According to Charlie Kindel, program manager for Windows Phone 7, Engadget will be hosting a “scoop” on Windows Phone 7 on their Engadget Show, will will be streaming live on Saturday at 5pm New York time (that’s 10 PM London, other time zones here).

Engadget have already said they will have a Windows phone 7 handset in hand on the show – hopefully the “scoop” will deliver more than that.

Can our readers suggest of any scoop worthy enough to make us watch the Engadget Show? Speculate freely in our comments section below.

Thanks MobilePaddy for the tip.

Luke Timmerman wrote:

Patience has got to be the watchword for the 800 or so people who work at Microsoft’s Health Solutions Group. There’s certainly been a lot of political rhetoric over the past year about dragging the inefficient world of pen and paper medical records into the 21st century—but this is still one big market opportunity waiting to be tapped.

More than four years have gone by since former drugstore.com CEO Peter Neupert re-joined Microsoft to spearhead its worldwide health strategy. This division isn’t going to pay the bills like Windows 7 does anytime soon, but Microsoft has shown it is willing to keep building a wide and deep portfolio of products, and to be patient for when its day will come. That was the sense I got during a wide-ranging conversation I had earlier this week with Nate McLemore, Microsoft’s general manager of business development and policy in the Health Solutions Group.

“We are taking this very seriously and investing a lot,” McLemore says. “It’s a top-of-mind issue for governments, for businesses, and for consumers. They are all our customers.”

Healthcare IT has been near the top of the U.S. political agenda since January 2009, when President Obama set a goal of making all of the nation’s health records computerized within five years. The administration poured in $19 billion (or $47 billion, depending on whose budget numbers you believe) from the federal stimulus to support electronic medical records adoption. There are a million reasons why this hasn’t caught on yet, not the least of which are consumers’ worries that insurers will get a hold of the data to discriminate against them, physicians’ adherence to tradition, and hospitals’ fears that they will lose data or somehow mess things up or damage patient care.

If the money spigot ever turns on to encourage massive adoption of electronic records, Microsoft is definitely positioned—along with competitor Google Health—to be ready to pounce. Microsoft has been methodically assembling a portfolio of software products that tackle all sorts of inefficiencies. One product seeks to help consumers and providers better share electronic records (HealthVault). Another aims to get all 65 or so proprietary health programs the average U.S. hospital has to talk to each other (Amalga). A third program (Amalga Life Sciences) seeks to get researchers who are drowning in genomic data to put it in a form that might be useful if the world ever shifts to personalized, genomic-based medicine.

Nate McLemore

So what kind of traction is Microsoft seeing here? The company isn’t saying how many consumers are using HealthVault. It’s measuring progress in other ways, like how there were 46 healthcare organizations who adopted HealthVault when the platform was introduced in October 2007, and now that number has climbed to 150. When the program launched, there were nine devices that could upload data to be compatible with HealthVault—think blood sugar monitors for diabetics, for example. Now there are 70.

But really, the various constituents—doctors, patients, hospitals—who all need to adopt these technologies are taking their sweet time. All that e-health money that was authorized for spending from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act—something between $19 billion or $47 billion, depending on budget assumptions—is still waiting to be put to work, McLemore says.

The federal program is a classic carrot-and-stick approach. The feds are supposed to offer something between $2 million and $12 million to health providers who make electronic health data available to patients, as long as they can demonstrate “meaningful use” of the technology. Physicians will be eligible for as much as $44,000 in incentives, McLemore says. If they don’t switch, penalties will kick in at some point. But none of the incentive money has flowed yet, because …Next Page »

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As if Palm does not have enough trouble, HTC is now trying to poach their technology.  In this patent application they constantly calculate the travel time between your current position and where you need to be for the next appointment, and adjust your appointment reminders appropriately, so as to always remind you in enough time to allow travel to your next location.

The abstract reads as below:

A method and an apparatus for reminding a calendar schedule and a recording medium are provided. First, a schedule and a location of an event are set in a calendar, and first positioning information of the location is obtained. Then, second positioning information of a current location of a mobile device is obtained. Next, the current location is determining whether to be within a signal range of a signal source. Once the current location is within the signal range, the time for moving from the location with the second positioning information to the location with the first positioning information is calculated. Finally, a reminding time is set according to the transferring time, and a reminding action is taken at the reminding time. Thereby, the reminding time of the event can be dynamically adjusted to avoid delay caused when the mobile device is too far from the event location.

This kind of smarts was to form part of Palm’s approach to smart mobile computing, but with their market failure will hopefully find a more wider home in more pockets.

