images, etc. Despite having a perfectly good MMS application in my Treo and my wife's Treo, both on Sprint, we can't simply MMS a photo to each other. Instead, it either has to go through Sprint's craptastic Picture Mail service, or we just have to email it as an attachment. Instead of simply using the functions that most phone-makers have already embedded in the handsets themselves, carriers' desire to control every aspect of the usage experience generally tends to harm the user's experience and destroy value for their customers.

While the demographic trend may ultimately push these numbers down fairly low, the carriers could easily help reverse the trend somewhat by opening up picture-messaging the same way that most have done with SMS/text messaging. Open standards promote use and foster innovation, both of which benefit the carriers nearly as much as they benefit their customers.

This from a well-known online electronics merchant (that I don't particularly want to promote), down 20% from the Zune's original price of $249 just a few months ago:

Economics tells us that things in high demand rarely see significant drops in price.

While at Target earlier today looking for something else entirely, I stumbled upon the VRFM3 FM Transmitter by Virtual Reality Sound Labs. What caught my eye about this FM transmitter is the fact that it will play MP3 and WMA files directly from either a flash drive inserted into its USB port or an Secure Digital (SD) card inserted into its SD slot (see below). Of course, there's also a line-in jack for transmitting audio from another source (e.g., an iPod or Treo), but this is the first unit I've seen to offer both USB and SD interfaces. So, excited by the prospect of easy, cheap, portable, and completely wire-free tunage for any car I happen to be in, I plunked down my $49.99 and headed home to put the VRFM9 through its paces.

After an initial test, I'm very impressed by how well this device works. It does exactly what you would expect, if not hope, it to do, which, unfortunately, seems to be a rarity in consumer electronics. Plus, even more a rarity are the extensive written instructions (including color diagrams) that came with the device.

First, I tried the typical external input mode with my Treo 700p as source. The VRFM9 automatically detects which source is hooked up (if music is available by more than one source, priority goes first to the external line-in, then to the USB port, then last to the SD card slot; the unit will only play music from one source) and transmits that via one of its 15 preset FM channels (8 in the low range and 7 in the high range...enough to satisfy nearly everyone nearly all the time). The two-line LCD (at right) offers some information about the FM channel being used, play mode (normal v. shuffle), source, etc. If the unit is playing an MP3 or WMA file straight off USB or SD card, it will display the artist and song title as well (assuming these tags are present in the audio file). It's a bit cryptic and not a lot of characters appear at once, but given that you likely won't be interacting a lot with this device, it's certainly adequate, if not surprisingly nice. One nice UI touch is that when you switch tracks or change the volume, the display changes to show extra-large characters (e.g., "011/045" to let you know you're on track 11 of 45 total tracks on that source) for enhanced readability.

Second, I tried a couple different SD cards. Both my 2GB and 4GB SD (not SDHC) cards worked fine. The VRFM9 will scan the card when inserted and start playing the first one it comes across. It appears to play in this order: (1) anything in the root directory, in alphabetical order by file name, (2) anything in sub-directories in alphabetical order by sub-directory, then by file name within each sub-directory. Of course, putting the unit in Shuffle mode randomizes play across all files in all directories. One odd thing I noticed was that the unit would attempt to play the two WMV files I had in one sub-directory, but it was unsuccessful as no sound was transmitted.

I then attempted to use the VRFM9 with a USB flash drive (specifically, the 4GB Patriot Xporter XT that I reviewed previously), but no joy. The unit displayed "No Source" with that USB drive. I'll hunt around for another one and give it a go when I get a chance. Another note regarding use with flash drives; not all will fit. Particularly fat flash drives may be too girthy to fit into the VRFM9's port. If there's an SD card inserted, this further reduces the space around the USB port. Most normal extension cables will work fine.

One interesting tidbit is that a USB flash card reader that mounts like an external drive will let the user effectively play music through the VRFM9 via any of the flash media formats the reader supports. But as above, music will be played from only one card at a time. I tried plugging in an external USB hard drive (full 120VAC 3.5" drive), but no dice...the unit didn't recognize that anything was plugged in to the USB port.

Controls on the unit are spartan but adequate. They all click nicely and the dual-function (click vs. hold) is reasonably intuitive.

Now, two minor complaints. First, even though the unit ratchets through about a 120-degree sweep, the LCD isn't particularly readable except at very direct angles. So, if your car's cigarette lighter/power socket is way off to the side of the center console, you may not have much luck reading the display while driving. Second, as with all FM transmitters, sound quality is not particularly good. After all, you're limited to the sound quality of FM radio, which isn't going to impress anyone. Audiophiles will want to look to other (and likely much more expensive) hardwired solutions for getting their portable audio broadcast through their cars' stereos.

Overall, I am quite impressed by this device. Not only does it do exactly what you think it should, it seems reasonably well made and is not terribly expensive. And, given that many people have at least one lower-capacity SD card or USB flash drive sitting in a drawer not doing anything, this makes for a very easy way to put it to work as a music sherpa for your car.

There are also some nice reviews of the VRFM9 over at Audioholics and Gizmos for Geeks if you're still on the fence or want more opinions.

At least Wired's Laura Morehead thinks the police will be when they pull us over for future-crimes.

As per tradition (OK, for at least the third time), here are my predictions for the upcoming year, 2007:

1) Apple's iPod continues PMP domination
Thought I'd start off with a safe one. Yep, I don't think too many would argue that the iPod is poised to remain the de facto standard in portable media players. Given that the #1 seller in Amazon's electronics category during the 2006 holiday season was the iPod by a significant margin, and given that accessories for all other PMPs combined amount to about 1/100th of what's available for the iPod, there's really no doubt that newcomers will have a hard time challenging the king, despite any technical advantages.

2) 802.11n gets ratified and gear floods to market
802.11n, the next generation of that family of wireless networking standards, has been forever in getting off the ground. 2007 should see its final certification, opening the gates to loads of networking hardware compliant to the new standard.

3) Film cameras all but disappear from electronics stores
While you'll still be able to find cheap disposables, it will become nearly impossible to find any mainstream electronics retailer selling more than one or two token models. $99 digital cameras from recognizable brands will become commonplace.

4) Nintendo tops Sony and Microsoft as gaming overlord
Not a big leap here, but Nintendo, through its Wii and DS lines, will lead all brands in game unit sales in 2007. Sony will retain the crown of technological leader (and work though its Blu-Ray production issues), and Microsoft will continue to play the spoiler in the industry.

5) TiVo is acquired
If this prediction was good enough to be wrong in 2006, then it's good enough for 2007 as well.

6) Google launches the GooglePhone
Google, in partnership with some handheld maker and/or carrier, will launch a branded QWERTY smartphone that natively runs its main offerings (e.g., Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps, Google Talk, etc.). Maybe I'm predicting this purely out of desire -- I so want such a device -- but I do think it will happen eventually.

7) eBay sells Skype
You heard it here first. Or maybe you didn't. Either way, this is a long-shot prediction, but I think Meg Whitman is smart enough to realize that Skype is worth more to eBay when it's owned by somebody else.

8) Palm brings Jeff Hawkins back to reinvent Treo line
The current Treo line is getting a bit long in the tooth (not to mention the now-ancient Palm OS, which Palm just repurchased the permanent rights to) and its sales are likely getting pinched by slimmer, more aesthetically appealing (while not as functional, but a lot of people by phones based on looks...kind of like how they pick boy/girlfriends in college) offerings from Motorola and others. So, since Palm doesn't seem capable of designing anything anyone wants to buy on its own, the company will announce that Jeff Hawkins is coming back to help lead the development of the next-generation Treo. And many will ask, "What took you so long?"

9) HD-DVD and Blu-Ray persist; nobody cares
More devices will be available at cheaper prices, but sales of both players and media will continue to be tepid. Not only is renting becoming the dominant mode of DVD acquisition, but the current quality of standard dual-layer DVDs is perfectly adequate for 99% of the population. Maybe in a few years, the proliferating 1080p sets will drive people to want high-def movies, but it won't be as rapid an adoption rate as the original DVD was.

10) Robots become sentient, destroy all of humanity
On a related note, iRobot's stock price will double in 2007 as a result of strong sales and the announcement that a first-gen AI will take over as President and CEO.

Have a good year, everyone!

Since I made a series of predictions for 2006, I thought I'd go back and see how many actually came true.

1) Google Launches All-in-One Suite
I've been expecting this for some time, as have other folks, I'm sure, but I think 2006 will definitely see this announcement. Google will, I predict, launch a converged, multi-purpose, browser-based work environment -- lord knows what it'll be called, maybe GoogleDesk or something like that. Anyway, it will incorporate and integrate many of the disparate services that Google currently offers plus add a few. GoogleDesk will integrate Google search, Gmail (plus an enhanced contacts management function), Google Maps (auto-mapping of contacts, natch!), Blogger (for publication/hosting of created content), a new mini-suite of document tools based on the OpenOffice standard (so you can create word processor documents, spreadsheets, and presentation files), GoogleBase (the use of which will become more obvious with time), and Google News (of course). All these will be wrapped up in a browser-neutral (although I wouldn't be surprised for Google to cozy up to Mozilla to enhance Firefox with some special goodies), Java-based interface. Personally, I eagerly await this.

Kinda, sorta true. Google's offerings did indeed multiply in 2006, with Google Documents and a raft of other new and enhanced online services popping up. Technically, they haven't all been integrated into a single UI, but given they all work in a single browser session, that's pretty close.

2) The HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war ends...Blu-Ray wins
Yes, Sony will finally be able to claim a victory in the format wars. After so many failed attempts at ruling the world (cue Pinkie and the Brain theme) -- Betamax, minidisc, all the various flavors of Memory Stick, etc. -- Sony and friends will edge out the HD-DVD group and Blu-Ray will become the de facto format for HD content. That is, until something better comes along almost immediately, but hey, that's a prediction for next year.

The war ain't over, but I think most people who follow the industry would agree that Blu-Ray, despite Sony's floundering on the PS3, has more behind it than does HD-DVD at this point. It will likely take a few more years for the winner to become obvious -- until then, consumers will just be faced with more options they couldn't really care less about. After all, normal DVD looks pretty good on an HDTV and more people are choosing to take their video with them on the go; high-definition is the least of concerns for the joe wanting to watch Family Guy on his iPod.

3) The Linux-based replacement for Palm OS comes out
To limited acclaim in the West, it is immediately adopted by a significant number of Asian companies for its cheap, flexible architecture. The number of devices (almost entirely phones) running it by the end of 2006 will be around 10 in Asia and zero (maybe 1 or 2) in the West (US + Europe).

Wrong. Well, ALP (Access Linux for Palm) was released, but I've yet to hear of any actual adoption, so I'll just have to chalk this up to pure optimism.

4) Nokia will launch a Linux phone
Following the nascent success of its Linux-based 770 Internet Tablet, Nokia launches its first phone using a Linux-based OS. It mimics the S60 in look and feel. It does well, but not markedly so, causing much speculation and debate around the web about whether Nokia is abandoning S60 entirely.

Nope, didn't happen.

5) Democrats regain control of US Senate, make gains in HOR
The margin won't be enormous, but the Senate will once again be in the familiar (and, arguably, beneficial to the electorate) position of being led by the party not in control of the White House. More negotiation will result in 2007 and something a wee bit closer to "democracy" will return to the US shortly thereafter. Still a long way from acceptable, but closer.

Pretty much right on the money. In fact, you might say I underestimated their gains. Looking forward to a government much more balanced by checks and balances than it has been lately.

6) Windows Vista will launch, Apple users yawn
Windows Vista (launched in early Q4) will excite few, especially in the corporate ranks, due to the combination of a lack of "must-have" improvements and unattractive licensing structures offered by Microsoft. The 17 or so flavors of Vista will also leave consumers puzzled over which version is best for them and ultimately wait until they replace their hardware to upgrade. Given that processor speeds aren't increasing much and hard drives are getting easier to replace, there will be fewer changing out their PCs. Microsoft faces a tougher year than usual next year regarding financials; Windows Mobile and Xbox divisions still not profitable (but closer).

Sounds like a pretty accurate description of what actually happened.

7) Digital/HDTV makes big inroads
2006 will be the year of the migration to HDTV. Falling HDTV set prices (especially DLP and LCD), plus an exciting bounty of converging digital content, will usher in a period of rapid adoption that will continue into 2007. Content providers will actually start getting significant numbers of complaints when they broadcast non-HD content on their HD channels, leading to fewer programming lapses.

For the most part, yup. The sales of HDTVs were so large this holiday season that they actually affected the profitability of several large electronics retailers. So I guess it's clear that HDTV is taking off as expected. What remains to be seen is whether the broadcasters actually start paying attention now that HD viewership is climbing into significant numbers.

