Category: Software

Press Release: Leading mobile GPS navigation developer ALK Technologies has announced that its CoPilot® Live™ v8 GPS navigation mobile app will now include integral access to local Internet search as standard across all supported smartphone platforms.

Previously available as a premium option, CoPilot Live v8’s integrated access to local search enables users to quickly and easily find whatever they are looking for, whether it’s the nearest service, product, brand or shop. Search results are displayed in the on-screen map or as a list. Make your choice and CoPilot Live will guide you right there, with on-screen and spoken turn-by-turn directions.

Michael Kornhauser, Managing Director at ALK Technologies said "Smartphone-based navigation offers a significant advantage over non-connected dedicated systems by providing seamless access to useful real-time information about your journey or location. With fully integrated local search, all CoPilot Live v8 customers can now use their phone’s mobile Internet connection to find the places they need and be guided straight there.

Live Local Search is included as standard within CoPilot Live v8 navigation for Android and Windows Mobile, and as a free upgrade for existing customers.

Live Local Search is available in CoPilot Live in USA, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Netherlands.

More at ALK here.

As these come without any sources I will keep these off the front page, but if anyone has any verification, that would be pretty cool.

 

Thanks Tipper for the last one, and Marty for the rest.

This post was submitted by marty.

It has not been clear what the Series in Windows Phone 7 Series means.  Now PCMag has been able to clarify the strangely elongated name.

Microsoft’s Rena Lunak explained "Series" means that Windows Phone 7 will be continuously updated, and that phones will be able to receive updates – just like Google Android phones or Apple iPhones. There will no longer be dot or even more minor point updates, in fact there will only be one Windows Phone 7s that can be upgraded on the fly.

Of course this is great news. Now if Microsoft could only convey this without such a clumsy name…

Read more at PCMag here.

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

Sony Electronics usually maintains a low corporate profile at its North American headquarters, even though it ranks among San Diego’s biggest private employers—with roughly 2,000 workers here. That seemed especially true after its corporate parent announced a massive reorganization at this time last year, which included hundreds of Sony layoffs in San Diego.

So it seemed unusual when Sony Electronics recently broke radio silence. The consumer electronics business organized an open house at its new 11-story building here—and invited hundreds of dealers, less than two months after courting them at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The unexpected glasnost even extended to some journalists like me, who were invited to join the trade press for a Q&A session with two of Sony Electronics’ top executives. We also got briefing on Sony’s push into 3D technologies.

The session included a demonstration of the new “Dash—a personal Internet appliance, alarm clock, and online media-streaming device based on technology that Sony licensed from San Diego-based Chumby Industries, the startup behind the soft-and-cuddly Chumby web terminal.

Stan Glasgow, Sony Electronics’ president and chief operating officer, says the Dash is an example of the company’s renewed focus on consumer trends and demographics. Women, in particular, influenced its development, according to Edgar Tu, president of Sony TV Engineering of America. Sony says more than 1,000 free apps are available for the device, which connects to an existing home or office wireless network, so people can use it to access websites for recipes, weather, traffic reports, news, and other information. Tu tells me the Dash even features a 7-inch waterproof LCD touch screen, so people can use it in the bathroom and kitchen. It will be available in April for $199.

Sony’s new focus on consumer trends has grown so keen, in fact, that Glasgow says Sony and CBS have established a …Next Page »

Demo of Windows Phone 7 Series at MWC 2010 in Barcelona from pda.pl on Vimeo.

Our friends at PDA.Pl has a sit down session with a Microsoft rep and published this video showing the OS in action.

Is there anything particularly striking you notice in the video? Let us know below.

Caution – some crude language. And Hitler of course…

WMExperts has published this video from Mobile World Congress showing the Toshiba TG02, which amazingly is actually thinner than the already svelte TG01, and with its current software, which is based on Windows Mobile 6.5.3 and SPB Mobile Shell, appears to be incredibly smooth and responsive, no doubt helped by the capacitive screen.

Pity SPB’s interface is so confusing, as can clearly be seen from the video.