Read the full patent here.

Our mobile phones are slowly starting to take over the little details of our lives. This application was created by XDA member DarkDvr, and it does some pretty important tasks.

The app, designed for proactive car maintenance,  takes information you manually input to the phone, and gives you some estimated service intervals.

Features:

• Works with any “decent” resolution (Q|VGA, W|VGA, landscape + portrait).
• Wizard-based data entry
• High-contrast design to be easily visible outside
• Keep track of multiple cars in the same app
• Create multiple tasks for every car
• Automatic reminders based on how many miles you drive per day on average
• Add additional details to your tasks, like locations, owners, etc.

Try it out

Skype has recently claimed they have withdrawn their Windows Mobile software as they “want to offer our new customers an improved mobile experience”.  In our comment they claimed: “It’s been very difficult for us to make the experience consistent across a wide range of Windows devices.”

The news that Skype Beta has also disappeared from the Android Market makes the above excuses ring pretty hollow, and the news that Skype intends to continue delivering their software on Windows Mobile and other platforms if they have deals with carriers such as on China Unicom and Verizon reveals the truth rather clearly.

It appears Skype has given up on trying to be an end-run around the carriers, and will now focus on making individual deals to drive the uptake of carrier data plans by end users. These users will find Skype customized and locked to their handsets, only working when they have an expensive data plan.  Users on carriers without these deals will find themselves denied the ability to use Skype on their phones, data plan or not.

In effect Skype has sold out their user base to the highest bidder, and has not even had the shame to be honest about it.

Funny how greed and lies often go together.

…

As Brian Chen of Wired predicted after Apple unveiled the iPad last month, “With the iPad and the horde of tablets that will follow it, we can expect computing to become much easier than what we’re accustomed to today.”

via Why Can’t PCs Work More Like iPhones? – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com.

Six years ago, David Cope destroyed one of the world’s most talented composers. Her name was Emmy, and she’d written thousands of musical scores that were indistinguishable from classics by Mozart. But Emmy’s younger, brighter daughter named Emily lives on.

David Cope is an emeritus professor at University of California. His last piece of music composition software, Emmy (expanded from EMI, or Experiments in Musical Intelligence), was shelved six years ago in a wake of controversy. Today, his follow-up Emily Howell attempts to do what Emmy could not: Write original, modern music, rather than simply recreate the style of a bygone era.

Miller-Mccune’s full story on Emily and Professor Cope is fascinating, not only because it includes snippets of Emily’s original compositions, but because of its insight into the future of composition—namely, that human composers will rely upon machines for tasks once deemed creative.

In fact, Cope has divulged that one unnamed pop group has already signed him to help write new material. And while it’s hard to accept Man’s impending artistic obsolescence, look at the bright side. Philip Glass will be kicked to the curb in no time. [Miller-Mccune]

Cellularmagazine.it has published this video comparing the HTC HD2 to the HTC HD Mini.  The smartphone is clearly much smaller than the HD2, seemingly able to fit whole inside the screen of the HD2.

The video shows the HD Mini has a pretty faithful reproduction of the Sense UI of the HTC HD2, but lacks some of the more processor-intensive features such as the landscape album view.

Of course the HD Mini does run Windows Mobile 6.5.3, and update that will hopefully come to the HD2 at some point.

Are any of our readers considering the HD Mini? Let us know below.

One thing I like about Firefox as opposed to other browsers is the fact that you can recover passwords in Firefox using the password manager. Now, don’t get me wrong, it is a security hazard, but not if you set a master password, however, none of the other browsers I use provide users with an option to do that.

If you are using Google Chrome, you could do it with the Chrome Password Recovery tool, however, the developers of the Chrome password software have also released a similar software for Opera called OperaPassView.

OperaPassView will allow you to fetch the stored passwords for websites which you have stored them for in Opera. In my tests the passwords were displayed to me for all the sites I have them stored for (the screenshot above is default from the software site) and was even able to export them to an external file.

Definitely handy if you have forgotten your password and want to access a site in a different browser, read the rest of the security hazards in my verdict below.

Techie Buzz Verdict

If an external software can crack the algorithms of these browsers and fetch the passwords, it would definitely be good if they can provide an option to set a master password and access the stored passwords, rather than having a algorithm which can be cracked easily.

That said, OperaPassView is a really handy software to have, but again it exposes the vulnerabilities of a browser. What if your laptop is lost? Anyone could use software like these and get access to your passwords.

Are you listening Google Chrome and Opera?