8) Satellite radio subscribership grows, but limited
Sirius and XM will continue to gain subscribers, but neither will top 10 million by the end of 2006. Someone will launch a mySatelliteRadio service that lets users listen to their personal music collections via satellite receiver (think MP3.com's old model applied to satradio). The RIAA will eat it for lunch, with a few hundred new downloading lawsuits for dessert.

XM had less than 8 million subscribers at the end of 2006 and Sirius had about 6 million, with the latter growing more quickly. Both are growing more slowly than the companies had predicted (and promised to investors), so that part of my prediction is absolutely spot on. I haven't heard of anything like the mySatelliteRadio service being launched, but given that many satellite receivers now enable playback of MP3 files, the two music sources are definitely getting closer.

9) TiVo is acquired
I don't know by whom, but I think this will happen within the next 12 months.

Ahem, no.

10) Resurgances of sci-fi/fantasy TV shows
The recent success of Battlestar Galactica and Lost, and the big money that the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises generate cause network television studios to start prepping more science fiction and fantasy content. A friend of mine thinks I'm daft to predict this -- we'll see. If not next year, then 2007. Or not.

Not exactly, at least not on the major networks. They are still heading towards the safe-and-familiar lines of reality/unscripted programming, dramas, and situation comedies. Alas, none of those are in space or in a castle somewhere. Too bad.

So, in the end, I had 5 predictions true or mostly correct, 4 that were mostly or completely wrong, and 1 that was unclear. Stay tuned for my predictions for 2007...

I don't typically attribute enough merit to advertising initiatives to mention them to friends, but Palm's new effort - onTreo.com - is a very clever approach. With some slick use of Flash and a bit of humor, it attempts to show potential customers all the things they can do on a Treo smartphone. Check it out.

After reading a lot of comments on Zune, Microsoft's recent foray into the portable media market, from lots of places, I think it's safe to say that Steve Jobs isn't losing any sleep over his iPod's latest competitor. Why Zune won't make a difference in the portable media market basically comes down to both what it is and what it is not:

What It Is:
• Bigger, chunkier, and less portable than nearly all other 30GB media players on the market.
• A Microsoft product (as those "I'm a PC. I'm a Mac" commercials point out, the Microsoft/Windows/PC side of consumer electronics is not considered very hip).
• Competing against an increasing array of better, faster, smaller, more capable devices every day.

What It Is Not:
• Able to act as a portable storage device (compatible with neither Media Transfer Protocol nor Mass Storage Class).
• Compatible with Microsoft's own Plays For Sure certification or able to play media from any store using that system.
• Able to interact with iTunes or the iTunes store (still the industry leader).
• Capable of using its Wi-Fi for anything actually interesting or useful.

Granted, this is version 1 of Zune. Microsoft tends to need 3 or more iterations to get something to work well and provide a compelling value proposition, so maybe we just need to wait a year or so for it to evolve. Of course, it may not last even that long if its sales this holiday season are as miserable as they just might be.

The new ClearSync 1.0 is officially launching today, so go check it out if you are interested in shared PIM (calendars and contacts) accessible via Palm OS handhelds and Treos, browser, and PC desktop applications.

According to the ClearSync website, here's what the service/software allows you to do:

Create and Edit
* multiple calendars, shared and private.
* contacts with name and contact info.
* from PC or Palm handheld PDA.

Share
* your calendar and contacts with others.
* selectively, controlling who can view and who can edit your calendars and contacts.

View
* calendars one at a time, side-by-side at the same time, or merged for an integrated view.
* calendars by day, week, or month.
* contacts organized by category.
* on your Windows PC - See screen shots.
* on your Palm handheld - See screen shots
* on any platform with a web browser (e.g. Mac, Linux) - See screen shots.

Sync
* updates all members' calendars and contacts on all their devices, no matter where the edits were done.
* using your one-button Palm sync, the way you always have.
* from PC using one-mouse-click sync.

Access
* calendars and contacts from office or home.
* using wireless laptop or wireless Palm handheld to sync changes while around town or on the road.

Backup
* of calendars and contacts means if you have a PC failure or lose your handheld, you lose no data.

Subscribe
* to public calendars such as U.S. Holidays and NBA schedules . See list of public calendars.

My buddy Mitch wrote in with this entertaining story about crafting up a custom "Princess iPod" for his daughter's birthday:

My daughter somehow got it into her head that she wanted a "Princess iPod" because she saw some junky, Disney-branded knockoff in the store. I told her she couldn't have it, but she has not forgotten about it and today is her 5th birthday party.

Her grandmother wanted to give her something indulgent. So, I took a 512MB Shuffle and covered it with an "init Bling" kit from Best Buy and some princess stickers. I ripped several albums of Disney songs to pre-load onto the Shuffle and voila! The Princess iPod

My money has her either losing it, or interest in it, by tomorrow. :-)

Well done, sir! I'm sure the Disney lawyers will be knocking on your door any minute, now.

Contributed by Mitch:

The word is out in a major way about the Nike/Apple partnership and their Nike+ campaign. Reviews are starting to abound so I won't re-hash what you can read elsewhere. If you are just crawling from under some nice rock, I'll be brief. For $29 you can purchase a kit consisting of a transmitter for your running shoe and a receiver for your iPod Nano.

While you run and listen to your Nano, the system will measure your time, pace and calories burned and a nice person will "coach" you at five minute intervals. After you finish your workout data will be sent to the Nike+ website during the next Nano synch. It's very simple, very effective and how they did this for $29 a pop I will never know.

I am a Mac user and the whole system worked 100% perfectly for me from the automatic firmware update on my Nano to linking with the shoe sender to the final transfer of data to the Nike+ website. No reboots, no driver updates, no connection problems, no muss, no fuss...amazing.

As an excellent partner to this new system, I discovered a podcast called Podrunner (recently rose to #2 on the iTunes' Podcast Top 10) that offers free running mixes from LA's own dj steveboy. These hour long mixes are built at a set number of beats per minute and make keeping your pace a simple thing.

I already enjoyed running, but now even more so with this latest bit of gadgetry.

ClearSync, the service that lets folks share their calendars and contacts data with others, has recently relaunched (it was once upon a time called WeSync) with many improvements.

In a nutshell, ClearSync handles your calendar/datebook data and contacts/address data on your Palm OS device or Windows desktop and lets you selectively share those data with others. Those "others" can either view (and edit, if you so choose) your data on their Palms or Treos or desktop PCs (Windows only), or they can use their browser (virtually any OS) to view (not edit) your calendar and contacts.

The screenshot to the right is one of the calendar views on a high-res Treo -- it lets you see one calendar (e.g., your own) side-by-side another calendar (e.g., your spouse's). These get updated every HotSync or, if used on a wireless device, wirelessly via direct connection to the ClearSync server.

This type of setup is perfect for busy couples, business partners, and other pairs and groups needing to coordinate across corporate lines or outside of a business setting (e.g., softball teams, Boy Scout troops, bowling leagues, bridge clubs, extended families, etc.).

Give it a look-see...www.clearsync.com.

In two previous posts - Treo 650 SD Slot is teh Fastar (February, 2005) and SanDisk Extreme III Secure Digital SD Card (March, 2005) - I compared the speeds of four Secure Digital cards in three Palm OS devices.

Well, it's been 16 months and newer devices and higher capacity cards are now out, so I thought I'd run some more comparisons. This time, however, I'll be using the new Palm Treo 700p along with its venerable brothers, the 650 and 600.

The four SD cards being tested here are:

L to R: Adata 150X 4GB, SanDisk 133X Extreme III 1GB, SanDisk Ultra II 66X, SanDisk 512MB

Here are the results using VFSMark v1.1 (notice that the 4GB Adata card was not tested in the Treo 650 or 600 -- those devices do not come with support for FAT32 file systems required for 4GB cards):

I think a few conclusions can be made from these data. First, the SanDisk Extreme III is a very fast card. At a rated speed of 133X, it bested even the 150X Adata card overall.

Second, the added expense of their Ultra II line above and beyond the price of SanDisk's standard (blue) line of SD cards appears to be wasted if used in a Treo. There's just no appreciable bump in speed. Maybe on a PC -- didn't test that here, so can't generalize -- but not on a Treo.

Third, the 700p looks like it has faster access to SD cards than its predecessors, which is good news. Not only can it handle FAT32-formatted cards (up to 4GB), it reads faster than the 650 and 600 and writes much faster than the 600 (but about the same as the 650).

So, if you rely on card-intensive apps, you may want to consider the combination of a Treo 700p and a SanDisk Extreme III as a pricey, but effective, upgrade.

When I fly, I tend to try and notice what smartphone* devices people are toting along to the airport. I just got back from a 3-day work trip to California and here's my informal count on the way back (SJC --> DFW --> CVG):

RIM Blackberry: 19

Palm Treo (Palm OS): 16

Windows Mobile (all): 3

Nokia: 2

* Note: only devices with thumbboards are included (I don't consider anything lacking a QWERTY keyboard to be a true "smartphone")

Granted, these are totally my counts based only on what I saw people using or wearing, so anything stuffed in a bag or pocket was not included (obviously). But, I don't think those ratios are too outta whack with reality -- the market has pretty much decided, at least in the US, that it's Blackberries vs the Treo (and, as I didn't see a single Treo 700w, it's pretty much just Palm OS Treos at that).

Streaming media is on the rise -- YouTube, Google Video, et al. are testimony to that fact. Yet there's a huge gap between those who can enjoy streaming media on the go (in your car, on the commute, etc.) and those who use the original streaming medium: broadcast radio.

Despite the growth of Wi-Fi and cellular Internet connections, good old-fashioned "radio" is still unmatched in its ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and reliability for broadcasting audio to multiple listeners.

Here's an example: When I'm out in the yard mowing, I can pick up a $10 portable FM radio (actually, you can get them free as tradeshow swag) and listen to about 30 channels for free simply by turning it on and hitting a preset button. There is no solution as simple, easy-to-use, and cheap for streaming sources, like WOXY.com or other Internet-only radio stations.

But why not? My Wi-Fi network covers my yard, so why isn't there a nice, little (maybe even cheap) Wi-Fi radio I can stick in my pocket and "tune in" to streamed sources?

Granted, I can use my Treo 650 to stream in MP3-based sources at a whopping 48k mono (thanks, T-Mobile EDGE :-/), but that means I can't receive calls and a full charge only lasts about 2 hours doing that.

So what's the solution? Is terrestrial station going to be around forever because we can't beat its delivery economics with packet-based technologies? Or will mass storage continue to get smaller and cheaper at such a rate that we'll never feel a need for stuff stored "out there"? Or is there a solution on the way I just haven't heard of yet?

A new poll out confirms some things that US technophiles have long believed, such as the fact that most people in the US are still slow to grasp the amazing range of capabilities that phones can offer and that older (i.e., wealthier) customers don't generate demand for the advanced features that younger, poorer customers want to use.

Poll: Cell Phones Irritating, Invaluable

By WILL LESTER - Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Even cell phone users get irritated at others who yak on their portables about their personal business in public. An AP-AOL-Pew poll found the offended don't think they are among the callers who get on other people's nerves.

Most cell users find their phones very useful, with half keeping them on all the time.

But almost nine in 10 say they encounter others using those phones in an annoying way. Only 8 percent of cell users acknowledge their own use of cell phones is sometimes rude.

"People tend to talk louder on the phone. That's quite irritating," said Pamela Sorenson, a 57-year-old resident of Bellingham, Wash. "I often hear young people, mostly college age, talking about dating and personal things I don't want to know about."

More than two-thirds of cell phone users say it would be hard to give up their portable, according to the poll, one of the most extensive news surveys of cell phone users yet.

About a fourth of the cell phone users polled, 26 percent, said they can't imagine life without their cell phone. Three-fourths of cell users say they have used it in an emergency.

"My cell phone is pretty much a necessity _ sometimes a pain but a necessity," said Sandra Moore of Colorado Springs, Colo. "I have children and the cell phone gives me the freedom to be places I need to be. It's easier to communicate with people, you can reach them almost any time.

"But that means people can reach me anytime," she grumbled. "Sometimes, I just turn the ringer off."

Almost one-fourth of those polled say too many people try to get in touch with them on their cell phones _ just one of many headaches balanced against the devices' advantages.

The poll also found:

• More than a fourth, 28 percent, said they sometimes don't drive as safely as they should because they are using a cell phone.

• More than a third, 36 percent, said they are sometimes shocked at the size of their service bill.

