TamsPPC – the PocketPC Blog

We have covered the World Business Guide Scam some time ago – don’t ask me why, but the jerks still don’t give up (even though they know that I covered them on here some time ago). The email below has just hit my inbox:

Ladies and Gentlemen.

In order to have your company inserted in the registry of World Businesses for 2009/2010 edition, please print, complete and submit the enclosed form (PDF file) to the following address:

WORLD BUSINESS GUIDE
P.O. Box 2021
3500 GA Utrecht
The Netherlands

email: register@wbgtoday.net
FAX: redacted

Updating is free of charge!

If you are not the intended recipient, please submit an email to unsubscribe@wbgtoday.net Your request shall be dealt with accordingly.

Once again: if you get ANY communication from these folks, just delete/destroy it unless it comes from a court in your home country (which has never happened so far). The boys have never sued anyone AFAIK, and are sending these emails out illegally themselves.

Yours truly might not notice too much of whats going around him – but when it comes to devices, my eyes are peeled. Palm’s Treo 750v has had a short life in Austria as a device peddled by Hutchison 3G with very moderate success – they have since banished it from their stock list, replacing it with other WM devices.

I stumbled across the booth below at a busy road in Vienna:

Looking carefully, I figured that my first impression was right – the clerks were equipped with black Treo 750v handhelds:

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you much more. The clerks told me that the devices were provided to them by the company (Marlboro), and that they are not allowed to talk to the press…

P.S. The disclaimer below is needed under Austria’s anti-tobacco laws. I (a non-smoker) consider it a pity that it is needed in a country which openly advertises its freedom of the press.

This post is not intended to promote smoking in any way. Smoking can harm your health, mental functions and bystanders.

In Austria, couples are afraid of the seventh year of their relation…which means that essentially every number can be construed to mean something negative. Fortunately, Crazy Sunday is here to stay!

This week, there is stuff to be had. In particular, you can get your claws onto a free license of MSDict PONS Kompaktwörterbuch Englisch from Mobile Systems. This dictionary is very helpful for people who speak both German and English – in case the winner doesn’t know both languages, we will definitely be able to find something else.

Getting your hands onto the goods is really easy: leave a non-spam comment on ANY post on TamsPPC. DO fill in your email address so that we can contact you if you have won – it will not be abused in any way. Multiple entries are permitted!

New from this week is entry via the TamsForum. The TamsForum has been around for quite some time, but didn’t quite get off the ground so far – participating in the discussion there also enters you into the raffle.

Finally, it’s time to look at last week’s price. We had a wonderful license of FlipSide – it went to user ckeegan. In case anyone of you feels like taking a stab, use the discount code CRAZYSUNDAY to get 20% off the product’s list price in the TamsShop.

P.S. If you have ideas about the TamsForum, leave them here. They will be counted towards the competition!

Week 2 of our Crazy Sunday raffle is over: this means that one price must be given away, and another one must be announced. Before we get down to the nitty-gritty, please allow me to thank you all for talking back!

Your comments are what keeps a news service like this one running. Tell us that you love us, or tell that you hate us (and why)…but show us that you are there! We love you all…seriously!

This week, you guys are entitled to a free pop at SplashData’s SplashID! Keep your passwords in line – it helps!

Last week’s price (a license of Resco BackUp for PocketPC) goes straight back to the prize queue – don’t ask me why nobody claimed it…

In case anyone wants a pop at the program, knock 20% off the product’s retail price in the TamsShop with the discount code CRAZYSUNDAY.

With that, this post ends – just talk back and leave behind an email address in order to participate!

I guess that the quote below doesn’t need any further explanation:

Early U.S. sales of the new Nintendo DSi hand-held system are ahead of those for Nintendo DS Lite, according to Nintendo’s internal tracking numbers. In its first week, Nintendo DSi sold 435,000 in the United States. After the same amount of time on the U.S. market after its launch, Nintendo DS Lite had sold 226,300 systems. These numbers demonstrate that the Nintendo DS brand remains strong, and that consumers continue to look for the best new experiences on their portable video game systems.

When looking at the figures above, the folks claiming that the Nintendo DS moves ten times as many games as the Sony PSP seem pretty honest. I heard from multiple industry sources in Austria about this phenomenon, and have to wonder why…

Ideas, anyone?

