The Cell Phone-PDA Revolution 98
bdavenport writes "Several sites have stories on the unification of cell and PDA technology. Check out MSNBC and Wired. " This whole handheld convergence thing is an area where the Europeans seem to be well ahead of the U.S. - and everyone else. I still like my big monitor and keyboard, though. The WWW on a palm-sized screen seems to lose some of its flavor.
The state of mobility to come (Score:4)
slower and worse, you're missing the point. Sure, accessing the WWW
via a handheld can be a great timekiller on the train, but the real
promise of connected mobile computing its that it allows the
introduction of computers and associated benefits in areas where you
normally don't see computers at all: think of doctors making the
rounds and having instant access to their patients journals, salesmen
that always can check the inventory and place orders from anywhere,
construction workers who have instant access to instructions, work
flow, incoming deliveries etc.
And you people who whine that if everyone wrote correct HTML 4.0, the
whole world would be nice and rosy: Give it a rest! For example, the
kind of information that you want on a PDA or cell phone display is
drastically different than what you want on a normal computer
screen. For example, the normal Slashdot front page might be perfect
HTML 4.0 Strict, but it still doesn't display great on a PDA because
of the navigation sidebars, slashboxes and other stuff that doesn't
make sense on a PDA. And you certainly don't want to download 50k of
HTML on todays wireless links (between 1.2 and 9.6 kbps,
typically). XML, combined with different XSL style sheets for
adopting the information to different requirements, goes a long way to
make things better here. WML (The markup language of WAP, Wireless
Application Protocol) builds on, and improves the HTML concepts with a
number of very useful concepts (Deck of cards and variable
substitution, to name a few). HTML simply cannot adapt to these kinds
of requirements.
One last thing, about the eventual merge of the PDA and the cellphone:
A lot of people seem to take for granted that a solution where
different devices each do one thing well (voice communication,
display, computing, storage, wireless/radio connectivety, to name a
few things), is the only sane way to go. If bluetooth (for the lower
layers of communication) and Jini or Universal PnP (for the upper
layers) take of, we might indeed see this vision become reality. But
there will always be room for an end-all solutions that does all of
these things in an integrated unit, with excellent integration between
the different capabilities (check out the Nokia 9110, for example). If
configuring your personal BAN (Body Area Network) becomes as
complicated as getting a Windows PC, a Linux Box and a Mac to share
files, printers and outside network connections, then we really
haven't learned anything about usability in the last 15 years....
Fixed URL for Nokia 9110 (Score:1)
You'll find more information on Nokia 9110 from http://www.nokia.com/phones/9110/ [nokia.com].
Nokia 9110 Communicator is a nifty little thing, has both advantages and disadvantages to the Psion S5/Ericsson SH888 combo I use.
Having the phone integrated with the PDA is nice because you don't have to worry about IR eyes being messy, and you can type more easily while walking, etc. Of course Bluetooth will make that possible also with separated units.
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Re:the web on a pda might not be great, but... (Score:2)
JabberWatch (Score:1)
I know this is probably wishful thinking at this point, but it would be cool...
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
Re:The state of mobility to come (Score:1)
Future Mobiles will have GSM (in Europe and enlightened places like Manhattan) as well as Bluetooth for pico-net connections. And Bluetooth also means eliminating cables -- who needs a USB cable when you can run USB protocols over Bluetooth, and connect your keyboard, printer, mouse, PDA, Phone and wearable HUD using wireless?
With suitable repeaters, this can enable roaming within an organization, and with IEEE 802.11 bridging, can allow for wider roaming for a truly wireless experience.
The future is coming fast, and it will be a lot of fun!
-- Paul Gillingwater
Re:Why you do not want your PDA and Phone to conve (Score:1)
One or two boxes, and reinventing the past. (Score:2)
Bluetooth will solve the two-box problem just after improved microelectronics make it irrelevant (at least in this context) by shrinking phone and PDA components to the curent size of a Palm V.
