Thursday, August 31, 2006

News 08.31.2006

- According to Engadget, slavery may soon have its uses once again. This time at the nano scale level. protein-coated parts are expected to help drive the bacteria powered micromotor that could create free power to micro devices of the future. Let's just hope those enslaved bacteria don't decide to revolt, or we may end up with a grey goo incident on our hands. I, for one welcome our new...oh wait, that's the bacteria's line.

- Mark your calendars 3pm fans, October 3rd has been declared "Day Against DRM".

- Nokia has acquired gate5 AG, supplier of maps, routing, and navigation software and services. What makes this especially interesting is specific mention of the Nokia 770 in Nokia's press release. 770 users may soon see maps and navigation software from this deal. Also, since the 770 has a mic and speaker, one might even expect some sort of voice navigation feature as well.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Flash 9 for Linux Beta Coming Soon

Our current schedule for releasing the final version of Flash Player 9 for Linux is early 2007. Many readers have understandably requested a beta version before that time. It is coming...

read more | digg story

News 08.30.2006

- iTunes will have an interesting competitor come this December with SpiralFrog, a new online music destination that is slated to offer add-supported legal downloads of licensed audio and video content. Now with the news that Universal Music Group [UMG] has signed up with the service to make available its catalog, it has become the big news in the music industry and may just be the next step in music distribution evolution.

- Where has the Sony UX gone? It would seem Sony has discontinued the UX180P Micro PC without even a whisper of an announcement about it. While some are speculating about a newer model coming soon, Sony has been known to kill off devices in the past. Whatever the case may be, the UX180P lived a short life and it makes little sense to discontinue a model of a device before at least announcing its replacement.

- Technology Reveiw has a good interview with an MIT battery expert talking about the future of battery technology and how much more safe and efficient batteries could be. After the recent Dell and Apple recall of Sony lithium-ion batteries, safety is likely to become the more important ingredient for future battery technology.

Monday, August 28, 2006

The Next Evolutionary Step For The Nokia 770

Now that we've got a much more stable version of Internet Tablet OS running our Nokia 770s the new question is what's next? The 770 being primarily a hacker's mobile playground, it's no surprise that weconsistently want to do more with the device than is currently possible. So before we get into speculating about the things further down the road for the 770, let's look at where we are in terms of current features.

Let's start with what it's meant to do. Internet browsing. The current state of development of Minimo, the Firefox browser for mobile devices, is very promising for an alternative web browser for the 770. It already can display websites that the native Opera browser has some trouble with. As improvements in performance continue with Minimo, we are sure to have options for browsing the web.

With the IT 2006 OS supporting VoIP communications, we now have several options for client applications for the device as well. Google Talk is the one to be included with the updated OS, but Gizmo Project was not far behind with their own client that gives even more connectivity options. And of course we can't forget about the Tapioca client either. It will be interesting to see how all these voice and instant messaging applications develop over time.

Speaking of the voice capabilities of the 770, how about a voice recorder application? Thanks to the Open Source Community development of the device we now have one with Maemo Recorder. This is just one of the many useful apps being developed for the device. With the growing list of applications, tools, and games for the 770, there's never a boring moment with the device.

Now that we have a good feeling about the basic foundation of the functionality of the 770, let's talk about the possibilities of its future. In order to extend the capabilities of the Internet connectivity of the device, we all agree that the current version of flash 6 needs to be upgraded to at least version 7 and possibly even version 9. It would bring another dimension of multimedia to the device. We also know that the 770 is capable of Java, but it seems Nokia neglected to bring it to the platform for some strange reason. This is yet another avenue that could produce a ton of possibilities for the 770. It's a good thing the 770 commuity is working on it.

There are so many people with great ideas working on helping the Internet Tablet platform grow to it's maximum potential. It really amazes me to watch how new ideas are born from combining various concepts together. I like how others in the Internet Tablet Community help bring the creativity out of myself and viseversa. With this system of creativity spurring more creativity supporting the platform, I see a lot of great things to come for the next generation of mobile devices like the Nokia 770.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Microsoft's Zune Plans Revealed

Regulatory filings show the software giant's new music player will emphasize wireless functionality and community features.

read more | digg story

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Linux Flash 9 Player Making Progress

In the most recent blog post on Penguin.SWF, Mike Melanson notes that all Flash-based sites he checked recently, Flash 9 for Linux was completely stable. Now they're moving on to more specific feature tests. Here's hoping it comes out soon!

read more | digg story

3pm Injection [22]

Okay, here we go...3pm now has a fresh new logo. I think it fits well with the site and has a timeless look to it. You can now get 3pm T-shirts and other awesome 3pm gear at the new 3pm Store [be sure to check out the NET9 Store for cool NET9 gear as well].

