Wireless Archive

Geek.com reviews the Chumby, a device I've surely never heard of before. "If you're not familiar with the Chumby, it's a Linux-based gadget that connects up to the internet via WiFi, and sports a squeeze sensor, accelerometer, and a 3.5" LCD color touchscreen. The coolest part about it is that it runs Adobe Flash-based widgets so pretty much anything you can imagine is (or will be) available for it, and Chumby includes an extensive list at Chumby.com. This whole package comes wrapped up in a nice leather casing, and is actually quite fun to squeeze."

"Of all the ultra-mobile PC's that arrived and will be arriving in 2007, Fujitsu's has been the most highly awaited. That's a serious claim, but as soon as people got a look at this device they started to get excited about it. After all, the first generation of UMPCs had some high points, but they missed the mark in a number of areas. The hope was that the arrival of the next generation would mark a considerable improvement."

"These days, almost everyone has a cell phone; cell phones keep getting faster, smarter, and more capable, yet relatively few applications exist for them. The Hecl programming language makes it easy to script applications for your cell phone - with just a few lines of code, you can create applications that you can carry with you, everywhere."

Nokia today introduced the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, signifying a new phase in portable internet communication. Sporting Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g connectivity, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a full-fledged web browser, there's only one thing missing: WiMAX. However, a WiMAX version of the N810 will be coming next year. In the meantime, the N810's Wi-Fi connectivity will provide Internet access through hotspots as well as home and office networks, including via Boingo Mobile. Applications compiled for the previous two Internet Tablet models will not be compatible with this one. This hurt the N800 a lot too, because most developers didn't care to re-compile their apps as they kept their N770. Hopefully this is the last time Nokia breaks compatibility.

Palm CEO Ed Colligan has posted a letter to Palm Customers, Partners and Developers on the official Palm blog. In the post, he states Palm will cancel the Foleo mobile companion product in its current configuration, and will undertake efforts to focus entirely on Palm's next-generation (Linux-based too) smartphone platform. My Take: A right move for Palm, the market is not ready for this sort of device.

"A few months ago, the GNOME Mobile Platform was announced to the public. One of the main forces behind the launch of this initiative was Nokia, which uses a lot of GNOME-components in its Linux-based Internet Tablets Nokia 770 and N800. During this years GUADEC Andreas Proschofsky had the chance to sit down with Carlos Guerreiro, Nokias Manager for Open Source Software, to talk - amidst other things - about the not so different needs of personal computers and mobile devices, about the necessity for GTK+ 3.0 and the impact of the iPhone launch."