Why doesn't anyone build a CDMA phone (no cancer for me, please - GSM is, of course, a US plot to destroy Europeans) that will just let me snap in a Palm device? (Or maybe a CDMA phone plug-in for the Handsring Visor?)
For Sprint users: This phone has a built-in web browser, which isn't supposed to work yet, but does, at least here in Austin.
***The thing that strikes me most about using a phone-based text web browser is what an incredibly bad job the phone.com (WAP/HDML) folks have done at reinventing gopher!***
What we have here is a proprietary, hacked-up (in the uncomplimentary sense) web markup language that is *less* optimized for text browsing that the simplest gopher client. What were these people thinking? I won't be browsing with it much, that's for sure, but the CDMA IP connection may come in quite handy with the PalmPilot when I can buy the data cable for the ThinPhone (due soon.)
Europe is tiny (Score:1)
Now, consider America. 400 stations might cover my home state of North Carolina. But I want it to work everywhere I go. Bell South's digital service worked between Charlotte, Greensboro, and Raleigh. But what happens when I visit my brother in Ashboro, or I take a trip to the beach. The phone becomes useless.
For those people who complain that America has a hodgepodge of standards, remember that the coverage area of Bell South approximates that of most of Europe. If the whole country had to use one technology at the same time, I doubt that we would ever advance. (Is the best technology used for the heavily populated northeast the same for the barely inhabitted southwest?)
As for the question of whether you reall want to have your PDA and phone integrated: eyeglass displays with an earphone at the end of they eyeglass' arm, and a drop-down mic. The PDA itself would resemble one of those mouse replacement touchpads -- a couple of buttons and a little pad. The wire could run under clothing with the PDA resting in a pocket until needed. It's not all that hard to imagine graceful integration.
Infopages, not Webpages (Score:1)
Re: WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) (Score:1)
http://www.4K-Associates.com/Library
Re:Europe is tiny (Score:2)
Cheers,
-j.
Surface-travellers, not population, is what counts (Score:1)
Sporty [slashdot.org] wrote: Am I the only one that also thinks that the population density of some areas make it quite difficult to do this?
For mobile services it is surface-travellers, not population that counts. After all, if you're talking about static population, have a static landline.
How many people actually permanently live IN Disneyworld? Not many, I suppose. But there are thousands of visitors, so these kind of areas are prime locations for mobile 'phone transmitters.
What helps in Europe is that pretty much everywhere is "on the way" to somewhere else vaguely important. For instance, I live in the rural Cotswolds, UK [custodian.com] (you'll be familiar with it if you've ever watched an Agatha Christie movie), which has a low population but is between Birmingham, Bristol and London. Thus even though the local population is low, we have people travelling- by car and train- through our area a lot. And that's why I can get a good signal strength at home despite it being well and truly out in the sticks as my wife points out. [demon.co.uk]
I'm not sure this model would work in the Americas where you're in an "east coast" and "west coast" situation with two large metropolitan areas with very little inbetween- and the "inbetween" is a vast area of thousands of kilometres usually traversed by aeroplane, not car/train.
Of course, all this would be solved by satellite 'phones. But there is no incentive for people to use these schemes in Europe and Asia when GSM works just fine, thanks. And that's not forgetting the huge start-up costs of satellites compared to groundwave TXs.
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Re:Europe (Score:3)
The US on the other hand had very extensive analog infrastructure, and the cell phone companies had a lot of investment that hadn't paid for itself yet. Therefore they had little incentive to switch to digital just yet. Only now they're finally switching over, simply because digital is much cheaper in the long run--the per-cell user densities are orders of magnitude higher, depending on technology. Add to that the NIH (Not Invented Here) factor, meaning that US companies couldn't simply take GSM without screwing with it, which led to several different digital technolgies in the US. True, European GSM wasn't the best technology--particularly the 900 MHz fiasco--but it was an established standard and off-the-shelf. Hence spotty coverage, slow deployment, etc...
