MOBODOJO » palm

Palm Pre Gets Games From PlayScreen

Tyler Regas — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:38:18 +0000

Stupid name (but better than the previous MyNumo which makes no sense at all. I guess its just as stupid as Mobodojo…), but its nice to see that someone is already paying attention to the Short Attention Span needs of new Palm Pre owners. PlayScreen has ponied up a whopping 25 free Flash-based games for Preophites. Just head over here and tally up the fun for no dough! I tried playing a few games like Bowling, Golf Driving Range, Political Punch Out, and Snowboard Alley on my MacBook Pro and they were way too fast. PlayScreen also has additional titles with creepy names like Peeptin, Bomb A Bubble, Pigs A Pop’n, and iWhack which appears to star Steve Ballmer in a whack-a-mole thingy. There’s also a bunch of gambling games, as usual.

Mobile Wars 2009: Hairy Hands vs. The Fruit Fellas

Tyler Regas — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:06:41 +0000

The game is on, kind readers. Palm has finally released their hotly anticipated Pre with the slick new webOS. Palm isn’t out of the woods yet, though, as Apple Inc. has WWDC 2009 up their sleeves this coming Monday where the 3rd Gen iPhone is slated to be announced. There’s even a rumor that Steve Jobs may pop up and deliver the keynote personally, and that rumor is being mongered by no less a valid news outlet than the WSJ (check Friday the 5th’s rag). He is, after all, slated to be returning to the helm of the USS Cupertino later this month.

Palm, then, is clearly a shortimer on shaky ground as Apple has managed to several up their opponents at every turn, and I’m having doubts that they will show up to this party with 80′s grade wine coolers. The iPhone is, after all, Apple’s flagship product already in its short life, besting even the powerful and battle-ready iPod (yeah, the iPod Touch is an iPhone without the phone, so you do the math). This new iPhone is just in time to sate the upgrade needs of the original iPhone owners whose precious non-3G gizmos 2 year contracts are coming up.

Interestingly enough, it appears that Palm is struggling right out of the gate by releasing webOS 1.0.2 today! Reports on PreThinking.com are already saying that the update makes the phone faster and adds a clock widget. Wow. I’m not surprised, since its a very Palm-like thing to do, but its not the kind of message that Palm should want to put out there. Regardless, there has been a great deal of buzz about the Pre and people appear to be loving it, with thousands of tweets hitting the nano-blogging nano-sphere as people pick up their new handsets at a local Sprint store.

The excitement is clear and many of the reports being posted about new Pres is very positive, which is a good sign. The other question is, “Who will win, Apple or Palm?” Fortunately, I’ll break out the old saw and say that neither, its the consumer who wins. Apple set out to completely revamp the mobile market and it did so in less than a year with the first iPhone. It has taken less than three years now for the competition to start catching up, and (this is my opinion) the Palm Pre and the new webOS is the first to offer a valid challenge to Apple. Apple wins, Palm wins, and we all win.

We get a pair of kick ass pocket computers for cheap! Nice work, fighters!

FeedReaders #5: OSen Galore, Gathering ARMs, Deeperest Apologies For Tardiness

Tyler Regas — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:28:06 +0000

Here it is! Finally!! I wouldn’t blame you if you marched on my headquarters to smash me. Okay, so you’re not an invading army, but a slightly disappointed cadre of dedicated listeners. I am truly sorry. I am working towards rectifying the issues which keep blocking me from actually getting these podcasts done on time. Here, then, are the links for this weeks episode:

[podcast]http://www.mobodojo.com/feedreaders/fr_0005_20090429.mp3[/podcast]

FeedReaders #4: Hawking, Cheapy Netbooks, and Potholes (Now with intartubes linkages!)