In other music news, Gmail users can now play mp3s inside Gmail without having to download the file. It looks like it's possible to use any mp3 link with the player as well. It will be interesting to see how this develops. Could we see a Google Music Store after all? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Some more big news comes from MP3tunes with the announcement that you can get a free Oboe music locker where you can store and play up to 1000 songs [1GB limit] on 3 PCs and 10 playlists. So now anyone can load up their locker with the music from 3pm that you can't find at Sideload.

And last but not least, AllPeers has announced the the beta release of it's Firefox file sharing extension. This is bound to make the RIAA and friends quite aggravated. Rock on.

3pm: "A party for your ears"
Beyonce - Ring The Alarm
DJ Shadow - Organ Donor
Fergie - London Bridge
Justin Timberlake - SexyBack
Radiohead - Sail To The Moon

Previous Injections
[More] [19] [20] [21]

Friday, August 25, 2006

Cool Things to do with a Nokia N93 TV-OUT port

Steve Litchfield demonstrates how to use the Nokia N93 as a makeshift desktop computer, as a games console and as a music source. The TV-out feature in the Nokia N93 has got quite a few people thinking.

read more | digg story

Monday, August 21, 2006

News 08.21.2006

We just set up the new NET9 Store at CafePress. Now you can purchase cool NET9 gear to go with your cool tech lifestyle. The 3pm Store has also launched along with the slick new logo. This stuff is perfect for back-to-schoolers and college students. I'm definitely going to be rocking the black 3pm tee and the NET9 cap myself.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

3pm Injection [21]

A big 3pm update and big news in music this week as Google updates Google Talk with the "what I'm listening to" feature among others and the new Google Music Trends page that shows what's the most popular music listened to by Google Talk listeners. I'm already having fun playing these new music toys from Google. Now all we need is for more people to start using Google Talk. Remember to get your Injection here, and overdose at 3pm.

3pm: "So good, it should be illegal..."
Cham feat. Alicia Keys - Ghetto Story [Remix]
The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift - DJ Shadow feat. Mos Def - Six Days [Remix]
Ludacris - Gettin' Some
Mos Def - Umi Says
Paul Oakenfold - Starry Eyed Surprised

Previous Injections
[More] [18] [19] [20]

Friday, August 18, 2006

Flash 9 for Linux - Possible release coming soon?

Mike Melanson, Adobe dev working on Flash 9 for Linux, has updated his blog with information that his team have produced a stable build, and they are now looking into creating cross-distro binaries. Let's hope that they decide to release a beta version to the public. (No release dates have been announced, so any release could still be far off.)

read more | digg story

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Top 10 Municipal Wi-Fi Plans

"Some of the largest U.S. cities have hatched big plans for providing low-cost wireless broadband to residents. Want to know where you may be getting free Wi-Fi next? Here's a look at 10 of the biggest municipal Wi-Fi plans."

read more | digg story

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Google Talk Adds Voice Mail, File Sharing

Google Talk is offering an update today that will enable users to easily transfer files, set presence with music, and send and receive voice mails.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Google Unveils New Blogger Beta

Google's Blogger.com, one of the trailblazers of the whole medium, is about to undergo a substantial upgrade that will improve its usability and help it catch up to the state of the art.

read more | digg story

Monday, August 14, 2006

EO v7110 UMPC vs Nokia 770: The Final Showdown

ThoughtFix rounds up his four part comparison of the Tablet Kiosk eo v7110 UMPC and the Nokia 770 with a final post that provides some public opinions on both devices. Overall, it was a great approach to comparing the two devices, and I even learned a thing or two about the Tablet Kiosk eo.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

3pm Injection [20]

Well folks, we just updated 3pm with two of the largest ever updates in a single week. That means a heck of a lot of new music, for free, for you. There's still more to come, so hold tight and keep those mp3 players hot. As always, every Injection we give you a taste of what's new every week on 3pm. Be sure not to leave your mobile and connected devices out of the fun, check out 3pm LITE for the easiest way to get music without straining that mobile browser.