Image: Baron Valium

My trusty Jaybird JB200 bluetooth headset did not survive a recent surprise encounter with a washing machine…while I was perfectly happy with the headset, I decided to give wired headphones another shot. As Apple’s headphones were reasonably cheap and included a microphone, I wanted to give them a shot.

Plugging them in required an unnatural amount of force, and getting them back out of my device turned out to be impossible due to the soft and rubbery finish of both plug and cable. But they were detected as headset at the least.

Unfortunately, this recognition did not mean much. Audio was tinny all the time except when I kept the center button of the remote firmly pressed…the moment I let go of the button, tracks once again sounded like they were being played back through a thick wall of fog.

From my point of view, the 30 Euros invested turned out to be a major waste – 5 Euro headsets will likely deliver better audio quality than these when paired up with an X1 or similar non-Apple handset. Apple: this pair of headphones goes straight back to the shop where I bought them. In case anyone of you is in a similar situation: stay far away from Apple’s Earphones with Remote and Mic.

I have no idea why handset designers keep playing around with their handset’s keyboards…the latest victim is a device designed by Samsung for Verizon (who will peddle it as Alias2):

The image above hits us via PhoneArena, with Engadget Mobile claiming that the keys are “identified” via an underlying E-Ink display.

As of now, no tests have been performed to determine the usability of this new input method. While I personally fear that the usability will be bad due to sub-par materials (this is said to be a cheap handset), I dare to say that this is the first keyboard idea which has impressed me.

Future devices using this technology could allow customers to dynamically adapt the keyboard layout of their devices, for example by replacing unpopular special characters with others he needs more often (I’d love to ditch some weird chars on my XPERIA’s keyboard for < and >, for example).

What do you think?

The Wall Street Journal reports that China has censored various US video sharing sites including our video host blip.tv and Google’s YouTube. The reason for the ban is short and sweet:

…
The latest YouTube ban coincides with the March 20 release by the Tibetan Government-in-Exile of a video allegedly showing Chinese forces beating Tibetans during protests that occurred in March 2008.

The video was also posted on Blip.tv, a U.S. video-sharing site that was also blocked Tuesday in China. The site urged the Chinese government to “embrace the openness of the Internet.
…

As the Tamoggemon Content Network is to remain free of political statements due to corporate policy, this post ends here.

Image: Wikimedia Commons, lightboxing by Tam Hanna

Carriers all over the world are suffering from an ever-increasing amount of data traffic on their 3.5G networks: the proliferation of high-end smartphones and (especially) netbooks has led to data usage increasing in an almost-exponential fashion. As an example, I used to use about 90MB a month when on my Treo…and currently burn over 1500MB a month with the MSI Wind (love these Windows Updates) and the XPERIA X1

MocoNews reports that carriers may soon start to charge more for data traffic caused at “rush hour”:

A majority of mobile executives agree that as networks struggle to keep up with data traffic over the next few years, carriers will start charging different rates depending on the time of day, according to a global report that surveyed 228 senior execs across the industry. … and more than half of all respondents agreed that “an important revenues source for operators” was that carriers would start charging variable prices for bandwidth consumption at different times of the day.

Even though I personally see little benefit from this (as users will “flee” from rush hours, thereby creating overload before and/or afterwards), it nevertheless remains a possibility which overloaded carriers could try out of desperation. What do you think?

Image (c): abc texte/Dr. Kohrs – no reproduction permitted

According to the CNN, Mosquitoes in Africa will soon face a new technological threat:

Lead scientist on the project, Dr. Jordin Kare, told CNN that the laser would be able to sweep an area and “toast millions of mosquitoes in a few minutes.”

Unfortunately, initial shipments of the technology are intended to go to Africa (as there are more Mosquitoes there). Nevertheless, the Tamoggemon Content team can literally hear the screams of millions of people in the west and east begging for such a device…let’s all keep our hopes up for now.

P.S. Some of the technology was recycled from the US Star Wars project…I would say that this is literally a case of tax dollars at work…

Image: pd per United States Department of Health and Human Services, via Wikimedia Commons

The folks at Gartner’s have recently posted a document containing all kinds of interesting excerpts from their report on mobile device market shares.

