The new HP 6315 smart phone and wireless PDA works on both cellphone and Wi-Fi networks.
Specs include:
64MB RAM; 64MB ROM
240×320 pixels 16-bit color display
640×480 pixels VGA Camera
Texas Instruments OMAP 1510 @ 200 MHz
Microsoft® Windows® Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC operating system
Seems to be the 1st handheld to offer 3-way voice and data capabilities over GSM/GPRS, WLAN 802.11b and Bluetooth®.
The Navitus from Sony is a Linux-based multi-function remote with 32MB of RAM, a 200MHz processor, USB interface and a Memory Stick® media slot.
Controls up to 18 different devices; has a customizable 65K color LCD Screen; backlit buttons; supports up to 33 macro functions…This thing is more powerful than some PDA’s!
The RAZR V3 is a new flip phone from Motorola. The V3 will be one of the thinnest (less than 14 mm) phones on the market. It weighs less than 100g, and has almost no ABS, as the case is made entirely of aluminum.
Product home page.
CNET review. Mobile-Review review. MobileBurn review.
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By Ben Charny
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Software maker Skype has begun selling a service that lets Net phone users call traditional telephones anywhere in the world.
Customers of SkypeOut, as the service is called, download free software and then create an account with $12, $30 or $62 worth of voice minutes. The accounts are charged at various rates, depending on where the call originates and which region is being called.
Calls between PCs or personal digital assistants (PDAs) that download the Skype software will remain free.
Skype’s first commercial venture is turning heads, even though it is routine for dealers of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to sell access to the local phone networks. But Skype differs from its competition in that it doesn’t use a central server to route its calls. Instead, it uses the same peer-to-peer technology borrowed from file-swapping giant Kazaa, whose creators also fashioned the Skype software.
VoIP calls are cheaper than regular phone calls because they use the Internet rather than traditional networks, which are heavily regulated and taxed. Downsides to VoIP include spotty voice quality, problems with the routing of 911 calls and the service’s reliance on electricity.
“In a server-less environment, you can increase in size indefinitely without adding cost,” Frost & Sullivan analyst Jon Arnold said. “That’s a scary proposition if you’re a phone company.”
Luxembourg-based Skype can expect major competition from cable companies, which are now launching their own VoIP services. Other competitors include major carrier Verizon Communications, which launched a nationwide VoIP service last week, and Primus Telecommunications, whose $20-a-month Lingo service is generating the most buzz among the smaller providers bursting onto the scene, Arnold said.
SkypeOut is also likely to attract more attention for Skype from U.S. regulators, who are now drafting Net phone rules due in about three months. The rules are expected to require that VoIP providers contribute to Universal Service, for example.
A Skype representative said the company is already being assessed Universal Service and other fees by telephone company partners Colt Telecom Group, iBasis, Level 3 Communications and Teleglobe, which are connecting Skype’s calls to the traditional phone network.
The funding for SkypeOut, Skype’s commercial venture, comes primarily from the $19 million invested by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Index Ventures and others in March.
By John Borland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Apple Computer and Motorola announced a deal Monday that will let customers of the iTunes music store transfer songs onto the next generation of MP3-enabled phones from the handset maker.
Under the agreement, Apple will create a new version of its iTunes software for cell phones. The software will be the default jukebox on Motorola’s new line of products, slated to hit the market in the first half of next year. The companies did not provide financial details on the arrangement.
“The mobile phone market…is a phenomenal opportunity to get iTunes in the hands of even more music lovers around the world,” Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs said in a statement. “We think Motorola is the ideal partner to kick this off.”
The deal, the first for Apple in the mobile phone market, is the company’s reaction to growing competition from a new generation of cell phones that play music as well as relay ordinary conversations.
Analysts have said these new phones are likely to gain favor with consumers, in much the way camera phones have swept the market in the last year. But with relatively small storage space–just a few hours of music, compared with the hundreds of hours in the iPod and its rivals–many do not see cell phones as direct competition for hard-disk based music players.
Apple has made some overtures to mobile phone users in the past, releasing a version of its iSync software that lets people synchronize contacts and other data between cell phones and Macintosh computers. Apple is also positioning its QuickTime multimedia software as a candidate for streaming video over cell phone networks.
The Motorola deal also points to Apple’s increasing–though still sharply limited–flexibility in cutting deals that will expand the reach of its brand without directly increasing sales of its hardware.
Last year, for example, it agreed to let Hewlett-Packard distribute a co-branded version of the iPod. Nevertheless, Apple has steadfastly declined to give rival digital music companies licenses to the FairPlay copy-protection software that protects songs purchased from the popular iTunes song store. That license is required if any other MP3 player manufacturer wants to let its customers listen to iTunes songs without changing their format.