The bulk of cell users use it traditionally _ as a portable phone. But cell phones increasingly include built-in cameras, MP3 players, games and computers with the Internet and e-mail.

Young adults and minorities are drawn to the multiple uses of a cell phone. They are more likely than older adults and whites to send text messages, take pictures, use the Internet and play music with their cell phones.

If those trends continue, the cell phones' role will change dramatically.

"We've got everything on my phone," said Mark Madsen, a 24-year-old college student from Chattanooga, Tenn. "I use it mostly for the phone, but I also play video games and use the MP3 player. I pretty much use it all the time."

Only one-third of U.S. cell phone owners use text messages _ a practice immensely popular in Europe and Asia. Two-thirds of cell phone owners between ages 18 and 29 send text messages _ one of many areas where young adults have a more versatile approach to the devices.

More than half, 55 percent, of young adults take still pictures with their phones; 47 percent play games and 28 percent use the Internet, according to the poll of more than 1,200 cell phone users.

"We think of them as mobile phones, but the personal computer, mobile phone and the Internet are merging into some new medium like the personal computer in the 1980s or the Internet in the 1990s," said Howard Rheingold, an author who has taught at Stanford University and written extensively about the effects of technology.

Cell phones have changed the way people organize their time. Nearly half freed said they make most of their cell calls in off-hours when the minutes are free. Almost as many say they make cell phone calls to occupy time when traveling or waiting for someone.

"When I'm driving to my appointments, everybody calls me on my cell phone, said 26-year-old Abel Yanez of San Jose, Calif, who works in a landscaping business. "When I'm in my office, I use my cell phone because if I need to leave, I just leave. I have the office phone so I can dial up on the Internet."

The AP-AOL-Pew poll of 1,503 adults included 1,286 cell phone users and was conducted March 8-26. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. About half of the interviews, 752, were conducted by dialing landlines and 751 were conducted by dialing cell phones.

(c) Associated Press

More information, including the entire survey and a breakdown, question by question, of respondents' answers, can be found here at the Washington Post.

Ultra Mobile PCs -- tiny, wireless, slate-like PCs with finger-friendly touch-screens running full-blown Windows XP (or Vista...if it ever arrives). Below is the Samsung Q1 product, supposedly out in a month or two.

You've probably read the announcements...and heard from all the skeptics. But personally, I think it could be a fantastic form-factor for a lot of uses, not the least of which is college students.

More info: UMPC.com -- The official UMPC site

eWeek: Treo 700w Outshone by 650

Summary: The Treo 700w, the first Palm handheld to run Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system, combines the Treo's proven smart-phone design with a speedy new EvDO radio. The 700w's 240-by-240-pixel display is a step back from the excellent 320-by-320 display that graces its sibling, the Treo 650, but we found the 700w a strong smart-phone contender nevertheless.

Interesting write-up. Read more.

Gazing into my crystal (liquid crystal, of course) ball, the haze clears and 2006 looms large. Here is what the future holds for us in the coming year:

1) Google Launches All-in-One Suite
I've been expecting this for some time, as have other folks, I'm sure, but I think 2006 will definitely see this announcement. Google will, I predict, launch a converged, multi-purpose, browser-based work environment -- lord knows what it'll be called, maybe GoogleDesk or something like that. Anyway, it will incorporate and integrate many of the disparate services that Google currently offers plus add a few. GoogleDesk will integrate Google search, Gmail (plus an enhanced contacts management function), Google Maps (auto-mapping of contacts, natch!), Blogger (for publication/hosting of created content), a new mini-suite of document tools based on the OpenOffice standard (so you can create word processor documents, spreadsheets, and presentation files), GoogleBase (the use of which will become more obvious with time), and Google News (of course). All these will be wrapped up in a browser-neutral (although I wouldn't be surprised for Google to cozy up to Mozilla to enhance Firefox with some special goodies), Java-based interface. Personally, I eagerly await this.

2) The HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war ends...Blu-Ray wins
Yes, Sony will finally be able to claim a victory in the format wars. After so many failed attempts at ruling the world (cue Pinkie and the Brain theme) -- Betamax, minidisc, all the various flavors of Memory Stick, etc. -- Sony and friends will edge out the HD-DVD group and Blu-Ray will become the de facto format for HD content. That is, until something better comes along almost immediately, but hey, that's a prediction for next year.

3) The Linux-based replacement for Palm OS comes out
To limited acclaim in the West, it is immediately adopted by a significant number of Asian companies for its cheap, flexible architecture. The number of devices (almost entirely phones) running it by the end of 2006 will be around 10 in Asia and zero (maybe 1 or 2) in the West (US + Europe).

4) Nokia will launch a Linux phone
Following the nascent success of its Linux-based 770 Internet Tablet, Nokia launches its first phone using a Linux-based OS. It mimics the S60 in look and feel. It does well, but not markedly so, causing much speculation and debate around the web about whether Nokia is abandoning S60 entirely.

5) Democrats regain control of US Senate, make gains in HOR
The margin won't be enormous, but the Senate will once again be in the familiar (and, arguably, beneficial to the electorate) position of being led by the party not in control of the White House. More negotiation will result in 2007 and something a wee bit closer to "democracy" will return to the US shortly thereafter. Still a long way from acceptable, but closer.

6) Windows Vista will launch, Apple users yawn
Windows Vista (launched in early Q4) will excite few, especially in the corporate ranks, due to the combination of a lack of "must-have" improvements and unattractive licensing structures offered by Microsoft. The 17 or so flavors of Vista will also leave consumers puzzled over which version is best for them and ultimately wait until they replace their hardware to upgrade. Given that processor speeds aren't increasing much and hard drives are getting easier to replace, there will be fewer changing out their PCs. Microsoft faces a tougher year than usual next year regarding financials; Windows Mobile and Xbox divisions still not profitable (but closer).

7) Digital/HDTV makes big inroads
2006 will be the year of the migration to HDTV. Falling HDTV set prices (especially DLP and LCD), plus an exciting bounty of converging digital content, will usher in a period of rapid adoption that will continue into 2007. Content providers will actually start getting significant numbers of complaints when they broadcast non-HD content on their HD channels, leading to fewer programming lapses.

8) Satellite radio subscribership grows, but limited
Sirius and XM will continue to gain subscribers, but neither will top 10 million by the end of 2006. Someone will launch a mySatelliteRadio service that lets users listen to their personal music collections via satellite receiver (think MP3.com's old model applied to satradio). The RIAA will eat it for lunch, with a few hundred new downloading lawsuits for dessert.

9) TiVo is acquired
I don't know by whom, but I think this will happen within the next 12 months.

10) Resurgances of sci-fi/fantasy TV shows
The recent success of Battlestar Galactica and Lost, and the big money that the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises generate cause network television studios to start prepping more science fiction and fantasy content. A friend of mine thinks I'm daft to predict this -- we'll see. If not next year, then 2007. Or not.

OK, those are my predictions. I may add some more...come this time in 2006, I'll look back on these and, well, probably LMAO at how poorly I forecast the future. Until then, have a good one!

Two years ago, on December 31, 2003, I made a series of predictions for what would happen in 2004. Well, OK, so I'm a year late reviewing how I did...sue me.

Anyway, I had some hits and some misses:

Prediction: PalmSource will release Palm OS 6 to much fanfare. It will be a marked improvment for the operating system, and devices running on OS6 will be available before July. They will rock.

LOL! Man, can I blow a prediction or what? In case you've been under a rock, Palm OS 6 never made it into any consumer devices (the closest I saw was some prototype phones from Asia) and PalmSource has switched to a Linux-kernel future for Palm OS and has since been acquired by Access, an Asian phone software firm.

Prediction: Samsung will continue to encroach on Sony's market share in nearly every consumer electronics product area except for gaming.

I think this was a pretty much dead on. As a direct competitor for Sony in nearly every product segment, Samsung's sales are way, way up -- 44% higher in 2004 than in 2003 -- with a lot of that momentum coming at Sony's expense (revenue down 7.2% compared to 2004). Sony's forthcoming PS3 will definitely grab some market share and Samsung so far has no competitor for it (and I can't imagine it doing so any time soon).

Prediction: LCD televisions will continue to expand as prices drop, brands multiply, and sizes increase. Plasma TV sales in 2004 will plateau, leading to a year-on-year decline (the first ever) in 2005.

Pretty close, but my prediction was a bit early. While plasma sales have continued to rise, they're increasing much more slowly than before. LCD TV sales, however, are skyrocketing and are set to pass plasma sales in 2006.

Prediction: Wi-Fi mania will continue to build and someone will announce a low-power, low-range Wi-Fi variant that effectively obviates the need for Bluetooth. The "death of Bluetooth" will be once again announced by the press...and this time they may be right.

Not quite. Bluetooth is that technology that really hasn't achieved its full potential. Even now in late 2005, it's hard to configure and finicky with most hardware combinations. Rumors of wireless USB and some other interesting technologies are still poised to replace Bluetooth, but it may take a few more years. In the meantime, we'll continue to mutter "you couldda been a contender!"

Prediction: Bad news will continue to pour forth from the US Congress and White House in terms of poorly conceived, technology-ignorant legislation and cow-towing to powerful media lobbyists (e.g., RIAA and MPAA). Environmental devastation and deregulation will increase at the hands of the Bush administration.

Well, this wasn't really a fair prediction since it was almost assured to happen. From the FCC's crackdown on "smut" on TV to MPAA/RIAA-friendly bills requiring digital flag handling in hardware to total refusal to participate in the Kyoto protocol to reduce greenhous emissions (justified, as usual, with selectively edited "scientific" studies), the US government has had a banner couple of years regarding technology abuse.

Prediction: Convergence in home entertainment (audio/video) electronics will be hampered by an industry that is unable and/or unwilling to agree on and follow technical standards.

Again, not hard to predict. The fact that we are STILL wrangling over Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD is just sad. Moreover, there has been little progress towards unification on either of the HDTV specs (720p vs. 1080i), but people are starting to gravitate towards accommodating both and getting 1080p sets.

Prediction: Despite technical and legislative solutions, spam will continue to increase as a percentage of total email, but more slowly (due to the convergence towards 100%).

Pretty much hit this one. Back in mid-2003, spam represented about half of all email. By late 2004, it had stabilized at around 67%, and hasn't climbed much more since then. Spammers have been using more sophisticated methods, such as phishing, to get higher returns out of the the spam they do send out. So, while the volume hasn't gone up dramatically, the danger level continues to rise faster than filtering technologies can adapt.

Prediction: There will be peace on Earth (hey, I can dream, can't I?)

Worst...prediction...evar.

Stay tuned for some end-of-the-year predictions for 2006 and beyond, to be posted next week.

According to InfoWorld, Palm CEO Ed Colligan has publicly reiterated his company's plans to use Palm OS in handhelds and smartphones for the foreseeable future.

"We have a rich product roadmap of Palm OS-based handheld computers, mobile managers and Treo smartphones that we intend to deliver," Colligan wrote. "We have sold more than 30 million Palm OS-based products over the years, and it is not our intent to walk away from such a strong and loyal user base."

There...I told you so.

And when Access' new Linux-based Palm OS yet-to-be-named-revision-of-PalmOS comes out, I'm sure Palm will be jumping on that bandwagon with both feet. They'd be stupid not to. And if there's anything Ed Colligan is not, it's stupid.

The Personal Video Player (PVP) market has really heated up recently, especially with the recent announcement of Apple's latest version of the iPod, which can play video. But in general, PVPs are expensive, usually running upwards of $200 and often in the $400-$500 range. This is due to the cost of small-form-factor storage: the tiniest 40GB HDDs still fetch a premium price.

HandHeld Entertainment (HHE) has taken a different route. Continuing to evolve its ZVUE line of PVPs, HHE omits the storage, letting the user rely on relatively inexpensive Secure Digital (SD) or MultiMedia Card (MMC) flash media to store their content. Plus, the ZVUE has a smaller screen than most other PVPs. The upside is that you get a relatively inexpensive device -- the Model 200's MSRP is just $99. The downside is that you're limited in both the amount and the quality of the content you can take with you.

HHE sent me a review unit of the ZVUE Model 200 and I've put it through its paces. More after the jump...

Tempted by the ROKR because of your addiction to iTunes, but not wanting to give up the smug satisfaction of your Treo? Fret no more.

The newly released version 1.3 of Mass Storage Synchronizer, a free iTunes add-on by Tea Vui Huang, lets you sync iTunes to your Treo 600 or 650. Just use either RealPlayer for Palm or Pocket Tunes to play the synced music.

I watched the joint press conference this morning by Palm, Microsoft, and Verizon in which they announced the forthcoming (but unnamed) Palm Treo powered by Windows Mobile 5.0. Many have thought this was one of the signs of the apocolypse, or worse.

