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BBC: 2005 Looking Good for Gadgets
wiggles writes "The BBC says, 'The relentless pace of development in the hi-tech world and rampant competition in many of its sectors, particularly among mobile phone firms, all suggests that 2005 is going to be a very good year.' They talk about that (overused?) buzzword 'convergence' and the implications for gadgets in 2005 as we further approach the 'convergence' asymptote. So what 2005 gadgets are Slashdotters looking forward to?" I'm forecasting that 2006 and 2007 are ALSO looking good for gadgets. You heard it here first...
I will need to get my hands on an Apple iPhone (or whatever they will call it)
I will work to elevate you, just enough to bring you down
Control4 looks especially interesting.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
OH yes.. a red swingline!
If you live in Korea or Japan you already own the cool gadgets we'll see in 2006 ...
I'm hoping/betting the reception issues have more to do with Sprint than the cell phone itself, and I'd really like to ditch either my Palm or my phone.
Alex.
A new car stereo with DAB and MP3 for those long drives to work. My wife got a new phone with camera and kitchen sink. We are three weeks later and she still has to place her first usefull phonecall...
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
The rumor is out there...
I'm looking forward to a PDA that has decent battery life, costs less than $150, has good software and a decent OS installed on it, accepts compact flash cards, is well-supported, is light and thin, and syncs with my Linux machine without having to use duct tape and an extensive knowledge of kernel operations.
If there actually is a PDA out there for lazy farts like me, then I'd be grateful for the tip. If there is no such animal, then I hope some company stops focussing on cramming multimedia stuff into a smaller and smaller box and listens to lazy farts like me who just want a good basic PDA and are Linux users.
I'm hoping for the Playstation 3.... Hey, I can dream :P
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
convergence (kn-vûrjns) n.
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
the toys are so expensive and complex. Do you guys really think they will make our life easier?
I am getting one of the new wireless VoIP phones. A friend of mine has one and it is absolutely awesome. As long as you live in the city or an areas where there are many access points it is the best phone you can imagine. Crystal clear calls worldwide with no noticeable delay at minimal bandwith consumption and no cost. WiFi phones rock!
For the camera, it would be nice if it told me in a little overlay, and if it stored the info in the EXIF header to make it easier to categorize pictures.
---
Other wierd ideas like this on my blog :-)
I want the phone I used to have. I bought this Nokia 8600 (8200?) in the year 2000. It was excellent. It was tiny, got great reception and had amazing voice quality. I paid around $150 for it, and it was worth every penny.
I dropped it once and it stopped working. When I went looking for a new phone, I discovered that Nokia had discontinued the 8600 and the only options for new phones were these large monstrosities with cameras, video games, color screens and picture messaging. Absolutely horrible.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to the days of wearable computers, but when it comes to a cellphone, all I want is a phone that is small and has good voice quality. The 8200 was the perfect phone. I have no idea why it was discontinued, but all the cell phone makers are playing the same game -- gadgets, gadgets, gadgets. I don't want crazy features, I want something that does its job well, not 15 jobs poorly.
Here's to hoping that in 2005 cell phone makers will go back to producing good cell phones, and not try to include a camera and an atari emulator on every model!
Do I need a cellphone that takes photos, does e-mail, records my voice and takes video? Nah... Would I rather carry one cell phone that does such things instead of cellphone, a digital camera (video and/or still), laptop and mp3 voice recorder (or tape recorder)? Hell right.
I know the quality of the camera/video isn't comparable to what I would get out of a "real" digicam, but hell, it will get better over time. They may be "useless gadgets" for some of us who don't use a camera or voice recorder on a daily basis, but there is *always* a market for the latest and greatest. Even if there isn't a market for a new toy like this when they conceive it, the clever folks in marketing will *create* a market for it before it's released.
If it has flashy lights, uses a battery, and can be used as a tool for productivity -or- a distraction from the real world, you'd better believe it will get made and it will sell.
