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Why? Well, most phones I've ever tried have been poor. Poor build quality, particularly in regard to securing the battery connection. Average to poor interfaces (how long before someone finally adds 'Reply and erase' to their SMS options?). Poor damage resistance. Ill-thought out, unprotected keypads that are pressed by anything leaning against them whilst in your pocket, the synchronisation software that comes with them tends to be poor...

OK, so the 'lock keypad' function is used to get round one of those moans. But that's extra hassle - one more step for me to take to compensate for their poor designs.

I'm on my fourth, and best, mobile at the moment. It's one step back (possibly even two steps now) from Nokia's latest stuff - the 8850. Solves my annoyance with the keypad, but still the screen is too easily scratched, still the SMS side of things remains ill-thought out, and the PC Suite for it is hopelessly out of date and utterly useless.

Whilst Java phones sound nice (I'm a primarily Java-based developer by trade), I'd sacrifice the entire lot for an industrial design that works as a basic phone without falling apart.

Cheers,
Ian

Why? Well, most phones I've ever tried have been poor. Poor build quality, particularly in regard to securing the battery connection. Average to poor interfaces (how long before someone finally adds 'Reply and erase' to their SMS options?). Poor damage resistance. Ill-thought out, unprotected keypads that are pressed by anything leaning against them whilst in your pocket, the synchronisation software that comes with them tends to be poor...

OK, so the 'lock keypad' function is used to get round one of those moans. But that's extra hassle - one more step for me to take to compensate for their poor designs.

I'm on my fourth, and best, mobile at the moment. It's one step back (possibly even two steps now) from Nokia's latest stuff - the 8850. Solves my annoyance with the keypad, but still the screen is too easily scratched, still the SMS side of things remains ill-thought out, and the PC Suite for it is hopelessly out of date and utterly useless.

Whilst Java phones sound nice (I'm a primarily Java-based developer by trade), I'd sacrifice the entire lot for an industrial design that works as a basic phone without falling apart.

Cheers,
Ian

I'll admit, Sony (and the Nokia Phone that someone else linked to) are on the right path to my "dream device". I would like a gadget that combines my cell phone, my digital camera, and my digital music player. PDA functionality doesn't interest me too much.

The challenge is to do everything as well as the individual devices. Sony's and Nokia's attempts aren't there yet. For example, the resolution of the photos that these devices can take is pathetic compared to "real" digital cameras.

It will take a lot of work and experimentation before integrating devices in this fashion will work well. It will be hard to figure out the user interface, and to pack all those digital components into a small container. I am convinced it will happen eventually, but for now, I'm willing to pack around my three toys everywhere I go.

nokia are doing this with the symbian OS and thats shipping soon

http://www.nokia.com/phones/7650/

regards

john jones

The Nokia D211 supports 802.11 and GSM/GPRS. I guess it's only lacking Bluetooth.

Well, if that's the case, a provider might consider deploying something like Sunstream Wireless' network which is based on the fairly un-congested 5.8GHz U-NII spectrum. CPE is $795 for speeds up to 10Mbps full-duplex at distances up to 10 miles.

Or, perhaps a meshed network would be an idea like Nokia's Rooftop solution.

Hehehehehehe... did anyone read the technical specifications? I wonder how they accomplished to implement IP over MPEG? (heheh) Is this similar to DWDM, but rather splitting a wave length, they use the already split framerate? LOL...just thought i'd toss this out to the void...

Hi

michael: FYI the media terminal *was launched by the end of 2001*, I live in Sweden, and they
have been selling for quite a while now.

We also had a demo of the new version, that will be launched in 2 weeks or so, in the FOSDEM, at
the Mozilla developers room, it was really great, it runs Linux(2.4.10+ I think), uses an embedded
version of mozilla as browser(0.9.5+, and will be upgraded automatically to 1.0 when it's released),
have 2 USB, 2 FireWire, 1 PCMCIA, Ethernet, and I don't remember what else, but it was really cool...
(full specs here: http://www.nokia.com/multimedia/tech_specs.html)

I don't have a TV, so I doubt I'll buy one, but you can be sure that it will take very short
time to be hacked, also almost all(if not all) the software it runs it's opensource, and you
can find it at: https://www.ostdev.net/(I think they are
going to release even more software there in the very near future)

