Darkfell writes "The first Palm computer able to connect directly to the Internet will be unveiled in New York on May 24, according to people familiar with the company's plans. Along with the new device, Palm will debut its Palm.net wireless Internet service.
"
Totally USELESS _and_ expensive. No color?!
by
goomba
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· Score: 2
1> 50Kb a _MONTH_ limit. Thats right, not an HOUR, but a MONTH. For $9.99. Ever k after is 0.30. Sp, they're saying we can read 10 emails a month and then we pay $1 an email? Sorry pals, what a pile of horsesh*t.:) Seriously, I couldnt even check daily news headlines, let alone check my email at that cost! A spam message alone is around 5k with all that HTML crap in em!
2> It isnt even 16bit color like the E-100 (which is AWESOME).
3> It doesnt have stereo sound MP3 output.
4> Its twice as expensive as everything else.
5> There are cheaper wireless solutions that cover more areas (Ministrel wireless add-on for Palms)
Uh, duh? See yah Palm Pilot!
are there viable alternatives?
by
xeno
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· Score: 3
For about a year, I used my Palm3 with a real tcp/ip connection for performing remote admin. My employer graciously provided me with a Motorola PM100c CDPD modem and the PCMCIA adapter that allowed me to plug in a serial cable from the Palm3. While the whole mess was a little unweildy, it was still about the same size as a Palm+Minstrel. This was pretty handy, especially when I had to telnet into work and fix something, or use PalmVNC to reboot an NT machine.
However, I'd like to have a direct connection to the internet for network sync/downloading/etc. I haven't seen any direct serial-to-ethernet adapters other than some USB devices. Does anyone know of such a creature? Ideally I want a solution that does not require a host computer running as a proxy; just a small extra doodad similar to the Xircom PE3 to stuff in my bag-o-geekdom.
-- I think not...(*poof*)
Re:Internet Access.....Late?
by
MeanGene
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· Score: 2
Yeah, and Apple's Newton did that before anybody else. Palms were always able to connect (telnet, WWW, e-mail) via external clip-on modem. The only piece of news is that "The Palm VII offers no real hardware enhancements to the Palm III, except for the wireless antenna enabling the Web clipping service". However, cellular networking was available for Palm before (again via a clip-on).
P.S. Did I mention that CE sucks?;-)
Re:Internet Access.....Late? Hardly.
by
jezor
·
· Score: 4
Fine, I'll take this one. The Palm Pilot platform has had a built in TCP/IP stack and Internet-capable applications since at least the PalmPilot Pro, and maybe before. What's new to the Palm VII is wireless Internet connection without requirement of add-ons or modems. Of course, the 8kbps Web clipping offered by the Palm VII is fun, but the 19.2kbps CDPD IP connectivity offered by the clip-on Minstrel wireless modems is available today, nationwide, affordable, and is true Internet access. Very cool. {Jonathan}
Sorry, I should have worded my statement more clearly.
You're right, indeed the Palm does TCP/IP. Using my Palm Pro and modem to dial into my isp and browse around with Proxiweb, as I do frequently, would be pretty hard without it. I was using the term "tcp/ip" in a less precise manner.
According to the white paper , "The Web Clipping Proxy server implements a reliable layer over the UDP protocol to talk to the Palm VII handheld."
Lemme try again - It would appear from the paper that you can't simply open up a socket on an IP address and start slurping data across as an ordinary browser would do. It also seems that this "reliable layer" is something fairly transparent, and you can't get around it. I recall reading somewhere that you simply won't be able to browse in a conventional sense, nor open up a Telnet or IRC or somesuch session either. In fact, this is explicitly stated on page 3 of the paper(first paragraph under "Web Clipping, Not Web Browsing". Thought it was in an article here a while back.
Annnnnnnnyways...
If anybody's listening, my dream Palm peripheral would be a Minstrel that works over GSM. Mmm.