The Toshiba TG02 appears to be a clear HTC HD2 competitor.  Do you agree?  Let us know below.

Rebecca Zacks wrote:

New England’s tech and life sciences firms inked lots of deals in the last week, with the software sector being particularly active.

—Advanced RenewableEnergy Company of Nashua, NH, raised $5 million of a $10 million equity round, according to regulatory filings. Nicknamed ARC Energy, the company makes equipment for growing and processing the sapphire crystals used in LEDs.

—Woburn, MA-based Excelimmune, a developer of human antibody-based drugs, raised $1 million in a Series B financing.

—Semiconductor equipment maker NEXX Systems of Billerica, MA, filed for an initial public offering worth as much as $42 million.

—MPM Capital, a Boston-based life sciences investment firm, raised $140 million for its fifth BioVentures fund, according to regulatory filings.

—Cambridge, MA-based GenArts, a provider of visual effects software, acquired two widely used plug-in collections, called Tinder and Tinderbox, from The Foundry, a London-based rival. Wade wrote about how the deal fits into GenArts’ plans to become a leading special effects plug-in vendor.

—Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IRWD) raised an additional $28 million when the underwriters of its February 2 IPO exercised their options to buy 2.5 million additional shares. All told, Ironwood raised $203 million from its debut, after expenses and fees.

—A syndicate of private equity firms including Advent International, Bain Capital, and Berkshire Partners bought out Dublin, Ireland-based SkillSoft (NASDAQ:SKIL) software maker for about $1.1 billion. SkillSoft’s U.S. headquarters are in Nashua, NH.

—Cambridge-based PatientsLikeMe, which runs a social networking site for patients with a variety of ailments, acquired Hungarian online pain management firm ReliefInsite for an undisclosed sum.

—Burlington, MA-based voice and imaging software maker Nuance Communications (NASDAQ: NUAN) acquired Salem, NH’s MacSpeech. The deal will help Nuance expand into the Mac market.

Resco Snake is Resco’s interpretation of the classic game “Snake” and they’ve done a good job with it. You control your little snake through 24 levels (in full colour) over 4 ‘seasons’ and you get to battle a boss level enemy at the end of each season. There are also three levels of difficulty to choose from. The menus are friendly enough on your fingers that you never need a stylus but sadly it doesn’t support using D-Pads. The game is controlled using the G-sensor to “steer” your snake which means you can’t re-create the style of the original Snake …

Read more at BestWindowsMobileApps here.

In an interesting development, HTC has replaced one of the standard features of Windows Mobile 6.5, the lock screen, with a new version which works very differently.

The new screen bears some similarities to the one on the ZuneHD (and WP7s), requiring a downward swipe rather than across.

Unfortunately the screen is still not very informative, with much unused space.

Do you like the change? Let us know below.

Via Pocketnow.com

 

 Via MobilityDigest we learn that the Amazon MP3 store and Blockbuster video store cabs have been ripped from ROM images for the T-Mobile HTC HD2.

At present it is not known if the cabs are functional or what restrictions there are on their use, but hopefully they do work properly and allow easy access to purchasing media on all Windows Mobile phones in the region, something which should really have been there from the start.

The Amazon cab can be found here and Blockbuster cab here.

Thanks DavidK for the tip.

This is all the information from the official press conference video that refers to the interface, specs etc.

