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Is There Room for an IM only Device ?
tealover writes "MSNBC Has an article about a new device from Motorola that they're marketing that just does IM. It' called IMFree. Kind of a combination of a cordless phone and pager; There is a base station that plugs into a USB port in your computer, so it's only portable in relation to the base station. Sounds and looks like the kids would like this."
There's not a service fee - it's connecting wirelessly back to your PC using a base station, rather than a cellphone billed per-byte.
At 40cents/message, that's big bucks for a service that costs next to nothing.
In Europe, where SMS is huge, It doesn't cost 40cents/message. It is only in the US where they can get away with charging that much. When I lived in Germany it cost around 1 cent a message and I sent 5-10 messages a day. Now that I live in the US and it costs quite a bit more, I send around 5-10 messages a month.
I have AIM on my Nokia 3390 (I think it's a 3390) through T-mobile. I think you get 50 incoming messages free with most of the plans, an upgrade to 500 is $3/month, which I have. Considering that's about 16 messages/day average, I'm unlikely to go over it. I actually rarely use it cause when I'm home I'm usually at the computer with trillian running anyway.
Typing on it's a little annoying at first, but I can manage it ok now. It's nice to have when I need to get ahold of someone and I know they're probably on AIM, or when I'm just sitting somewhere bored.
The only problem I have with it is I can't seem to get it to pull my entire buddy list down off AIM, even when I tell it to. So I often have to manually add people to keep it in sync with the list on my computer. Once they're added it's fine though, so it's a minor annoyance.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
SMS is strictly speaking a 'store and forward' protocol, but then this is how (e.g.) ICQ works as well. SMS is close to instant: around 1-2 seconds in most cases and only rarely slower than that.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Cybiko does this. Am I supposed
to dance around and clap at motorola's innovative entry into the teen PDA
market?
P.S. I'm just P.O'd slash doesn't do more coverage on this device, I
have 3, they're a hell of a lot better than luggin a laptop through the house
for IRC or IM'ing. Really cool toy.
is something that provided a very cheap screen/kb/mouse combination which wirelessly connected to a new session on a linux box.
So something from the early 90's would work then?
NCD explora 451 + Oronco Prisim2 wireless card + a cheap AP + your linux server.
I have 6 of them running this way and at $15.00 each for the NCD terminals, $35.00 each for the wireless cards, monitors,keyboards, mice were free.. I got off really cheap.
There are 2 problems with this. Web and text stuff only, and mercilessly kill anyone that set's gnome to use a screensaver or tries to listen to a mp3 on their NCD terminal.... Just as an example to the others...
the hard part of this setup is the whiners that can't live without a 1600X1200 at 32 bit color resolutions. (800X600 is best for a 10 baseT network, which 802.11b is equilivant to) they also need to be publically killed as an example to the others. (A good sysadmin keeps his users cowering in fear)
although, I have recently started ditching the wireless cards at that location and ran Cat5e.. gives them 100 base, a switch, and is overall cheaper... even with an electrician pulling the wire at $120.00 an hour.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This is pretty cool, but AOL had already introduced a device years ago called the AOL Mobile Communicator.
The device costs $99.95 and the service is $29.95 a month, which is in addition to the monthly AOL membership fee. The service is only available to AOL members.
This one also did AOL E-mail so I guess its fair to say it wasn't an "IM Only" device- but its major selling point IMO was that it did AIM before you could get AIM on cellphones. I think you can still buy it from them!
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...