Key points are as follows:

• Nokia looses in high-end, thereby allows other OSses to grow
• Apple iPhone sales declining
• HTC had record sales of HTC-branded products

Finally, here’s the full report for your enjoyment:

Gartner Says Worldwide Smartphone Sales Reached Its Lowest Growth Rate With 3.7 Per Cent Increase in Fourth Quarter of 2008

In the fourth quarter of 2008, worldwide sales of smartphones to end users reached 38.1 million units, an increase of 3.7 per cent on the fourth quarter of 2007, according to Gartner, Inc. Global sales of smartphones for 2008 reached 139.3 million devices, up 13.9 per cent compared with 2007.

“After a strong third quarter with new product introductions, sequential growth slowed down again in the fourth quarter as fewer compelling new products and the worsened economic climate continued to make data plans associated with smartphones out of reach for most consumers,“ said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. “In general in 2008, the focus from vendors and operators on increasing their smartphone portfolios remained very strong. Samsung, RIM, HTC and Apple saw their volumes and share increase during 2008 (see Table 2), thanks to their ability to offer compelling device experiences and touch interfaces.”

As a proportion of all mobile device sales, smartphones remained stable at 12 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008, from 11 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2007. Samsung entered the top five vendors ranking for the first time (see Table 1), replacing Sharp. RIM recorded an increase in sales both sequentially and year-over-year, while Nokia’s volumes continued to fall.

Table 1
Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor, 4Q08 (Thousands of Units)

Company	4Q08    Sales	Market    Share  4Q08 (%)	4Q07   Sales	Market    Share  4Q07    (%)	4Q07-4Q08 Growth   (%)
Nokia	15,561.7	40.8	18,703.3	50.9	-16.8
Research In Motion	7,442.6	19.5	4,024.7	10.9	84.9
Apple	4,079.4	10.7	1,928.3	5.2	111.6
HTC	1,631.7	4.3	1,361.1	3.7	19.9
Samsung	1,598.2	4.2	671.5	1.8	138.0
Others	7,829.7	20.5	10,077.3	27.4	-22.3
Total	38,143.3	100.0	36,766.1	100.0	3.7

Note: Under the name HTC, Gartner counts only the company’s own-branded devices. The devices that HTC designs for mobile operators are shown separately under the operators’ names in these statistics.
Source: Gartner (March 2009)

Nokia maintained its No. 1 position, but in the fourth quarter of 2008 its smartphone sales declined by 16.8 per cent year-on-year. This also contributed to the overall weakness of the global smartphone segment in 4Q08, as the company commanded 40.8 per cent of the market. Nokia’s entry-level smartphone range will continue to offer good value for the money, but Nokia remains more exposed to pressure from competition in the higher end of the consumer smartphone market as the Nseries loses its appeal.

Apple’s initial sell-through dropped significantly as sales fell during the fourth quarter. Nevertheless, Apple maintained its third position in the global rankings. Apple built an inventory of about two million iPhone units in the third quarter of 2008 which did not reduce significantly in the fourth quarter. With Apple’s sequential decline, volumes were driven by new product introductions such as the RIM Storm, the T-Mobile G1 (the first product based on Google’s Android platform), and strong performance from Samsung’s touchscreen products. HTC had a very strong quarter with record sales of its HTC-branded devices and operator-branded devices.

Table 2
Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor, 2008 (Thousands of Units)

Company	2008 Sales	Market Share  2008 (%)	2007 Sales	Market Share  2007   (%)	Growth 2007-2008   (%)
Nokia	60,920.5	43.7	60,465.0	49.4	0.8
Research In Motion	23,149.0	16.6	11,767.7	9.6	96.7
Apple	11,417.5	8.2	3,302.6	2.7	245.7
HTC	5,895.4	4.2	3,718.5	3.0	58.5
Sharp	5,234.2	3.8	6,885.3	5.6	-24.0
Others	32,671.4	23.5	36,176.6	29.6	-9.7
Total	139,287.9	100.0	122,315.6	100.0	13.9

Note: For HTC we only count the company’s own-branded devices. The devices that HTC designs and which have the operator’s brand are given separately under the operator’s name in our statistics.
Source: Gartner (March 2009)

In the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Symbian’s share of the global market decreased to 47.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008, down from its 2007 share of 62.3 per cent (see Table 3). Pressure from new platforms entering the consumer space, the continued decline of Nokia’s smartphone sales and the weakness of the Japanese mobile device market have negatively affected Symbian’s share. Meanwhile, RIM successfully grew its year-on-year share of the global smartphone market to 19.5 per cent from 10.9 per cent. Gartner estimated that Android smartphones accounted for 20 per cent of total Linux sales in the fourth quarter of 2008.

