Touchscreen Laptop by 2010

The new version of 'Touchscreen laptop' is due already, to come out in 2010. This will replace a traditional keyboard with a second touch-sensitive video screen. The screen can be configured as a keyboard or the device can be opened flat and used as an electronic book. It is desined for the emerging world out there, while keeping in mind to make it userfriendly for the childeren. This is a collaboratice effort from acedima and the industry involved in the social projects. “You can fold it flat and use it as one continuous display,” said Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of 'One Laptop per Child Foundation' the foundation’s founder.Negroponte said the organization hoped to price the new computer at $75 each, compared with the $188 price for the current generation of laptops. Mary Lou Jepsen, who left One Laptop per Child to launch a for-profit business, will work with Negroponte's organization to design the new laptop.

The One Laptop per Child Foundation, is a New England based nonprofit organization which is planning a new version of its inexpensive laptop for developing countries. They have defined their mission statement in ternms of FOUR Ps

In addition, this non-profit organization is planning the resumption of the get-one-give- one program to allow people in affluent countries to buy two of the laptops and donate one to a child in a developing country. This is a brilliant idea to spread the fire of knowledge across the untamed among the folks needs to be lit up with it, out there.

Negroponte said the program will resume in August or September and will be open to buyers in North America and Europe. He said the previous program, which opened last year to people in North America, enabled the One Laptop to distribute 30,000 additional laptops to children in Rwanda, Mongolia, and Haiti.

JLA Ventures: RIM, RBC, and Thomson

RIM is rocking with its announcement to make a $150 million fund that will invest in companies creating software for BlackBerrys and other mobile devices. The Royal Bank of Canada and Thomson Reuters are co-investors.

The BlackBerry Partners Fund will be managed by JLA Ventures and RBC Venture Partners. This move from RIM smells similar to Apple's March declaration that it would set up a $100 million "iFund" for the development of iPhone and iPod Touch applications.

Well, this new BlackBerry model in more than a year: the Bold, a high-end model that further expresses the company's wish to make tools for work with fun and frolic. The Bold, or 9000, has twice the screen resolution of the current Curve model, making for a very sharp display. It matches the resolution, but not the size, of the screen on Apple's iPhone, which has emerged as a potent competitor in the "smart phone" category. It also has much more internal memory, a glossy metallic look, and adds corporate-strength Wi-Fi capabilities to third-generation cellular and Bluetooth radios.

A horizontal screen above a trackball and a keyboard with one letter per key seems impressive. This Canadian, Waterloo based RIM didn't declare a price for their new model 'Bold', nor did it sepcify any agreements with specific cellphone carriers. Assumption is the phone would be available from various carriers this summer. The initial model would support GSM networks, the kind employed by AT&T and T-Mobile. Later models could work on the Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless networks.

Like the Curve and the Pearl, BlackBerry's consumer-oriented phones, the Bold has a full-size headset jack and a camera that can also capture video. At the same time, it has dual-band Wi-Fi, a feature previously only found on a model aimed at the corporate market.The Bold will also have exchangable back plates in different colors, a first for a BlackBerry.

iPhone's Global Reach

The paucity of iPhones for sale in some markets comes as Apple is hustling to meet its goal of selling 10 million of the hybrid iPod-cell phone-Internet surfing gadgets by the end of 2008. So far, Apple has sold 5.4 million iPhones, according to the latest data as of the end of March.

Apple, is rapidly linking its network with the world wide wireless carriers to expand its presence across the Globe. In the Asia-Pacific region, SingTel will sell the gadget in Singapore, Bharti Airtel in India, Globe Telecom in the Philippines and Optus in Australia, SingTel has about 2.3 million mobile subscribers in Singapore and around 7 million in Australia.

According to data as of Dec. 31, 2007. Bharti currently has about 64 million subscribers, while Globe reported a 21.3 million mobile subscriber base for the quarter ended March 31.

Last week, the top mobile phone operator in Latin America, America Movil SAB, also announced plans to deliver the iPhone to its region. America Movil has 159.2 million subscribers in 16 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico.

In recent weeks Apple has also signed deals with Rogers Communications Inc. to sell the device in Canada; Milan-based Telecom Italia to sell the iPhone in Italy; and Vodafone Group, the world's biggest mobile company by sales, to sell it in a total of 10 countries, including Australia, India, Italy and Turkey

Apple is also planning a software update for this summer that makes the iPhone work better with corporate e-mail, a necessary upgrade to help the iPhone compete with Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and Palm Inc.'s Treo smart phones. Girding for a fight with Apple in the business-oriented smart-phone space, Research In Motion on Monday unveiled the Bold, its first BlackBerry model to work over 3G.

Mobiles offer SOS service

Cellphones have proved to be a great device rescuing people out of emergency situations. No body thought it could be a blessing when one do not have access to 'Radio', 'TV' or if there is no electricity either that the mobile alert systems can avert an upcoming radom situation.

In one of the situation, when fierce storms hit California in early January, submerging streets and felling power lines, Steve Livingston was prepared. Armed with a text message alert from the San Mateo County Office of Emergency Services, he dodged the flood and made it home safely. A few months earlier, when a surprise earthquake shook the region, Livingston, chief marketing officer of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based mobile transaction firm mBlox was in Los Angeles on a business trip. Alerted by a text message from the same service, he rushed to call his family back in Hillsborough, near San Mateo. "The pervasiveness of text messaging makes it one of the best ways to communicate to masses of people," he says.

As the Technology evolve these small gadgets are getting smarter with intelligent features in it. All one need to do is sign into the message alert system that could be life saving. Even the government is signing on. The Federal Communications Commission is developing a national mobile alert system for 2010. The messages, which will be distributed through the country's four largest carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile) will include "presidential" or national emergency alerts, weather and local emergency alerts and child abductions.