A few bits o' info: It's coming "sometime early next year" and exclusively on Verizon for a while (my guess is about 6 months). It looks to have a 240x240 display (44% the resolution of a Treo 650), will do EV-DO, and doesn't yet have an official name (rumors have it as the Palm Treo 700w) or price point.

First, I am surprised how much control Microsoft has given up in order for Palm to bring some of its Treo UI innovations to a WM5 device. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's good in that it offers a way for licensees to distinguish themselves and bring new ideas to the platform. But, it's a bad thing in that it will likely make it harder for 3rd party developers to write apps that will behave nicely on all devices. A 240x240 display is not standard and so some apps will likely be broken until the developer fixes them (by updating or adding more code).

Second, I'm not terribly impressed with it overall. I expected it to have Wi-Fi on-board. It does not. I expected a higher-res screen. It is lower-res than most of the better devices in the mobile food chain. I expected some miraculous multimedia capabilities. All I saw demo'ed was someone sending a still image via MMS. They kept touting great multimedia, but the demo didn't offer any specific examples to back that up.

Third, there were a few interesting new UI innovations, like photo-based dialing (think speed dialing by picture) and context-sensitive soft buttons for things like navigating voicemail with onscreen icons (not just keypad numbers). These were nothing that couldn't be added to a Treo 650 or 600 with a software update, so I truly hope Palm sees the benefit to making sure that *all* its product lines benefit from creative thinking. Whether or not these enhancements will be shared across other WM licensees remains to be seen, but I don't think Microsoft will force Palm to do that and I'm fairly confident Palm won't offer on its own.

Fourth, and perhaps most important to many people, was that Ed Colligan repeatedly stressed that this was an addition to Palm's product line, targeted at expanding its market and not a replacement for the Palm OS-powere Treos. I think that says a lot about how much success the Palm OS-powered devices have brought Palm, and Palm is not about to abandon what has been a very solid platform for it thus far.

I think today's announcement is great for Palm, good for Microsoft, good for Verizon, not good (but not terrible) for PalmSource/Access, and neutral for the overall smartphone user community (a new device but perhaps leading to a reduction in competition in the OS space, thereby limiting choice in the long run). Time will tell as to the overall impact of this collaboration.

Update: Below, courtesy of CNET, is a comparison photo of the current CDMA Treo 650 (left) and the forthcoming CMDA WM5 Treo (right).

In a press conference today, Steve Jobs announced the forthcoming Rokr phone, which enables iTunes download/playback of ~100 songs a la the Shuffle. Apple jointly developed the Rokr with Motorola.

In what may turn out to be one of the most confusingly branded products in the handheld space, The Register is reporting that Palm will be starting production of a new Treo (the 670?) that will run Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system.

If this isn't a sign that the apocolypse is just around the corner, I'm not sure what is. Next thing you know, we'll have Apple selling Macs pre-installed with Windows.

Also, Engadget is reporting that Palm is supposedly readying their newest Palm-Powered Treo (the 700?), which has such yummy goodness as a 1.3MP camera with 8X optical zoom, a revised shape with smaller antenna, and EVDO (for high-speed CDMA data).

Ah, Palm, at least you keep us figuring out new ways to steal enough money to buy your stuff.

Adam Boettiger, long-time Palm community member, recently penned some extensive thoughts for a mailing list on his experience with the PalmOne LifeDrive Mobile Manager, a multimedia Palm OS handheld equipped with a 4GB hard drive.

Thought I'd share my initial experiences with the LifeDrive for those considering upgrading. Hope this is useful.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Poor buying experience from Palm Store. Some difficulty setting up,
primarily with apps that conflicted. After that was resolved I am very pleased with it overall, with the exception of the lag time issue.

DETAILED COMMENTS

Buying experience - As I have done with all of my Palms back to the first unit, I called the Palm Store 800# to order via phone. Evidently the unit is popular or they are understaffed, as I was on hold for approx 10 minutes. Most consumers would not wait this long to order a product by phone. They'd be off to an OEM or retail outlet, or another store online.

Like many considering upgrading I looked at their Special Offers currently in place, which are A) Trade in / Trade up for $50 gift cert and B) $100 off if you sign up for a year of Audible.com membership.

Since I could not use the gift cert until I received it, I decided to go for the $100 off for one year membership to Audible.com, which is advertised on the Palm site at $21.95/month.

Initially on this page I was confused as to whether or not this promotion applied to the LifeDrive.

http://www.palm.com/us/products/mobilemanagers/lifedrive/

If you scroll down to the special offers and click to launch the popup that features details of the Audible offer, they list all units BUT the LifeDrive. I clarified with the Palm sales rep that the Audible.com offer *is* available for LifeDrive purchases.

What Palm does not tell you in the details of this offer is that there is another plan other than the Premium Member Audible plan at $21.95/month. From a marketing standpoint I imagine Palm is being paid a kickback per membership sold and it makes sense from their standpoint to only display the Premium Membership option.

However, from a consumer standpoint, they're probably losing a lot of sales because they are not listing the alternative, which is a regular membership at $14.95/month. I did not find this out until I asked if there were other plans. So if you're ordering via the Palm Store, know that there is a lesser expensive alternative. I don't think they meant to omit the lesser plan on purpose. Most likely it was a mistake. I dunno.

The Palm rep experienced problems three times trying to create an Audible account for me before she finally succeeded. From a usability standpoint, it made no sense to me whatsoever that Audible.com is making the Palm reps create user ID's and passwords and checking which are available while the customer is on the phone. This could have easily been much smoother by just taking my information, processing the order, sending me an email with instructions on how to set up my user ID and password on my own time. It seemed awkward to have the rep do it.

In any case, ultimately I was on hold for a total of 30+ minutes, between wait time in and processing time etc. I finally decided that it was taking too long and it was too difficult to order, so I cancelled the order and drove down to my local Staples and bought it from one of their OEM's. I don't normally ever do this and prefer dealing with Palm directly. Normally
they are very good. This time it was like having a root canal trying to buy the product via the Palm Store and combine it with the offer.

At Staples I purchased the LifeDrive, Hard Case and Universal Keyboard - at retail prices, unfortunately; so Palm Store lost a sale and Audible.com lost a potential annual customer. Perhaps someone from Palm is monitoring this list and can do something to make the process a bit smoother.

One of the coolest technologies that I've seen - that makes perfect sense - is used by my Power Company. You call them and if the queue time is longer than three minutes, they give you the option to leave your name and number and have a rep call you back, all without losing your place in the queue. I really wished that Palm had invested in this technology as it is especially great when you are calling from your mobile phone. They just call you back. It's so simple. So practical. I can't believe more companies are not doing it. They're probably losing a lot of sales due to long hold times.

SET-UP

Set up went fairly smoothly, however there are a couple of different ways to upgrade from your current user ID / old unit during a hot synch. These only apply to those of us who already have a profile and data and want it transferred to the new unit.

Method #1: Use the same user ID / Profile Name and follow the install instructions. Hot synch etc. The major problem with this method of upgrading is that it does not just import your core data files - Tasks, Address Book, Memos, Notes. It imports all of your apps from your old machine as well, and some are not compatible with the LifeDrive.

Naively, I tried this method first thinking it would be faster. Don't do it. I ended up having to go through several soft resets and finally a hard reset before I did it the way I should have in the first place, which is:

HOW TO MOVE YOUR CORE DATA FILES FROM OLD PALM TO LIFEDRIVE THE PAINLESS WAY

This may or may not be obvious to some long-time Palm users, but I'm including it because inevitably one or more new users ask this question - how do I move data?

On previous OS, moving your data from one Palm to a new one was fairly easy by locating the files and dragging them to overwrite the same files in the new user.

On the LifeDrive, here is the best and fastest way to move your core data (Addresses, Datebook, Tasks, Memos, Notes):

1. You're going to be using the Export/Import function of the Palm Desktop program to export your old core data files to a temporary directory and then change identities and then import those files into your new LifeDrive identity. If you know how to do this, read no further.

If you've done what I described above, you should have two identities, the old one from your old unit and the new one that you created for the LifeDrive.

2. Launch the Palm Desktop program.

3. There should be a dropdown menu that allows you to switch between identities. Click to select your OLD identity, i.e. The data that you want to move to the LifeDrive.

4. On the text menu, choose:

File > Export

You should see a drop down list of the core data files available for export, with the Calendar/Datebook being first. Where your cursor is change the name of the file to be exported from "Untitled" to "Datebook-Export" and then create a TEMP directory (so you'll know where it is) called "Palm Old Export".

Click the "Export" button. Repeat this for each file, exporting them to the same temporary directory.

5. Go back up to the identity dropdown menu and change identities from your OLD identity to your NEW LifeDrive identity.

On the text menu choose:

File > Import

And then locate the directory and files that you just exported. Import them into the new identity and you're done. Two minutes.

USAGE

The only thing that I do not like so far about the LifeDrive is the lag time. Lag time occurs in two areas:

1. When you power on the machine, it acts much like a computer does in booting up the OS. It is not the "Instant On" that we had all hoped for. Not even close to the T-3 or T-5 which are fairly instantaneous.

2. A second lag occurs during usage. Simply moving from one app to another, there is a noticeable lag time - half a second or longer. Earlier someone on this list indicated that they tried installing apps on an SD RAM card and booting from there, rather than the handheld, and that doing so seemed to be faster.

I have not tried that yet, but IMHO we should not have to do that just to get the device to work as quickly as earlier-released units.

Definitely get the Palm Hard Case. It is elegant, titanium-looking with a black rubber bumper. The unit slides in vertically and there are holes in the case for the reset button, stylus, cradle plug etc., allowing the user to use the unit while it is in the hard case. Very nice design.

The hot synch socket is less than optimal. It is a breakaway type, with separate areas to plug in power and synch. The unit does NOT come with a cradle charger, but rather a poorly-designed Hot Synch cord and charger. You must plug both cords into the bottom of the unit to charge and synch. There is a Hot synch button on the cord that you can push to initiate the hot
synch process.

IMHO the cord it comes with is less than optimal and was likely created so to encourage users to shell out the extra $49 for a cradle charger. Sadly, I would recommend that you do buy the cradle charger.

Those are my observations thus far. The biggest things to remember if you are upgrading to the LifeDrive is to NOT try to use your existing UserID/Profile, but create a completely new user via the Palm Desktop, install the basic software via the CD. Before you start adding third party apps, go into the Palm folder using Windows Explorer or the Mac Finder. Locate your old core database files for Tasks, Contacts, Calendar and Notes. Back them up by creating a copy of each file in a "Backup" folder, "just in case". Then drag them from your old UserID/Profile to the same positions in your new UserID/Profile to overwrite the LifeDrive files. Test it to make sure you have your old core stuff in those apps, then install ONE third party app per day. It is hard to wait, but you'll be happier in the long run and have a more stable LifeDrive.

Hope this helps some of you!

Overall I am very pleased with it and I upgraded from the T-3.

Cheers from Portland, Oregon,

/AB
--
Adam Boettiger
boettiger@pobox.com
IM: AdamJBoettiger
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My wife's GSM Treo 600 (yes, a hand-me-down, but a nice one) started acting up a couple weeks ago. 90% of the time when I turned on the cellular radio, it would soft reset. A new SIM card and every kind of Palm OS reset known to man failed to fix it, so I started casting about for options: repair, replace, anything. Her daily glares from not having a working cellphone were strong motivation.

PalmOne wanted a flat $179 to fix it, plus $25 for an advance exchange (I get the new one before sending the old one back, saving my wife ~10 more days without a PDA). Steep. Buying a new one, or even a used on ebay was just as costly, if not more so ($190+ with new ones hovering around $240).

Then I decided to call T-Mobile, just to see if they could help me out. I was skeptical since I hadn't purchased the phone from them in the first place. But lo and behold, they came through! Because the phone was out of warranty (by 5 months..grrr), they offered to charge me just $70 for a replacement Treo 600 via advance exchange (it would have been free had the phone been less than a year old). I was stunned, but the very pleasant and helpful Tier 1 (Treo) support guy on the phone assured me they do this all the time for T-Mobile customers.

So, yesterday a small brown box appeared with the daily mail. In it was a new (I'm sure not refurbished) Treo 600 with a return postage-paid label included. I just swapped the SIM and SD cards, restored the RAM image from the old device to the new device (thanks, BackupMan!), and the phones were effectively switched. The longest part of the whole swap process was removing, washing, and applying the Brando permanent screen protector the old Treo had on it. Tomorrow I'll drop the bundled up old Treo off at the Post Office and that will be that. Could it be any easier? I doubt it.

