Gadgets @ Home

A free tool (in early beta) for rapid application development (RAD) from Simon Judge, a freelance UK developer and the author of MobilePhoneDevelopment blog allows for fast prototyping on Symbian S60 and UIQ3 devices by using such standard technologies as XML and JavaScript. A great idea that’s worth noting and support. The tool is called SymRAD and is being developed as a “hobby project”.

Symbian OS native (C++) development can be difficult and time consuming. Symbian OS 9.x complicated development further with new platform security and improved UIQ user interface mechanisms.

SymRAD is a free rapid application development environment that allows Nokia S60 3rd and UIQ 3 applications to be defined by a simple XML definition file containing screen definitions and industry standard Javascript.

SymRAD is targeted at hobbyists and commercial developers who want to create quick prototypes. There are a very large number of simple applications that end users need but just aren’t worth building using existing tools (the long tail of mobile applications). Also, companies often need quick demos to stimulate interest and attract funding. SymRAD targets these two groups of developers. It fills the gap left by the absence of OPL under Symbian 9.x.

Continuing the never-ending battle of Korean giants Samsung announced the new Giorgio Armani-Samsung luxury mobile phone. Giorgio Armani presented the new mobile phone at a press briefing in his Armani/Teatro in Milan before his Spring Summer 2008 Women’s fashion show.

Quick Specs:

• GPRS/ EDGE Tri-Band (900/1800/1900)
• 3 Megapixel camera
• 2.6″ QVGA TFT LCD (262K Colors) display
• H.263, AAC+/MP3/WMA, MPEG4, AAC, e-AAC+
• Bluetooth 2.0 / USB 2.0 high-speed/  MTP 2.0
• Mobile Printing (BPP, PictBridge)
• micro SD external memory slot
• Bluetooth Stereo Headset (A2DP)
• Full Touch Screen & Touch UI
• Size: 87.5 x 54.5 x 10.5 mm / 85g
• 880mAh battery

Read the details at Esato.com

The most feature-rich (and FREE) internet browser for mobile devices is shipping its 3rd Beta for version 4. It has numerous improvements over previous Beta including support for RSS feeds and ability to synchronize your phone Web links with those of other mobile phones or computers. Good stuff! Go check it out.

Changes since Opera Mini 4 beta 2
-Added Link support
-Added Speed Dials
-Added RSS feed support
-Added shortcut *+0 for feeds
-Added shortcuts for speed dials (*+[speed dial number])
-Added function to ask the transcoders for the title and favicon of a new bookmark or speed dial
-Stylus devices can now scroll shortcut help overlays
-Changed “Fit to width” to “Mobile view”
-Changed “Autozoom” to “Show overview”
-Low, medium and high image quality setting
-Images fit better to the screen (no panning)
-Improved BiDi support
-Page position and scaling is now preserved after reload of page
-Stylus devices without pointer motion events should be able to scroll anyway, just not in realtime
-Faked transcoding progress when using feeds
-Show numbers in ordered lists
-Improved stylesheet handling
-Focus highlight now looks inactive when loading
-New and improved server side cookie handling

Handango is giving away one (1) high quality, fully-functioning mobile software application for FREE on Fridays! The free app is available from 12 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. CST on Friday only and must be downloaded during that time period. In addition, the promotion features other applications at a 25% discount throughout the week.

Just visit www.handango.com/FreeAppFriday for details.

All you have to do is complete a short survey. Handango will then send you an email with a link so you can download your free app. They are calling the promotion, “Free App Friday.”

You can also get 25% off Award Winning applications everyday while promotion lasts.

Those of you who are lucky to have FM radio in their cellphones would probably know that you need to connect your headset cord (which acts as an antenna) in order to get FM signal. Right? Not anymore!

Laird Technologies introduces its RadioAnt ™ antenna. This technology provides an FM antenna solution that can be incorporated directly inside a handset device, offering improved performance, minimal size, ease of installation and low cost.

reports Wireless design and development magazine.

Laird Technologies’ RadioAnt ™ antenna is a leading-edge miniature internal antenna circuit providing the combination of FM, impedance matching and signal amplification. The internal active FM antenna circuit provides performance similar to or better than a passive corded headset.

eBooks are getting popular these days. And they have all rights to be for the number of reasons.

They are compact (you can bring a bookshelf worth of books with you on an average sized flash card), they could be read on a multitude of devices, be it a laptop, PDA, smartphone or specifically designed for that purpose hardware, such as Sony’s The Reader Digital Book. Some readers even allow for eBooks to be read aloud by a synthesized voice (which sounds not as good as those “books on tapes”, but still a viable alternative for a fellow commuter when you can’t wait till you get home to find out what happened to the main character in the next chapter. Please don’t “read and drive”, it’s tempting but very dangerous) .

New eBook stores are growing on the Net like mashrooms, and industry giants like Amazon.com invest in software and hardware, which is a good sign for the eBook business. Online stores offer downloadable books on any subject and by any author, from religion to science fiction and from James Rollins to Leo Tolstoy (can you imagine carying the ~1500 pages of War and Peace in your pocket with you on an airplane).

The guys at Project Gutenberg are busy transfering to electronic format books that are no longer under copyright protection in US. They have managed to digitize about 100,000 titles so far. The books are available free of charge.

An effort is made to create a universal XML-based standard called FictionBook that would be compatible with current and future devices and standards.

With a recent announcement of 4Tb (terabyte) hard drive the day is coming when you will be carying the Library of Congress in your pocket.

(more…)

London and SCHAUMBURG, IL – October 15, 2007 – Sony Ericsson and Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) today announced a definitive agreement under which Motorola will acquire a 50% interest in UI Holdings BV, the parent company of UIQ Technology AB, which is currently wholly owned by Sony Ericsson. Under the agreement, Motorola and Sony Ericsson will work together and jointly invest in the development of the UIQ open user interface platform. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. As previously announced, Sony Ericsson acquired UIQ Technology from Symbian Ltd in February 2007.

Is it good or bad for the UIQ? We’ll see.

Read the press release.

Here’s a funny series of YouTube “commercials” comparing the features of the two devices - Nokia N95 and Apple iPhone.

• N95 vs. iPhone - Camera
• N95 vs. iPhone - Internet
• N95 vs. iPhone - GPS
• N95 vs. iPhone - Ringtone
• N95 vs. iPhone - China
• N95 vs. iPhone - MMS