Phones

I’ve been trying Google Reader for the last couple weeks, and I really like it. The interface is very clean, and it’s taken very little time to get used to as my primary feed reading app. There’s also a mobile version, which renders very quickly on my Treo.

Broadcasting & Cable’s Glen Dickson writes about the smart phone technology FNC used for the first time during the crash into a Manhattan apartment building story…

The E60 runs on Series 60 3rd Edition and features 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity with the option to run VoIP. The reason this has Crave relative to other mobile VoIP handsets is that Nokia E60 is one of the most compact mobile VoIP phones on the market.

However, like all latest Palm Treo’s the Treo 750v is also featuring a QWERTY thumb keyboard which makes it - potentially - a great messaging device.

Vonage has huge issues with its service. In our small office where I work, we use Vonage as our main telephone service, just as many others are doing today. We’ve had nothing but continuous problems with the service. The biggest issue has been the fact we can’t call specific (and at random) telephone numbers. For example, the other day I was trying to call a 1-800 number to dial into a conference call from Microsoft. When I dialed the number using Vonage… all I got was silence. No rings. Nothing. I hung up and used my cell phone and it worked great. We’re finding we have to use our cell phones for quite a bit of phone calls when attempting to call out in our office. We’re having issues calling local and long distance numbers and completely at random so it seems.

These “home communication centres” might now be know as our Internet-enabled computers. We are converging on one communication line out that is our Coaxial Cable which provides TV programming and Internet access. Since I get telephone service via VoIP (i.e. Skype and Vonage), I’ve not been using the telephone line ever since.

The biggest privacy flaw I see is the cc: mode of the messages: every recipient of the message has access to the whole recipient list. On the phone, if they request, they can hear every recipient and through the web interface they can see additionally see the email addresses of each recipient. (The same flaw exists in Sprint’s Picture Mail service. Try sending the same picture to multiple girlfriends at once and cope with the disaster you get when they learn each others’ phone numbers!)

My younger brother, Matthew (aka. Natural), has been hiking Southbound, Maine to Georgia on our Nation’s grand Appalachian Trail. Using calling cards he checks in periodically to let us know he’s alive. That, and the tree-bark content of his stools. He called from Duncannon, Pennsylvania last night to holla at his peeps, and give us a long overdue update on his trek on the AT.

French ISP Free opens all 300,000 WiFi hot spots of their users to be used by any subscriber to Free. If you have signed up with Free you can from now on roam anywhere you find a Free hotspot and make free VoIP phone calls (roaming is restricted to 64kbps). Frees set top boxes will have this feature turned on by default, all other users need to switch this on to be effective.

The Treo 650 is a great phone. I purchased it after a horrible experince with Windows Mobile and decided to go the Palm route for the excellent Linux support. Excellent was an over statement. The experince is only excellent if your palm is older than 3 years. USB and new Device IDs seem to be the bane of syncing. The final straw was my new work location doesn’t allow phones with cameras in the building. My Dad is more than welcome to carry such things so to him went the treo. I have battled with the next smart phone with a 3 way tie between the Nokia E61 (not E62), Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard), and the Blackberry 8700C. What finally pushed me over was the fond memories of my Nokia 3250 and the power of Symbian OS. With the Nokia E61 coming in with Wifi and a SIP VOIP Client that sealed the deal. I will be able to walk around my house in dual-mode making free calls when I am in range of the wifi. Keep checking back for tips-n-tricks with this great little device.

The Danger Phone is a USB VoIP telephone handset that works with Skype, or with any VoIP application that recognizes a standard USB handset and supports the SIP standard.

I said I didn’t care about the new-ish Palm Treo 680 that seemed to be little more than a colored Treo 700 with a few tweaks, and its antenna chopped off. Against my judgement, many of you voted that…

Sending Picture messages, Caller Group Graphics, Operator Logos and Ringtones only work for Nokia phones. Most new phones can however now receive FlashSMS.

Inside, of course, all the features that 20somethings supposedly want are in attendance — in addition to a USB port, specific-branded ports for iPods and Nokia phones are included. And it goes without saying that there’s internet access and an on-command interior light show.

Currently, Cellfire is available only to Cingular Wireless customers in the USA, which leaves me sad (author’s note: Please support Sprint, Together With Nextel next!) and fireless for now, but they are working on becoming available through other providers as soon as possible.

There are a lot of devices and gadgets in the world, and a hell of a lot of them are focused on one thing: feeding you information, up to date information, about the world. I’ve a concept for a device to combine all of these, a Mobile Information Aggregator. How about a device that does it all? Moreover, with a HUD? I was thinking a small but fully functional computer; with a built in cell phone. Particularly, I want the mobility of my Treo but the flexibility of my Mac. Instead of a watered-down OS on a tiny screen, a full fledged OS on a full size screen - on your HUD. I’ve envisioned something similar to the myvu personal media viewer, but more integrated with the system I would think.

Qwest: The spirit of service! Just not rebates!: I had had free Internet at the home for about 8 months when it finally got shut down. No problem. I looked at both a cable modem and DSL. I know, I know. DSL stinks in comparison no matter how many Verizon or Qwest commercials tell you otherwise (do people still use dial-up?!). That said, there was an offer for $25 off and only $19.99 per month for the first year for DSL from Qwest. I bit and went for it. Flash forward a few months later.

I wrote a piece for Download Squad comparing Sightspeed 5, Yahoo Messenger 3, and Skype 2.0 Beta. Check it out.