I gotta say, folks can gripe all they want about T-Mobile, but my personal experience with them so far (2+ years now) has been nothing but highly satisfying. I've always had pleasant, competent people on the phone and in the store, and their rates are among the most reasonable available. What's not to love?

Rob Griffiths at MacWorld writes up why podcasting is a fad (my words, not his).

My interpretation of is article is that podcasting is popular at the moment only because it is new, and I would have to agree with that.

Let me clarify: by "fad," I mean something popular with the masses, and by "podcasting," I mean producing podcasts, not listening to them. Producing high-quality audio content is hard work, and producing low-quality audio content isn't nearly as easy as producing written content (such as what you're reading now), so I think that a lot of people currently producing podcasts will give it up fairly soon and we'll be left with (a) those with something interesting enough to say that they become/remain popular, and (b) professional outfits using podcasts as a supplemental channel.

It's been a long time coming -- many might even argue that this is how it should have been from the get-go. I won't disagree. Regardless, the free firmware updater for the unlocked GSM Treo 650 is available here at the PalmOne website.

After going through the update process myself just now (these instructions were the best ever...still a bit unclear in places, but better than previous upgrade instructions ever have been), one major improvement is obvious: before the upgrade, I had 3.6MB (of ~22MB) free; now I have 12MB free. Joy! All that just by reducing the memory block size from 512 bytes to 32 bytes (well, and the fact that Palm OS is a database-based, rather than file-based, memory structure). I think I said that right -- I'm not a computer engineer.

Sound volume -- both ear and speakerphone -- is somewhat improved. Still not as loud as my Treo 600 was, but a fair bit louder than before. This might actually move the 650 up from "miserable" to "tolerable" in the call volume category.

I don't use Versamail, so I won't notice the improvements there. Beyond the call settings, sound level, and memory fix, this update doesn't do much else. Not that the 650 needs much fixing -- it's a darn fine device already.

Nokia has announced an interesting device, the N770. In a nutshell, it's a Wi-Fi-enabled web browser and media player. It is barely pocketable, runs Linux and is expected to cost around $350.

CNet has an interesting overview about it.

Tales of the demise of Palm, sometimes referring to PalmSource (the OS company) or PalmOne (the hardware maker) or both, seem to crop up in batches every once in a while, yet there's rarely ever any significant reason for the speculation.

One of the persistent rumors that has been hanging around since some comments from a PalmOne exec last year about possibly releasing devices based on operating systems other than Palm OS. My best guess on the situation, based on the latest information and news, is that there won't be a non-Palm OS device from PalmOne for at least three years, if ever.

First, PalmSource has agreed to sell the name "Palm" back to PalmOne for $30 million. That means that PalmOne will go back to being called Palm and PalmSource will be renamed to something that doesn't include "Palm" in the name (in fact, Palm OS will have to be renamed as well). That suggests that PalmOne believes there is huge brand value in the Palm name -- at least $30 million worth -- and a non-Palm OS device being sold under the Palm brand would be incredibly confusing and deleterious to the value of that brand.

Second, PalmOne has renewed its long-term licensing agreement with PalmSource. In that deal, PalmSource will get minimum royalty payments of nearly $150 million over the next four years, including $65 million for 2007 through 2009 if PalmSource meets certain development milestones. That is no trivial agreement, and really cements a commitment to Palm OS on the part of PalmOne. There is no reason they would have bought such a long-term relationship with Palm OS if they were looking around. To make a bad analogy, giving someone a key to your apartment usually doesn't happen if you're thinking at the time "we should see other people."

These two issues suggest to me that PalmOne won't be coming out with devices that don't run Palm OS for a long time, if ever. As Palm OS evolves into Palm OS for Linux, which will be happening over the next 12-18 months, the value proposition for PalmOne (and for PalmOne's customers) becomes even more compelling, so I don't expect significant changes to these reasons any time soon.

Here at the PalmSource DevCon, there's an air of enthusiasm and optimism that, frankly, I haven't sensed since the early days of the PalmPilot (mid-late 1990s). With the recent management changes and the switch to Linux and the increasing success of the Treo smartphone, people generally feel optimistic that Palm OS is well-positioned to be an even bigger and more significant player in the mobile market moving into the future. Before I came to PalmSource and heard all the announcements and saw the demos, I was in a bit of a funk -- I really didn't have a lot of confidence in Palm OS' ability to survive to the end of the decade. Now, I'm not only confident it'll be around, I think that its future is as bright as it could possibly be.

Regardless of your preference of mobile operating system (even if you have one), you have to admit that it's good for everyone to have competition in the market -- this forces innovation and evolution at a far faster pace than if there's just one player (the lack of improvement in Internet Explorer over the past 4 years, and then Firefox's pressure for Microsoft to increase IE's functionality and robustness, is clear evidence of this). So, root for Palm OS (and Palm OS for Linux) even if it's only to make your own preferred mobile OS adapt and improve faster than it otherwise would.

There's a PalmSource DevCon group photoblog hosted by the folks. Most of the photos are crummy, but at least there are lots of them.

I'm outta here to attend the PalmSource Mobile Summit & DevCon 2005 in San Jose all this week, so forgive if posts are even more sparse than usual. But then, there might be nifty new stuff there that'll get my blogging blood pumping fast. We'll have to wait and see...

PalmOne has announced the LifeDrive, a biggish handheld with integrated 4GB hard drive, dual wireless (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth), big screen (480x320), and other stuff. Incremental, but possibly interesting as a combo PDA / mobile media device.

Some reviews:
- Brighthand
- Palm Infocenter
- PDAGeek
- InfoSync World

Requisite photo:

According to PCWorld, PDA sales increased a lot in Q1 of 2005.

The first three months of 2005 were kind to companies that sell PDAs, with demand for wireless e-mail leading to a sharp increase in unit shipments during the period, according to market analyst Gartner.

Worldwide PDA sales during the first quarter totaled 3.4 million units, compared to sales of 2.7 million during the same period last year, Gartner says. The 25-percent gain in shipments was the largest ever percentage gain for PDA sales during the first quarter, it says, noting that it did not count sales of smart phones, such as PalmOne's Treo 650.

Full story here.

Basically, technology is killing you slowly. Yesterday, we found out that constant email use makes you retarded. Now, the Washington Post has a story about how thumbboards (a la Blackberries and Treos) can hurt the nerves and tendons in your hands:

Orthopedists say they are seeing an increasing number of patients with similar symptoms, a condition known as "overuse syndrome" or "BlackBerry thumb." In some patients, the disability has become severe.

The American Society of Hand Therapists issued a consumer alert in January saying that handheld electronics are causing an increasing amount of carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis. With that warning, the society included directions on how to properly hold the devices, urging users to take breaks and, if possible, place pillows in their laps so their wrists are in a more upright position.

The obvious conclusion is for scientists to hurry up and get us those neural implants we've been asking for.

Click. Register. Go. See lots of pretty handhelds.

For some reason, CNN thinks it's just incredible that the Japanese are reading entire books on their cellphone screens [Read "A mobile page turner".]

People have been reading novels and books on small-screened devices, like PDAs and phones, for years. Back in 1996, I purchased the 1MB memory upgrade card for my Pilot 1000 so I could have enough room to take three entire e-books with me on my honeymoon (I'm not unromantic...it was a long flight and my wife prefers to sleep on planes). Where did I get them? MemoWare. Of course, back then, it was called the Pilot MemoWarehouse, since most of the content on the site was in the form of importable text documents ('Memos').

To this day, I prefer to read books on my handheld than real books. Why? I don't need the light to be on, I never lose my place, and I can carry virtually unlimited books around with me without adding bulk to my bag or pockets. While the Japanese do have one feature that we don't -- downloable chapter-at-a-time subscriptions -- doing that isn' necessary when you can stuff a 1GB memory card in your smartphone.

So, kudos to CNN! You've uncovered a story that would have been interesting nearly a decade ago.

Now that my daily PDA, a palmOne Treo 650, has a decently high-res screen (320x320), I've been playing around with some tools that let me rip DVDs to the Xvid format at resolutions that behave well on the device's screen. I'm certainly not the first to do this, but in case you haven't tried it, I'd recommend it -- it's not as difficult as I thought and the results are pretty excellent, actually.

Within 10 minutes of starting the installation, I was able to begin ripping Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At 304x240 resolution with 80kbps audio, the resulting good-quality AVI file was only 300MB. That easily fits on, and can be played directly from, my 1GB SD card (it amazes me to think I could have several complete movies in my phone at any given time). The actual ripping time will depend on your PC hardware, and my aging desktop at home ripped the movie in about real-time.

The tools I used to do this are Pocket-DVD Studio (desktop DVD ripper) and MMPlayer (MPEG-4 player for Palm OS). Neither is 100% bug-free -- I've had both crash so far -- but they get the job done and are being improved constantly. At $32 and $15 respectively, they're not expensive, but neither are they free (they do have free demos, so you can try them out without making a commitment). But if it's potentially worth $47 to you to have your movies on your handheld -- or just to make your friends envious -- give these apps a try.

In my recent entry Treo 650 SD Slot is teh Fastar, I compared the Treo 650's SD read/write operations with the Treo 600 and Palm Tungsten C across four different SD cards. I noticed that they all seemed kind of pokey and wanted to try it out on one of the new, ultra-fast cards.

Well, I broke down and got the fastest on the market (at least based on the marketing literature): the SanDisk Extreme III (shown). It claims a speed of 20MB/sec (133X), which is considerably faster than the alleged 2MB/sec (or slower) speed of the other cards I tested.

So, how did it stack up? Check out the updated table below to find out (the new card's stats are in the first three columns)...

Card Key: SDX31G = SanDisk Extreme III 1GB, SD512 = SanDisk 512MB, SD256 = SanDisk 256MB, SM256 = Smart Modular 256MB, P64 = Palm 64MB

Device Key: 650 = Treo 650 (OS 5.4.5), 600 = Treo 600 (OS 5.2.1), TC = Tungsten C (OS 5.2.1)

The VFSMark score is the average of all the scores above it.

So, yes, it's faster than the other cards. Quite a bit faster, in fact, but either the Palm OS devices just aren't taking advantage of all that throughput (fairly likely), or the SD card's specs are a bit shy of what is advertised (could be as well).

Anybody have any other data points? Maybe one of those APC 60X SD cards to compare? Or, better yet, anybody know of more robust card-testing software for handhelds? VFSMark is getting a bit long in the tooth.

Yes, mere months after the Treo 650 became available, PalmOne got its act together enough to make a charge/sync cradle available.

Sure, given that a new unlocked GSM Treo 650 costs $699, you'd think a cradle would have been included in the box. I'm right there with ya on that.

And yes, you can now find these cradles on ebay, although currently, with shipping, they end up being more expensive than through PalmOne. Go figure.

Update (2:30pm): My order, which included only a single Treo 650 cradle, was just confirmed via email. Unfortunately for me, my order "...included backordered or advanced sale items that are unavailable for immediate shipment." Feh...a lie by any other name smells the same.

Since I moved out of my Treo 600, and no cradle is available yet for the Treo 650, I came up with an alternate use for the old 600 cradle - a USB-powered business card holder!

Capacity: about 25 cards

USB function: none

It looks as if the Treo 650 has tremendous I/O capabilities via the Secure Digital slot. Some comparative testing shows that it even out-performs the Tungsten C, which has more RAM and a faster processor.

Four Secure Digital cards were tested:

L to R: SanDisk 512MB (SD512), SanDisk 256MB (SD256), Smart Modular 256MB (SM256), and Palm 64MB (P64)

The results, using VFSMark 1.1, were as follows:

Device Key: 650 = Treo 650 (OS 5.4.5), 600 = Treo 600 (OS 5.2.1), TC = Tungsten C (OS 5.2.1)

The VFSMark score is an average of all the scores above it.

Now I'd like to run these tests with one of those high-speed (45X or 60X) SD cards...anyone have an extra you can send me?

Here are 4 more pairs of photos taken recently with the Treo 600 (top) and Treo 650 (bottom):

Two things are obvious:
1) Focus and resolution (not in terms of pixels, but in distinguishing detail) is generally better on the Treo 650 (the blurriness on the one shot is likely due to me -- it was cold and my hand was freezing). It seems that the JPG compression is higher on the 600, which may explain part of this.
2) Saturation and contrast are much higher on the 600 (too high, IMO) than the 650, which may be a tad low. Why don't they add settings in software for this stuff just like they do on $59 digital cameras?

Also, take a look at another website (PhoneCamPhotographer.com) that has some good Treo 600/650 comparison shots.