Ratings: 4/5 (Very Good)

Download OperaPassView [via Life Rocks]

Don’t miss these Related Posts:

• ChromePass Lets You View / Recover Passwords in Google Chrome
• How To View Stored Passwords In Firefox?
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• Synchronize And Store Passwords For Free Online

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There are over 130,000 apps in the App Store. About 100,000 of those expect you to pay cash money for a download. Sometimes it’s worth it! Often, it’s not. Prof. Dealzmodo’s here to help you tell the difference.

Oscar Wilde was right about cynics: they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. On your next trip to the App Store, don’t be cynical. Be smart—even if it means spending a little money.

The App Store Effect Is Real. Use It.

Last fall, John pondered the App Store Effect, which holds that Apple’s model results in price deflation so severe that it’s unsustainable… in the long term. In the short term, though, it’s your ticket to apps that cost far less than their analog (or web-only) counterparts. And sometimes, they’ll include even more functionality.

Examples? Certainly! Here’s a range of apps, from professional to gaming to reference to navigation, that’ll save you anywhere from a few bucks to a few thousand:

It’s probably most helpful to think of these in terms of the broad categories where you’re most likely to find a cheaper app alternative.

Hobbyist: If it’s an activity that at least a few thousand people enjoy, there’s likely an app catering to it. GuitarToolkit‘s a perfect—if extreme—example. For $10, you get a library of over 500,000 chords, a chromatic tuner, and a metronome. Purchasing all those items individually gets expensive and, more importantly, bulky. An app? A fifth (or less) of the cost, all stored in your phone. Frequent traveler? Download HearPlanet‘s collection of over 250,000 audio guides instead of shelling out around $8 for one at each location. If you have a common passion, someone’s developing for it.

Professional: BarMax costs as much as an App Store product is allowed to, but the law exam prep app is still $2,000 less than an in-classroom service like BarBri. In fact, shortly after BarMax was released, BarBri retooled its pricing structure to be more competitive. It wasn’t a coincidence. And other professionals—including pilots and nurses—have a bevy of targeted apps to choose from as well.

Cannibalistic: Companies are so eager to be represented in the App Store that they’ll undercut themselves to be players there. An online subscription to Zagat.com costs $25 per year. The Zagat to Go app costs just $10, and includes location services and an offline mode that the Zagat website doesn’t. You can play Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for $30 on the PSP, but it’s only $10 on your iPhone. And Major League Baseball’s MLB.com at Bat app lets you stream games for $1 a pop, while MLB.TV charges $99 for a yearly subscription. Sure, if you watch a hundred or more baseball games a year on your iPod Touch’s tiny screen you’ll want to go with the latter, but the pay as you go option is ideal for the casual fan with a vested interest in his eyesight.

Remember: with so many developers targeting the App Store, it’s more than likely that there really is an app for that. But wait… what if there are several apps for that? How do you choose the right one?

App Overlap

Because the App Store is such a big ecosystem, it’s inevitable that there are redundant applications. Some categories see more overlap than others, but in general it’s common to find multiple apps that do the same thing. So where does the cost difference come from?

Functionality: The most basic—and most obvious—reason for an app to be more expensive is that it can flat-out do more. A casual Twitter user might be happy using Echofon for free, but if you need support for multiple accounts and the cleanest UI around, you’re going to be happy coughing up three bucks for Tweetie 2. Make sure to read up on the full feature set of what you’re buying. If you’re about to pay for something with more firepower than you need, there’s likely a free (or cheaper) version that’ll suit your purposes. The paid app will still be there if you decide you need more functionality down the road.

Ad Support: Often, and particularly with casual games, the only difference between the free and paid versions of an app is whether you’ll be saddled with advertisements as you use it. It really depends on your threshold: is it worth three dollars to play Words With Friends unfettered, or are you willing to endure the between-turn sales pitches that accompany Words With Friends Free? Each app integrates ads differently, so it’s worth trying out the free version first. Too many banners cluttering your screen? You’re only a click away from an upgrade.

Ripoffs: It might be helpful to think of the App Store as a giant, unruly bazaar, with thousands of vendors peddling their wares. There’s some oversight when things get out of hand, but even the $999 “I Am Rich” app was downloaded eight times before it got shut down. Like in any sales environment, it’s important to remember that what something costs usually has very little to do with what it’s worth. Don’t just go by the star system; read through the reviews to make sure that the app lives up to the developer’s description.

Easier Said Than Done?