While you can't type "http://slashdot.org" and check out the homepage, Slashdot is included in the selection of sites you can clip information from. A friend of mine is beta-testing Palm VII, and was reading me the Slashdot stories as I drove us down the Mass Pike last week. I, for one, was impressed!
another winner from Palm, most likely
by
tuffy
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· Score: 4
But probably not so much from the web aspect. "Clipping" news sites will be a bonus, and very handy for those boring meetings/classes/etc. However, I think wirelessly beaming apps/data to anyone else with a Palm VIII from across town will be the major selling point for people. Integrating these things with cell phones and beepers could cut down on a whole lot of gadget overload.
--
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
The scoop on the connectivity
by
RebornData
·
· Score: 5
As I understand it, the network behind Palm.Net is Bell South Wireless Data, which was originally a company called "RAM". The technology is called "Mobitex" and is a low-speed FM radio packet network. I know a bit about the network, having worked on a laptop-based wireless messaging service that used it.
The IP issue The network itself is not IP-based, and I doubt that Palm would implement full TCP/IP on top of it- specifically, I don't think TCP would be feasible, and it wouldn't make sense to add the overhead of an additional packet protocol on top of the base network. Palm has probably implemented proxy servers that communicate with specially-designed websites and compress and transmit the web data back to your palm using a protocol that is most likely largely proprietary. The transmission protocol between a wireless application server and the actual network was X.25 back when I was working with it, but I bet they've moved to Frame Relay or some sort of stream wrapped in IP by now. So it's unlikely that any of the existing Palm TCP/IP apps will work with this service (based on what I know of the network).
Coverage Although Bell South is regional, the network is nationwide in the US, and has pretty amazing coverage. RAM used to compete with a similar network run by Motorola- RAM generally had the higher data trasmission rates, Motorola better in-building coverage. Folks outside the US are out of luck- I don't think Mobitex is an international standard.
Performance The network is designed to transmit fairly large packets, and has high latency. In-building coverage can be a real problem- when I was using RAM to get my e-mail on the road, I generally had to be near a window for it to work well. It was also somewhat spotty when moving (like in a car). It's been a couple of years since I really used the network, so they may have improved things, but there are very good reasons why Palm has implemented this as a "web clippings" service and not as a full-on browser.
Slashdot Mirror
It DEFINATELY does TCP/IP. All Palm devices have had this built in since the Palm Pro...
RateVegas.com - Vegas Reviews
1> 50Kb a _MONTH_ limit. Thats right, not an HOUR, :) Seriously, I couldnt even check daily news headlines, let alone check my email at that cost! A spam message alone is around 5k with all that HTML crap in em!
but a MONTH. For $9.99. Ever k after is 0.30. Sp, they're saying we can read 10 emails a month and then we pay $1 an email? Sorry pals, what a pile of horsesh*t.
2> It isnt even 16bit color like the E-100 (which is AWESOME).
3> It doesnt have stereo sound MP3 output.
4> Its twice as expensive as everything else.
5> There are cheaper wireless solutions that cover more areas (Ministrel wireless add-on for Palms)
Uh, duh? See yah Palm Pilot!
For about a year, I used my Palm3 with a real tcp/ip connection for performing remote admin. My employer graciously provided me with a Motorola PM100c CDPD modem and the PCMCIA adapter that allowed me to plug in a serial cable from the Palm3. While the whole mess was a little unweildy, it was still about the same size as a Palm+Minstrel. This was pretty handy, especially when I had to telnet into work and fix something, or use PalmVNC to reboot an NT machine.
However, I'd like to have a direct connection to the internet for network sync/downloading/etc. I haven't seen any direct serial-to-ethernet adapters other than some USB devices. Does anyone know of such a creature? Ideally I want a solution that does not require a host computer running as a proxy; just a small extra doodad similar to the Xircom PE3 to stuff in my bag-o-geekdom.
