Tablet PC Forum
I’ve just started a Tablet PC Forum here - you can post your questions, commentary, or polls about Tablet PCs. Our first post is a poll about your favorite Tablet PC!
New Look For Forums
Hey, PDAntic readers! Be sure to visit the Forums and sign up today if you haven’t already. Our hosting provider (Infopop) has come out with a new version of their UBB software, and it looks great. Feel free to post new topics or leave replies to existing topics, post polls, or just browse — although we’d much rather have you participate!
To start with, be sure to visit our current poll - Which of the following items do you think will happen during 2003?
My Wishes For 2003
I posted my “Looking Back at 2002” article on December 8th, so it’s not appropriate for me to write another one of those obnoxious “what happened in the last year” articles that seem to enthrall the media the last few days of every year. But there is another time-honored tradition in the journalistic field, a look ahead at the next year. Rather than speculate at what will be happening tech-wise in the next 12 months, I think I’d like to end this year with a list of my wishes for 2003 (and nobody said they had to talk about technology!):
During 2003, my wishes are that:
Microsoft SmartPhone 2002 devices finally make it to market and are extremely popular.
Saddam Hussein is killed by one of his own henchmen before we get a chance to start a war in Iraq, and that the replacement Iraqi government decides to work with the West to eradicate terrorism.
Segway LLC starts selling the p-series Human Transporter earlier than expected at a price of only $1995.
Someone finally comes out with fuel cells to replace batteries in all sorts of electronic devices, giving PDA, mobile phone and Tablet/Notebook PC users up to 15 hours of hard usage before having to “refuel”.
Mobile phone carriers reduce their wireless data rates to about a buck a megabyte.
Microsoft and Pocket PC hardware/software vendors finally optimize the OS and their applications for the XScale microprocessors.
Palm finally decides to build usable applications (i.e., an MP3 player, an Excel-compatible spreadsheet, a Word-compatible word processor, etc…) into their devices instead of forcing people to buy the applications separately.
The North Koreans accidentally detonate one of their nukes in downtown Pyongyang, effectively ending their nuclear weapons program and their totalitarian regime.
Tablet PC sales, forecasted to only make up a miniscule 2% of total notebook computer sales in 2003, actually sell much better. IBM and Dell decide to join the market with their own devices.
Apple introduces the iPad, a “Tablet Mac” that energizes the market for Tablet PCs and brings more competition to the marketplace.
ViewSonic actually comes through with the demo V35 Pocket PCs they promised to M?bius 2002 attendees… :o)
PDAntic.com users start using the discussion forums!
OK, these are a few of my many wishes for the next year. What are yours? Whatever they may be, I wish you and your families a happy, productive and peaceful 2003. Thanks for your support of PDAntic.com and our advertisers, and please be sure to send your friends our way in the next year!
Press Release: TeleType Announces Mobile Vehicle Tracking Solution for T-Mobile Pocket PC
T-MobileTracker provides an integrated GPS system to navigate streets, air, and marine all in one device
BOSTON, Dec. 19, 2002 — TeleType Co. Inc., a leading developer of integrated GPS systems for Pocket PC handheld devices, today announced a forthcoming new version of their GPS tracking and navigation technology for use with the T-Mobile Pocket PC phone.
The new T-MobileTracker is a complete system of software, hardware, and maps — designed specifically for use with the new and popular T-Mobile Pocket PC phones. It includes a special plug-in software module which allows users to track any number of vehicles in an “I see you, you see me” environment.
In addition, the integrated location technology of T-MobileTracker allows users to locate family members, field service personnel, and other critical executives or employees. This location navigator can be used for street, marine, or air tracking all in one device. Licenses and units can even be purchased separately, so that multiple units can be tracked at once.
“With the introduction of the T-MobileTracker, TeleType provides the most versatile system for GPS remote tracking and navigation, all fully integrated in one easy to use Pocket PC phone,” stated Ed Friedman, President, TeleType Co.
With the purchase of the T-MobileTracker module, customers will have a license to use the TeleType GPS software and GPS receiver for remote tracking, without additional costs. Customers simply pay their standard airtime or data charges directly to T-Mobile.
The new T-MobileTracker System from TeleType Co. is expected to begin shipping by the end of 2002, and should retail for about $249.* The T-MobileTracker will be available at the TeleType Online Store (http://www.teletype.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv? ) and pre-orders are now being taken.
