Tuxtops

Five new Nokia handsets were released today (1, 2, 3, 4&5), while Nokia announced a merger with Siemens of their network equipment units.

I had the opportunity to play with different versions of the Motorola Q for several months as it went through various tweaks and improvements, primarily with the keyboard design. I know that many people have been complaining about the long lag between the initial announcement of the Q in 2005 and its release, but I think people will be quite pleased with the shipping product and will be happy to see that Motorola is back to producing high quality devices.

A group of the world's mobile operators and handset makers said on Thursday they are to join together to develop an open-source Linux-based operating system that could to be used in phones by the end of 2007.

HP has jumped headfirst into the O2 Xda Atom's territory, having just released its new iPAQ rw6828 smart phone. Its petite, chic design is very similar to that of the Atom, but dig deeper and you'll find that this device has much more to offer than just good looks.

Please forgive me for the melodramatic title of this editorial, but I am genuinely concerned about both PalmSource and the Palm OS. The good news is the future of this company (and its operating system) is almost completely in its own hands. Unfortunately, the bad news is exactly the same: PalmSource's future is almost completely in its own hands. To explain my nervousness, I need to make a run through the history books.

HTC, the world's leading provider of Windows Mobile devices, today launched the world's first tri-band 3G Windows Mobile Pocket PC [TyTN] and 3G smartphone [MTeoR] under the new HTC brand identity. HTC will continue to support its operator-branded products and OEM partners as a key priority. At the same time, HTC will provide its new branded products to its existing Qtek channels, distributors, enterprise and operators, who do not carry operator-branded products. Migrating the Qtek brand to the new HTC brand identity will enable HTC to provide better direct support to those customers.

I became a fan of FSC's products with my Loox 720, a VGA unit that was at the top of the company's previous generation Pocket PC lineup. With their latest generation, the top-of-the-line is represented by the N560. Let's see this new player stacks up.

Many features were similar on all three applications, including route options of shortest time or distance, voice prompts, POI display on/off, night mode, screen backlight always on, and auto zoom and rotate. Since the differences are what people will be concerned with, I will concentrate on them. The biggest differences were the extra features and the user interface. iGo and Mapopolis have a launch screen with large easy to read buttons.

Shape Services have released a S60 3rd Edition version of their IM+ instant messaging program. IM+ allows you to access ICQ, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber and Google Talk IM services on your phone. Features include chat message history, auto away and file swapping/upload.

If you have a PlayStation Portable, The Missing Sync for Sony PSP provides a ton of cool features that extend its usefulness while increasing the fun-factor. Features include: Video encoding, creation of stylized web pages from Address Book contacts, iCal events and tasks, notes (from the included Mark/Space, Notebook app and Safari bookmarks, with 10 fun and functional themes to choose from, WebSnacks, a web site downloader for offline viewing of RSS feeds, blogs and favorite web sites without Wi-Fi, iPhoto album and iTunes playlist syncing, saved game backup and restore tool, tracking for multiple Memory Sticks with support for separate content on each.