3pm: "The sound of graffiti"
Outkast feat. Lil Wayne And Snoop Dogg - Hollywood Divorce
DJ Food - The Crow
Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child
Kanye West feat. Mos Def - Two Words
N.E.R.D. - Run To The Sun

Previous Injections
[More] [17] [18] [19]

Thursday, August 10, 2006

More mylo deets emerge, Linux is under the hood

eeny device is powered by an unspecified version of embedded Linux (possibly from Wind River), with a graphics and application framework provided by Trolltech's Qtopia platform

- Score one for Sony. This thing may have a future after all. We still have yet to see how open the platform truly is, but so far, so good. Way to go Sony.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Mylo Too High?

After giving enough thought on the shock and awe announcement of Sony's Mylo handheld I realized it was a notable attempt by Sony, but it's not enough to trade in my Nokia 770 for one. I have a feeling other 770 users are feeling the same way. The thing is, once you have been introduced to the 770's many features and applications, it doesn't feel right loosing even just one of those great features. With the Mylo handheld I can see that happening. Screen size and resolution on the Mylo is a step back, no Bluetooth and only 802.11b just kills the ability to pair with a Bluetooth enabled cell phone as well as the idea of top speed Internet browsing. It's about what and what when it comes to user interfaces of both devices. The 770 works well enough with a touch screen, while I can see the QWERTY keyboard of the Mylo working equally well. As for the OS and applications, anything other than an open platform, strong development, and a growing community is simply unacceptable at this point in the game. We will see how Sony does in this area as it is to me the most important part of such a bold move into recently uncharted territory. For a price very close to that of the 770 [Mylo is expected to be $350], Sony may not gain as many buyers with this somewhat "below par" offering. However, they may have a chance if they put enough marketing muscle behind this thing and it couldn't hurt to show us they still care by making the platform as open as Maemo for the 770 is.

Links on Mylo:
Sony Press Release
Mylo Site
Digg Story on Mylo
Gizmodo on Mylo
Engadget on Mylo
Brighthand on Mylo
GigaOM - Sony Bets on WiFi With Mylo
1src - Can a Mylo Replace a Clie?

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

News 08.08.2006

Here comes the competition...
Sony just released information on there new WiFi centric device dubbed MYLO, which stands for My Life Online according to Sony. This device looks to directly compete with the Nokia 770 as the name suggests with the inclusion of WiFi, a version of the Google Talk application, and Skype to start the unexpected smackdown coming to the 770 in September. This could get very interesting.

So, what can this thing really do?...
Well, according to the spec sheet provided by Sony it's got some interesting features:
- 2.4" QVGA LCD screen (320x240), 65,536 colors
- Sliding QWERTY keyboard
- 1GB internal flash memory (a portion of which is used for data management functions)
- DC IN 6 V
- 10 Pin Headphone/Microphone (Adapter and headphones included)
- Hi-Speed USB (mini-B)
- Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11b) WEP (128-bit/64-bit) WPA-PSK (TKIP)
- Removable Lithium-Ion Rechargeable Battery 3.7V 1200mAh


The battery performance seems to be one of the most important features in mobile devices such as this, so take this info with a grain of salt.

- Playing music: Up to 45 hours
- Talking: Up to 3.5 hours
- Viewing Web pages: Approx. 7 hours


(The times shown are measured using HP, "Auto Backlight Off" is set to "YES," and "Backlight Brightness" is set to "2." The times shown may vary depending on conditions of use, settings, and radio conditions.)