I recently posted some comments about upgrading from my old (1 year) Treo 600 to my new (2 days) Treo 650 to the Treo 600 Yahoo! Group, and I thought I'd share 'em here as well:

I just got my Treo 650 Saturday, so my thoughts are based on all of 2 days' worth of messing around with it. I've used a 600 for a year and have been very happy with it. I've used the camera a lot, despite it being horrible quality. I used the 600 more for wireless data than voice, so that's important to me. Finally, I'd consider myself a "power user" since I've replaced most of the built-in apps with other things.

OK, the good: Everything I like about the 600 is as good, if not better, in the 650. The screen is truly a marvel -- I've never seen one with such crispness and pixel density. The camera is amazing -- even VGA looks excellent. In many cases, the extra CPU horsepower is obvious; many things are faster (better). The keyboard is indeed more finger-friendly.

Now, the bad: The RAM issue* sucks. I tried a simple "migrate everything over using the standard 'upgrade' instructions in the manual" approach and it worked OK. But that was after moving everything I possibly could to SD card on the 600. When I migrated, I had nearly 13MB of free RAM on the 600 -- I ended up with less than 2MB of free RAM on the 650. Since then, I've been able to remove some other (redundant) files and have gotten up to nearly 5MB of free RAM on the 650. And believe me, that's important -- many bizarre things happen (none good) when the 650 tries to operate on low open RAM. Beyond the RAM issue, which I really believe is at the heart of every bad thing I've seen before, I can think of only a few other negatives (there may be fixes to these that I haven't read about yet): shortcuts are no longer user-editable (WTF?!), no cradle is available (again, wtf?), and there are a couple of minor annoying UI things (e.g., when changing the speaker volume with the side buttons, you have to "confirm" the new setting by hitting another side button -- not easy to do when you have the phone at your ear).

With that said, am I glad I upgraded? So far, yes. I think the less "moved in" someone is to their Treo 600 or 300/270, the easier the upgrade will be. But, as with any change, some things are different and worse, but most (IMO) are better.

*You can read an overview of the Treo 650 memory issue here (Engadget).

In short, it's awesome.

I've only had about 10 minutes to spend with it so far, but here's an interesting comparison of the camera on my 1-year-old Treo 600 (top) and my new 650 (bottom). These two pics were taken less than a half-second apart holding the phones next to one another, so the lighting, etc. is identical for both. Dramatic difference, eh?

One interesting observation is that the camera in my Treo 650 seems to be rotated off 'plumb' a bit -- I hadn't noticed that until I tried to shoot something with very vertical lines. Not a big deal, but a bit peculiar.

Sorry for the lapse...I was out of the country and I guess my co-authors have not much to say at the moment. Here are a few tidbits of recent note:

Treo 270 in for Repair
My wife's Treo 270 died while she was in Ireland this past week. Actually, just the screen and backlight died; the rest of it seems OK. Apparently, palmOne is charging me $179 for an advance exchange for this beast. Not a great deal, but not terribly bad, IMO.

Treo 600 Battery Life Redux
Like the idiot I am, I left my Treo 600 in my car when I left for my trip Thursday afternoon. I got back to my car around midnight last night -- that's about 4.5 days or 108 hours later -- fully expecting the unit to be deader than a doornail. Much to my surprise, it still had 36% charge left. I finally dropped the unit in the charger today at noon just out of habit; it still had 28% battery left. So, over the course of 5 full days (120 hours), the phone (a) remained in standby (phone on), (b) supported nighly back-ups of its RAM to SD card, and (c) was used for about 20 minutes worth of phone calls and about 15 minutes of PDA activity. Given that it probably could have gone 6 full days had I pushed it, I'm still very, very impressed by the Treo 600's battery life.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves
While on the flight from Dublin to O'Hare, I read Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. Fabulous read. I'm quite sure I still have solidly entrenched mispunctuation habits, but I'm trying hard to overcome them. The attractiveness of joining a militant punctuation society is such that if you see someone with a Sharpie correcting a sign offering "Half Price Drink's", that's quite possibly me.

Sony Puts Handhelds on Hiatus in US
Sony has suspended selling its Clie line of Palm OS-powered PDAs in the US until further notice. It seems likely that the rapid rise in popularity of palmOne's recent Zire and Tungsten models and the forthcoming release of the PlayStation Portable (PSP) both made Sony reconsider whether trying to sell PDAs in North America made much sense. Brighthand has a short article on the announcement -- feel free to engage in wild speculation at your leisure.

I'm fascinated by how consumers categorize their technology. For example, what's the difference between a phone with PDA capabilities and a PDA with phone capabilities? Yet, for some reason, consumers make these distinctions. What's really troubling is that the consultants and pundits (e.g., Gartner) seem to have latched onto certain categories and are pitting one against the other as if it were an illegal dogfight...last one standing wins.

So, let's recap what can be observed out in the marketplace today. What features seem to drive name/image dominance for handheld and mobile devices?

1. Phone -- If a device can be used as a voice phone on a cellular network, it is generally first and foremost considered a phone. Some exceptions to this include the Pocket PC Phone Edition devices, which people generally regard as PDAs, and the Palm Tungsten W, which people generally regarded as a piece of crap. So, the phone feature seems to dominate all other features...generally.

2. Gaming -- Second behind phone is gaming. If a handheld has significant game-playing capabilities, but is not a phone, it will essentially be labeled a gaming device. An example of this is Nokia's n-Gage -- it's a crappy phone and a decent gaming device, yet people still refer to it as a phone. However, consider the Tapwave Zodiac. The Zodiac is considered a gaming handheld despite it having significant PDA capabilities. Were it to have phone functionality, I posit that folks would refer to it as a phone (a la the n-Gage).

3. PDA/PIM -- Personal Digital Assistant or Personal Information Management functionality seems to be third on the influential feature list. If a device has this, but is not a phone or a gaming device, it is generally considered a PDA. There are relatively few exceptions, with the iPod being the most (only?) noteworthy one. The iPod's PIM functionality is crude at best, so perhaps this isn't really even that much of an exception.

4a. Camera -- Camera functionality (both still and video) seems to have no dominance over any other feature. The Sony Clies and the Palm Zires that have cameras are still primarily considered PDAs, and my Treo 600, which has a camera (albeit a lame one), is still considered a phone. Only devices that are strictly cameras (i.e., have no other significant capability) are regarded as cameras. The only exception I've found in this regard is the Panasonic series of multi-function devices (e.g., their D-Snap line) that combine a still camera, video camera, MP3 player, and voice recorder all in one. In that device, the camera dominates the MP3 functionality.

4b. MP3/Media Player -- Being able to play music or video clips is a laudable objective for a handheld. However, it is fairly undistinguishing if this is all a device can do. Most other features (e.g., phone, gaming, and PDA/PIM) overshadow music and video playing if those features are present on the device. Consider (again) the Tapwave Zodiac. It's an excellent multimedia device, yet folks think of it first as a gaming handheld and then as a PDA, with audio and video as an "oh, yeah, it can do this too" feature. Only dedicated devices like the forthcoming Samsung Yepp YH-999 Portable Media Center are known for their audio/video playback capabilities. Were these to have phone functionality or gaming controls or established PDA/PIM functionality, they wouldn't be nearly as lauded for their A/V features. At least that's my guess.

Note that I have Camera and MP3/Video as tied for fourth. It seems there are a lot of examples of cameras that can do the audio/video playback thing and A/V devices with built-in cameras, so I don't see a clear precedence here. Maybe that will emerge as dedicated A/V devices get better and people start considering camera functionality as almost an assumed feature for mid- to upper-level electronics.

OK, I'm interested in hearing what you all think about my theory here. What are the exceptions (gadgets) to my rules that you've seen?

Universal Display Corporation (UDC), is presenting a collection of new product concepts for Wired's NextFest, being held this weekend in San Francisco.

UDC is a developer of organic light emitting devices (OLED), with applications for flat panel display screens and other applications.

UDC will be showcasing three innovations, a high-efficiency, phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED) technology, for energy-efficient, solid-state OLED lighting products; and flexible OLED (FOLED) and transparent OLED (TOLED) technologies, which are adaptable to new design opportunities.

The Portable Light exhibit at NextFest features design applications in architecture, textiles and other areas, based on UDC's proprietary flexible and transparent OLED technologies.

One striking application is an ultra-portable handheld personal digital assistant based on a FOLED screen, which rolls up into the size of a pen.

The Register has a short, but tantalizing, piece on this forthcoming tablet-style PC from Sony.

With an 800x600 screen, integrated 802.11g wireless, and a 1GHz processor, at just 1.2 lbs. this will be one impressive device. It's operated with a stylus, but it will run on plain-Jane Windows XP (not Tablet PC). Sony will have its own software to handle pen input.

This could put a lot of pressure on the Pocket PC (er, Windows Mobile for Pocket PC) market, since nearly all of the functionality in a Pocket PC can be replicated on this device yet it enables scads more that your run-of-the-mill Pocket PC can only dream of doing. Planned accessories include a charging/display dock and a collapsable mobile keyboard.

iRiver has announced a new combination digicam music player, the iRiver Prism Eye. Coming in two models, the iFP-1090 and iFP-1095 devices combine digital audio with FM tuner capability with a digital camera.

While similar in size and specs, the iFP-1090 and iFP-1095 have storage capacities of 256-MB and 512-MB. The devices do not as yet support any expansion memory, and connect to PCs by USB1.1. Form factor is 3.5x 1.5 inches.

Prism Eye devices use a 0.3-MP CMOS sensor to capture images at 640x480 resolution, with an available 3x digital zoom. The 256-MB device can hold approximately 300 shots.

Audio formats supported include MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis and ASF. FM tuning is within the 87.5-108 MHz band. A Li-ion battery can handle about 35 hours of playback.

The Prism Eye is expected to ship this summer.

I've started listening to the radio on my phone. How? All through the magic of Pocket Tunes from NormSoft.

Pocket Tunes is first an MP3 and Ogg Vorbis player application for your Palm OS device. It's fully skinnable with decent playlist handling and has lots of other nifty features that make it very capable stand-alone music player.

However, the real magic starts when you realize that Pocket Tunes Deluxe supports streaming MP3 over wireless connections. You can now listen to that favorite streaming radio station or your own Shoutcast source wherever your wireless Palm OS handheld or smartphone has Internet access.

For example, my phone is the Treo 600 from palmOne (nee Handspring). Using GPRS, I can stream in 97X at 24 Kbps without a hiccup (higher quality streams surpass GPRS's sustained throughput, so you end up buffering every so often, which gets annoying). Or, I could listen to my own stream if I were to switch it over to 24 Kbps (its default is 64 Kbps). Some other Treo-friendly streams can be found at Treobits.

Now, if my endorsement isn't enough to convince you, Pocket Tunes also won PalmSource's "Best Multimedia Solution" at the 2004 Developer's Conference. Nice job, NormSoft!

This new device looks very interesting. The Garmin Forerunner 201 (above) is a personal trainer wearable (wrist-strap) that does many, many things.

The Forerunner 201 offers athletes an easy-to-read display, ergonomic wristband, and integrated GPS sensor that provides precise speed, distance, and pace data. It's a compact, lightweight, accurate training assistant with performance tracking, auto-lap, auto-pause and more. The Forerunner 201 is easy to use right out of the box and delivers the benefits of GPS technology at an affordable price.

Working out with the Forerunner 201 means you're never alone in your personal training, because the unit provides a Virtual Partner™. This unique feature allows you to set your training goal by configuring your Virtual Partner's pace and workout distance. You'll get a graphic perspective of your performance by viewing your pace in relation to your Virtual Partner's pace, so you can always see at a glance if you're keeping up or falling behind.

Anybody use one of these? It sounds pretty darn nifty. At around $125 (Amazon.com), it's not too spendy, either. Some screen shots from the Garmin website are shown below. More screen shots can be found here.

Sony has just announced the LIBRIé e-Book reader, the first reader produced with E-Ink electronic paper technology in a Philips-manufactured reflective screen.

The ink-on-paper look of the plastic display closely resembles newsprint, at 170 pixels per inch (PPI). The 800 x 600 screen resolution displays four shades of gray, and the entire e-book reader measures 126mm x 190mm x 13mm and weighs 190 g.

The LIBRIé's screen is easy to read in bright sunlight or in dimly lit places, and only consumes power when the image changes. Because of this, 10,000 pages are readable using four AAA alkaline batteries, making the LIBRIé extremely light and portable.

Storage capacity is 10-MB, enough for 500 downloaded books. 512-MB of memory can be added with memory stick PRO.

The LIBRIé will be available in late April or May 2004.