There’s no question that a little research should go into whatever app you buy—starting with our Essential iPhone Apps Directory. Beyond that, here are a few common App Store categories with stand-out expensive, cheap, and free apps, along with our recommendations of when it’s worth it to pay up:

Cooking

Expensive: 20 Minute Meals – Jamie Oliver ($8)
Verdict: Don’t Download


Cheaper: Martha’s Everyday Food ($1)
Verdict: Don’t Download


Free: Epicurious
Verdict: Download

Jamie Oliver and Martha Stewart are powerful brands, but that’s pretty much all you’re paying for. Epicurious has thousands of recipes—including from famous chefs featured in Gourmet and Bon Appetit—a shopping list feature, and will suggest meals based on the ingredients you have handy. It’s really the only cooking app you’ll ever need.

File Storage

Expensive: Air Sharing Pro ($10)
Verdict: Don’t Download


Cheaper: Air Sharing ($3)
Verdict: Download


Free: Dropbox
Verdict: It Depends

While Air Sharing Pro includes printing and emailing, the regular version should get the job done for most people: you can transfer your files to your iPhone’s flash memory via Wi-Fi for storage and transport. The trouble with the “free” option, Dropbox, is that it’s not a standalone app. However, when you link it to your Dropbox account you can share and sync up to 2GB of files for free. It’s good if you already have an account, but if you don’t, you probably should skip it.

Messaging

Expensive: BeejiveIM ($10)
Verdict: Download


Cheaper: AIM ($3)
Verdict: Don’t Download


Free: Meebo
Verdict: Download

It might sound crazy to pay ten dollars for a messaging app, and for a lot of people it would be. But if messaging is your primary mode of communication, BeejiveIM‘s multi-account management, intuitive interface, and seamless push implementation are well worth it. For more casual IMers, it’s hard to beat Meebo‘s multiprotocol support and push notifications. They even log your conversations on their servers. Another solid free option is Fring, which includes Skype support. What you don’t want is to pay $3 for a messaging app like AIM, which only supports services on the AIM network and Facebook and is missing some features—like blocking contacts—found on the desktop version.

Navigation

Expensive: Navigon MobileNavigator ($90)
Verdict: Don’t Download


Cheaper: MotionX GPS Drive ($1)
Verdict: Download


Free: Waze
Verdict: Don’t Download

Just to be clear: Navigon makes one of the best navigation apps out there. But MotionX GPS Drive is a very good navigation app at a tiny fraction of the cost. So before you spend $90 on a top-flight turn-by-turn system, spend a few weeks figuring out if MotionX is good enough for your purposes. Chances are it is. And if it’s not? It was worth a dollar to find out. As for Waze, anyone who’s ever dealt with a backseat driver should appreciate just how unreliable—and aggravating—crowdsourced navigation can be.

Personal Finance

Expensive: PocketMoney ($5)
Verdict: Don’t Download


Cheaper: MoneyBook ($3)
Verdict: Don’t Download


Free: Mint.com
Verdict: Download

The first rule of money management: don’t pay for something you can get for free. Apps like PocketMoney and MoneyBook aren’t bad at what they do, they just look a bit hypocritical with Mint.com Personal Finance around. Mint automatically syncs to your online accounts to help you keep track your budget and investments. It’s the best personal finance app out there, and not just because it’s free.

RSS Reader

Expensive: NewsRack ($5)
Verdict: Download


Cheaper: Reeder ($3)
Verdict: Don’t Download


Free: NetNewsWire
Verdict: Download

You can get by with a free RSS reader, and NetNewsWire‘s a great option that syncs with Google Reader. Like the majority of free options, though, it can be a bit sluggish and prone to crashing, especially if you’re loaded up on feeds. Among the paid apps, NewsRack (formerly Newsstand) shines for its reliability and speed. In-between options like Reeder? Well, if the developer’s best troubleshooting suggestion is to limit the number of items you have to sync, you’re not getting what you paid for.

Twitter

Expensive: Twitterrific ($5)
Verdict: Don’t Download


Cheaper: Tweetie 2 ($3)
Verdict: Download


Free: Echofon
Verdict: Download

Tweetie 2 is our favorite Twitter app : it’s fast, intuitive, and loaded with features. I can understand if you’d rather not pay to use Twitter on your phone, and Echofon’s a more than capable free alternative. But only a twit would pay $5 for Twitterrific when the class of the field is just $3.

The Value and the Cost

Remember that the App Effect is working for you, at least for now, and that we’re in an age of unprecedented deals on app content and services. Try not even looking at the price at first. Start with the feature set, see what’s comparable. If it’s free? Great! But even if it’s $10 or $20, it still might be a steal.