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
I'd like to see a reasonably priced mini-ITX system with actual horsepower...
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
extern warranty;
main()
{
(void)warranty;
}
I hope the rumors about this little beast are true-- I'd love to get as many family and friends as possible to switch away from Windows, and the existence of a cheap Mac would be a big help.
Once when I was responsible for infrastructure for a major company, my boss the CIO said to me "OK, people are talking about how they'd like the servers to be faster. This is good, because they're no longer saying they'd like the servers to stay up -- they just assume they will."
:)
I don't need a cellphone that takes pictures and plays MP3s, but I'm looking for one; and I don't need an iPod that can store 40Gb of music, but it sure is nice not to have to worry about what to transfer over to the iPod and just put _everything_ there so I can access it.
It's natural, when what we actually _need_ is taken care of, to start looking at the next step -- the things we'd really, really like.
The truth is (well, the truth filtered through my liberal biases) that people need to feel secure in their person, that they need to have a way to make sure they'll have food on their table tomorrow, and a way to exercise a certain sense of autonomy. A roof over their head would be nice too.
While in much of the world the above can't be taken for granted, most of us who read Slashdot already have this. We're probably not going to get shot in the street; we probably don't have to worry about being able to afford a loaf of bread tomorrow. So we start looking at the next, more optional stuff. That's OK -- there's nothing wrong with wanting more out of life than the bare necessities -- as long as we don't confuse "Man, I'd really like to be able to play 'Baby One More Time' as my ringtone" with a need
Microsoft is behind the SPOT watches, so you know what that means-- where there's a cool feature, there's a poor implementation with security holes just waiting to be maliciously exploited.
Do you really want to have to buy antivirus software for your watch? I sure don't.
I think it is generally the same population exchanging one generation of gadget for the next. I know some that have been through 5 or 6 generations of PDA's. The combination of small and useful is an extremely difficult dicotomy to overcome with a friendly interface. Some products like the ipod have been "killer apps" because they penetrated a new market and have a simple interface.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
how flash-in-the-pan is this?
"We are in the process of building an online dealer locator tool to help you find the dealer nearest you. Please check back in a couple of weeks for this feature"
what's the interesting part again?
I think the relentless pace of development in the hi-tech world and rampant competition will be responsible for many premature releases of buggy gadgets in 2005.
E-ink has made a partnership with a company that prints circuits on plastic making e-paper a reality. They go into mass production in 2005 making the paperless office a potential reality.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Like the console that fits in a joystick or these oldish-looking cell phones... what's next in this trend?
Here's to hoping that in 2005 cell phone makers will go back to producing good cell phones, and not try to include a camera and an atari emulator on every model!
I travel quite a bit to customer sites, and many of them - particularly organizations with very valuable intellectual property (e.g. trade secrets) - explicitly prohibit cameras of any kind. It is my hope that the major mobile phone vendors recognize the need for nicely-featured phones without cameras for use by consultants and other people working in these facilities.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Here are some mpegs. One of them being a 1cm thick electronic pad (I liked it). (named SONY 2) This was in the SONY building in Tokyo last September. I wish I had no Karma because everybody is going to see this thing! Remember to remove the space made by the slashdot comment system.
http://homepage.mac.com/crackedbutter/FileShari
Jonathanjk.com
I've had my Samsung SGH-x427 for about 6 months now, and it's the best cellphone I've ever used. It's cheap and light, and I can go about a week without charging it.
It also doesn't have all those features that you don't like, which is one of the reasons that I got it. I love that I can fit it in the leg pocket of my jeans or the breast pocket of my coat, and it's very sturdy - I've dropped it a bunch of times and it hasn't yet skipped a beat.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
A mobile phone with:
MP3 playback, superb sound quality and standard 3.5mm socket.
GPS receiver and the ability to use standard GPS software for smartphones.
A very good keyboard (not spongey), either a standard phone type or qwerty as long as the device doesn't look stupid.