Re:Europe is ahead of us, again (Score:1)
Good to know we're ahead of the game in some respects. I didn't realise that SMS wasn't used over in NA, in Europe it's the norm, I get SMS messages on my mobile phone almost as often as I get voice calls.
On a recent trip to Switzerland, we geeked over the public phone boxes, all of which are equipped with little keyboards & 8-line mono displays from which you can send SMS messages, faxes & email, at 50 Swiss centimes for a 128 character message.
Of course, you probably couldn't install this equipment in any country other than Switzerland, due to vandalism...
ai731
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innovation and the order of adoption (Score:2)
This is an interesting point.
People have often pointed to the post-WWII development of Japan (and just as spectacularly, West Germany's Wirtschaftswunder -- economic miracle -- of the 50's) as being in part the result of the *destruction* of their infrastructure, and resultant rebuilding. "From scratch" may be an exaggeration, but it approaches truth.
In a sense, because the Allies (esp. North America, where no combat took place, AFAIK) *won* the war, and had in the end less to rebuild, America et al remained more fragmented / 'inertial' in their various standards (goes this theory) as well as in other aspects.
I think this theory has a lot of truth, but at the same time, the conclusions to be drawn from it are not clear. A lot of people are in favor of government imposed standards, the more the merrier, and there certainly are tons of such standards to choose from;)
However: I think the government ought to be responsible for as little as possible, and in the case of all sorts of standards should follow this basic rule. I'm happy to let the French (or the international consortium whose name I forget) define the metric units, and let the US government define US measures in either explicit or implicit reference to these -- and that's already been done. Interesting book by John Lord called (I think) "Sizes - how big or small things really are." Beyond that, let the market decide.
What role officialdom should play in measures and standards is an interesting topic; it's one of the few places I see a positive (but minimal) role for government as an arbiter and archivist.
Asking / expecting government to come up with optimal engineering solutions though is a very bad idea, and the convenience of standardization is not worth accepting imposed standards over experimentation and freedom to innovate. (Sorry if tht makes me sound like a Microsoft employee -- I'm not! -- but I hope it also makes me sound like a Free software advocate, which I am.)
Just thoughts,
timothy
Re:the web on a pda might not be great, but... (Score:2)
jf
Re:Why is Europe ahead of us, again? (Score:2)
The ETU (European Telecoms Union) adopted the GSM standard that a collection of manufacturers, interested parties, etc had put together. A bit like MPEG. I think the European companies have a more diverse market, so appreciate the value of standards. Especially if
it leads to cheap standardised hardware that
everyone can use.
I think the TDMA and CDMA were developed in the USA after GSM. Possibly prompted by a 'not invented here' attitude. AFAIK CDMA and TDMA are technically superior to GSM, but GSM has the advantage in that more networks use it. Allowing one handset to be used in more places, and cheaper hardware through mass production.
But I could be wrong.
Re:One thing not mentioned (Score:1)
I use it so that I can do my job and support Networks with it. It's a damn sight lighter than the previous solution (Mobile + Laptop). It fits on my belt, and although it's heavy, it's not much heavier than my old phone!
Re:PDA vs. CRT (Score:2)
I.e., sometimes a desktop machine with a big screen is the right answer, and sometimes a handheld device is the right answer?
Hmm. I seem to remember seeing a Slashdot thread referring to an article [techweb.com] in which some expat Finn said, among other things
Perhaps he had a point? He didn't address "desktop vs. mobile", but I think that's another case where it's not necessarily the case that "convergence" is an unalloyed good - you don't necessarily want a single box that Does It All (I've read Slashdot with a Nokia 9000 whilst riding in a car - it works, but I'd rather read it on a nice big screen; I might, however, want to read some stuff "on the move", or order pizza, or whatever, on a mobile phone, or a Palm, or...).
See also the "IBM Unveiling New Transcoder Technology" Slashdot article [slashdot.org]; some folks have commented that they don't necessarily want Full Frontal Slashdot on their mobile phone or PDA.