Tyler Regas — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:44:38 +0000

I just wanted to make sure that this got up today, for all of you who have been waiting patiently for the latest FeedReaders. I’ll post the links for this episode tomorrow. UPDATE: Here are the links :

[podcast]http://www.mobodojo.com/feedreaders/fr_pcast_0004_20090421.mp3[/podcast]

FeedReaders #2: Small Stuff, Space Nerds, & Fiesta

Tyler Regas — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:15:38 +0000

That’s knocked another one out of the park. This episode sports a simpler format. Soon I’ll be adding ads and organizing the sections better. I hope to have a few guest hosts soon, as well. It really comes down to managing the time of some friends of mine and getting Skype or Google Talk to work. We’ll see. Here are the links for this week’s episode:

[podcast]http://www.mobodojo.com/feedreaders/fr_pcast_20090408.mp3[/podcast]

FeedReaders #1: April’s Fool, PUGs & Tatas!

Tyler Regas — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:04:08 +0000

Well! There you go. The first official (sorta) FeedReaders on the Planet Earth. No, its not an April Fool’s prank, either. Its going to get better as I work on it, too. You’ll see! You’ll ALL see!! Here are the links for this episode:

That’s it! See you next week!

[podcast]http://www.mobodojo.com/feedreaders/fr_pcast_0001_20090401.mp3[/podcast]

Review: LiveScribe Pulse

Tyler Regas — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:33:22 +0000

Its not often you meet the near-perfect, much less the perfect tool. While the latter still eludes me, I’ve found and have worked with the former now for about a month. True story: The dog ran off with the first one that my PR rep sent me and dropped it down a drain pipe. She very, very, very kindly sent me another one, and I’ve been eagerly working with it ever since. In case you’re not clear on what I’m talking about, I am referring to the LiveScribe Pulse digital pen. This is no normal pen, mind you. The Pulse is a wonder of technology, convenience, function, and familiarity. It does exactly what it suggests it will do, but it also does so much more.

The key to the functionality of the Pulse is manifold, but it can be counted down to the infrared camera perched under the nib (I’m old, so look it up), the voice recording capabilities, and the special paper the pens use in order to work their magic. Now don’t go groaning over the fact that you have to buy special paper. Have you seen what a simple notepad costs at Barnes & Noble these days? Shocking to the point where you’ll think that paying $20 for a 200 sheet notebook which enables the power of the Pulse is a steal and a half. Combine that with the fact that the most recent Windows version of the software can print blank pages, and you’re on easy street.

So, how do the camera, recorder, and paper work to together to make this powerful combo I speak of? That’s a more complicated question, but there are answers. I am, however, going to quickly describe the Pulse and what the package comes with. First, there’s the pen, of course. Its a large pen, but not much larger than the big, thick, expensive pens which you can buy that don’t do anything the Pulse does. In the box there is a 200 page starter notebook (8.5″ x 11″, college ruled), a nicely small and portable USB magnetic dock, a pair of stereo headphones with a microphone in each earpiece, a lanyard for the headphones, a set of replacement ink cartridges and a stylus tip (nice touch!), and a crappy faux leather case (What happened!?). Take a gander at the image below:

The pen has a display embedded in the side of it. Nicely, there are several options for how you can use the pen, and one of them is to change the orientation of the screen depending on what hand you use (I’m a lefty… deal). That grill you can see under the screen is a speaker and on the top end of the pen is the headphone/microphone jack. I’ll get to the headphones later. They’re super neat.

Now, whenever the pen is on and you write on the special paper (check out the image), the pen stores everything you write in its memory. I have the 1GB version, though there’s also a 2GB model. So, as long as the pen is on it records what you write. Now for the voice recording. If you tap on the Record button which are conveniently located on the bottom edge of every page then the Pulse starts to record, just like a standard voice recorder. Here’s where the neat trick comes into play though: as you write, the Pulse keeps track of what you are writing and tags the audio recorded to that writing.

When you’re done taking notes, you click the Stop button. Here’s the next neato trick: While the Pulse is not recording, you can tap on any of your notes and it will play back the audio recorded for that segment. Pretty slick, eh! The trick I’ve learned already is to just write a keyword as I’m recording instead of trying to keep up and missing stuff. If I have a question, I’ll write down a snippet to remind me of the question and then carry on with my conversation. Fraking brilliant! The other controls on the pages allow you to control volume, speed, jumping forward and backward to tracks, and making bookmarks.