• Live "tiles" replace start screen and today screen, get updated dynamically unlike the static icons of the old Start Menu. Virtually anything can be “pinned” to the new start menu letting you jump in to programs, contacts, media, webpages etc.
• Multiple, independent calendars: live, Exchange etc: "Work and phone together"
• "App Bar" replaces task bars buttons, some icons always displayed, other less frequent ones displayed one a tap, so more screen real estate available. The “App Bar” appears icon based (like 6.5.3) though the extended menus are text
• A lot of fancy animations
• System wide detection of addresses, phone numbers etc. linked to actions like calls
• Bing maps changes to show satellite on close zoom in
• Multitouch consistent with Windows 7 (PC) – required on all devices, requires 4 point multitouch.
• Standard sensor architecture.
• New software keyboard much like the one on the Zune HD
• Search – context sensitive, can pick local, web, news etc as data source.
• "Bing as a decision engine", integrated in to lots of things, and also the search button.
• Panorama of screens rather than individual, not connected screens. Pan between pages. This replaces the pivots in 6.5.3.
• Brand new browser, based on desktop IE, so widely compatible. Double tap + pinch zoom. Sub pixel positioning on text, new text engine. Text legible on pages when zoomed out. Multiple tabs. Pin web page to start menu
• New exchange client, “works just like outlook on the desktop”. Data cached locally. Check boxes to delete email, same method to delete one email as many emails (think HTCs email deletion from the latest Sense)
• “Hubs” to organise data for common tasks. Integration with third party software and services
• Phone primarily about communication, people centric communication like HTCs sense. All contacts brought together, people. Commenting on peoples statuses etc direct from contacts “hub”. Can pin contacts to start screen.
• Pictures hub has pictures from web sources, on device etc, images synced from PC.
• “What’s new” feeds from Facebook, other social networking. Can integrate services in to hubs, like upload images.
• Central data sources used by individual “hubs”. Log in once to Facebook, all data available from relevant applications – Facebook albums, contact updates etc.
• “Great for business users as well as consumers”. OneNote great on a phone. “Office hub”. Office 2010 derived judging by the orange everywhere! All data synced to desktops. Panorama with SharePoint, local files, most popular etc. Edit, creation “consistent with desktop applications”. Maybe MS haven’t completed Office yet, no in-depth look at it.
• Syncs with Zune PC software. Browsing of data stored on phone.
• Games. Most popular category for software. Linked to Xbox Live. Xbox live games. Games as a social experience. Interaction across three screens (TV, PC, mobile).
• Trying to bring together web, local data etc. “designed for Life In Motion”.
• Media on one central hub, multiple music sources. “One stop shop for music and video” including third party. “Every WP7S device is a Zune”
• WP7 is described as “Start over”
• Continue to invest in WM6.5, coexisting perhaps?

One key point made was “it’s a phone, not a PC”.

Really, all of this is good, and gives a massive overhaul to the OS. Forget the shortcomings, and just look at what could become a very intuitive, very fast user interface. Unfortunately, words such as “synergystical” appeared quite frequently. That cannot be a good sign!

Check out the video of the WP7 launch at MWC here.

John Chapman has released an upgrade for his free Freda ePub capable ebook reader app for Windows Mobile which addresses many user requests and makes the already great software even more usable.

The updated version includes the ability to keep the backlight on and prevent the lock screen from coming on, both features high on my request list, and the ability to configure how the swiping and scrolling works.

Also great features are being able to jump straight into your last loaded book without having to choose it from the list first.

Download the software here, and can I suggest a $10 donation to show our appreciation?

Windows Phone Series 7 is here, and it’s like nothing we’ve seen from Microsoft—or anyone else—before. But how does it measure up? And where does every other smartphone OS stand?

If you want to skip the gallery format, click here.

iPhone OS 3.x

The third major release of the iPhone’s software, and the second since the platform got its App Store, iPhone OS 3.x has succeeded on the strength of simplicity, intuitiveness and a tremendous selection of applications. It serves as the basis for the OS that will ship with the new Apple iPad.

Available: June 2009
Open Source/Free: No
Multiple Handset Manufacturers: No
Multitasking: No
Multitouch Interface: Yes
Browser/Engine: Safari/WebKit
Video Recording: Yes
Upgrades: Sync/Patcher
Syncing Software: Yes
App Store Size: 100k+
App Sideloading: No
Jailbreaking/rooting: Yes
Flash Support: No

Android 2.x

In just over a year, Google’s Linux-based Android OS has gone from a rough-edged software experiment to a smartphone powerhouse, running atop some of the most powerful hardware available. Version 2.1 is the software platform for Google’s own first phone, the Nexus One. Android phones vary in both hardware configurations and software versions, but are generally increasing in popularity.

