Wireless Archive

It's tablet week on the internet, and now it's time for the Joo Joo to take centre stage again (after the iPad and HP's upcoming Slate). Engadget received its review unit last week, and yesterday, they published their review of the device. In what will surely not come as a total surprise to anyone, their conclusion is that while the hardware is decent and slick, the software is not.

Engadget has managed to get hold of a very interesting internal presentation slide from Hewlett-Packard which compares Apple's iPad to HP's very own Slate. Since we didn't yet know anything about the Slate's specifications, this one is pretty revealing. While that's interesting in and of itself, the slide is also interesting in that it illustrates so well what sets Apple apart from companies like HP.

While entire contingents of media are getting twists in their knickers over the ucpoming iPad launch, we'd almost forget that other tablet we've talked about a lot - the Joo Joo. It was delayed a few times, but right now, it's finally shipping, and Engadget already has received theirs. The iPad is more important to Engadget, so we'll have to wait a bit for a real review, but they have lots of photos and a quick video of the device and its UI.

There are various trains of thought regarding Apple suing HTC, and one of them is that Apple feels threatened by Android's rise in popularity. Some laughed this away, but when you look at recent statistics regarding mobile web usage, it becomes pretty clear Apple has every reason to feel threatened by Google's mobile operating system.

Yesterday on the radio I heard a segment about the magazine and newspaper business' excitement about the iPad platform, and what it means for their (ailing) business. Let me just say I'm skeptical. It sounds like the primary innovation they're planning is rich-media, interactive advertisements. Because if there's one thing that's wrong with the publishing industry, it's that their ads aren't intrusive enough. At the end of the radio segment, they announced that virtual "issues" of popular magazines on the iPad will cost $3. Let me predict now that this will end in tears. On the other hand, Apple's decision to pre-populate their bookstore with 30K books from Project Gutenberg is a great idea, and will do more for the iPad platform than $3 magazines and Auto ads disguised as VR racing games.

"We noticed a minor textual change on the JooJoo order page just a few days back, and apparently it was no mistake - Fusion Garage has announced today that its long-awaited tablet PC has started to ship from the factory. For those who pre-ordered (and stuck with it), they'll get theirs as early as March 29th, while everyone can get in line by plopping down their USD 499 after the fact."

"Mobile software company Myriad Group announced J2Android, which will make it possible for Java-based mobile applications to run on Android-based phones, the company said on Monday. The J2Android tool converts existing Java applications, including games, to run on Dalvik, which is the virtual machine used on all Android devices. Besides converting the application, J2Android will let the application be rescaled to fit the screen of the Android device, according to Simon Wilkinson, CEO at Myriad. It can also add softkeys, if the original application was developed for phones with a numerical keypad, Wilkinson said."

Palm. It's that big clunky part of your hand that doesn't get any of the attention - the fingers, the thumb especially, get all the glory. Just think, however, what your hands would be like if you didn't have palms, and your fingers just grew straight out of your wrist. Doesn't look so hot now, does it? Well, Palm is supposedly about to go under, if you were to believe the reports. Update: Palm has just announced that the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will become available on AT&T in the coming months.

"There has been much speculation over what OS 6.0 could possibly look like. We were recently hit with these images of what appear to be of a device running OS 6.0 with a similar screen resolution of a storm or storm2. These spy shot images come highly regarded as real from one our best connects. We're hoping to see it soon on a physical device and so until then take from it what you will."

Two days ago, Technologizer revealed a new Marevell android tablet. Today, Marvell published a press release with more details on specs and price; apparently the Moby tablet wil cost USD 99 and is targeting education. Here is ARMdevices' take on this new Armada 600 powered tablet.

Motorola will start loading Microsoft's search and map services onto its Android smartphones in China, bringing more non-Google services to the phones amid a row between Google and China.

Palm has released the PDK for the webOS, which allows developers to code in C and C++, while also providing access to, for instance, the 3D chip. "The PDK complements the Palm webOS Software Development Kit, letting developers use C and C++ alongside the web technologies that power the SDK and mix them seamlessly within a single app. The PDK enables new functionality, including immersive 3D graphics, and gives developers who have built games for other platforms an easy way to bring their titles to the webOS platform. Developers can download the beta PDK and start developing today, but distribution of games built with the beta PDK will require functionality provided in an upcoming Palm webOS update."

The sky might be dark over Sunnyvale, but that obviously doesn't stop Palm from updating its webOS. The highly anticipated version 1.4 of the young mobile platform has been released over the weekend, and it includes an impressive array of new features, improvements, and bug fixes.

The Joo Joo tablet has been delayed by one month. "Just a day after we pondered the shipping status of Fusion Garage's JooJoo tablet, the company's come clean and told us shipping will delayed to March 25 because of a manufacturing issue with the tablet's 12.1-inch capacitive screen. Yep, it looks like it's going to be at least 27 more days until you've got a JooJoo of your very own - which means, of course, that Fusion Garage will now be trying to launch this thing during the same week Apple's scheduled to launch the iPad."