Using the headphones also sports a neat trick. The jack right into the end of the Pulse so you can listen to the recorded audio in stereo. Why? Sure, the built-in mic only records in mono, but when you jack in those wicked headphones, the Pulse records in stereo. That’s why there is a microphone in each earbud. Trust me when I tell you that this is remarkably helpful. Say, for instance, you’re sitting at a table talking with 4 or 5 people. Wearing the headphones (or wearing them down on your neck using the lanyard) lets the Pulse record your environment the same way you hear. When you play this stereo sound back later, you hear the direction people are speaking from. I find it a fantastic way to recall how the conversation was going since I can visualize the meeting.

Once you’ve collected stuff on your new pen, its time to get that data onto your desktop. LiveScribe nicely offers both Windows and Mac OS X versions of the desktop client, though the Mac version has some catching up to do. For one thing, with the Windows version you can print your own paper. Not so on the Mac. Shame! Interestingly, the box doesn’t come with a CD in it, but when you do download the client for your operating system at least you’re getting the latest version. Once its installed, all you need to do is plug in the dock and place the pen into it. It connects and moves everything from the pen to the desktop client. Once there, everything which has a voice recording attached to it is highlighted in green.

Now, if that wasn’t enough, there’s more. Say, for example, that you’ve been taking notes for a few months now and you’ve been asked by a colleague or classmate for a note you made back in some project meeting or lecture. All you need to do is load up LiveScribeDesktop and search for the keywords. The software is so smart that it can actually parse your handwriting and show you which pages any hits are on. No kidding! This thing is so smart that it can tell which notebook you are in and which page you’re turned to. Very, very cool indeed.

There are some other gee willikers things the Pulse can do, but they really don’t add to the functionality except for the calculator. The nice thing that the developers have allowed for is adding new features through software updates. In fact, for the first month I had this thing I received no less that 10 updates to the pen software. Its pretty amazing that the Pulse sports a 150MHz ARM9 processor and a 300mAh LiIon rechargeable battery and crams ups to 2GB of storage space into such a cool pen.

Simply put, if you pair the Pulse up with an iPhone, BlackBerry, or one of the new Palm Pre devices, you are set to go laptop free. I’m not kidding. The only thing that LiveScribe is missing is some more options in paper products. They have the big college-ruled notebooks and some largish bound notebooks with lines or no lines, but there are no notebooks or calendar books. I’d love to see a notebook which is as long as the Pulse, 3-4″ wide, unlined, with a barrel on the spine into which you can slide the Pulse while you’re not working with it. That and I’d really like to see an integrated calendar management tool. Maybe even synching it up to Windows or Mac OS X. Now that would rock.

Now that I’ve turned you all on to the Pulse, I would like to inform you that you can have your own right now. You can head on over to LiveScribe’s web site and order one there or you can swing over to your local Target and get it there. The 1GB model runs for US$150 while the 2GB model runs for US$200. The reality is that this is just one of the single coolest gadgets available on the planet and I can only see it getting better and better.

Review: Otterbox Palm Centro Defender Case

Tyler Regas — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 04:15:28 +0000

I’ve got a friend who owns a Sprint Palm Centro “RED” which she drops all the time. I rarely drop phones, but when I came across Otter’s new Defender Series, one model of which supports the Palm Centro, I jumped on it and and sent off for one. I’m super careful with anything electronic. I don’t mean that to say that I lock them up and never use them, but I also try my best to never put these typically fragile devices into too many dangerous situations. My friend has replaced her phone already, and she’s only had it for six months! Of course, no matter how careful you are, it never hurts to be prepared, which is why the Defender Series attracts me so much.

The ethic behind the Defender Series is to provide the best possible protection without limiting access to or diminishing the value of the device which the case protects. After ensconcing my black Centro in the case, it becomes protected from the elements (aside from full emersion) and yet is remarkably easy to use. It is certainly chunkier, and somewhat heavier, but if you are prepared to protect your phone against almost all damage, then you’re ready to use this case.