Available: October ’09
Open Source/Free: Yes/Yes
Multiple Handset Manufacturers: Yes
Multitasking: Yes
Multitouch Interface: Yes
Browser/Engine: Chrome/WebKit
Video Recording: Yes
Upgrades: Over the Air
Syncing Software: No
App Store Size: 20k+
App Sideloading: Yes
Jailbreaking/rooting: Yes
Flash Support: Within six months

Palm webOS 1.x

Palm’s webOS represented a complete reboot for the company, whose aging Palm OS found itself outpaced by more modern, finger-friendly offerings from Apple and Google. At the core of the OS is a novel multitasking system, with which users can cycles through apps, or “cards.” Another webOS selling point is the deep integration of social networking directly into the OS, and an emphasis on messaging.

Available: June ’09
Open Source/Free: No/No
Multiple Handset Manufacturers: No
Multitasking: Yes
Multitouch Interface: Yes
Browser/Engine: webOS/WebKit
Video Recording: Coming soon
Upgrades: Over the Air
Syncing Software: No
App Store Size: 1400+
App Sideloading: No
Jailbreaking/rooting: Yes
Flash Support: Within six months

BlackBerry OS 5

RIM is known for issuing frequent updates for its mobile OSes, but they are minimal, and at heart, BlackBerry OS 5 is deeply similar to its early, decade-old predecessors. BlackBerry OS is inclined towards messaging—its inboxes feature prominently—with web browsing and apps as secondary focuses. RIM’s recent success with the consumer (as opposed to enterprise) market shows they’ve taken pains to improve the usability and aesthetics of the OS, though its corporate roots still show through.

Available: November ’09
Open Source/Free: No/No
Multiple Handset Manufacturers: No
Multitasking: Yes
Multitouch Interface: No
Browser/Engine: BlackBerry/Proprietary (WebKit forthcoming)
Video Recording: Yes
Upgrades: Sync/patcher/over the air
Syncing Software: Yes
App Store Size: 3k+
App Sideloading: Yes
Jailbreaking/rooting: No
Flash Support: Within six months

Windows Mobile 6.5.x

Windows Mobile 6.5 is the last predecessor to Windows Phone 7 Series, and it will coexist with WP7 for the foreseeable future, as a bridge for corporate customers. Its basic design and codebase harks back to the early 2000s, and while it featured multitasking, copy and paste and a significant number of 3rd party apps well before the iPhone or Android did, WinMo failed to keep up with its competitors. Even with version 6.5, which added new, finger-friendly interface elements and an app marketplace, success was not to be. Despite its successor’s seemingly related name, this is the end of the road for the WinMo OS.

Available: October ’09
Open Source/Free: No/Licensed
Multiple Handset Manufacturers: Yes
Multitasking: Yes
Multitouch Interface: No
Browser/Engine: Internet Explorer/Trident
Video Recording: Yes
Upgrades: Sync/Patcher
Syncing Software: Yes
App Store Size: Under 500 1000+, depending on handset
App Sideloading: Yes
Jailbreaking/rooting: No
Flash Support: Yes

Windows Phone 7 Series

Windows Phone 7 Series is a total revamping of Microsoft’s mobile strategy, drawing more on design philosophy of the Zune HD than of Windows Mobile. The interface is designed primarily for touch input, and eschews icon grids and menus for a series of paneled hubs. The unreleased OS features deep integration with Xbox and Zune services, as well as a completely new app store.

Available: Holiday ’10
Open Source/Free: No/No
Multiple Handset Manufacturers: Yes
Multitasking: No, probably! (With possible exceptions.)
Multitouch Interface: Yes
Browser/Engine: Internet Explorer/Trident
Video Recording: Yes
Upgrades: TBD
Syncing Software: Media
App Store Size: TBD
App Sideloading: TBD (Unlikely)
Jailbreaking/rooting: TBD
Flash Support: TBD (Probable)

Just last week I was pondering the thought of using remote desktop software on Apple’s upcoming iPad. Sure, you could say the iPad is an oversized iPod Touch, but adding the power to virtually “run” a desktop operating system on the larger display adds a whole new dimension to the device. Of course, you’re not physically “running” Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows in a case like that — instead, you get a window to the desktop so you can interact with the environment as if you were on that machine.