In the fourth quarter of 2008, Microsoft’s share of the global smartphone market improved sequentially, with unit sales up 16 per cent over 3Q08. This was mainly driven by the popularity of Samsung Omnia and touchscreen products from HTC. Sales of Linux-based smartphones were up by 19 per cent year-over-year, mainly through Android-based smartphones being available through T-Mobile during the fourth quarter of 2008.

Table 3
Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System, 4Q08 (Thousands of Units)

Company	4Q08 Sales	Market Share   4Q08 (%)	4Q07 Sales	Market Share  4Q07 (%)	Growth 4Q07-4Q08 (%)
Symbian	17,949.1	47.1	22,902.5	62.3	-21.6
Research In Motion	7,442.6	19.5	4,024.7	10.9	84.9
Microsoft Windows Mobile	4,713.9	12.4	4,374.4	11.9	7.8
Mac OS X	4,079.4	10.7	1,928.3	5.2	111.6
Linux	3,194.9	8.4	2,675.9	7.3	19.4
Palm OS	326.5	0.9	449.1	1.2	-27.3
Other OSs	436.9	1.1	411.3	1.1	6.2
Total	38,143.3	100.0	36,766.1	100.0	3.7

Note: The “Other OSs” category includes sales of Sharp Sidekick devices based on the Danger platform.
Source: Gartner (March 2009)

Table 4
Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System, 2008 (Thousands of Units)

Company	2008 Sales	Market Share  2008 (%)	2007 Sales	Market Share  2007 (%)	Growth 2007-2008 (%)
Symbian	72,933.5	52.4	77,684.0	63.5	-6.1
Research In Motion	23,149.0	16.6	11,767.7	9.6	96.7
Microsoft Windows Mobile	16,498.1	11.8	14,698.0	12.0	12.2
Mac OS X	11,417.5	8.2	3,302.6	2.7	245.7
Linux	11,262.9	8.1	11,756.7	9.6	-4.2
Palm OS	2,507.2	1.8	1,762.7	1.4	42.2
Other OSs	1,519.7	1.1	1,344.0	1.1	13.1
Total	139,287.9	100.0	122,315.6	100.0	13.9

Note: The “Other OSs” category includes sales of Sharp Sidekick devices based on the Danger platform.
Source: Gartner (March 2009)

On a regional level, the North American smartphone market continued to grow, despite the larger economic problems. Smartphones account for roughly 20 per cent of sales in this region, a dramatic increase over the past year. Smartphone sales in North America grew 69 per cent in 2008. While sales will grow at a slower pace, the market will be driven by support from operators in the region aggressively pushing data plans. Smartphones will also see increased competition from full-featured enhanced phones that may offer a full qwerty keyboard. These devices offer much of the functionality of a smartphone, but at a lower price.

Smartphone sales in Asia/Pacific recorded a 2.3 per cent sequential growth, reaching 7.5 million unit sales, even though overall mobile device sales dropped by 9.2 per cent. The drop in overall sales was attributable to weak consumer confidence, but sales of high-end devices remained good, leading to positive sequential growth for smartphones. Market leader Nokia lost market share marginally by 2 per cent to Apple. Others that gained in the region were RIM and Samsung. Touch-based devices continued to attract consumers in this segment.

Smartphone sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) were up by only 2 per cent in 4Q08 compared with the same period last year. Despite replacement purchases slowing down in Western Europe, smartphone sales still recorded a 9.6 per cent increase in the region. Samsung was the main contributor to the growth in Europe thanks to the success of its Omnia touchscreen smartphone. Samsung’s share nearly tripled during the fourth quarter of 2008 and the strong push of its touchscreen offerings in EMEA put pressure on HTC.