Archos has just announced the successor to its AV300 series of mobile viewers. The AV500 has a more ergonomic design than the AV320, and is similar in size to a Jornada Pocket PC.

The AV500 comes in 20-GB and 40-GB models. The display screens have a 704x480 resolution, with 30-fps refresh. Also available are an external speaker and microphone.

Dual USB 2.0 ports enable direct camera-to-device transfer of images. Finally, Archos also allows users control of the AV500 via a remote control as a video player and recorder.

The AV500 sports DivX and MPEG4 playback, DRM support for Microsoft's WMA and WMV9 video format, as well as synchronization compatibility with Microsoft Windows Media Player.

The Archos AV500 will be the first PVP/PDA device on the market to support standard PIM applications (including Calendar, E-mail, and Notepad), and will include an integrated Web browser.

Internet connection is still unspecified, but is said to support Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GSM.

I'm selling my Kyocera 7135 Palm OS smartphone on ebay.

If you want it, go bid on it.

If you've viewed Live from Mundania, you've noticed that the photos I've been taking with the Treo 600's camera are...well...total crap. I'm really not that bad a photographer...honest.

Well, it seems that Bill Koslosky, a.k.a. Wireless Doc, has posted the start of a rather nice-looking Treo 600 Camera Primer. While there's not a whole lot there yet, Bill emailed me today to tell me that he's working on some new material that should be posted soon.

What impressed me the most was the quality of the photos he's getting out of the Treo 600's camera. For example, the photo shown below is just one of several that are pretty amazing especially when compared to the garbage that mine seems to produce. I'm willing to accept some blame for bad pics, but I'm still not 100% convinced that my phone is acting the way it should. I guess I just need Bill to teach me the Zen of Treo 600 photography.

Toshiba has just released a consumer multimedia handheld device at the CeBIT 2004 show.

The Toshiba Mobile Viewer is a multimedia player featuring a 3.5-inch LCD display, and a 1.8-inch 20-GB hard disk drive for up to 80 hours of video storage. The Mobile Viewer also converts into a still picture and video recorder, with an optional one megapixel cam module (higher resolution modules to be made available later).

Toshiba has also designed the Mobile Viewer to be able to dock into an audio-video cradle connected to stereo sound speakers, transforming it into a full-featured entertainment unit.

Panasonic has announced the X300 mobile handset, which turns into a videocam at the touch of a button, sporting a pop-up LCD 65K colour screen. The unit will be available in the fall of this year.

Pop-up LCD screens are primarily seen on camcorders, but the design appears to be a significant ergonomic advance over other mobile phone camcorders. Filming is much easier when holding the phone sideways, videocam style.

Besides the novel pop-up screen, the Panasonic X300 tri-band phone features video record and playback, a 65-k colour display, a built-in VGA digital camera, multimedia messaging, polyphonic ring tones, preloaded games, and a WAP 2.0-compatible browser.

David Rothman over at TeleRead posted an interesting story about how 1,580 PDAs are now being used quite successfully in a Wichita school system.

Without mentioning e-books in particular, an ed-tech specialist at one Wichita school says the results with Tungsten-E's have "knocked my socks off. The parents are very interested and want to use the handhelds too. Teachers send notes home to parents via the handhelds, and the parents respond. They are great school-to-parent communication tools." Plus, the kids use the machines to be better organized, not just for a variety of subjects.

I'm still a firm believer in the near-term (next 5 years) growth potential for PDAs, but they have to be cheaper, more durable, and definitely no harder to use than your typical Palm OS device is right now. Just my opinion, of course.

I was just sent an email announcement stating that PalmSource has sold the WeSync™ group calendaring/contact system to Tanner Research.

WeSync is a shared calendar and contact data management system. It permits users of Palm OS devices to sync multiple devices and/or PCs (desktops and laptops) to the same server-based PIM (personal information management) database. This facilitates coordinating schedules and common address books within households and small groups.

WeSync was purchased by Palm back in 2000. It was supported (barely) for about two years. Then, support and new memberships were discontinued on October 18, 2002. Since then, the WeSync system has been on life support, allowing existing users to sync their calendar and contact data, but not permitting new users and not providing any user support.

As a long-time (and current) WeSync user, I look at this announcement with great anticipation. The Palm OS community has long needed a shared PIM system that is reliable, scalable, and easy to use. WeSync is by far the closest thing out there currently. My hope is that this sale will enable the system to be maintained for the foreseeable future.

Ever since cameras started coming out as features on on wireless (cellular) PDAs, I've wanted to arrive at a setup that would let me post photos and comments as new blog entries directly from the phone and with as little hassle as possible. Well, using a mix of readily available tools, I've achieved the first objective and the hassle factor is reasonably low.

Take a look at Live from Mundania -- that's the photo-centric blog that I've set up to receive my mobile posts. It's plain and simple, but it renders pretty nicely on a mobile device screen.

The requirements for this moblogging setup are pretty straightforward:

• First, you have to have a handheld. Mine is a Treo 600. Fairly mediocre camera but best-in-class overall package.

• Second, you have to have a blog to post to. Movable Type is an excellent, free blog environment with a vibrant user and developer community behind it.

• Third, you need a way to get the content from your phone to your Movable Type server. This is the key. MfOP2 (or Moblogging for Other People Too) is a free service that will take any content emailed to it and post it to your moblog. It has an impressively flexible configuration and works amazingly fast and effectively for a free service.

• Finally, you need an email client on your handheld. My client of choice is SnapperMail. It works really well with the Treo's built-in camera and other image-handling apps under Palm OS 5.

So, what's the hassle factor when posting a new entry? Here are the typical steps my setup requires:

1) Take a photo with the Treo. This can be done later, but it's easiest if this is the first action taken.

2) "Send" the photo to Snappermail (two taps). This creates a new email with the photo as an attachment. You can add other photos as attachments as well and, if you configured MfOP2 correctly, it will post all in a single blog entry.

3) I enter the email address of the MfOP2 server into the To: field. That requires all of two keystrokes and a stylus/fingernail tap.

4) At this point, you'd have to enter a fair bit of MfOP2 code to tell the MfOP2 server what your password is, what the title of the image is, what your comments are about it, etc., etc. I set up a Palm OS "shortcut" that enters all that into the email as a template. All I need to do is enter the shortcut symbol, hit my two shortcut letters, and all the MfOP2 code is dumped into the empty email. I then do a few minor edits as necessary and hit "Send."

That's it. About 1 minute later, my moblog is updated with my new post. As I said, the key to all this working so smoothly is MfOP2 -- it really is an amazing tool.

So, if you're wanting to give moblogging a whirl, give this setup a try. It's slightly less than trivial to get it all set up initially, but once that's done, it's pretty smooth sailing from then on.

Ryan Rife has released an alpha version of MovieRec for the Treo 600. MovieRec turns the Treo 600's still digital camera into a movie recorder. The app can be downloaded from Infinityball.com (Ryan's website) and there's a hearty discussion about the app/idea over at the forum at TreoCentral.com.

Currently, the app (shown above), which doesn't even have a version number yet, records only to internal RAM. Ryan claims it can attain 30 frames per second, faster updates than the screen can display. Also, an interface to allow saving of the video files needs to be added.

Pretty exciting stuff from the Palm OS dev community, eh? Go PayPal Ryan a small donation to keep him going -- he needs to buy a serial cable to facilitate his debugging. ;-)

As a college professor, I'm surrounded by young adults, many age 18-24. While the general populus thinks this age group is the most technologically savvy, I have to say I'm just not seeing it. Relatively few use PDAs or smart phones or other cutting edge stuff. The large majority of the students I see rely on two things as their daily tech: plain, no-feature cellphones and big scientific/business calculators.

It was this latter item that got me thinking. Why don't they just use inexpensive PDAs as their calulators? The bargain-basement Zire series and discontinued Sony Clie models can be had for under $100 -- roughly the same price as an upper end calculator.

The answer is, of course, in the interface. Using even the best designed calculator on a PDA is not all that enjoyable. The screen gives relatively little feedback and the screen offers only so much room for buttons. The advantages are that the screen can change based on the task, but usually, this hinders rapid use. Any of us who still hang onto our favorite HP or Casio or TI calculators from yore know this to be true.

So, it dawned on me that you could have the best of both worlds by virtue of a PDA calculator "sled." Instead of having a piece of dedicated hardware that includes a screen and software and limited memory, just rely on the PDA hardware to do that.

The image to the right is a quick sketch of what I'm envisioning (click it to see a zoom view pop-up). The PDA slides into the top and docks with a connector of some sort in the base of the sled. That physical connection would then launch the calculator software that would be controlled by the buttons (and, alternately, by an on-screen interface as well if desired). The sled could also contain a couple of 'AA' cells for added power as well as some button/detents at the top for securing the PDA in place.

The advantage of this setup is that you get the good tactile feel of real calculator buttons with the memory and horsepower and nice screen of a PDA (even the lowliest Palm OS device has a higher resolution screen than even very expensive calculators). Plus, the sled would be pretty inexpensive to manufacture since it doesn't have a screen or even much in the way of electronics. Additionally, the software could be upgraded (how many calculators have you seen that allow you to upgrade the firmware?).

My hunch is that this setup, if sold as a blister pack in Wal-Mart and Target stores (wherever kids go to get ready for the new year in high school or college), would go like hotcakes. Imagine our young adults all getting both a really good calculator and a really good personal organizer tool all in one. Also, if combined with educational software (e.g. grade and homework management programs), it would be quite easy to justify the slight additional cost to a lot of parents. The whole kit could probably be sold for under $150 for a color model and under $100 for grayscale. And if anyone actually starts making this, just send me a letter thanking me for the idea...would you? That's all I ask. ;-)

Last year, I wrote positively about the Brando WorkShop Screen Protector. Well, I just recieved one for my Treo 600 and am again impressed.

Brando claims their product is "The Perfect Screen Protector!" -- they may very well be right. Not only is it tough (I would have a hard time pushing a pencil tip through it) and rigid, it is perfectly clear and doesn't diminish or obscure the display in any way.

Sure, there are cheaper options (each Brando is $9 + S&H), but given that this one protector might well outlast the device, I doubt there are any better deals.

Tapwave and Activision have (finally) co-released one of the titles that folks have been most anxiously awaiting for the Zodiac gaming device: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4.

In the screenshot shown above, which was posted at ZodiacGamer, you can see that the game is a 3/4-view perspective game. You can control over a dozen different (real and made-up) skaters through different terrains, maps, and parks trying to learn different tricks, accomplish various tasks, and win a series of competitions.

The game is surprisingly addictive -- I didn't think I'd enjoy it nearly as much as actually did. With dozens and dozens of different tricks to learn (some requiring mind-boggling sequences of button combinations), the game is perpetually challenging. Plus, as each level has a series of challenges and surprises to discover, the game can be quite entertaining even if your skating abilities aren't that evolved.

Overall, I'd give this game a hearty thumbs-up. It uses the Zodiac hardware to its fullest and the controls are both configurable and easy to get the hang of. Memorizing all the different moves, however, may take quite a while. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 is definitely not your 20-hour-to-beat type game...it should last many, many times that given the variety and flexibility of play. Also, given that you can have multiple players competing in the same level simultaneously (through head-to-head Bluetooth connections), the opportunities for group fun are many.

I'm now fully switched over to my new Treo 600 (shown). All the apps and data that resided on my previous smart phone (the Kyocera 7135) have been transferred and I'm living large.

As a phone, it's dandy -- it does everything a phone is supposed to do and it does them superlatively. The size, weight, feel, and interface are all just terrific. Yes, there are smaller phones out there, but the Treo 600 is not what I would call large by any stretch.

As a PDA, it's very good. While the low-res screen reduces the amount of stuff you can see at any one time, the display is amazingly bright and clear (and it's the same 160x160 that I had on my Kyocera). The 32 MB of RAM is adequate (but not tremendous) and the 144 MHz processor is quite snappy. The SDIO slot provides nearly limitless expandability.

The real work of art here is the interface between the PDA side and the phone side. Unlike the Kyocera, there really is no division between these two functions. On the 7135, it was very apparent whether you dealing with a "phone" function or a "PDA" function -- shuttling between the two function sets was difficult and obvious.

In contrast, the Treo 600 blends everything quite perfectly. Using GPRS in a PDA application is seamless and transparent. Initiating a voice call from the Addressbook is fall-down easy. Handspring/palmOne really knows their stuff when it comes to user interfaces.

Then there's the battery life...it's heaploads better than I expected. I can easily go three days on a single charge with moderate PDA and phone/GPRS use. My Kyocera and my old Treo 270 would struggle to go 24 hours. Realizing that "battery = weight" makes me even more accepting of the Treo 600's 6 oz. weight (typical for handhelds, a bit heavier than most cellphones).

