Tuxtops

Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom announced plans for Skype to move into the mobile handsets space. Zennstrom was very vague, saying that the new mobile version may appear on embedded Linux, Windows Smartphone, or Symbian.

With the addition of cameras, music players and more, mobile phones are becoming increasingly more integrated with consumer electronics and a staple of everyday life. BetaNews spoke with Nokia's top user interface guru, Christian Lindholm -- once dubbed the "godfather of mobile phone users" -- to discuss the design challenges prevented by such convergence, and his new project called Lifeblog.

OpenZaurus 3.5.3 is now available with the latest versions of GPE and Opie.

Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately US$3.4 billion. The companies plan to meet a wider set of customer needs and have a significantly greater opportunity to grow into new markets, particularly in the mobile and enterprise segments.

Rumors have been circulating for close to a month now about palmOne's next high-end handheld. Until now, this has always been called the LifeDrive. Now, however, there are some signs that this might not actually be the correct name.

This is supposed to be the "smartphone for the masses" selling at around $400 without a contract in US (the phone hasn't been released officially in US yet so it's rare to find). Here's a comprehensive review of the unit at GSMArena with plenty of pictures.

The device comes with a recent build of Symbian OS v7. Pros: GPRS class 10, EDGE class 5, 1.3 MP camera, Bluetooth, includes a 32 MB MMC card, FM radio, image/video editor, Real player, hi-res screen, email, XHTML browser. Drawbacks: It seems to be using a rare kind of MMC (about $55 for 256 MB), only 6 MBs of internal memory, earphones only deliver mono sound for mp3 playback and they don't seem reliable.

Leaving competitors in the dust, Archos' due-out-shortly AV700 portable media viewer offers a whopping 7" display coupled with up to 100 GB of storage.

PalmOne released the Tungsten E2 which offers Bluetooth and a bigger battery. It has a 320x320 display with 30% brighter and 40% better color saturation, 32 MB of NVFS memory (26 MB available to the user). NVFS memory holds information without a charge or power. It runs at 200 Mhz, it has a headphone jack but lacks a microphone. It runs PalmOS 5.4.7. Reviews here, here and here.

"Microsoft aims to kill BlackBerry," an insider told CRN. "Every corporate type has a BlackBerry, and they all have Outlook. What is the cost going to be to RIM Server when Exchange Service Pack and Magneto come out and they're not priced? Microsoft is giving it away for free." Read the article at TheRegister.

This is a quick HOWTO for those using Linux to access the Internet from a Great North Eastern Railway train in UK. There is a bit of an assumption in this HOWTO that you have a functioning WiFi setup on your Linux Laptop.