Jobs has previously said that the company makes little profit on songs sold online, and analysts view the song store largely as a way to help sell more iPods. So far, the strategy has been sound. The company sold more than 860,000 iPod units last quarter, up from 304,000 in the first quarter of 2003 before the launch of the iTunes store.
Apple’s announcement comes a day after RealNetworks said it had figured out a way to make Apple’s iPod play music sold by RealNetworks’ online music store, without Apple’s permission.
RealNetworks Chief Executive Officer Rob Glaser had previously sought to license Apple’s copy-protection technology for this purpose, but Apple had declined the request. In response, RealNetworks’ own engineers developed their own version of the FairPlay technology, which they said also works on the iPod.
Apple executives have declined to comment on RealNetworks’ new software, saying they have not yet seen the product. The software, dubbed Harmony, is scheduled to be released Tuesday.
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By Ben Charny
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Handset maker Motorola on Monday introduced a new phone that it says will switch calls seamlessly between cellular services and wireless Internet networks, potentially offering business customers big savings if the technology works as promised.
A representative said the CN620 Wi-Fi cell phone is expected to be commercially available by fall or early 2005, making it among the first entries in a new class of mobile communications devices that could roil the cellular industry by reducing the number of minutes billed to customers.
The phone has been in the works since last year, when Motorola struck a deal to use chips from Texas Instruments designed for the purpose.
“This will bring voice and data-rich services to people where they are: at home, in the auto, in the world, or at work,” Motorola Chairman Ed Zander said in a statement.
Motorola, Hewlett-Packard and NEC have all announced products that promise to let business customers move calls from cellular carriers to their own networks using short-range wireless technology known as Wi-Fi. Once on the corporate network, callers are connected using voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a fast-growing technology that’s shaking up the wired telephone industry by bypassing much of the traditional network and its many layers of fees.
Support from carriers for hybrid Wi-Fi cellular phones so far has been less than enthusiastic. Among the many challenges facing such devices is how to ensure customers are billed properly as calls move between different types of networks, analysts say.
Motorola has not yet struck a deal with a carrier to support the CN620. Because the phone uses the GSM cell phone standard–the most popular in the world–carriers AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile USA, which provide GSM service in the United States, are likely candidates to sell the phone.
Despite the challenges, such hybrid devices do provide a tantalizing view of the future. Armed with the appropriate software, such gadgets could eventually use a home’s Wi-Fi access point to make VoIP phone calls using the Internet rather than a traditional home phone line.
Wi-Fi phone proponents say the combination makes sense. Wi-Fi is fast, has a 300-foot range and can be used for downloading large amounts of information. Meanwhile, cellular networks stretch for hundreds of miles but can usually only manage download speeds of about 50 kilobits per second to 500kbps.
Last month, as part of operation Northern Edge, the U.S. military set up some GPS jamming equipment in Alaska, in order to test the efficacy of some new anti-jamming equipment. The motivation for such a test is, of course, is that militants and others can easily jam or interfere with such weak signals, therby rendering GPS equipment inoperative.
Last month, Phrack magazine published a detailed guide to building a low-cost, portable GPS jammer out of components that can be easily obtained from electronics supply houses.
Not that you would ever want one for your car, but Raytheon has developed a family of low-cost anti-jam adaptive antenna systems to protect receivers from simultaneous, multiple jamming sources.
The Raytheon Pagan anti-jam devices represent an interesting use of beamforming. The receiver identifies each interfering source, and forms a null beam towards the source, effectively ignoring it.
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McMaster-Carr publishes an on-line catalog with an astonishing 410,000 products. While most of these are industrial / manufacturing types of items, there are some gadgets included.
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NASA and Warp Drive in the same sentence?? At first I couldn’t believe it, but apparently, Yes…
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration IS WAS reviewing the potential of Warp Drives and Wormholes as part of its Breakthrough Propulsion Physics (BPP) Project.
The BPP Project is charged with discovering new methods to power spacecraft, including such methods as propellant-less propulsion, and hyper-fast travel.
BPP has investigated and declined to pursue a number of proposals, including Superluminal Tunneling, which involves faster-than-light information transfer.
At BPP, work was slowly continuing on a number of other approaches, such as Metric Engineering, which seems to be a new term for “the notion of warping space” (a warp drive could conceivably move a bubble of spacetime, which carries a vehicle inside)…
…I say “was“, because, unfortuntely, funding for BPP was cut off last year. What a shame. Oh well, maybe the underlying physics just wasn’t there, or perhaps the CNSA in China will run with this.
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The Birth of Plenty is a new book on economics by Dr. William J. Bernstein. 
The book is an inquiry into how prosperity gets created. He states that for countries to become wealthy, four factors must be satisfied:
1. Property rights for individuals.
2. Belief in the scientific method.
3. Free flow of capital.
4. Good roads and communications.
Sounds about right.
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