The Tablet Diaries: Episode 1
Over the next few months, I will be publishing a series of articles about Tablet PCs. As you can tell from reading the first “episode” of my Tablet Diaries, the Tablet PC is something that I have literally wanted for the last 35 years. It took that long for my first “dream” computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey to finally make it to reality.
This series will cover a bit of the history of both the Tablet PC and why I think it is the form factor that will take over the personal computer industry, why I am going to choose a specific Tablet PC to purchase, what it’s like getting used to the Tablet PC, and then my feelings on using the Tablet PC on a day-to-day basis. I hope that through this series of articles, you too will become excited about this new technology!
You can read the first episode of The Tablet Diaries by clicking here. Have fun!
Slow loading, error on page, huh?
If you’ve noticed that the weblog portion of PDAntic.com is loading very slowly the last couple of days, you’re correct. I’m not sure what exactly is happening, but the page is taking quite a bit of time to load. I’ve also noticed an “Error on Page” message that doesn’t appear when any of the other normal pages are loaded, so something odd is afoot. I will be checking into this to see what’s wrong and will let you all know when things seem to be back to normal.
New iPaq With Integrated Keyboard?
PocketPCItalia had an interesting feature on Christmas day - a link to a video and picture of a purported new iPaq with an integrated keyboard, wireless (not sure if it’s WiFi or Bluetooth), and more. You can see the picture to the left. I’ve downloaded a copy of the video and uploaded it to my server so that PocketPCItalia doesn’t get hammered. You can download the file here (it’s about 3.7 MB in size, so expect a long download if you’re not on broadband).
Is this a real device or just a concept? Who knows. If it IS a real product, it will most likely be announced either at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in January or at one of the other spring shows. Regardless of whether or not it is real, or when it may or may not make it to market, it is good to see that HP (or someone with way too much time on their hands) is working on new product concepts!
Fonix VoiceDial - Cool Tool For Pocket PC Phones
A few weeks ago, I received a note telling me that Fonix VoiceDial was out of beta and available for purchase. Since that time, I’ve had several Pocket PC Phone owners tell me that this is the THE application to buy.
Fonix VoiceDial ($19.95) is a speaker-independent voice dialing application for Pocket PC Phone Edition devices. By speaker-independent, they mean that the software uses phonetic recognition and no voice training is required. You just load VoiceDial onto your Pocket PC Phone and you’re ready to start using your voice to dial any of the names in your contact list.
To dial “Bob Smith” on his cell phone, you’d just say “Call Bob Smith at mobile” and VoiceDial will make the call for you. If Bob Smith is the only Bob you call on a regular basis, you can let VoiceDial know that “Bob” is his nickname and you can then just use “Call Bob at home” to ring his home number. If you need to dial a number that you don’t have a contact entry for, you just say “Dial a number” and then speak the numbers without pausing.
VoiceDial is extremely accurate, even in noisy situations such as in crowds, moving vehicles or with other background noise. VoiceDial uses several text-to-speech (TTS) voices to prompt you, all of which are fairly intelligible.
You can download a trial version of Fonix VoiceDial here or get more information about the application here. I can’t wait to see what they have in store for the upcoming SmartPhones!
And A Very Merry Christmas To You!
No PDA news today - I just want to wish all of our PDAntic.com readers a very merry Christmas! Here’s hoping that the holidays find you connected to the ones you love through all of this fun technology that we like to talk about, or that (even better!) you’re with your favorite people on this day. If you were lucky enough to get some new techie toys for Christmas this year, please let us know what you got and how you like it! I’ve already received one e-mail from a longtime reader who has owned just about every PDA that’s ever been built; he was chagrined and amused to open up a present from a clueless relative who had purchased him a Palm Zire for the holidays! Not to worry - he said he’s going to wrap it up and give it away as a late Christmas gift to another friend who doesn’t have any pocket devices yet…
We’ll be back on the beat tomorrow, and will start posting some information about Tablet PCs in preparation for our upcoming diary on that subject.
Over 20 Million Sold
Palm Solutions Group announced last Friday (December 20th) that Palm has now sold over 20 million Palm OS devices worldwide since the introduction of the first “Palm Pilot” in 1996. In a largely self-congratulatory press release, the company noted that the new Palm Zire and Palm Tungsten T devices will open the way to retaining or increasing their 39.4 percent market share from last year.
Palm has also announced that they will be entering the world’s largest potential market — China — in the first half of 2003.