I think not...(*poof*)
Yeah, and Apple's Newton did that before anybody else. Palms were always able to connect (telnet, WWW, e-mail) via external clip-on modem. The only piece of news is that "The Palm VII offers no real hardware enhancements to the Palm III, except for the wireless antenna enabling the Web clipping service". However, cellular networking was available for Palm before (again via a clip-on).
;-)
P.S. Did I mention that CE sucks?
Fine, I'll take this one. The Palm Pilot platform has had a built in TCP/IP stack and Internet-capable applications since at least the PalmPilot Pro, and maybe before. What's new to the Palm VII is wireless Internet connection without requirement of add-ons or modems. Of course, the 8kbps Web clipping offered by the Palm VII is fun, but the 19.2kbps CDPD IP connectivity offered by the clip-on Minstrel wireless modems is available today, nationwide, affordable, and is true Internet access. Very cool. {Jonathan}
Sorry, I should have worded my statement more clearly.
You're right, indeed the Palm does TCP/IP. Using my Palm Pro and modem to dial into my isp and browse around with Proxiweb, as I do frequently, would be pretty hard without it. I was using the term "tcp/ip" in a less precise manner.
According to the white paper , "The Web Clipping Proxy server implements a reliable layer over the UDP protocol to talk to the Palm VII handheld."
Lemme try again - It would appear from the paper that you can't simply open up a socket on an IP address and start slurping data across as an ordinary browser would do. It also seems that this "reliable layer" is something fairly transparent, and you can't get around it. I recall reading somewhere that you simply won't be able to browse in a conventional sense, nor open up a Telnet or IRC or somesuch session either. In fact, this is explicitly stated on page 3 of the paper(first paragraph under "Web Clipping, Not Web Browsing". Thought it was in an article here a while back.
Annnnnnnnyways...
If anybody's listening, my dream Palm peripheral would be a Minstrel that works over GSM. Mmm.
--John Riney
jwriney@awod.com
While you can't type "http://slashdot.org" and check out the homepage, Slashdot is included in the selection of sites you can clip information from. A friend of mine is beta-testing Palm VII, and was reading me the Slashdot stories as I drove us down the Mass Pike last week. I, for one, was impressed!
But probably not so much from the web aspect. "Clipping" news sites will be a bonus, and very handy for those boring meetings/classes/etc. However, I think wirelessly beaming apps/data to anyone else with a Palm VIII from across town will be the major selling point for people. Integrating these things with cell phones and beepers could cut down on a whole lot of gadget overload.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
As I understand it, the network behind Palm.Net is Bell South Wireless Data, which was originally a company called "RAM". The technology is called "Mobitex" and is a low-speed FM radio packet network. I know a bit about the network, having worked on a laptop-based wireless messaging service that used it.
The IP issue
The network itself is not IP-based, and I doubt that Palm would implement full TCP/IP on top of it- specifically, I don't think TCP would be feasible, and it wouldn't make sense to add the overhead of an additional packet protocol on top of the base network. Palm has probably implemented proxy servers that communicate with specially-designed websites and compress and transmit the web data back to your palm using a protocol that is most likely largely proprietary. The transmission protocol between a wireless application server and the actual network was X.25 back when I was working with it, but I bet they've moved to Frame Relay or some sort of stream wrapped in IP by now. So it's unlikely that any of the existing Palm TCP/IP apps will work with this service (based on what I know of the network).
Coverage
Although Bell South is regional, the network is nationwide in the US, and has pretty amazing coverage. RAM used to compete with a similar network run by Motorola- RAM generally had the higher data trasmission rates, Motorola better in-building coverage. Folks outside the US are out of luck- I don't think Mobitex is an international standard.
Performance
The network is designed to transmit fairly large packets, and has high latency. In-building coverage can be a real problem- when I was using RAM to get my e-mail on the road, I generally had to be near a window for it to work well. It was also somewhat spotty when moving (like in a car). It's been a couple of years since I really used the network, so they may have improved things, but there are very good reasons why Palm has implemented this as a "web clippings" service and not as a full-on browser.