Moreover, the public companies are designing their own mobile safety network system. For instance, several phone makers, including Samsung and Asus, offer SOS functions that — with the push of a button — ping pre-set numbers with text messages that warn the sender is in danger.

Some firms are going further, viewing phones as the 21st-century equivalent of medical ID bracelets. Marina Del Ray, Calif.-based developer MyRapidMD Corp. is one. Its Emergency Service Profile software application is designed to be installed on cellphones and relay basic information about its owner to first responders. Users submit data including blood type, medications, allergies, emergency contacts and a photo for identification purposes. The information resides on their phones where it can be quickly and easily accessed, even in areas without cellular reception. If the phone is broken, emergency workers can call a 1-800 number and access the data remotely.

"It's not meant to be a full medical history — just key data for those first 15 minutes, when people most need that information," notes MyRapidMD President Mark White.

Let's Compare iPhone

Screen Resolution + Input Method

Because the iPhone uses a virtual ‘soft’ on-screen keyboard instead of the full QWERTY keyboard on the Treo, Apple has naturally used this additional space to increase the screen size

Operating System

The PalmOS has now successfully powered many generations of Treo smartphones while the OS X variant which powers the iPhone has yet to prove its mettle – particularly when it comes to telephony where Palm has had the benefit of a long learning curve.

Storage

The opportunity to have 4 or 8GB of permanent storage on the iPhone may prove appealing at first but the fact is that seasoned Treo users fully understand the higher benefits that an external SD card storage provides. For some $150 I can easily add an 8GB SD card for data storage on my Treo without limitation to the number of cards that one can use.

GSM + Wireless Data + Camera

While both the iPhone and Treo 680 share an almost identical Quad-Band radio with GSM/GPRS/EDGE support there is no doubt that Apple wins points here by adding WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 and a 2.0 megapixel camera. However, the use of WiFi is likely going to quickly drain the iPhone’s non-removable battery which is a consideration to keep in mind. Also, a 3G iPhone is planned for Europe by the end of 2007.

Battery

While the battery performance of the iPhone and Treo 680 are fairly similar with 5 and 4 hours of Talk Time respectively there is no doubt that the removable battery on the Treo provides significantly better power options for Treonauts on the go.

Dimensions + Weight

While the Treo 680 is some 15% heavier than the iPhone the fact is that I consider the additional weight of the full QWERTY keyboard, SD card slot and removable battery to be well worth it.

Comparison of Technical Specifications

Leaving these technical specifications aside the iPhone does offer some unique and innovative features that Treo could certainly learn from- the impressive overall look & feel of the user interface with very rich graphical elements which I have been yearning to see equally well represented on the Treo. The UI looks rich, inviting and user-friendly.

The iPhone’s “Visual Voicemail” which allows you to go directly to any of your messages without listening to the prior messages so you can quickly select the messages that are most important to you is a feature that many Treo power users have suggested for some time but which Apple is now first to implement.

With a full iPod interface inside the iPhone it is clear that people will be delighted with its Music, Movies and Photos capabilities. The Safari web browser looks extremely robust and has a stunning display for web pages. iPhone uses a rich HTML email client that fetches your email in the background from most POP3 or IMAP mail services and displays photos and graphics right along with the text (albeit it looks considerably more complex to use than on the Treo).

The iPhone’s “Widgets” like the Weather pictured here above are an absolute pleasure to look at and the iPhone’s “horizontal scrolling” is equally smart. Advanced sensors including an accelerometer detect when you rotate the device from portrait to landscape and changes the display orientation; a proximity sensor detects when you lift the iPhone to your ear and turns of the display while an ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the display’s brightness.

Other Comparisons

This is a great iPhone comparison matrix showing the iphone side by side other leading smart phones. It really gives you a good perspective how the iPhone compares on size, price, and features. Another good iPhone comparison can be found at www.iphonevsblackberry.com

Differential GPS

Trimble today introduced a modernized software package designed to continuously monitor and control Differential GPS (DGPS) broadcast sites for marine navigation, Trimble Coastal Center software.

Developed to provide network operators the ability to monitor and control multiple DGPS beacon stations from one central location, Trimble Coastal Center is built on an open architecture. It can address a wide variety of DGPS provider network configurations ranging from one site to hundreds of broadcast sites, Trimble said.

It can also adapt to different configurations and architectures within the same DGPS provider network. Operators can customize the configuration of monitors, alarms and reports by specifying the exact conditions to meet their particular needs, the company said. The software package has extended beacon almanac features and a high level of reporting capabilities; it is also the only beacon monitoring software designed using standards of the International Convention of Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), according to Trimble.

The Coastal Center software supports conventional communications systems such as RS-232 and 422, as well as modern network communication standards. Depending upon user network design and system requirements, Trimble Coastal Center software can operate on a single PC-based platform or it can be distributed across several computers. Users can view all beacon sites from any licensed workstation throughout the network.

Coastal Center also provides control station messages required under the RSIM 1.1 and the new RSIM 1.2 standards with a configurable alarming system that interfaces with e-mail and pager systems. It also combines event and message logging capabilities with XML-based report generation.

Navigon 2120

Consumers no longer have to break the bank to receive top-rate features in the increasingly popular GPS market. NAVIGON, the fastest growing GPS brand, today announced the retail availability of the NAVIGON 2100 max and NAVIGON 2120 max personal navigation devices (PNDs) in the United States and Canada. These devices provide exceptional and affordable value with top-of-the-line features, such as NAVIGON’s new DirectHelp(TM), a feature that pinpoints a user’s location and provides instant links to nearby services such as hospitals, pharmacies and roadside assistance. The devices also include a 4.3 inch widescreen and spoken driving directions via text-to-speech.