Re:Cell Phones (Score:1)
Re:Europe (Score:1)
Well I don't know much about the cell phone situation in Germany, but the nordic countries had extensive analog cell phone network (NMT) in the beginning of nineties. With the huge success of GSM phones the old analog network is being phased away and the frequencies allocated to digital phones.
It seems that the US really is a bit lagging behind in going mobile, at least compared to - for example - Finland, where everybody and their dog has a GSM phone. And the large amount of cellular users (more than users of the POTS, if I recall) is not caused by the poor quality of the normal telephone system, we've had completely digital telephone network backbones here for years...
Re:WAP is the future (Score:1)
Agreed. WAP will quickly take off once the handset vendors manage to get suitable handsets into the shops in large enough numbers.
I expect to see many popular WWW sites providing content in both HTML and WML format (heck scripted sites like Slashdot could easily do this).
Dermot
d.bradley@apion-tss.com
[My day job is installing/maintaining our company's WAP gateway product in mobile telcos worldwide]
Lynx for the Palm Pilot (Score:1)
Re:Not true. (Score:1)
Re:Not true. (Score:1)
The GSM 900 MHz fiasco is this: it happens to be a very nasty frequency to be using around people with--say--pacemakers. Which is why few hospitals in Europe permit their use indoors--certainly true in Germany. Natch to all those snobbish StarTac-carrying doctors. 1800+ MHz doesn't seem to have this problem, hence the move away from 900 MHz, regardless of your impressions. There's also the matter of bandwith--the higher the frequency, the more simultaneous conversations, the more users per cell, the more money for Mr. cell phone service provider.
Well, "fiasco" might have been a strong word. Overall, Europe still did the right thing, but it would have been handy to forego the 900 MHz step. The new UMTS standard works above 2 GHz, so that's the way it's going.
Convergence in a country ... (Score:1)
Europe (Score:2)
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Blame Web "visionaries" for illegibility on PDAs (Score:1)
Well-formedness in HTML, in addition to adherence to the HTML 4.0 Strict specification (or HTML 2.0, for that matter), would make handheld browsing a reality. Of course it doesn't mean that it would be comfortable to read paragraphs worth on a 4x10 display, or whatever they are right now (-: (Keep in mind that just being standards-based doesn't mean your pages won't bomb out on handheld devices, speech synthesizers, or whatever; you have to keep the spirit in mind too.)
Those "visionaries" who thought that the Web would only be useful on a computer screen, and therefore opted to abuse HTML as much as possible, are to blame for the fact that you literally can't pull up anything on a device smaller than a checkbook.
I encourage everyone to consider the benefits of well-formedness and adherence to standards when they structure their HTML. The current CSS specs, along with nice browsers like Mozilla [mozilla.org], can provide you with ways to still look pretty. If I hadn't accidentally deleted my web site [zigg.com] I could demonstrate :-)
Europe is ahead of us, again (Score:2)
Funny how certain consumer technologies are widely adopted in Europe before the USA, where the consumer is (supposedly) king. GSM, smart cards, teletext (remember that?), fast trains. But these technologies all require a widespread and uniform infrastructure, which the American fragmented ("comptetitive") markets and weaker government are not always able to provide.
No big social message here, just an observation.
BTW, I live in Canada, which more resembles the USA in this context. We have only one GSM cellphone company.
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the web on a pda might not be great, but... (Score:3)
Very true, but I wouldn't mind being able to download the latest slashdot headlines and read them on the train on my way into work, as opposed to reading them for the first 45 minutes I am at work. I can live without the icons.
The Qualcomm pdQ (Score:2)
Anyway, as disorganized as I am and as little time as i spend at my desk a PDA is a great tool for scheduling and contacts. Merging it with a phone is a good idea for those who want to have less gadgets to break/lose/replace but what hapens when you do lose it or break it? You lose EVERYTHING your schedule, all the phone numbers you cant remember like your wife's, and you can't make a call without a uater (or now a quarter and a dime) and that big account that wanted to call you at the last minute and do lunch with you thinks your ignoring them!
