Hardware: Palm Unveils the Tungsten T2

By | November 24, 2011
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Palm, Inc. today introduced the Palm Tungsten T2 handheld, with the emphasis on multimedia features:


— 32MB SDRAM (29.5MB user available) of memory for twice the storage capacity of the original Tungsten T handheld
— Palm’s sharpest color screen — a high-resolution 320 x 320 transflective TFT display — for better indoor and outdoor viewing
— Built-in wireless communication suite — Bluetooth, feature-rich email client, SMS, and web browser
— The latest Palm OS(R), v5.2.1, with updated software features, including Graffiti(R) 2 and on-screen writing for input in the Tungsten T2 handheld’s compact mode
— MP3, video playback, and photo software for listening to music files, playing movie trailers, and storing photos(1)

The Palm Tungsten T2 handheld debuts at $399 (all prices estimated U.S. street price). Also effective today, Palm announced the price reduction of two current handhelds. The Palm m130 handheld is reduced from $199 to $179, and the Palm m515 handheld is reduced from $299 to $249.

News: Outlaw Spam Or Else

By | November 24, 2011
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Seems like I stand corrected. Spam is evil and filters are not doing their job. U.S. senators will today release a new national survey showing that email users overwhelmingly favor a federal do-not-spam list. The survey, conducted by ePrivacy Group and the Ponemon Institute, also shows that almost 80% of consumers want a federal law banning spam.

Other key findings indicate current solutions to stop unwanted email, such as filtering and opt-out mechanisms, are not working. Many consumers spend 30 minutes or more each day just dealing with spam. On the hot topic of spoofed email, over 60% of persons surveyed had received fake or spoofed email from a trusted brand, with many reporting that such messages contained pornography, a computer virus, or a false message. Electronic copies will be available later today.

Well, this is all true, and some laws might be a good thing. But won’t that just shove everything offshore? I hate spam as much as the next guy, but I reckon the secret is just to make it so unprofitable for them that they slink away and train spot, or whatever it was they did before. That means not just laws, but assiduous spam filtering.

News: Draw Your Own Website

By | November 24, 2011
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netomat, “a pioneer in communication software and network-based art”, has just released its new personal multimedia communication service. The beta (for both PC and Mac) is now available as a free download.

netomat allows anyone to “create and publish or send multimedia websites, emails and blogs using any combination of digital pictures, audio, voice, text, free-form drawing and animation — all in just a few minutes”. Looks intriguing.

Update: Why We Are So Confused, Part II

By | November 24, 2011
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From the Thank God Someone Has Figured It Out Dept AMD have released the second installment of their report on customer confusion over terms, which I looked at a few weeks back.

This bit caught my eye:

Our study results also showed that mobile phones are perceived to be one of the least confusing technology products. We hypothesize this may be because cell phones are largely an extension of an existing technology ingrained in everyday life – the regular telephone.

While I agree 100% that phones have managed to keep folk not confused, I’m not sure it’s because they’re an extension of existing technology. It’s because they’re relatively simple. Maximum ten features, ten menus, that’s it. Green button to call or receive calls; red button to hang up. I’ve seen people of all sorts — and I really mean that — using them and exploring their features. When a guy who never went to high school can change a ring tone, you know you have a technology that’s up his street.

Anyway, the report goes on:

However, given what we’ve seen of consumer reticence to adopt complicated high-tech products such as digital cameras and PDAs, consider what might happen as mobile phone manufacturers incorporate these potentially confusing functionalities into their phones.

Once again, right on the money. I’m not convinced a Smart Phone is a great idea if you can’t answer it easily, or make an emergency call with it without some fiddly stylus, or earpiece, or if the software reboots. If you add features to something that’s successful because it’s simple, is it successful anymore?