Headworx

I thought the story of picking the most appropriate headphones for the mobile gear was one of the least interesting. But it looks like it is generating above than average number of responses. Last week I came across an article describing the missing link in my search for the universal headphones. Shure is getting close with their I-series sound isolating ones, but they still do not solve the double-jack notebook problem. The truth is notebook manufacturers should finally equip new models with a cell phone-compatible 4-conductor 2.5mm socket to let us use cell phone sets for notebook VoIP conversations. On the other hand SonyEricsson is pretty close to a perfect solution with the HBH-DS970 set. They are in-ear, sound isolating, have integrated microphone and support a multipoint A2DP Bluetooth interface. I mentioned A2DP her several times before, so let us explain what it is about. A2DP stands for Advanced Audio Distribution Profile and is designed to stream high fidelity stereo m

I have just returned from CeBIT , where HSDPA along with HDTV were the hot (and real!) trends. OK, first let's explain these acronyms. HDTV stands for High Definition TeleVision and means better than cinema picture quality - I'll probably write some more on HDTV later, but for today let's focus on HSDPA. High-Speed Downlink Packet Access is the full name of the technology that is rolling like tsunami over mobile telecom networks. You've probably already heard of UMTS - the 3rd generation mobile telephony that was heralded in 2000 and for five years existed as a pure vaporware. Now UMTS is here, and we use it for high-speed (sort of...) wireless Internet access and video calls among other things. But probably not many of you are aware UMTS that took so many years and billions of $$$'s to become real is about to be replaced by HSDPA. OK, it does not look that bad as it sounds. HSDPA is an evolution of an UMTS standard, namely Release 5, defined in March 2002. Its mai

W ell, I think I may count myself as one of the first pioneers who have installed AKU2 upgrade on their teleputers . Now what is that "AKU2", you will ask.... From the formal standpoint AKU2 (Adaptation Kit Update 2) is a second, updated release of the Windows Mobile 5 operating system, that powers rapidly growing number of devices from smartphones to teleputers . I t's main feature, however, is the DirectPush email delivery technology, or simply, push email. Push email is a set o technologies, delivering your emails instantly, as they arrive. From the customer's perspective it is working more or less like SMS service. Once an email message arrives on your server, the server "pushes" the message to your device. For those of you interested in the very details, there is Ewan Dalton's PowerPoint presentation from IT Forum 2005. So far email used to be a "pull" service - you had to connect to retrieve it. Push changes a lot here and you should n

I have not posted about Google for a while, so it's time to look again at what is brewing in Mountain View. At the moment I'm browsing through the slides from the Google Analyst Day (last Thursday, March 2nd, 2006). There has been a long debate whether Google will finally offer infinite storage space for every user. Gmail is an area where it has already happened. If you use Gmail, you have probably noticed your mailbox grows faster than the space you use. So for one application we may already consider the infinity is reached. It does not matter, if it is theoretically 2GB or 3GB or something. As long as it is more than you are able to fill, it is infinite. M y long time dream has been to move my entire Windows profile to some server storage. Windows profile is a directory structure below [C:\Documents and Settings\ ], holding things like local settings (links and cookies), your Desktop and most importantly [My Documents] folder where you store all documents, pictures, songs

A nother week is passing by, and thousands of new Origami stories have emerged on the Web. Unfortunately they all point to a failure. I mean, may be not a spectacular failure, since people (myself included) may consider buying the device, but we really should not expect a breakthrough. It looks like Origami devices will be just a little scaled - down Tablet PCs, with standard Tablet PC (Windows XP) operating system and stylus - operated induction - based touch screens. This design results in several drawbacks: 1 . The battery life will be far well below mass market expectations. My bet is typical 3 hours, may be up to five, which is still not enough. To carry a device like that with me, I would expect 10 hours minimum. This just ain't gonna happen... 2 . Origami will not replace your iPod or a music phone . Probably it is going to be too complicated to operate and have too short battery life. 3 . Stylus required. Induction based touch screen requires a special stylus to operate it