As far as applications go...
- Instant Messaging: Yahoo!, Skype, Google
- Internet calling: Skype to Skype, Skype In, Skype Out
- Web Mail Clients: Yahoo!, Google
- Web Browser (Opera)
- Audio player
- Video player
- Photo viewer
- Text Editor


Supported file formats and codecs are...
Images
- JPEG, PNG, BMP

Video
- MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile Audio codec: MPEG-4 AAC-LC File Format: MP4 (Memory Stick Video Format compliant)


Audio
- MP3, ATRAC, WMA

Sony MyLo: Media Player With WiFi, Skype, Browser, and Messaging

Compared to most Sony gear we've seen over the past few years, the Mylo is a breath of fresh air. The media player does MPEG-4, digital audio, and pictures. But it also has a WiFi connection and a QWERTY keyboard, for chatting on Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger (No AIM support, sorry.) Wait, wait, wait! It also works as a wireless Skype phone!

read more | digg story

Saturday, August 05, 2006

3pm Injection [19]

Okay, good news bad news time.
First the bad news: This week's 3pm update is taking a little longer than I thought it would and there is still a lot of work to do. Because of this, it won't be up till the end of next week. Oh, and there may still be a lot of bad links to replace/eliminate. That's just the way these things work, you know.

And the good news: To make up for the long delay of the update there will be a huge number of new links and fixed broken links.

I know, not as much good news as I would like to have either. Maybe if I made a little more from adds I could spend more time working on 3pm. As it stands right now, it's just enough to not laugh at. I again want to thank everyone for all your support from clicking through ads to all the encouraging emails. It really does keep me going. Thanks.

3pm: "Spreading music to the masses"
Agallah and Sean Price - Rising To The Top
Black Rob feat. Louis Farrakhan - You Know What
Busta Rhymes - As I Come Back
Cypress Hill - Dr. Green Thumb
Dilated Peoples - Platform

Previous Injections
[More] [16] [17] [18]

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Green WiFi: Solar Powered Routers

By using solar power to run the router, the Green Wi-Fi setup is able to function in countries with no or unreliable power. By configuring the router to limit access when power levels are low, it can run for up to a month in low sunlight. The first implementation of the programs equipment is set to happen at the end of the summer in India.

read more | digg story

News 08.03.2006

Okay, so I've noticed that everyone is content with 2006 OS for the Nokia 770 and all its new features. There have also been a torrent of great new applications coming out for the 770 lately. Everything from VoIP apps, games, multimedia tools and enhancements, to long awaited ports of applications from the 2005 OS catalog. So, with all this great new functionality and features given to us 770 users, what's left?

What could Nokia be up to next? Could it be possible that they are planning additional hardware to the Internet Tablet line of devices? Or maybe an upgrade to the Opera browser? Because this whole Linux-based Internet Tablet idea is relatively new, your guess is as good as mine, but what I do know is that work in the 770 community is closing the gaps in some really interesting areas. For instance, there is a lot of progress being made with MPlayer for the device, which has potential to effectively replace the built in audio and video players. Minimo, the Firefox-based web browser for mobile devices, is also making some headway that could soon put 770's Opera browser to shame.

Now I don't know how many of the features listed below other 770 users are interested in, but these are some of the things Nokia should (and may well be) working on for the next OS update:
  • At least Flash 7 support. We would like Flash 9 support once it's available for Linux though.
  • An upgrade to the Opera browser.
  • The ability to remove default applications.
  • Upgrade the Google Talk application to be able to use the new features. Google may have more to do with this than Nokia.
  • Universal repository for the Application Catalog. Multiple repositories are quite annoying.
  • A voice recorder application would be great to have for the device.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Meebo Launches MeeboMe

Palo Alto based Meebo is a Sequoia backed web chat company that allows users to access popular instant messaging services on a web page instead of using downloaded software.

read more | digg story

Have 2 Mobiles, Will Travel

What if devices like the Nokia 770 or the Sony PSP become the dominant mode of mobile web access for people and traditional cell phones remain the dominant mode of mobile voice communication? It makes an even tougher challenge for the W3C organization as it tries to standardize so that the same web page can be seen on all devices.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

News 08.01.2006

- Introducing 3pm LITE, now you can have all the music you love without the slowdown of unwanted ads. [Note: this version of 3pm is del.icio.us playTagger free and also may be updated less frequently than the ad supported version.]

- I recently put together a small page of Google tools I thought could benefit some of my clients and other small businesses. I've named it Google Essentials and I'm sharing it here for anyone who would find it useful as well. If anyone has any suggestions of other great tools or services from Google they think should be added to the list, please let us know.