Ms Cozza concluded: “In 2009, mobile platforms will be a major battleground as the associated user experience and role of the ecosystem grow in importance.”

Additional information is available in the Gartner report “Market Share: Smartphones, Worldwide, 4Q08 and 2008″. The report is on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=908313&subref=simplesearch.

Dr. Schaffer’s Mobile Computing facility at the Austrian FH Hagenberg has produced quite a few really amazing projects (think Shaker Racer) in the last years; the knowledge of their faculty staff is top-notch and contains loads of Forum Nokia champions. Cutting a long story short: the price (free) is more than right – I am there for about 6 months now and am happy overall.

In case anyone of you feels like adding a Bachelor of Science in Mobile Computing to your business card, definitely consider these boys. As tuition is free and living in Linz is dirt cheap (900E/month max), interested German-speakers are well advised to visit their open-house day to find out more about how to get great education for a very low price…which is held tomorrow:

FH Hagenberg Campus
Softwarepark 11
4232 Hagenberg/Austria

Open: 9h to 18h local time

Yours truly will be around photographing stuff – if anyone of you happens to drop by, you should have no issues tracking me down! I’d appreciate seeing some of you there…

The quote below hits us via CNet News:

Olympus has set a ship date, albeit one with a lot of wiggle room, for its first high-end compact camera using the Micro Four Thirds technology.

The camera maker first showed a nonworking “concept model” of the camera at the Photokina show last September, and the same model is on display here at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) trade show. Now, though it sports a label, “launching this summer.”

As a reminder: the Micro four Thirds format will allow the creation of ultra-small digital cameras with exchangeable lenses. Panasonic’s Lumix G1 is the first (somewhat disappointing) product based on the standard…

Even though Microsoft’s booth didn’t contain a demo of marketplace, they nevertheless had loads of visitors…many of which were attracted by a huge wall showcasing various Windows Mobile devices which could even be used on-site:

The list below is lists all touchscreened devices which were shown and usable (sequence of showing):
Acer DX900

HTC Touch HD

AnyData ASP-505A

GSmart MS820

GSmart S1200

Inventec V338

Inventec Zen

Palm Treo Pro

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1

Another Touch HD

LG Eigen

Motorola MotoSURF A3100

Samsung Omnia

HP Data messenger

Lenovo ET660

Lenovo ET700

MobiNNova Ice

MobiNNova PP4570

MobiNNova PP5500

The devices below were shown in lockers and could not be used for various reasons:
Toshiba TG01

Asus M20

Mio GPS Phone

Acer M900

Acer X960

I have never been to happy with the way traditional print magazines cover mobile and IT-related topics: the Austrian daily magazine Kurier just shot the ball right out of their court with a three-page story looking at the “various dangers of computer gaming”. As usual, all of it was bullsh*t – read on for the best parts:

Safer texts – or – on copy and paste
In Austria, journalists usually receive training which allows them to disguise PR gags from real events. However, the padded lamp post story (which has been forgotten for a few months) has just received a revival from the boys in red:

I have no idea why they didn’t stumble across messages like these:

Charity organisation Living Streets said that, if the trial is successful, streets including Charing Cross Road, Old Bond Street and Oxford Street will be fitted with the lampposts.
Advertisement

The padding is sponsored by directory enquiries service 118118, which commissioned a study into injuries suffered while texting.

Demanding them to ask themselves why the original Yahoo story was pulled is – um – superfluous…

Wii: movement causes pain
After having proven their intellectual prowess with the story above, idiocies continue on the next page:

The picture shows a gamer playing Wii Fit, while the tag line claims that “all kinds of bodily injuries are caused by the Wii, as it demands bodily activity”. I ask myself what they would write about sports like Tennis or Jogging…but am pretty sure that it would be a lot less aggressive.

In the end, I personally feel offended by their sloppy and misleading editorial work. If this wouldn’t be my wife’s subscription, I would cancel it immediately…and urge any Austrian computer gamers to give them the same treatment. Not getting enough ad purchases from game manufacturers can be painful – but IMHO does not allow for insane moves like the one above…