Convergence... (Score:2)
"Loss of Flavor"....not! (Score:2)
Just think of the advantages: Anywhere you are, you can download news, the movie schedule, theatre reviews, or slashdot articles. It's the ultimate way of taking information with you - store it on a huge server at home and access whatever bits you happen to need with your WAP-enabled cellular. And the best is, you can have dynamic content. You can take along a movie schedule on your PalmPilot anyway - but you have to sync it all the time. And what happens when you are in a different city? Pay long distance calls once you find a place to hook up your modem, or use a cellular with modem anyway.
I say it rocks. It's the way of the future. Forget about the "web losing its flavor" - this is bringing the web back to its roots, back to its flavor - it was never intended as a multimedia layout engine in the first place.
Nature vs Cell Phones. Sunday sunday sunday! (Score:2)
As much as I'm a wired person, I sometimes wonder if I'd rather be spending my life as a monk with nothing to my name but a thick robe and a stone slab to nap on. Sounds spartan? It sure is. But think about all the looking around and exploring nature-type-stuff you'd get to enjoy.
Re:The Qualcomm pdQ (Score:1)
Left that out of my previous post
One thing not mentioned (Score:3)
what I want (Score:1)
Heck, I'm pretty ecstatic my digital phone has a phone # rolladex and caller ID. I would much rather have a laptop for mobile computing simply because of the larger/better screen and keyboard. Once again I want a PDA/Cell phone that doesn't try to be a PC. It should strive to be a convenient tool and not try to do everything.
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Why you do not want your PDA and Phone to converge (Score:3)
I have to save the people who want these item to become integrated need to step back and let the usability people in.
I agree that my phone and PDA should talk so that they can syn address books. They should connect using some wire/wireless protocol for connection to the net. (Preferably not optical methods, too much hassel on the train)
I too would like my PalmIII to talk to my GSM phone..... but would I want them in one box?
No, have you ever tried to write on something that is next to your ear? Or even type a number on your phone's scratch pad that somebody is dictating to you? Or tried to search AvantGo on your Palm to find out the cinema times for the person on your mobile?
Better to have two units.
Also when you forget one, the other still has your numbers on it.
Sorry rant over.
Re:Europe (Score:1)
Re:the web on a pda might not be great, but... (Score:2)
In addition, AdvantGo and ProxyWeb (http://www.proxynet.net/) sell content munching servers to reformat web pages to a more Palm friendly format and put it into the MAL format that Palm's use for web 'clipping' services, but I haven't had a chance to find out much about that.
jf
Re:Europe (Score:2)
People buy cellulars for mostly one issue: Mobility. That's it. No other reasons needed. Oh, yeah, so many of the youngsters buy them to show off and because they think it'll make them look cool, but they're pretty clueless anyway.
Re:Europe is ahead of us, again (Score:1)
Note: This is NOT a troll to get things into a Europe vs. US flamewar...I am really curious as to why things like GSM are taking off everywhere but here.
this is what i want and why pda/cell doesn't do it (Score:1)
My dream of portability is a notebook sized screen...and NOTHING else. kinda like the star trek (ng) ones. A color screen that has a pen interface w/ a WLAN connection at...oh...t1 speeds. =p *drool*
this pda/cell convergence just doesn't cut it. for one thing those tiny screens can't be good for anything but address books and appointments schedules, if even that. and cell phone bandwidth?!? ugh. that's a bit too slow. =p
i think the people that predict the convergence of pda and cell are just thinking of all the money they're gonna get and not about how feasible it really is.
me, i'm gonna wait for my screen. *grin*
Eastern Europe (Score:1)
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palm banking by fone (Score:1)
Slightly out of date (Score:1)
This used to be true, however there is a (varying) degree of regulation in most of Western Europe.