LogMeIn today announced that its Ignition solution — currently available for the iPhone — is heading to Google’s mobile platform. Interested folks can now sign up to be notified when LogMeIn Ignition for Android becomes available. Although Android is running on far more smartphones than any other type of mobile device — it ships on 60,000 smartphones daily, says Google — I did notice that LogMeIn says you can “control your computer right from your smartphone or smartbook,” emphasis mine. While I expect smartbooks to run on Google’s Chrome OS by the end of the year, I could easily envision LogMeIn becoming quite useful on Android tablets and MIDs — devices with displays larger than traditional smartphones; say, in the 4″ to 10″ range.

VentureBeat has already had some playtime with the Android-powered ICD Ultra and its 7″ display at Mobile World Congress. Viewing and interacting with a full desktop operating system on such a display might pose a challenge, but it’s surely doable. The Notion Ink Adam with Pixel Qi display and other similar tablets running Android are also likely candidates for Ignition. For years, we mobile enthusiasts have wished for a full desktop OS on a pocketable or highly portable device, but maybe the costs — both financial and usage constraints —  of such devices outweigh the benefits for many.

Is virtualization a good enough solution to help sell the forthcoming Android tablets? I’ve signed up with LogMeIn to find out when the software becomes available and I’m still thinking that software like this combined with the touch-friendly mobile interface on a tablet just might work for my travels. Once I determine this solution can work, it’s going to come down to which tablet or MID I decide to try it on — Apple’s iPad or a Google Android tablet?

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Web Tablet Survey: Apple’s iPad Hits the Right Notes

Microsoft has released some facts about Windows Mobile on their blog site today.

Significant information include that there are now 1245 apps in Marketplace, from 1325 registered developers.

The average asking price in Marketplace is $6.26, and the average selling price is $5.36.  This means developers are fortunately charging close to what consumers are optimally willing to pay, and there is not a huge concentration on cheap or free apps.

In the same vein the biggest seller by revenue is SPB Mobile Shell for $29.99.  Amazingly this suggests the race to the bottom may be a bad idea for developers in the Windows Mobile Marketplace, and the optimum strategy are not nearly free apps.

The biggest seller, but obviously not largest revenue generator, was Meon, who also had a free Lite version.

They also note that that developers submitting now will find their app in Marketplace sooner rather than later.  Since launching in October, average vetting time has dropped from 30 to 10 days and average time to certify has dropped from 12 to less than 5 days with less variation.

As mentioned earlier, Marketplace is also getting more developer friendly by:

• Free app submissions to additional markets: ISVs will no longer have to pay a $10 fee for submitting applications to additional markets. Once an application has been certified for a primary market as part of the existing $99 submission fee, ISVs can now submit for free that same application to as many other catalogues as they want, as long as they meet the current Market Validation guidelines.
• Applications policy changes: We are also taking this opportunity to make some changes to the existing application acceptance policies, and are now allowing VoIP applications that use a carrier network, unless explicitly prohibited by a mobile operator.
• Improved registration, submission and management process. We’ve welcomed and acted on a lot of feedback from ISVs on how we can improve things. We’ve listened, and fixed a lot of the problems and annoyances you’ve told us about to make it easier to register, submit applications for multiple markets, and simplify the update process. You’ll see them all over. Tell us what you think and keep the feedback coming

Microsoft is also releasing a Windows Mobile 6.5.3 Developer Toolkit (DTK) which brings goodies such as Bing Map Control, Widget VS Integration, Bubble Tiles, Auto Dialog Layout, and more, which will be available later this week.

With more than 30 million handsets Marketplace capable are developers missing out on an opportunity to make money?  Let us know below.

Read more here.

Mobileburn has published this short review of the Garmin Nuvifone M10.  The handset appears surprisingly slim, and also pretty responsive, despite only having a 600 Mhz processor, and appears to have a full implementation of the Garmin PND software as found in their stand-alone units.

Also of interest is how the screen automatically rotates into landscape when the car kit is connected, and back again when it is removed.

Read more at Mobileburn here.