We’ve gotten to a point where it feels almost perverse to pay for an app. But think of it in a larger context: you’re buying software. On your desktop, that used to—and often still does—command exorbitant sums. Even on mobile platforms, Windows Mobile and Blackberry apps used to cost 10 or 20 times the average App Store paid download. Comparatively, App store downloads are peanuts.

And remember, too, that by paying for apps that are actually worth the money, you end up supporting the developers that are delivering innovative content and services. That means a better app experience down the road for all of us. Even the cynics.

Prof. Dealzmodo is a regular section dedicated to helping budget-minded consumers learn how to shop smarter and get the best deals on their favorite gadgets. If you have any topics you would like to see covered, send your idea to [email protected], with “Professor Dealzmodo” in the subject line.

Breaking bubbles .. how does that sound for a game ? One has to think it is going to be a lame game , but Resco has managed to turn that idea in to a fantastic game. We had out doubts too but check out the review to see how we became addicted to this game…

Read more at BestWindowsMobileapps.com here.

Opera 10.5 for Mac‘s out. It’s different from most browsers—the way it searches text in every tab from the address bar, for instance—but it’s ridiculously fast and worth a spin. Besides, can you have too many browsers?? [Opera]

Mary Jo Foley from the ZDNet blog has received some answers to questions directly from a Microsoft spokesman about Windows Phone Starter Edition, which will be based on Windows Mobile 6.5.

Q: Is Mobile Starter available to phone makers via Bsqure only? Or also direct from Microsoft?
A: The Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition SKU is available to all direct partners. It is also available via MediaTek and BSquare.

Q: Which version of Office Mobile is part of one of the two Starter SKUs?
A: The current version of Office Mobile will ship in Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition. Office Mobile 2010 is currently available in beta form for Windows Phone 6.5. When Office Mobile 2010 ships, it will be made available to OEMs and distributors.

Q: Is this a stripped-down version of Windows Mobile 6.5? What’s not there that’s in the full fledged version?
A: The Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition SKU is offered in multi-language versions with and without Microsoft Office Mobile and supports 2G (GSM), 2.5G (CDMA2000 xRTT, EDGE, GPRS), CDMA (Rev A, EV-DO Revision A), and TD-SCDMA radios.

Q: Pricing?
A: We do not share pricing information for OEMs

Q: Will there be a Starter SKU for all Windows Mobile OSes going forward?
A: We have no announcements to make at this time.

Q: Have any phone makers signed up yet as customers?
A: Yes. OEMs will be launching products built on Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition this year.

While Microsoft did not answer questions about the price of the software, the information released today confirms the leak we received earlier, which suggests that the software will also in fact be free, as was suggested by that leak.

In many ways Microsoft’s move merely legitimizes the situation in China’s shanzai knock-off phone industry, that has been creating phones running pirated versions of Windows Mobile for years now, and places the OS on a competitive footing with Android in that arena.

Read more at ZDNet here.

Adobe has been holding up the promise of Flash 10.1 for Windows Mobile for some time now, with the release dates constantly slipped.

It seems the vapourware has now gone completely up in smoke, with an Adobe rep admitting:

You can expect the final release for Android to be available mid-year. All Android devices that meet our minimum s/w and h/w requirements will be supported. Unfortunately, I cannot say a lot more publicly about our port to the Android platform at this time.
As for WinMo, we have made the tough decision to defer support for that platform until WinMo7. This is due to the fact that WinMo6.5 does not support some of the critical APIs that we need.

For Windows Mobile fans there is certainly an increasing perception that any lingering support the OS may have had had slipped away completely, making the purchase of a device running the OS without the firm promise of an upgrade Windows Phone 7 appear rather foolish.

Would one be mad to buy a Windows Mobile phone on a two year contract these days? Let us know below.

Via Pocketnow.com

Ten years ago, Quake III required a PC tower with some gaming cred. Today, all you need is a smartphone running Android 1.6 or later. And it’s even a free download.

The hobby project of thunderbird2k, this video shows Quake III running pretty well on a the Motorola Droid—between 20 and 30fps—while allowing perks like multiplayer and customizable controls. (Also impressive: before the Quake was optimized for the platform, it still ran at about 22fps.) Given that the Droid doesn’t have the fastest processor around, I’d be curious to see Quake III running on something like a Nexus One. In fact, maybe we should start using games to benchmark these phones, just as we do with beefy PC rigs.

Oh, and on a slightly related note…

Unreal 4EVER. [Android Quake III via Slashdot]