The guys over at SymbianWorld have discovered Wordmobi, a WordPress client for your S60 device which is a freeware application that works on all the latest S60 devices. Using Wordmobi you can write and edit posts, edit and write comments and create new categories. It works with wordpress.com blogs as well as with self hosted blogs using wordpress.org. So you can manage your whole blog on the go. Here you can download Wordmobi. However, first you need to download and install Python for S60.
Mozilla’s Christian Sejersen let slip this little nugget of information on his blog stating that, “In Q3 2008 Symbian had 49.8% of the total smartphone sales (and 57% in Q2) according to Gartner compared to 11.1% for Windows Mobile and 7.2% for Linux. “So in order for Mozilla to be relevant in the smartphone space we need to have a presence on the Symbian platform.” This could mean that the release of the Firefox for Mobile browser, dubbed ‘Fennec’ could happen on multiple handsets, rather than just a slow, and staggered roll out.
Orange today announced the launch of a Technocentre in Britain, designed to help develop new and exciting “twenty-first” century services for its customers in the UK and across the Orange footprint. The Technocentre represents a significant investment in the UK and will open on January 5th 2009. It will expand on the work of other Technocentre facilities around the world and will see UK and Group developers working on products and services for more than 170 million France Telecom customers, including 115 under the Orange brand. The new facility will also work on projects that are specifically aligned to UK customer needs.
Microsoft have started to produce how to videos for Windows Mobile which is definitely a good thing and they have set up their very own YouTube channel. There are only a few videos there at the moment but it is good to see some love being shown in the Windows Mobile direction. You can check out the channel here.
As you probably know, we have looked at the HTC S740 a few times already with a video demonstration and a written review already on site. However, the units that we’ve looked at up to now have been prototypes and demo devices, several of you have asked for a proper retail unboxing video.
The HTC S740
So that’s exactly what we have here. I just got my hands on the full retail unit and have a short unboxing video for you. In this video I don’t go in to a lot of detail about the S740 itself. If you want to see more of the handset itself please have a look at the other video demonstration or the written HTC S740 review.
According to a report from BusinessWeek, Palm will announce the long awaited replacement for their ageing OS at CES next month. According to the article Palm is due to unveil the long-awaited operating system, code-named Nova, as well as the first of a family of products that will run on it. While Palm has protected its plans with Apple-like secrecy, Rubinstein and others say the goal is to create products that bridge the gap between Research In Motion’s BlackBerry devices, oriented to work and e-mail, and Apple’s iPhone, oriented to fun.
Remember the days when projectors were large and expensive pieces of kit that you only saw at high-end presentations? They used to have three separate colour ‘guns’ for for RGB and each required time consuming alignment and focusing.
Things have come a long way since then and not only are projectors much smaller but that are also more affordable. Go in to the meeting rooms of many businesses and you’re bound to find a projector there somewhere.
A few years ago there was a lot of talk about making projectors so small that they would actually fit inside a mobile phone. While me might not quite be there yet the Optoma Pico Pocket Projector brings the concept a lot closer and provides us with a projector small enough to fit in your pocket!
The Pico Pocket Projector
The 10 second review: Device: Optoma Pico Pocket Projector Cost: £244.67 (Inc VAT). Available from: Clove Technology (Go and buy one from here) Summary: An excellent addition to your kit bag if you have to do unplanned presentations or want to show something off on a large screen but you’ll have to dim the lights is you want to use it to it’s full potential Best of: Tiny size and battery life Worst of: Poor built in speaker and relatively low resolution
What’s in the box?
The Pico Projector
Mains Charger (USB)
USB to Mini-USB cable
Video input cable
Two batteries
Tripod adapter
Carry pouch
Manual and warranty card
If you want to have a more detailed look at what’s included with the Optoma Pico Pocket Projector or to see it in action, take a look at my demo video below:
Optoma Pico Pocket Projector unboxed and demonstrated
Optoma Pico Pocket Projector specication:
Projection Type –DLP
Lamp – LED
Lamp Life – 20,000
Acoustic Noise – Silent
Contrast Ratio –1000:1
Power – Battery Operated
Recharging –USB
AV Input – 1 x 2.5mm 4 pole jack socket, AV Input combines stereo audio and composite video, PAL\NTSC(576i\480)
Weight – 115g (4oz)
Dimensions – W50mm D103mm H15mm
Throw Ratio – 1.9
Proj Distance – Min 0.25m – Max 2.6m
Image Size – 0.15 – 1.5m (6-60")
Speaker – 1 x 0.5w
Battery Life – Up to 1.5 hours
Power Input –Mini USB connectors
General
Lets start off by taking a look around the projector.
The Pico Pocket Projector has a clean design and is made form black and silver plastic. Looking from above there are no controls, just a simple silver band and logo across the middle and a simple LED the indicates battery charge.
Optoma Pico Pocket Projector top
On the right hand side of the unit we have the AV input socket which is a 2.5mm 4 pole jack carrying both audio and video signals. In front of that we have a grille over a small single speaker and then a dial which controls the focus.