A really cool project, that uses opensource software... <rant>ah, sorry, I forgot that this
days slashdot is full of M$ zealots that run WinXP/IE and think that in linux you have to do
"./configure; make; make install" to install anything(have you heard of RedCarpet? that makes
me think.... RedCarpet/Ximian desktop for the MediaTerminal? that could be cool...(not for me,
of course ;) )</rant>

[End rambling, back on topic ]

I think it's great that somebody is doing something like this, have in mind that this
will compete directly with the next version of the X-Box(HomeStation or whatever it's
going to be called), and I really prefer to see people using a product based on opensource
(so I can hack it if I want) than having to run windows on their TV(<troll>anyone wants to get
a BSOD in the middle of his favorite movie ;) </troll>, ah, and one last thing, the person
from nokia(hi Magnus!) that made the presentation, said that they are going to release xDSL modems
for it, that means that this modems will have drivers for Linux, something that in the past was a really
big problem... in resume(I have to go back to work!) this is a "Very good thing(tm)" and
anybody that cares about open source should be happy that it exists..(even if like me, many
of us aren't probably going to ever use it, after all, we don't have a life, right? ;)


\\Uriel


P.S.: I use FreeBSD with Ion instead of any desktop, but it's really funny
to see people complaining that linux is hard to use when even a 3 years
old could install RedHat(in my experience much easier than installing any
WinXX)

P.P.S.: Hmmm. I think in the end it could be useful for me: a Plan9 CPU or file server...
and I could mount the TV screen(if I had one) from my Plan9 termianl ;)

...this thing is totally Linux/Mozilla based. And the best part -- check out the "developers" pdf, the want people to hack it! I think someone finally figured out what the hacking community is all about :) With a slough of A/V hardware and simple x86 arch this could be fun. A sleek little set-top box that I can hack from the couch :)

Cheers,
Mike

According to the TechSpecs, the Mediaterminal runs Linux.

May it be
when darkness falls
your phone will ring true

from this page:
Is it possible to develop games for the Nokia mobile phones?
The only phones that games may be developed for are the 9110 and 9210 Communicators. The 9210 has a symbian operating System which is an open platform for developers.

This means that anyone may develop games and other add-on applications for the device. This is the same with the 9110, however it has a different operating system.

Additionally, several Nokia phones support Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), where games and information can be programed for mobile viewing.

For more information on the Communicators SDKs and other Nokia tools, visit the Nokia Forum (www.forum.nokia.com).

Let's remember the words of Mr. Burke:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke

Go buy someone OTHER than Microsoft's phone, please!

--Grrae

The Nokia 7650. It is so so sweeeeet. I wish we had it in the US.

Nokia 7650.

Super nifty, but lacks key input features.

Nokia - disconnecting people

More?

why is everyone suprised that a mp3 player has voice control ?, cellphones here in the UK have had that technology for ages, but now they are moving just beyond "call pizza" to built in mp3 players and radios , at current speed of development its gonna be this year they merge these technologies and we end up with a voice controlled mp3 player with pda and cellphone with built in cameras ! yay, the end is near for all these fragmented devices and we will soon have that device we all want that fits in our pockets and does everything in one single device :)

why is everyone suprised that a mp3 player has voice control ?, cellphones here in the UK have had that technology for ages, but now they are moving just beyond "call pizza" to built in mp3 players and radios , at current speed of development its gonna be this year they merge these technologies and we end up with a voice controlled mp3 player with pda and cellphone with built in cameras ! yay, the end is near for all these fragmented devices and we will soon have that device we all want that fits in our pockets and does everything in one single device :)

Of course I can't be entirely sure, but given this recent press release from Nokia I would think that this system really is based on Nokia Rooftop wireless routers.

Of course I can't be entirely sure, but given this recent press release from Nokia I would think that this system really is based on Nokia Rooftop wireless routers.

BZZZZT! I have personal knowledge of Vista Networks and the Nokia RoofTop system they are using.
Nokia RoofTop is a mesh network frequency-hopping system operating at 2.4 GHz, using proprietary routing protocols. The objective is to build a robust wireless mesh network with many paths to the AirHead, and without every customer having to be line-of-sight to the AirHead.

Read more here (Nokia's literature explaining mesh networks and the Nokia RoofTop solution).

- In The Know...

According to Nokia's site, the Nokia Rooftop is NOT 802.11b.

FYI

This is simply a wireless ISP using the Nokia Rooftop system that was created by Rooftop Networks three years ago (and acquired by Nokia). It's a mesh 802.11b network on steriods with a routing protocol. If your only way back to the ISP's POP is through your neighbor's unit, and he deactivates his service or trips over the power cord, your service is down.

