Tracy and Matt

After what seems like an eternity, Expansys finally have a headphone adapter available for the HTC Hermes.

The adapter will work on the HTC TyTN, Orange M3100, Vodafone v1605 and all other Hermes variants as well as some other HTC devices coming soon.

Check out the product page at Expansys. At £9.95 I suppose it's not too bad but it is an ugly looking thing! It would have been better to have a plug and socket with a cable between IMHO.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, spv headphone socket, m3100 spv usb cable, M3100, HTC Hermes, HTC TyTN, SPV, Orange SPV M3100, Hermes Headphones]

Many of us find the flashing status LEDs on our Smartphones and PocketPCs really annoying. Lots of people place their phones next to them while they are sleeping and LEDs seem to have increased in brightness recently.

Realising that this is a problem AKsoft have released a small utility to stop the status lights from flashing. Most Smartphone and PocketPC phone models are supported but some models aren't fully supported (as the LED's are controlled by hardware) you can still change the LED "blinking" frequency with this software.

If you want to give it a try then head on over to AKsoft's website and check out the demo. It's free for 3 days then you have to pay $1 to continue using it. Sounds resonable!

Note that their site has been down for a little while so you might have to try again later!

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, Tracy & Matt, MoDaCo]

Orange must be getting desperate to win back the customers they lost to T-Mobile when they introduced the excellent web n' walk service.

The Orange offer gives new or existing customers (who re-sign their contracts) 2 months worth of free unlimited off-peak surfing. After that you'll be paying £5 per month.

I certainly don't think this is enough to win customers back, it may sweaten the deal for some existing customers that were considering the swap. But for me the cost of Data with Orange is just far too high and once HSDPA is rolled out I wonder how many will be able to afford it!

I'd love to see mobile data charged at a flat rate or ever as a value add freebie. Can't see that happening any time soon though!

Check out the story on Coolsmartphone.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, Mobile Data, GPRS, HSDPA, Orange]

Our friend Paul from MoDaCo has just released an update for his excellent CamerAware application.

The new release follows on from a great start to the month that has already seen several Camera database updates, and a number of incremental updates to 'CamerAware Tracker', the online viewer for uploaded journey data.

You can download and install CamerAware for FREE, have a play, take advantage of the position uploading and tracking functionality, and then purchase a licence code at a later date should you wish to activate the Camera warning functionality.

Go and have a look over at MoDaCo.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, Tracy & Matt, MoDaCo, cameraware]

Our thanks to Fabien from dafabmobiles.com for bring us this news item.

Fabien has come up with a way to use a mono bluetooth headset to listen to music on your Mobile Device.

"If you own a mono Bluetooth headset you have probably tried (in vain) to listen to music through it only to find it impossible. Well, your struggles are over. BTAudio Toggle is a FREE program that allows you to listen to your favorite music through your mono Bluetooth headset via your Pocket Pc Windows Mobile 5.0 phone."

Fabien has a full tutorial on his website.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, Bluetooth, Headset, Gadgets]

Exciting news! We have teamed up with ClickGamer to open two TracyandMatt branded shops.

In the first of the stores we bring you all thats good in Mobile Games. The second has all the Mobile Applications that you could wish for!

Clickgamer is the world's fastest growing mobile games D2C portal for a variety of hand held devices including Windows Mobile, Symbian Smartphone, PALM, J2ME, RIM Blackberry, iPod and PSP. We stock only the best games and deliver them directly to the customer's mobile phone and/or PC and MAC.

Please go and visit our new stores for some excellent Pocket PC Games and Pocket PC applications!

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, Mobile Games, Clickgamer, Tracy & Matt, pocket pc games, M3100 Games]

A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to play with a Sony Mylo and we were quite impressed with it.

Since getting back to the UK we decided to try and get one on loan from Sony so that we could write a full review. Unfortunately we have been told by sources at Sony that there are 'No plans to launch the Mylo in Europe' and sales will be 'Limited to the US market only'.