But, nothing is perfect. I wish the SDIO slot were full-power rather than it being a bit underpowered (it's not clear whether it's actually SDIO compliant in that regard). I also wish that T-Mobile's GPRS speeds were better. They're not bad in most spots, but the throughput can vary a fair bit from location to location and it still pales in comparison to Wi-Fi. I'm hoping that EDGE will come to T-Mobile fairly soon (is a hardware change required on the phone?). Finally, and this is the tiniest nit to pick, I wish it had a feature that my Tungsten C has -- hold down a letter key to capitalize it. I really like that feature and I wish the Treo 600 had that as an available option. The Shift key isn't inconvenient...it's just that I often capitalize after-the-fact and the TC's approach lets me change my mind after the letter has been struck.

Overall, to borrow from McDonald's, when it comes to the Treo 600, I'm Lovin' It.

Rohdesign has a blog post offering an interesting concept: miniature, pocketable full-fledged PCs will out-evolve today's PDAs and smart phones and replace them.

"I think that all of today's 'super-duper mobile devices' have a core flaw: they use a different OS than the one users are used to from their desktop PCs. Whether that OS is Symbian, Palm Cobalt or Pocket PC doesn't matter."

I've long believed that Pocket PC's days were numbered since we're getting close to being able to cram full Windows XP into that form factor. My personal belief is that the PC will eventually go away and be replaced by lots of smart (by today's standards) devices better designed for specific subsets of tasks/functions.

I just received notice today that my pre-ordered Treo 600 for T-Mobile has shipped. I pre-ordered it back on February 10th (the first day pre-orders were being taken). The promised delivery date had been "sometime in March," so I'm glad to hear that it's on its way earlier than expected.

More when it arrives later this week...

CNET usually offers a mixed bag of content -- while they have some good reporting on tech issues, most of their features have pretty limited worth, at least to the hard-core geek. The latter is true of their current feature, the PDA Prizefight.

This feature supposedly compares the two dominant handheld operating systems, Palm OS 5.2 and Windows Mobile 2003, in eight categories. They go on to propose Palm OS as the winner, besting WM03 in four (of the eight) categories and tying it in two categories.

The article is pretty much worthless, IMNSHO. It's loaded with inconsistencies (e.g. it says that its goal is to consider only the operating system and not the hardware, but then uses many examples that relate only to certain OEMs' actual devices and/or third-party add-on applications). The article also assumes that the same qualities are equally important to users of both operating systems, which I'll be the first to admit that they aren't. Despite CNET's determination that Palm OS was the better handheld OS (it's the one I personally prefer), I still think this article only vaguely resembles "journalism" (sorry, Rick...I call 'em as I see 'em).

Well, I'm back from the PalmSource Developer Conference in San Jose and, well, I'm bushed (the SJC-ORD-CVG red-eye sequence sucks). Nevertheless, here are some noteworthy comments that you may not find on other sites.

First, the big news is that Palm OS 6.x will be called Palm OS Cobalt and Palm OS 5.4 (and beyond) will be called Palm OS Garnet. When I first heard the latter, I thought they said "darn it" and was really confused. Follow that link for more info about the new Palm OS -- while there aren't any Cobalt devices announced yet, the breadboard demos were stunning. I cannot wait to see what the device makers come up with powered by Cobalt -- should be sweet.

Ironies of ironies -- the conference venue, the San Jose Fairmont, had free Wi-Fi Internet throughout the common areas of the hotel. However, to sign on to the service, you had to use an Internet Explorer-compliant web browser -- Mozilla didn't work and neither did any of the Palm OS web browsers. So, all those Tungsten C owners were walking around with slight scowls on their faces.

I got to fondle the most teeny smartphone, the GSPDA Xplore G18 (shown to the right). This GSM/GPRS (class 10) phone is about 2/3 the size of the already small Treo 600 and includes a camera. It has no keypad (on-screen buttons), but at 3.7 oz, I can't see where you'd put them. While there's no SD or other expansion slot on the camera itself, there's a slick little SD/MMC card reader adapter that plugs into the USB port on the bottom of the phone. For those wanting their Palm OS apps in the smallest possible PDA-phone combination (possibly even the smallest Palm OS device overall), this is it.

One thing I noticed while "people-watching" was that there were a LOT of Treo 600s being used by the other 1,100 or so attendees -- my hunch is about 20% of everyone there had one of these. The recent announcement that palmOne is taking pre-orders for T-Mobile-friendly Treo 600s just put me over the edge -- I pre-ordered one yesterday for $399. Now all I need to do is wait till early March when they will supposedly be shipping. For the record, I firmly believe that the rumored Treo 610 is complete hogwash. The current device is obviously so compelling to so many that palmOne is most likely to just keep making more and more of them, thereby bringing costs down so as to improve its profits.

During the multi-PUG (Palm Users Group) meeting Tuesday night, an engineer with Tapwave demonstrated Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 on the Zodiac. I believe this is the first public demo of the game, which has been "coming soon" for a few months now. It's good to see some of the promised game titles finally coming out for the Zodiac (which rocks, BTW).

The Universal Transportable Memory Association (UTMA) has introduced a flash memory card standard requiring no adapters, cables or card readers, called a Flash Internal Semiconductor Harddrive, or FISH. Cards based on the standard plug into any USB port, allowing transfer of information between PCs, PDAs, cameras or other devices.

FISH Memory cards are smaller than SD cards and have transfer rates of 10 Mbps. FISH cards are fast enough to capture streaming video from DVRs and videocams. Standard FISH cards are 1.3" long with width and thickness the size of a USB port. Miniature versions exist, 25% smaller. Current FISH technology allows for 2-GB, with 16-GB expected in 2005.

47 independent industry experts were involved in the development of the UTMA standard. Inputs to the standard came from 34 different companies. This industry consensus is expected to lead to a broad range of devices.

Tomorrow, I head out to the PalmSource 2004 Developer Conference in San Jose. While there, I hope to see many exciting things, including the official public launch of Palm OS6, the renaming of OS5 and OS6, and perhaps even some prototypes of devices based on OS6...who knows.

While my blogging will be somewhat curtailed while travelling, I'll try to post the most juicy bits as I can.

Sony is bringing out three new Clie handhelds to add to its line-up. The Clie TH55 (shown) will sport Sony's first slate-style device with 480x320 resolution. It will feature both Wi-Fi (802.11b) and an integrated VGA (640x480) camera. It will come with 32 MB of RAM and a variable-speed ARM processor running Palm OS 5.2.

New for the TH-series is Sony's enhanced PIM app, Clie Organizer, which has been met with some mixed reviews by those seeing screenshots. It will be interesting to see if the new app still maintains the ease-of-use that has been the hallmark of standard Palm OS applications to date.

The other two new Clie handhelds are the TJ37 and its lesser sibling, the TJ27. Like the TH55, the TJ37 sports Wi-Fi and an on-board VGA camera, has 32 MB of RAM, and runs on Palm OS 5.2. However, it's display resolution is 320x320 (plus a dedicated Graffiti2 area). The TJ27 will not have on-board Wi-Fi and won't have as extensive a set of multimedia functions as the TJ37. Unlike the TH55, neither TJ unit will come with Clie Organizer. Previews of these devices can be found at Palm Infocenter, BargainPDA, and Brighthand.

I'd be more excited about these units if they didn't rely on Sony's semi-proprietary Memory Stick expansion card format. I think it's obnoxious for Sony to shove an unneeded flash memory format down our throats when that format offers no real technical advantages over existing alternatives (e.g., Secure Digital) while being bigger and more expensive. Of course, Sony's bad reputation regarding their poor customer service is another reason to reconsider making one of these new Clies your next device. Kind of like that hot girl in college...they're pretty, but they come with baggage.

Olympus has announced its entry into the market of mobile phone camera modules.

The new camera module, pictured here with a Japanese 100-yen coin for a size comparison, realizes its thin size by employing free-shaped prisms for aligning light rays.

The free-shaped prism technology was previously employed by Olympus in a head-mount display, called Eye-Trek. The experience carried over in the design of the miniature camera module.

Compared to conventional camera modules for mobile phones that require several lenses vertically stacked on one another, the resin free-prism model is much thinner, at 8.5-mm. Olympus' camera module has an F value of 2.8, is designed for a 1/4-in optical instrument, and supports a 1.3-million-pixel image sensor.

Olympus is expecting to ship camera modules by spring of 2004, and mass-production in fall 2004, with an estimated production run of 500,000 units per month.

SanDisk Corporation is now shipping the world's first production 1-GB secure digital (SD) card.

At $500, the 1-GB SD card has the capacity to store over 30 hours of digitally compressed music, 1,000 high-res digital images, and over five hours of MPEG-4 compressed video.

This new SD card uses a novel stacking technology, which enables SanDisk to double the previous memory capacity without increasing the size of the card.

SanDisk worked with Sharp's Integrated Circuits Group to devise a way to stack additional layers of NAND MLC die in ultra-thin packages without increasing the card size. In the 1-GB card, two ultra-thin packages are vertically mounted in the same height that currently houses a single package.

The new stacking process also has the potential for application to compact flash (CF) and Sony memory stick (MS) storage media.

Research in Motion has just released the BlackBerry 7510, a new version of the famously addictive wireless handheld with phone and data capability.

Similar to the color 7200 series, the 7510 features new long-range digital walkie-talkie and speakerphone capabilities.

The color screen features a high resolution 240x160 display supporting over 65,000 colors. Other highlights include built-in email, browser and organizer apps; integrated attachment viewing for email; and a development platform based on Java.

Walkie-talkie service is provided by Nationwide Direct Connect, and phone service is via Nextel.

PDAntic.com has a really nice review of the new Microsoft SPOT watch from Abacus (a division of Fossil). These watches access data wirelessly through an FM sub-band.

Interesting idea. The watch looks pretty large to me, but heck, I don't even wear a watch to begin with. Should be interesting to see how these things pan out.

The Palm OS User Council is hosting its 2004 Handheld Users Survey. We hope everyone will fill it out, as it looks to take less than 5 minutes total to do so. The results should be interesting.

Bumped from Jan. 06

Apple's iTunes Music Store has captured over 80% of the market for legally downloaded music, the Trojan Horse for the real moneymaker, the iPod music player. Steve Jobs has called iTunes "the Microsoft of music stores."

Well, the Redmond giant is awakening. Last month, Microsoft began offering, with Loudeye, a service that lets other companies build online music stores. Later this year, Microsoft will offer its own music download service through MSN.

And finally, at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft is expected to reveal new details about a line of portable devices that could challenge the iPod's position in the digital music world.

As previously reported by GearBits, Microsoft's handheld Portable Media Center device will store photos, music and video. A 40 GB device will hold up to 175 hours of video, 10,000 songs or 100,000 pictures. The first commercial devices are expected later in 2004, from licensees Samsung, ViewSonic, iRiver, Tatung and Creative.

Prices are expected to range from about $400 to $700, pitting lower-end devices squarely against Apple's 20 and 40 GB iPods... and trumping them with what could be the next mobile killer app, video playback.

Apple has just unveiled the much-rumored, much-denied iPod mini at Macworld Expo. Voila!

Weighing in at 3.6 ounces, the iPod mini sports a shell of anodized aluminum (your choice of silver, gold, blue, pink, or green), holds 4GB of music, and will retail at $249.

The original iPod retails at only $50 more, now at 15GB in size, and is also available in 20GB and 40GB versions.

To conserve space, the iPod mini sports a smaller LCD screen, and integrates the iPod’s buttons with the Touch Wheel to form a new Click Wheel.

In addition to playing music ripped from your CD collection or purchased from Apple's iTunes Music Store, the iPod mini can store contacts, a calendar and to-do lists. Also available are nightlife guides, news articles and games - Music Quiz, Brick, Parachute and the ubiquitous Solitaire.

Creative has just launched the NOMAD MuVo TX digital audio player.

The media player includes USB 2.0 connectivity, which ensures that hours of music can be downloaded in seconds. Requiring no cables, the player plugs directly into a computer’s USB port for instant recognition as a removable flash drive.

Measuring 36.7 x 74 x 16mm, and weighing 43 grams, The NOMAD MuVo TX features 512 MB of memory for up to 16 hours of music, and a continuous play time of up to 15 hours. A backlit LCD display shows song information, track number, play time, play mode and EQ setting. A built-in microphone also enables recording of over 32 hours of live audio.

The player is bundled with Creative MediaSource software, a full MP3/WMA ripping and organizing app.