Nokia 9110 (Score:1)
Re:Europe (Score:1)
We had an analogic cell phone system in Finland ages ago, the first wave, ARP came in 1977. It was manually switched meaning you "dialed" and someone on the other end asked you where you want to connect. The 80's were dominated by the more advanced, automatic NMT that is still alive and kicking, especially in the wilderness. They're shutting it down now, though, since GSM900/1800 coverage is nowadays pretty good and NMT use has decreased so much.
When the hand-held sized cell phones appeared in the 90's, the pager devices very quickly disappeared, which was right.
Re:Surface-travellers, not population, is what cou (Score:1)
Re:Nature vs Cell Phones. Sunday sunday sunday! (Score:1)
I know most of you don't really tune into Katz's work, but there is something to be said for not being able to reach someone (or be able to be reached) from time to time.
You do realize there's an off button on most cell phones?
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Re:Convergence... (Score:1)
Compine these technologies with Jini and you get a grasp of the furure.
Re:Surface-travellers, not population, is what cou (Score:1)
This is nice and good and all, but the problem isn't always so static. NYC is one of the biggest cities of the world. At times, though rare, we can't get through on our cells and normal phones due to full switchboards. So you see, the problem is dynamic due to the slowly growing population and small ratio for person per wireless service.
Re:The Qualcomm pdQ (Score:1)
Re:Nokia 9110 (Score:1)
Re:Not true. (Score:1)
Anyway, went to www.gsmworld.com and they have links to most global providers. According to them, Telia's coverage is as follows: http://www.gsmworld.com/gsminfo/cov_sete.htm. Looks like maybe 80%, but still, I'm impressed. And no, I never said such coverage would be silly, just economically unlikely. But if they see a market, hey, more power to them. Just to prove my point that coverage != market penetration, here's a map for D2 coverage in Germany: http://www.gsmworld.com/gsminfo/cov_dema.htm. Basically only my aunt's outhouse in Baden Wuerttemberg isn't covered, and they're working on that. Still, probably more Swedes use cell phones.
Here in the US, GTE Wireless I guess doesn't even see a market outside Chattanooga. My digital (and analog, for that matter) coverage stops halfway on the way home, which is in an outer "suburb". Far from the Middle Of Nowhere(TM), but obviously not important enough. Heck, they don't even provide SMS or paging, even though the phones they sell certainly are equipped to. So Much for the US being market driven.
Re:the web on a pda might not be great, but... (Score:1)
Re:The state of mobility to come (Score:1)
My concept is to have a data collection and reporting network for safety and security information that relies on the practitioner who works with students rather than overworked and ill-trained secretaries and clerks. I can go to Kroger's; select produce; punch in codes on a scale and weigh it myself; have a label and bar code printed; stick it on the produce; take it to the check out counter; where it is scanned and the price added to my other purchases; I pay by plastic card; and I am out.
Can we have a network just as easy for collecting and reporting safety and security information? This would be a network that relies on inputs from the practitioners who work with students. They may be teachers, counselors, assistant principals whose responsibilities include discipline, etc. Digital technology could be used to capture and transmit student ids, infraction codes, incident locations, and other codified data. Open-ended fields for descriptions and explanations could be entered through hand writing recognition or voice recognition engines.
The network would provide reports and queries from the same practitioners as well as users in central office rather than having to go through data processing. The safety and security information can be linked to the school system's student data base and data processing, however, and their reporting would not be diminished.
There's a bunch of thoughts & ideas on this using the term, "nomadic computeing. See http://millennium.cs.ucla.edu/lk.html - The modest homepage of Leonard Kleinrock, the "Father of the Internet." He has a number of downloadable papers on nomadic networking. Get the one, "Vision, Issues, and Architecture for Nomadic Computing." December 1995. In IEEE Personal Communications
and http://www.informatik.gu.se/~dahlbom/work_papers/
Then there is a piece on the "intelligence city": http://webwrite.com/cespub2.htm -- The Intelligent City And Emergency Management In The 21st Century. "The emergence of the intelligent city in the 21st century will radically transform emergency management as we know it today. Computing and telecommunications technologies, once separate and well-defined, will merge and their distinctiveness will blur. Mobile wireless and Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) will serve as the telecommunications backbone over which municipal management information systems will synchronize and orchestrate the various functions of government agencies and departments."