So it would seem that if you want one of these toys you'll have to get an import! Bit of a shame really as they seem quite a cool gizmo!

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, Sony, Mylo, Sony Mylo]

The Parrot Photo Viewer could not have arrived for review at a better time. Having just returned from holiday Tracy and I have tons of photos to show off!

I have been looking at digital photo frames for the last few months and really like the idea. I wanted to get something for my desk at work but the frames tend to be rather large.

The Parrot Photo Viewer is unique in that it uses Bluetooth technology rather than a USB cable or SD card in order to upload and display pictures. Parrot have aimed this product at people with camera phones, giving them the ability to transfer their favourite photos from their phone to display them on the photo frame.

At just 8.6 x 10.6cm the frame is pretty small. It’s slim too measuring just 1.5cm deep. However these dimensions include the frame, the LCD screen has an effective diagonal of just 3.5 inches and has a resolution of 320 x 234. This may seem fairly low but on a screen of this size it works out quite well. The backlight is bright and evenly lit and can be adjusted to suit your needs.

Available in 8 frame designs the frame can be used in either portrait or landscape and what’s more, the frame has a built in sensor that can tell which way is up and rotate the images on screen to suit; a pretty cool feature.

Uploading images via Bluetooth is dead easy. On my HTC TyTN I simply browse through the images I have saved and choose the one I want to send. Selecting beam file brings up a window where I can search for devices in range. Once the Parrot Photo Frame is shown on the list I click send and a few seconds later the picture is displayed on the screen.

Transferring files from a PC is equally simple but gives you the added benefit of being able to send more than one picture at a time.

The Parrot Photo Viewer will accept jpeg images in a variety of sizes and will automatically scale them to fit the screen. That said, it is a good idea to resize large images on the PC before you transfer them to save space as the frame has only 32mb of Flash RAM available for images. This may not seem like a lot but if you resize jpeg down to the frame’s native resolution of 320 x 234 they end up at around 30k each. This means that you could theoretically upload hundreds of images, however, there is a limit of 125 images that you can store at any one time regardless of how small the files are – I found this limit rather odd as the 125 images I uploaded took up much less than 32mb.

The photo frame has a built in menu system that allows you to change various settings, review and delete stored images alter the backlight brightness, etc. The on screen display is really intuitive and is accessed by three buttons on the rear of the frame. You can also alter how frequently the images are changed from 5 seconds up to a few hours. One thing that I would like to see added is a random option as the photo frame will currently only display images in the order in which you uploaded them.

The Parrot Photo Viewer is mains powered and comes with a slim power adapter. I would like to see a battery power option for this as it really is the ideal size for passing round to show people your photos. When most people see it for the first time they immediately want to pick it up.

The box for the Parrot Photo Viewer is also impressive and is ideal for anyone purchasing it as a gift for someone.

The firmware on the Parrot Photo Viewer can be updated via bluetooth. I think this is just as well as I did experience a few problems with it. Occasionally when tranfering images via Bluetooth the Photo Viewer would stop responding and the only solution is to unplug the power!

High-quality display
Featuring a high-resolution LCD screen with 320 x 234 pixels and 262 144 colours, the Parrot PHOTO VIEWER benefits from the TFT technology to guarantee you the highest level of rendering in terms of colours and sharp details. It comes on during the day and switches off at night An LCD screen gives off light, which can be a pain if you want to put it on your bedside table. The Parrot PHOTO VIEWER features a sensor that switches off the frame when the light level drops.

Technical and commercial specifications

Conclusion
I like this Parrot Photo Viewer and now have it sitting on my desk at work, it's ideal for those photos that I have on my mobile and for uploading those holiday snaps to. However, I think it's just a bit too small to use at home, it would be lost in my lounge or dining room. It's a great idea but I'd like to see some things fixed/updated in a new firmware release.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, Parrot, Photo Frame, Gadgets, HTC Artemis]