SDIO compatible SD slot
Wifi
Good battery life
Good speakerphone
Expandable memory
Non-volatile storage
I want a Palm Pilot that does everything my current Palm Pilot does, but without the random crashed and frequent resets when I try to sync, at least with the default applications.
/me unbends another paperclip, having worn the threads off the stylus that unscrews to reveal a reset pin
Oh, and I want a SDIO Wireless Card for it.
Oh, wait, this is a REAL WORLD list of ideas, not science fiction. My bad.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Maybe in this year the example is taken by more vendors, and that kind of device grow in features and get lower prices.
Let's see how many of them actually make it big. Buy too soon and you might end up with something that's not the standard, no longer supported, surpassed by something else with more functionality, too expensive too use, or incompatible with existing stuff.
Nah, I'm looking forward to the Cell processor and the technological advances it would bring.
How about a phone that works as a damn phone? I don't need an mp3 player, digital camera, video camera, calendar, notepad, toaster, coffeemaker, dishwasher, steam shovel, etc. All I really want is to be able to place a call with the assurance that it will connect, and remain connected until the end of the conversation. But all those R&D dollars keep manifesting themselves in useless crap like opening animations reminding me to be safe and courteous every time I power up my phone.
According to Palm's Tech Support, there's nothing wrong with it. They said I just need to reinstall Documents to Go.
Never mind the fact that in my original support request, I spelled out in writing that the problems persisted even after a hardware reset.
In the end I uninstalled Documents to Go. Lovely that an application that came with the device turns out to be a bug ridden slice of pain. In all fairness doing so did eliminate an entire category of errors, so now I can sync the piece of junk with just three resets instead of four.
What am I running? Well, the problem predated when I started using zLauncher, and uninstalling it, doesn't change how the Palm syncs. Aside from that, I have Plucker, RealPlayer and the Audible player installed.
I've tried every combination removing these applications to no avail. The bottom line is I still have to do at least two soft resets with almost every sync, even when that sync was the first one done after a hard reset, and syncing against a computer that had a fresh install of the Palm Software and no legacy Palm data or third party applications.
And Palm insists the device is just fine.
Too bad this all started after the 30 day return window, or I could have returned the thing and gotten something else.
Sorry, but after the pain of dealing with Palm tech support, I am never buying another Palm product again.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
While in much of the world the above can't be taken for granted, most of us who read Slashdot already have this. We're probably not going to get shot in the street;
True, but wedgies, swirlies, and getting stuffed into lockers are dangers we face everyday.
Software Wars
Time to crawl from under that stone man... You're talking about a gadget that was launched in 1999(!); the TRGPro. A PalmOS based unit that has good battery life, heaps of good software, is well supported, is light and thin is well supported (incl. Linux) and includes a CF slot (dude, that's soooo 90's !). I'm sure you can pick one up for below 50$. ;)
This is 2005 dude, wake up and smell the coffee...
A linux or palm PDA with integrated wifi, GPS, and a qwerty keyboard - provides normal web browsing and email. Make it a little bigger than the current PDAs if need be. I have waited way to long!
I and I suspect most of you over the age of 15 don't need a 'phone' primarilly designed for game play. Though I can't decide which I need more; a device that plays audio CDs and MP3 CDs as well as solid state storage MP3s, or, a phone/PDA combo that can replace an MP3 player as well, as long as the MP3 player doesn't tax the battery much more than the phone how.
I would like better more commonsense PDA functions in the phone such as Palm conduits to Lotus notes and the ability to sync to a web based public calendar. I'd also like a better phone book, one that allows better integration of email addresses.
And as a long time T9 user - back when it was used on Palmpilots as well, I have to say, that dog won't hunt anymore. It's too tedious to use effectively for text messaging and email. I think that Samsung and company are just going to have to bite the bullet on this one and provide a fold up keyboard tht connects to the obscure and seemingly useless data port on on VI660 phone in order for me to effectively use PCS vision services.