Optoma Pico Pocket Projector right side
Looking to the left side we have the power control which has a full brightness, half brightness and off setting. Next to that is the mini-USB connector that’s used to charge the battery.
Optoma Pico Pocket Projector left side
On the front is the lens out of which the projected image is emitted. There is no lens cap though.
Optoma Pico Pocket Projector front view
On the bottom is a battery cover, which slides off backwards, and the screw hole for the tripod adapter.
Optoma Pico Pocket Projector bottom view
Review
When I first heard about the Optoma Pico Pocket Projector I have to say I was rather skeptical, having owned several large projectors in the past, each of them having incredibly bright (and expensive) bulbs I couldn’t imagine how you could build a projector so small and have LED’s as it’s light source.
Having unboxed the Optoma Pico Pocket Projector I was amazed at how truly tiny it is, certainly it deserves it’s Pico name. At a little larger than most candy-bar style mobile phones it’s probably lighter than the vast majority of them.
As I mentioned in the video above, I quite often have to stand in front of groups of people and give presentations. Normally I arrange for there to be a projector or plasma screen at the venue but when this isn’t possible I take along my own portable projector. This last week I thought I would try the Optoma Pico Pocket Projector when I did a Powerpoint presentation to a small group of people. I put the slideshow on to my HTC Touch Pro and went along with the TV-out cable and the Pico projector. I have to say, this worked quite well for me. Sure, we did have to dim the lights in the room and there was already a proper projector screen at the venue but the eight people in the group were able to see the presentation quite easily. Imagine also how impressed they were when I pulled everything I needed to the presentation out of my jacket pockets!
At the heart of the Optoma Pico Pocket Projector is a DLP chip with a resolution of 480×320 (half VGA) while this doesn’t sound like a lot it does work quite well easily accepting PAL and NTSC signals as well as those output from many mobile phones. Lighting is provided by one or more (I’m not sure how many) bright white LED’s. The advantage of using LED’s is that they are efficient, run cool and have an amazing lifetime. Here the LED life is quoted at 20,000 hours. LED’s are also quite robust which is ideal for something portable.
The projector does have a small loudspeaker built in which combines both left and right input channels. The built-in speaker is probably the worst part of the projector. It’s range is fairly limited and it sounds really quite tinny with lower frequencies causing distortion to the middle and higher end. There’s also no volume control on the unit so if your source isn’t loud enough there’s nothing you can do about it. That said, I doubt that you’d buy the Pico projector for watching the latest DVD’s!
One other thing that lets the Optoma Pico Pocket Projector down a little is the lack of keystone correction. For those of you that don’t know a keystone effect is caused by attempting to project an image onto a surface at an angle, as with a projector not quite centred onto the screen it is projecting on. It is a distortion of the image dimensions, making it look like a trapezoid. In the typical case of a projector sitting on a table, and looking upwards to the screen. Most projectors have some kind of keystone correction whether digitally controls or through a control that shifts the lens. The Pico has neither of these but I guess this down to the size constraints.
If you do choose to use the projector to watch a video, perhaps from your phone or your iPod then it does perform quite well, especially if you can turn out all of the lights and project on to a proper projector screen or a plain white wall. I’d suggest that you allow your video source to output the audio or at the very least use headphones. Under these conditions I was impressed with the detail in the image and the contrast ratio, even fast-moving scenes, where you might expect to see motion blurring, were displayed rather well.
In all, when you consider how small this thing is the Optoma Pico Pocket Projector is impressive!
Highlights
A tiny projector that sits in your hand
Ideal for mobile workers
Silent in use
Ideal for down the pub!
Lowlights
Needs to be in a dim room for best results
Poor internal speaker
No keystone correction
Conclusion
The Optoma Pico Pocket Projector is a great little device which is ideal for anyone that travels to meetings regularly but would rather travel light. It’s great for ad-hoc presentations and showing off your latest photos and videos to your mates without having to plan it. It performs amazingly well for something so small!
However, if you are doing professional presentations then the Optoma Pico Pocket Projector wont replace more expensive and brighter projectors out there.
Qik has been out for sometime now, and has yet to receive a real threat in the industry to rival its video streaming service for the iPhone. However, if this video is to be believed authentic, then we might just have a worthy alternative to Qik.
The China-only Lenovo OPhone is the best cellphone so far we’ve seen that will be running on Google Android. The specific OS is a tweak of Android dubbed the Open Mobile System. Specs haven’t been made available but the word is that this will likely replace the much-delayed and perhaps permanently aborted Chinese iPhone:
ClintonFitch.com has released its picks for Top 10 Windows Mobile Apps for 2008. The question now is: Do you have some or all of them in your Windows Mobile device?
The guys over at SymbianWorld have discovered Wordmobi, a WordPress client for your S60 device which is a freeware application that works on all the latest S60 devices. Using Wordmobi you can write and edit posts, edit and write comments and create new categories. It works with wordpress.com blogs as well as with self hosted blogs using wordpress.org. So you can manage your whole blog on the go. Here you can download Wordmobi. However, first you need to download and install Python for S60.
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