Nothing to see here, people. Move along...

There are non-802.11 wireless systems out there that have different security properties.

Sorry, now I get it. I had thought they wanted to provide a wireless network as a bonus to normal DSL. Stupid me. I guess I'll watch the demonstration from Nokia before I continue commenting.

If it's wireless, then it's not a Digital Subscriber Line.

Does anyone know what hardware they're using? I would guess Nokia Rooftop because that's the only equipment of this type I've heard of.

This is not DSL, it is wireless broadband - probably not unlike the Nokia Rooftop system that Cringely mentioned not too long ago...

Jeff

How is this any different from this, other than the fact that it won't use up a slot?

Both Nokia and Ericsson have been selling PC cards that give you instant GSM access for years now.

For example the Nokia CardPhone 2.0

Bulding the chip and antenna directly into the laptop is a trivial matter of engineering.

Consider the Nokia 9210. It's a cellphone/PDA with a speakerphone, so you can use it as a PDA while you're on the phone, which in fact is a lot easier than trying to juggle two boxes. imho quite a few devices will be like this in the future.

Although a ring-sized phone will be a practical impossibility, it can be used in a more practical way if it is combined with something else.

The current "best" PDA-phone combination is arguably the Nokia 9210 (or yet-to-be-released 9290 in the US). Although the size is perfectly ok for myself, the weight is not. A ring-sized phone embedded inside a PDA could be the planned direction for this miniaturization.

Palm is too bulky a unit to be used as a phone, contrary to whatever Handspring say about its Treo. The 9210 is too heavy and too thick for most people. Imagine a phone with Palm functionality, the integration of 9210, and the weight of 80g. This ring-phone technology could be the answer to our prayers.

None of this security will work as long as you can download files to a phone via a PC the. Take the Nokia 5510 for example, Nokia has put digital rights management in place (ala Sony Memory Stick).... this can now be circumnavigated quite easily. The cat is out of the bag, trying to stuff the blighter back in using a crowbar will never work!

Vancouver International Airport (YVR) has had a Nokia system installed for some time now. It works very well and rates have varied from free (on trials) to 9.95$ CDN / day (ISTR). Hopefully this sort of thing will catch on because it is a very nice service to have while you wait for your flight. Especially these days, where you are potentially spending several hours at the airport prior to your flight.

Vancouver International Airport (YVR) has had a Nokia system installed for some time now. It works very well and rates have varied from free (on trials) to 9.95$ CDN / day (ISTR). Hopefully this sort of thing will catch on because it is a very nice service to have while you wait for your flight. Especially these days, where you are potentially spending several hours at the airport prior to your flight.

One of the Nokia 5510's multitude of bangs and whistles is that it's not only an MP3 player but a recorder as well, from the inbuilt radio or line in. 64Mb should be plenty for a couple of hours of recording. There's a rumour that it can also be used as a phone as well.

...with a very unique (one-handed) means of inputting characters...
Hello? Haven't you guys ever heard of a Nokia 7110? There's even a Quicktime movie showing how the 7110's NaviRoller works.

...with a very unique (one-handed) means of inputting characters...
Hello? Haven't you guys ever heard of a Nokia 7110? There's even a Quicktime movie showing how the 7110's NaviRoller works.

That's interesting-- could you please name these companies that are doing so well financially and also cite references for their good deeds and kind employee relations.

Nokia
http://www.nokia.com/insight/index.html

Ericsson
http://www.ericsson.com/ericssonresponse/
http://www.ericsson.com/sustainability/

Ikea
http://www.ikea.co.uk/about_ikea/code_of_conduct/w ork.asp

Lego

http://www.lego.com/eng/info/profile.asp

It sounds good but more of a rumor than anything else.

It's not just rumour, you just live in the wrong part of the world. I know many Americans find these thing difficult to believe. That just shows how screwed-up the American mentality has become.

One big difference between here and America is that, these companies policies aren't just for PR purposes, but they are actually core to the peoples life values. If you actually visited these countries and saw it for yourself, then you'd understand that the "America way" isn't the only way, or necessarily the best.

802.11b is wireless LAN. 11Mbit (With fallback to 5 and 2). A good reference is Nokia since they produce a complete setup.