And I probably won't get a camera phone unless and until it's a better cheaper and more efficient replacement for a REAL digital camera. And at that, it has to plug directly into a photo printer and unload and print just like the cameras of today.
In five years I want to get rid of my laptop, PDA, phone, MP3 and CD player and use a single device that doesn't cost as much as a car, runs 2 full days on battery power and is 100% backup-able to some storage device on my homeLAN like a network NAS box.
It's in the nature of the avarage gadget to be something you don't need until you buy it, or you see everyone else use it. Keeping that in mind, I'm looking forward to improvements on existing stuff much more than getting my hands on new thingies. If the storage space, portability, speed, ease of use, battery life, and of course the price of existing gadgets will really improve, I'll be happy. :)
I'd like a PDA which can actually display 24 bit color at at least VGA resolution. This is for previewing digital pictures. 16 bit color generally looks like crap.
Here are some of the top gadgets or hardware: - Xbox 2 (Holiday 05') - Playstation 3 (Holiday 05' Japan) - Sony PSP (already out in Japan, US March 05') - Nintendo DS (finally on store shelves?) - new drive-less Ipod(no official date)
Control4 does use Zigbee
Remember, the european phone manufacturers are looking to legalise software patents. This will of course kill competition, not foster it (as demonstrated by the inpenetrable-for-new-entrants oligopolistic patent thickets in america).
So, I'd say 2005 will be a terrible year for gadgets, unless the EU Council and patent bureaucracy is reined in.
Very true.
To add, I've noticed that of late, most issues or point of views have become polarized. Today, you're either a techno-freak or a luddite. You're either expected to own or at least want a plasma television, a TiVo, a VOIP/cell/PDA phone or you don't even believe in electricity. Heck, it even extends to other things. You're either a Bush lover or a Bush hater. However, i digress.
Like you said, a lot of us are confusing a "good to have" technical gadget with a need. While there's nothing wrong with owning or desiring the latest gadgets, we also need to put things in perspective. The twist here is that technology is rapidly evolving at such a rate that a lot of it is now taken for granted. We've almost become dependant on it. People today, including myself, have very real email withdrawl symptoms if say the network goes down for an hour. Perhaps, this is the reason why so many of us are confusing a desirable ringtone or mobile internet access as a need. Perhaps, the solution to "snap" out of it is to keep reminding ourselves to put things in perspective.
It's gotten a good amount of bad press, but this dual-hinge flip phone/windows PDA still seems like a winner to me. I'll find a way to compensate for the small memory.
--
RumorsDaily
Call me foolish, but I for one am not lusting after convergence. I'd rather have good Bluetooth support. That way, my cell phone, which is good at GSM communications and picture taking, for example, can talk with my iPod which is good at data storage (where all those pictures go). Or my PDA, with it's nice big screen, can download web pages via my cell phone. Or my cell phone can get the next 24 hours worth of appointment information from my PDA, in case I want to travel light for a little while. The scenarios go on and on...
It just seems a little more elegant than carrying one monolithic brick around with you.
Mod parent up.... Great post and no moderator points :-(
*ducks*
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Give me ONE DEVICE that will take the place of my cell phone, my 4MP digital camera, my large screen PDA running Linux, and my iPod.
Make it with an extra long battery life, or on-board power source, and give it removable flash memory or a micro hard drive (oh wait, the iPod already has a hard drive, thank you.)
That will be convergence enough for me. I don't care what it costs.
But what would be uber-cool is if it were an Apple product.
Regards,
Roger Born
writing.borngraphics.com
"Vini Vedi Velcro"
Which shrinking electronics every device is going to do all it can. You'll just have several form factors to choose from:
"pocket size" for voice communication, text messaging, web search, music, small photos, music;
"head phone" size;
"clip board" size;
"desk top" size;
"wall size" for high quality entertainment.