Population (Score:1)
In NYC, it's kinda tough. PCS and digital phones made things wonderful (sorta) by expanding the number of connections per frequency. In Europe and the likes, the population doesn't get as much as say, brooklyn with 2.3 million people all on top of each other. (ORGY!)
-sporty
MOO!
Re:Why you do not want your PDA and Phone to conve (Score:1)
Re:Why you do not want your PDA and Phone to conve (Score:1)
This is along the lines of the groovy communicator thingies in Earth Final conflict, Camera Top Left, WinCE (I know but hey - I want to be one of the first people in the world with a mobile video phone ;o) PDA with screen and handwriting organisation.
Internet access will be so easy - no plugging phones in or making sure that your Palm III is in direct line of sight of your Motorola L7089 (Got one of them - nice phone - cant wait to bring it to america to test the 1900 service) - just hit the internet service you want and the phone will connect - and with no analogue to digital conversion it will be a blindingly fast connect.
I think that PDAs and phones should merge - I will also see about keeping a seperate phone for when I dont want to lug a PDA around - hopefully Orange will give people a second sim linked to the same account.
The future's Bright - The future's Orange [orange.net].
Why is Europe ahead of us, again? (Score:1)
To slightly contradict what I wrote earlier, I wonder if this would be because the United States was ahead of Europe, so European carriers ended up adopting a later, more advanced digital cellphone protocol.
Anyone know if I'm speculating in the right direction?
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Re:this is what i want and why pda/cell doesn't do (Score:1)
Re:Why you do not want your PDA and Phone to conve (Score:1)
You can't bunch it up in your pocket otherwise it gets knots in it.
I hate having bits of wire hanging off my clothing. (Except maybe the remote for the MD, but that dissapears when people are around) Maybe I will get used to it.... Perhaps it is easier in sunnier climes, (I live in England), where you don't have to keep on puting on layers of clothing. I always find my MD gismo on the wrong layer... or getting tangled.
But you are right that my head is way to irradiated.
Re:Europe (Score:1)
Re:Surface-travellers, not population, is what cou (Score:1)
Re:this is what i want and why pda/cell doesn't do (Score:1)
All of these seem to run those nasty "OSes" from Redmond but check out these pretty things from Fujitsu Personal Systems [fujitsu.com]
Re:Europe (Score:1)
I've actually seen a elementary school kid with a cellular... I am not sure if I should be sad... or happy, as it might be a geek in training..
Re:Europe is ahead of us, again (Score:1)
As far as I can make out, most European countries have at least one wireless network run by the "state" company or an offshoot of it (in actual fact, many of the "state" telcos have now been privatised), and several other networks run by private competitors.
The relative homogeneity of wireless networks in Europe (almost entirely GSM900 and GSM1800) has a lot to do with State regulation; basically, although the providers are private companies, the authorities in each country (and, probably, the European Union) stipulated in advance that These Shall Be The Standards. It's left us with a market which doesn't seem significantly less competitive than that prevailing in the USA (standards don't discourage innovation or competition, as we should know :), but which is nonetheless highly capable and flexible.
Regarding call costs of mobile versus land-line; the biggest difference between the European situation and what seems to be the prevailing standard in the USA is that here, it does not cost anything to receive a call (unless you're roaming to another network from your "home" network). Calls are pretty cheap - of the order of EUR0.02 to EUR0.30 per minute, depending on how much you pay in advance.