The case is very smartly designed. It comes in three components which work very closely together to provide several layers of protection to your Centro. In the box, the case comes mostly assembled in that the hard shell and the soft cover are already joined. Taking apart the case involves removing the rubber soft cover, then splitting the seams to split the hard shell into front and rear shells. Inside the case was a thin, rubbery sheet which had the impression of the frontside of a Centro on one leaf. I soon figured out that this is the internal protection. The internal sheet also acts as a screen protector, using static to neatly attach to the display. The cover is perfectly clear, as well, making it very easy to see through. You can see the parts in the image below.

Once you’ve neatly placed the internal cover where it goes, you slip the front of the Centro into the front hard shell which has the added benefit of stopping the internal cover from moving around any more. Then you pull down the back cover, position it, then slip on the back shell. The two halves snap together easily enough to hold them firmly, but when I took it apart again to take the image you see to the left it wasn’t difficult to get them separated again. Once the whole kit ‘n kaboodle is together, you pull the rubber cover on and fit it to the cutouts and pins which hold it to the shell. Now its all one unit and ready to rock.

The Defender case isn’t water proof, but it is somewhat resistant to dust and moisture. The case is very nicely designed to offer access to all of the ports and controls on the Centro. There is a clear port on the back for the camera and a grill for the speaker which has a dust cover preventing dust from getting into the case. There is another filter protecting the earpiece on the top front of the handset, as well. To the left of that there is a passthrough which lets you see the power/alert light. There are rubber actuator buttons on the left side which let you control the buttons for volume, ringer, and the option button right through the case. At the bottom of the front of the case there is an internal horn which directs speech into the microphone which is located at the bottom of the phone.

To get to the stylus and the Silent switch there is a peel-out rubber cover. Its very easy to open, and once you’ve practiced with it a bit, a snap to close again. There is another such cover on the bottom of the case which allows access to the sync/power port and 1/8th inch headphone jack. That one is a tad more difficult to close, but it shouldn’t be very often that you have to open it. Overall, the fit of the case is nearly perfect and doens’t creak a lot or limit your access to anything. Sound quality even seems to be improved, especially through the microphone which the case smartly redirects to the front, therefore pointing right at your mouth.

The feel of the case is wonderful. It sits well in the hand and greatly increases the grip without making it too much heavier than the handset itself. Pushing controls and using the touchscreen through the protective cover is easy. Even using the Centro’s dinky QWERTY keyboard works just fine. In fact, the case may be improving my big-fingered accuracy, which is a feat but can’t be confirmed. The case itself comes with a belt pack which the case firmly snaps into. It takes a good tug to pull the handset out, but if you want this case, then you’re likely looking for protection, which includes not dropping it from your belt.

I’m quite pleased with the case and the design, fully knowing what the case was designed for. Otterbox has created yet another unquestionably capable, mission-specific case, adding another notch to its already notched up case belt. The Otterbox Defender Series case for Palm Centro is available now and can be had for US$49.95.

Predict-O-Tron 2009: 2012 Ends It All

Tyler Regas — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 23:48:59 +0000

If you believe that the world will end in 2012, you can stand at the back of the room. If and until global, Mayan calendar destruction happens, I’ll keep reporting on what I know; gadgets and mobile stuff, primarily. Of course, I love cars, the ultimate gadgets, and movies, viewable gadgets (yes, I love James Bond films), so I’ll keep on covering just about everything I like. Personally, I don’t believe the world will end in 2012. It certainly didn’t when we passed the millennium (either of them). Besides, there’s too much cool new stuff we need to do as humans before we before the Universe flushes us with the last moist towelette. With that, I bring you the Predict-O-Tron for 2009. Lets see how well I do before we roll in 2010:

Palm will introduce a Linux-based touchscreen device at CES. Sure, that’s mostly already known, but my prediction is that it will actually be freaking cool. I’m also going to guess that it won’t be able to run anything which wasn’t compiled for Palm OS 5.x, or at least not well.
RIM will continue to lose marketshare to the iPhone and won’t see significant growth for the Storm until they release a version of the OS which is specifically designed for touch applications.
Apple will update the Mac Mini. They might even incorporate AppleTV into it and kill the discreet AppleTV product. The other option is to turn AppleTV into a real DVR.
Apple will release a 64GB iTouch model and move the entire product line up, keeping prices the same. They may also release a 128GB model, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
GM will sell Saab back to Sweden and Scania will be returned to the product line badge, right alongside Saab honor and the death of the hideous Saab-badged, GM-made SUV. By 2011, real Saabs will be sold again, and I will buy a new one which will have been made in Sweden.
Chrysler will die a long, overdue death.
IBM will buy back the ThinkPad line from Lenovo and start making good ThinkPads again.
Dell will trim most of its line in a successful effort to become a powerhouse again.
Microsoft will offer a public beta release of Windows 7 and generally stop marketing Vista after failing to get savvy people to purchase it for 2+ years.
Microsoft will announce official partnerships with various laptop fabbers to build Windows 7 Approved touchscreen lappies. The plan will generally fail, just like the UMPC, Tablet PCs, and clamshell Windows CE devices before it. (Say hello to Bob, touchscreen Win7 lappy!)
Nintendo will release a US$99 add-on dongle which will allow the Wii to output up to 1080p video via an HDMI connection, something they had planned on doing all along. If not HDTV, it will be a VGA or DVI or both, which looks really sharp on sets which support that type of input. Think along the lines of Sega’s VGA box for the DreamCast.
Nokia will finally make the Internet Tablet line an actual phone. At the very least, it will be a data-only arrangement like Amazon’s Kindle or the Peek.
Google will make all of its applications support Google Gears and offer an update to Chrome which will make it work like a desktop.
Sony will come to its senses and release a value-priced, non-mobile Playstation Core which will play PSP and PSP2 games at up to 720p and wireless controllers to compete with Nintendo’s Wii. **
Sega will come to its senses and produce the DreamCast 2 to compete with Nintendo’s Wii. **

And now here are some “doi’s” which you would likely easily guess on your own:

We will see netbooks from just about every name brand on the planet, including BMW and Sears.
Apple will continue to take over marketshare in the mobile, desktop, laptop, and PMP spaces.
Microsoft will continue to lose marketshare to Apple and Firefox.
Dell will remain the largest single retailer of computers.
HP will continue to be second in line, but will keep making stupid touchscreen TVs.
All studios will sign up for Blu-Ray.
Fox will relent and allow Watchmen to be released, but for 5% of the global profits.
Toyota will release its Prius plug-in hybrid early to better compete with Ford’s Fusion hybrid.
Hydrogen powerplants will not make a major splash in any market.

That’s it for 2009, kids! We’ll see how good I am at predicticating. In the past I’ve not been so good.

** Lacking quality skills at prognosticating, these could happen in 2010-11. Not sure. Just a feeling.

What’s Palm Up To?

Tyler Regas — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:04:00 +0000

CES 2009 is just around the corner and consumer electronics companies are scrambling to get their new kit ready for the largest show of its type in the world. Palm is no stranger to CES, but in recent years the legendary company which brought us the consumer-friendly Palm Pilot and sucked up HandSpring to get the popular Treo and morph it into the first truly popular smartphone has been steadily sliding towards oblivion. According to Palm, this is about to change.

Palm has announced an invitation-only press event to be held at CES 2009 to unveil something new. I didn’t receive an invite, but I don’t feel bad, despite being a HUGE fan of Palm since Day 1 (I have a working Palm Pilot 500). I have a feeling in my gut that Palm might be on the verge of a real, viable, tangible comeback. I’m not the only one, either. Engadget got an invite, as did PalmInfoCenter.

While nothing specific is known about what Palm will be doing behind closed doors, my own personal speculation and the educated speculation from PIC strongly indicate that they will be introducing a radically updated version of their OS. I’m going to put my two cents in and state that I believe that they will also show either a working prototype or a near-term pre-release version of brand new hardware to support the new platform.

As is always the case, we just have to wait and see. I will say, however, (and this is directly at Palm) you’ve disappointed me in the past. Please, please, please, don’t do it again.