MIT's Project Oxygen is experimenting with ubiqitous computing with three of these form factors- handheld, desk and wall. Everything communicates through wifi.
Of course, if you all bought one of those nifty new TOYOTA RIDING ROBOTS to ride on, you would not need to converge all your toys. You could carry them all with you, right at your fingertips.
t -and-iunit-026866.php
Ref: http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/robots/toyoto-ifoo
=)
Regards,
Roger Born
writing.borngraphics.com
"Sorry. No Refunds"
- Large, hi-res color display
- big but slim
- touchscreen & navigation buttons
- GSM / GPRS worldphone
- Synch with Multisync
- IR / Bluetooth. Don't really care much about Wifi, I can set up a bridge with my laptop if I really want to extend Wifi for some reason.
- Removable storage (SD / MMC)
- No camera
- No antenna "stub" - they're not really necessary for good reception, other than to make the device look like a phone
Software:So far, I've got my sights set on the next version of the Treo 650 (without a camera, because of work no-camera policies, not that I would miss the camera much anyway). It probably fails on the VNC through SSH thing (unless someone made an integrated secure VNC client already). Also, I should be able to migrate up from my Visor Pro fairly easily, and though I haven't gotten multisync to work yet, I'm pretty happy with using JPilot to sync under Linux (I've never been able to get any of the Win32 tools to restore any of my Visors from backup properly when they get hard reset.)
I've played a bit with an iPaq h5450 from work, and haven't been too happy with it. Of course, it was running PocketPC 2002, but the touchscreen petered out before I could upgrade it to PocketPC 2003, and it costs $200 to replace (no thank you). I'm currently running GPE 2.5 on it (since xstroke isn't as picky as WinCE and OPIE about the touchscreen not working right), but GPE isn't quite as usable as OPIE. I've even gone through the lengths of installing a Debian ARM distro on a 1GB compactflash so I could run mozilla on it. While all that is interesting, I don't really use it for more than viewing Plucker pages at the moment :P
PalmOS still seems to have more genuinely useful software than WinCE and even Linux on handhelds at the moment, so I'm not too afraid of going the Treo route... it does break my long-standing "no devices more than $200 in my pocket" rule, but if there's anything "convergence" would do for me, it would be to justify replacing 2-3 $200 devices so I can bend this rule a bit :>
If companies keep this up, they will find that their new product will not sell, because many people like myself will hold out thinking that a new and better gadget will be released next month.
it used to be I buy a gadget knowing that at I will be "cool" for at least 6 months, but now I find myself holding out because what's the use of buying that new Uber phone when next month there will be a better cheaper one.
what this means is that companies will find their products won't sell and that could only mean a death spiral for sales.
Unfortunately, Apple, the company with some of the best pen technology and hardware engineering capabilities steadfastly refuses to make a successor to a product which was an excellent ebook reader (and personal digital assistant --- inaugurating the term) --- unfortunately the only pen computing solutions Apple offers are Macs w/ Wacom graphic tablets (I mislike working on one surface and watching what happens on another, and gave up on schlepping a graphics tablet and a laptop around when I got my NCR-3125) or a PowerMac w/ a Wacom Cintiq --- that last is a pretty cool (albeit expensive) solution, but it's uncommon enough not much software specifically takes advantage of it (Alias' Sketchbook was ported to Mac OS X after many requests). Contrast this w/ the situation for Windows Tablet PCs and look at http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html &c.
.pdf version (why aren't .pdfs as document previews in bundles a standard for apps these days?) and allowed one to do basic annotation and mark up it'd still be fabulously useful (can you say ebooks? importing annotations from Acrobat and applying them as revisions in Word? extending this functionality to support all Cocoa apps?)
.html versions --- port Safari).
Think of it as an extension to the iPod line --- the iPod lets one carry all of one's music (as a backup too) and modify the order it plays in --- the iPod Photo adds all of one's images to that --- how about a further upscale unit to allow one to carry all of one's documents?