A concrete example: my landline (from eircom [eircom.ie] costs approximately EUR18 per month for the "line rental", and local calls cost EUR0.01 per minute off-peak, EUR0.05 per minute during business hours. Non-local calls cost the same off-peak, and EUR0.20 per minute peak. My cellphone (from Eircell [eircell.ie]) costs EUR30 per month, which includes 50 minutes of calls to anywhere in the country - subsequent calls cost between EUR0.15 and EUR0.46 per minute, depending on the time.
Overall, I find that I pay slightly more for my cellphone than for my landline, but I definitely use it a lot more.
Re:Not true. (Score:1)
Re:Not true. (Score:1)
And what was that bit about the "GSM 900 fiasco"? In Europe, GSM 900 is the dominant standard and the fate of 1800 MHz "cityphones" is still unclear. The US just missed the 900 MHz wave, so now they're scrambling to catch up with 1800...
Cheers,
-j.
Re:Why you do not want your PDA and Phone to conve (Score:1)
Things will get seriously cool when Bluetooth products start appearing. Bluetooth is a short range (10 meters), cheap, ubiquitous wireless standard that IBM, Intel, Nokia, Ericson et all are all signed up for.
With a Bluetooth enabled PDA and Cell phone. The PDA will access the net using your phone while it's still in your pocket.
Re:Europe is ahead of us, again (Score:2)
The US's antiquated area code system also made it impossible to create new prefixes exclusively for cellphones, making it difficult if not impossible to distinguish between cellular phones and land line phones. (And, while I'm speculating here, I suspect this is also the reason the receiver pays -- you can't have the caller pay 1c/minute to 914-123-4567 but $1/minute to 914-123-4568!). Whereas here in Finland, all mobile phone numbers start with a special prefix (040, 050, 049) that indicates not only that the phone is mobile, but the network operator as well.
Cheers,
-j.
Re:PDA vs. CRT (Score:1)
Re:Why you do not want your PDA and Phone to conve (Score:1)
I main problem is that the time that I will want to have wireless connection, (For example standing on the platform waiting for a train), lineing up the two units is not going to happen.
Wires are much better if you are walking around.
Also in reply to your point about having a do all PDA... I am quite happy with the relative sparse nature of my PalmIII because it is so reliable. This one reason why I have shied away from the more complex WinCE and Epoc system. The only time I have had to reboot my Palm is when I dropped the thing very hard!
I will admit though that I have a fairly conservative range of applications:
TealDoc,
TealPain,
AvantGo
Tricorder (Erm)
GoType... etc.
Cell Phones (Score:1)
WAP is the future (Score:1)
Nevertheless, how do people feel about the WAP being pushed by admittedly private companies who retain the copyrights to the WAP standard and could pull the rug out from the rest of us at any moment?
PDA vs. CRT (Score:1)
(How about adding a ispell to slash?)
Bob
In one box? One possible solution ... (Score:2)
I was talking cell-phones and PDAs with my former housemates, and one of them pointed to the PDq or similar device (basically a palm with a cellphone) as being pretty neat.
I started to mime how one would use such a device.
"Hello, honey? Can you tell me the directions to the Fergusons' party tonight?"
"Uh-huh, uh-huh
(scribble, scribble)
"Oh, and what's your new cell phone number?"
"Uh huh. Uh huh. Wait a second while I write it down into the PDA."
(scribble, scribble)
"Oh, and
KLIK!
"Honey?!"
Point is, the information that you'd want to *use* from your PDA will be only awkwardly available if you are holding your PDA to your ear (notably lacking in visual senstivity
As I write this message, I realize that there is one possible solution, which is widepread adoption of the in-ear microphone / speakerbud system. That would allow a user to both scribble on the PDA and talk. Of course, it will also speed our descent into a nation of mumbling, detatched zombies, but hey.
timothy
NeoPoint 1000 (Score:1)
I have a NeoPoint 1000 [neopoint.com] PDA phone that I use with SprintPCS. Kind of Palm Pilot'ish except that you can't use a pen.
It's rather painful to add information into the PDA with the phone without handwriting support, but the cool thing about it is the voice recognition based dialing! It keeps your eyes on the road while driving.