Nokia Wireless LAN

I'm using (Nokia) 802.11b for all my home stuff now. No more cables running across the floor (This is really a wife pleaser :). Even my printers are connected on a miniport (To a jet direct box) and mounted on a little mobile table.

You can already play Doom on the Nokia 9210. Full-colour, full-screen, and faster than I remember it originally playing on a 486. And if that doesn't turn your phone into a games console, I don't know what does.

We were considering building some special hand sping modules as well. Now that isn't going to happen.

What Visor did was killed off their vertical market edge. There are many compaines tdeveloping software for specifc industries because you can put things like bar code readers on these low cost handheld devices.

As far as the Trio, what can it do that my Nokia 8310 can't other than run plam software? Its smaller and has a very good radio so it makes a good phone.

libertynews is correct about handspring not surviving the move. They only have $115 mil in the bank if once a few springboard "partners" sue them for wasted R&D costs, they will cease to exist.

Any idea when the MediaTerminal will be available in the US? I recall that Nokia's MediaTerminal also won the "Best of Category" in Video in 2001. The feature list for Moxi sounds pretty similar to that of the MediaTerminal. The MediaTerminal is based on linux on a Celeron according to the technical specs here.

Nokia announced their Mediaterminal last year and it just now available ... in Sweden.

I noticed that too, then again, almost all the news sites that have names the same as their titles are searched for. What I think is more funny is how many other sites that couldn't have been explained by people looking for cached versions of the site there are: nokia, sony, bmw... and Amazon for *'s sake! I guess it's good that people are using Google, but how stupid are they, really? And I didn't think bookmarks/shorcuts where that advanced of a concept.

I think you would droll over the new Nokia 7560 won't ya?

UMTS is not a company. It is the 3G phone services standard itself. And it will be mainly implemented by a tyre and rubberboot factory and a 125 year old mechanics company.

Thanks to Rob Levin (lilo) of openprojects for inspiring the formation of several new irc networks. With masters like lilo to guide the IRC world to new levels of hospitality and `niceness' as well as governmental legitimacy through incorporation, and in turn, solving the age old problem of how to pay for all the necessary expenses incurred in day to day operations, the IRC world has truely never been in a better state. Sure a few servers will always be de-linking, but there's always someone ready to pick up the torch and keep on.

One of the great advantages of the *nix platform that Windows has never really been able to match has been it's remote access capabilities.

I run Windows on my desktop at home, but I also run a Debian GNU/Linux server, for the sole reason so that when I'm away from home, I can telnet into it and read my mail, use IRC, etc.

I even have a Nokia 9210, and using it I can telnet to my Debian box and then use IRC from anywhere in Europe, Asia, or indeed anywhere with a GSM 900/1800 signal. (Basically, anywhere except USA. Suck. :)

Being able to do "apt-get install telnetd irc" on a Windows box would be very nice indeed!

This is GPRS/EDGE-network, delivered by Nokia, and only 3G in an american sense. Cingular is moving from old TDMA system to GSM-based technology simply because they want to enable GPRS/EDGE (packet data) services. In theory, this could be done with TDMA as well, but there is no hardware available from any vendors.

As for the bit rates, 470kbps is reachable...in a test lab. In GPRS, depending on the encoding (CS-1 to CS-4) you get 10 to 20kbps per timeslot. Note, that this is the rate on PHYSICAL layer. You lose a slice for all the overhead caused by the protocol stack, of course.
One TRX (tranmitter/receiver) means 8 timeslots on a 200 kHz band. The newest GPRS phones are "4+1"-devices, using 4 timeslots for downlink, 1 for uplink, with CS-2 encoding, yielding about 40 kbps bitrate - in optimal conditions. This means that there are no other users and you get those timeslots completely for your own use.
EDGE brings in a new modulation (8-PSK instead of GMSK), in which the bitrate is tripled (symbol rate/baud rate stays the same).

So, in optimal conditions, with CS-4 encoding and EDGE, you get about 80 kbps. This means that for 470kbps you need 6 timeslots. Right. That means almost one whole TRX for a single user.
Either Cingular invests a LOT of money (well, since they are switching their entire infrastructure to a new system, they are doing that already), and brings in one TRX/user, those rates are unreachable in any real world environment.

Of course, EDGE is not ready yet, and in GPRS only CS-1 and CS-2 encodings are implemented anywhere (CS-3 and CS-4 coming in on H1 of 2002), so the maximum bitrate at the moment is about 40kbps.

I thought nokia phones already shipped worms out-of-the-box.