Even if it did nothing but display a
If it's set up to be a Macintosh computer as well, being able to run Mac applications is a huge benison is just icing on the cake, but just basic use (calendaring / scheduling, note-taking, document annotation) in situations where a laptop is inappropriate / inconvenient (meetings, interviews, while walking about), and having the (portable!) equivalent to a Wacom Cintiq whet it's attached to one's Macintosh (look at the program Maxivista for an example of how this could work) is certainly worthwhile.
And of course, it'd be nice to replace my Newton which I still use for contact management (synch w/ iCal and AddressBook.app), note-taking (port the Newton user interface and Notepad) and of course, reading some ebooks (incl.
William
(whose Stylistic has music, hundreds of ebooks, a complete graphic design portfolio _and_ all the tools necessary to update and work on said portfolio --- see http://members.aol.com/willadams/portfolio.html --- including a copy of TeX, LyX &c.)
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Also, maybe separate gadgets do their own task better, but somewhat i would hate to have a Batman's like belt full of gadgets :)
I'll even go as far as to say 2008 and 2009 should be good technology years as well. And you heard that from me first.
*wink*
[i]"...as we further approach the 'convergence' asymptote..."[/i] Asymptote is right. You can approach it but never touch it. Why work towards something that you can never acheive? Maufacturers need to pick up on Apple's philosophy of making devices that do one (or two) thing(s) but do them extremely well.
AnimeNEXT anime convention
I was disappointed that my 6 year old dualband StarTac would no longer roam in-network on Verizon when I went to Dallas last week. Now I have to buy one of those crap $30 phones with crap voice quality or a $150 phone that's a $30 phone with $120 worth of useless crap and the same crap voice quality. Crap.
(BTW I live in SF Bay Area CA where the 800 mhz network is alive and well.)
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
If the only cool gadgets coming out in 2005 are new cell phones, then I think 2005 is just sad and pathetic when it comes to new gadgets.
A mobile phone that is actually a mini-PC running Linux with a fixed IP address, a permanent connection to the Internet and an affordable, flat-rate subscription. One day, I believe that all mobile phones will do this and that all mobile phone companies will offer this service. After a while there won't be a difference between an ISP and a mobile phone company.
Now, once I have a phone like this, I'll want something extra for it too: a pair of small, backwards/forwards facing cameras with built-in microphones and earphones that I'll be able to clip onto my glasses on either side of my head. With these four camera lenses, I'd be able to record what was in front of me and behind me in stereo. If my glasses even had a pair of high-res HUDs, I might be able to watch my own back as I walked through a dangerous neighborhood. Maybe they'd even let me see in the dark.
Anyway, even with a single camera and microphone I'd be able to produce a real-time, audio-visual feed that I can store locally or on my server at home. Or, I could send this feed to someone else to watch and listen while I'm busy with something they might be interested in. Think about it: this technology would allow someone a world away to talk you through a problem while watching and listening to what you're doing!
Mobile phone companies: are you listening? This is the killer application you're looking for! Enough of this can already be achieved with existing technology. You only need the will to make it happen.
a phone with decent, usable features that are added by an engineer rather than a fscking marketing department that wants more shit to put on the spec list.
a small pda-phone, good battery life, bluetooth and IR, and an SD or xD card reader. that's all i really care about.
my phone has an endless list of "Features" like 100 memory addresses and voice dial. but there are only 20 voice dial locations. which means that if i want to use voice dial, i've got to portion them out. well, since the voice dial option requires more effort than the speed dial, it's only redeeming value is that i don't have to remember the speed dial address. except that since i can't have voice dial with ALL the numbers, i've got to remember which numbers have voice dial and which are only speed dial. which means that (at least for my uses) having voice dial at all is superfluous...