No More Christmas Gift Ideas!
You’d better not pout, you’d better not cry, you’d better not shout, I’m telling you why….PDAntic.com isn’t giving you any more gift ideas!
Since it is SO close to Christmas and most of the gifts I am suggesting wouldn’t show up until shortly after Christmas Day if you ordered them now, I thought it would be a good time to stop listing the goodies. I hope that you found the gift suggestions to be helpful and that you were able to order some of them through the site.
Things will probably be a bit slow around the PDA world for the next couple of weeks, then we’ll see a small avalanche of announcements about the time of one of the Consumer Electronics shows in January. In order to fill the gaps, I hope to write a series of articles about Tablet PCs starting in January. I still haven’t ordered one, but I plan on doing that towards the latter part of the month and I hope to do a complete “diary” of my experiences with the Tablet PC (in this case, a Compaq TC1000) as I work with it at home and while commuting. I look forward to both working with the Tablet PC and to letting my readers know how this new computing paradigm works!
Last Minute Gift Suggestion…
OK, it’s really getting down to the wire for those Christmas presents to be ordered. My gift idea today is one of my favorite toys of 2002, and it isn’t even a PDA or Tablet PC. It’s the Apple iPod MP3 player, which comes in both Windows and Mac flavors.
What can I say about the iPod other than it’s a great MP3 player. It’s tiny, it has amazing capacity (you can get a 20GB model), it comes with decent software for transferring music from either Mac or Windows PC, it has pretty good battery life, and it has one of the best user interfaces I’ve ever seen on a consumer product. Considering I swore never to buy another Apple product after they dropped the Newton Messagepad, you can tell that I’m really impressed with the iPod since I have purchased 2 since the Windows version came out. Order one here!
Two More Holiday Gift Suggestions!
The first gift idea is for the Palm owner on your list - the Palm Ultra Thin Keyboard. Remember how excited everyone was about the Stowaway keyboard a few years ago? Well, imagine an almost full-sized folding keyboard with a great feel that is only half the thickness and weight of the Stowaway - that’s the Ultra Thin Keyboard. This keyboard doesn’t work with all Palm models, just those with the Palm Universal Expansion Port (Palm Tungsten T, i705, m500, m505, m515, m125, m130). The Palm user in your life will be very happy with this gift. Click here to order one!
If you can get over the fact that it only has about 36 MB of usable RAM (for some reason, this is really bothering some people…) the ViewSonic V35 is one of the best low-cost Pocket PCs on the market. It has perhaps the best screen I’ve seen on a Pocket PC, it is thin and lightweight, and (best of all) it gives you great battery life and decent speed with its 300 MHz XScale CPU. The price is great, too - only $299. I’m hoping to get one of these as a software test Pocket PC soon so I can quit loading my Pocket PC Phone with beta-ware. If you want to order one, just click here!
Access announces NetFront 3.0 Browser for Pocket PC
Access has announced the availability of demo and full versions of their NetFront 3.0 browser for Pocket PC. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to try this, but since I have been unable to get Bitstream’s “ThunderHawk” browser to work on my Pocket PC Phone I am definitely going to give this product a try.
NetFront 3.0 is a definite improvement on Pocket IE! For those of you who like to look at software specs, check this out:
HTML4.01, XHTML1.0, cHTML (Compact HTML), XHTML Basic 1.0
CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) 1, 2
ECMA Script 3rd Edition (JavaScript 1.5)
DOM (Document Object Model) 1, 2
Various image formats:
GIF/animated GIF, PNG, JPEG, MNG, BMP
HTTP/1.1
SSL2.0/3.0, TLS1.0
Cookie support
You can read more about NetFront 3.0 or download the demo here (http://www.access.co.jp/english/ppc/index.html)
The full package is available for sale on Handango for US$29.80 .
Quick Apology…
Sorry about not posting a “Christmas Gift Idea” yesterday, but I promise I’ll get TWO out there sometime today to make up for it. Actually, it’s getting a little late to order Christmas presents online, but if you’re like me you’re probably behind schedule and will be giving some people “IOUs” on Christmas day for presents that will show up later…
My excuse is a good one - I went to see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers last night! Highly recommended if you loved the first film or the books. I’m re-reading my 1973 edition of LOTR and it improves with each reading (I think I’ve read the trilogy at least 30 times!).
-
Joy of Tech!
-
MacLevelTen