I'm sick and tired of bastard marketing designers requesting half-assed features so they can have more to put on the sign, usability be damned.
i don't care how much it costs. aside from the few features i listed, i don't care what it's got in it. as long as the features it DOES have are well implemented, easy to use and not utterly pointless, i'd be willing to pay well more than "average."
wow, now i'm exausted...
Rise up in the cafeteria and STAB them with your plastic forks!
Too often the cell companies design with the "Phone Company" mindset; i.e. they design a totally closed platform that they control so they can extract revenue from you. Yes the gadget can do cool ringtones, take pictures and play games.... at a per use charge for each.
If it isn't an open platform you can count me out. By open I don't mean it has to run Linux, but if I can't get a devel kit at little (use the pricing and availibility for the official Palm devkit as an example) or no cost it isn't open. If I can't download apps from sourceforge and install them without the vendor's blessing it isn't open. Notice that even WinCE is open by this definition.
Yes I understand that some parts of a cellphone's firmware must be unchangable for reasons that are obvious to anyone with an understanding of how things work, but the rest should be as open as possible, and standardized across multiple product lines and vendors is a big plus.
Democrat delenda est
Rise up in the cafeteria and STAB them with your plastic forks!
A portable audio device with large storage, ability to record music at a high quality for hours, in a decent format AND also be able to play gapless ripped CDs.
It's unbelievable to me that the portable music devices out there play back music with a 1/2 second pause between mixed tracks, or that a device with 40gigs of space is allowed to record files 200megs small before closing the file.
Basically I want a years worth of Firmware updates.
With no flying car on the list, I'm dissapointed. Nothing to see here.
.
What is needed in camera phones is a paradigm shift, before they are really worth owning.
The current problem with cell phone cameras is that their picture output is at 640 by 480, or even half of that. Then you have to figure out how to get that once-in-a-lifetime, priceless, low-res photo off your phone and onto a computer, or photo printer.
Most cell phone cameras have no path to send a photo to anything other than another cell phone.
At the very least, you would need a higher res camera on the phone, say, 2 to 4 megapixles. Then you would need a USB port on the phone, or some sort of port to send your photo to a computer.
Otherwise, these camera phones are all but useless except for teens to trade pixs with each other.
Roger Born
writing.borngraphics.com
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana"
.
Show me a .html / web standard / browser which will allow one to display everything in .pdf which is at:
http://members.aol.com/willadams/portfolio.html
or
http://www.tug.org/texshowcase
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
I want Sharp to start selling its clamshell Zaurus models in the US -- and I want it to be an updated version, with more memory and built-in wireless. And capable of syncing with a Linux desktop.
Well, I can't address all your concerns, but with respect to mapping software...
...we've just recently released Earthcomber, which is a point-of-interest (POI) locator with integrated digital mapping for Palm handhelds (and soon PocketPC, around February). In order to get this early version out the door, we left some important features on the cutting room floor, so it is admittedly a little rough around the edges, mapping-wise (we are working hard to remedy that). However, we do support a great many GPS devices. And the software, maps, and service are all COMPLETELY FREE (as in beer) to end users. Why don't you come by and give it a try (and maybe give us some feedback)?
;-)
<shameless-self-promotion>
www.earthcomber.com
Think of it kind of like an on-board yellow pages with built-in search agent that's always hunting for the places you want to find. Unlike the yellow pages, however, we don't just want commercial POIs. We want really cool, non-commercial POIs, too (e.g. hiking trail heads, great picnic spots, scenic overlooks, houses with cool holiday lights displays, or whatever crazy stuff you can think of). We've got about 1.3 million POIs right now, mostly non-commercial stuff loaded from various free sources. Perhaps there's something in there for you. And if it takes some time for us to get POIs you care about, well....in the meantime you can still use the free maps.
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Hope that helps...
-chris
I'd like a phone built into my glasses. It could be voice controled with a heads up display projected onto the inside of the lens.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
yes, I totally agree! my ideal gadget would be a convergence of wireless iPod+PDA+cell phone~ except I have no idea when we will have that at an affordable cost.