Computing Unplugged - Pharos GPS review, ad-hoc networks, plus news

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June 7, 2004 INSIDE THIS ISSUE Pharos GPS Navigator review Intro to mobile ad-hoc networks This week's news

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WIFILE GIVES YOU WIRELESS ACCESS TO YOUR FILES! Amazing new software lets your wireless Palm OS device access files on corporate networks, school servers and home computers. Edit documents and spreadsheets, listen to music, view or upload photos, and more. Works with smartphones, WiFi and Bluetooth devices. Download a FREE Trial at Hands High Software.

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PRODUCT REVIEW
Finding your way with the Pharos Pocket GPS Navigator
By David Gewirtz

I'll never understand how they do it. For some reason, though you know they're nasty, the hotdogs you eat in Yankee Stadium while the Yanks pulverize the evil Rangers are better than any other hotdog you'll ever eat, anywhere else.

Of course, to be able to chow down from the cheap seats, you've first got to get there. And that brings us to the heart of our story: the Pharos GPS and Ostia in-car navigation software.

If you've never used a GPS, you're in for a treat. A GPS (or Global Positioning System navigator) is truly amazing. This little device, smaller than the palm of your hand, talks to a series of satellites in orbit around the Earth, constantly updating positional information.

That positional information, in the form of latitude and longitude, is fed into the navigation software. The navigation software adds a number of key components to the GPS in-car navigation formula. First, the GPS receiver itself knows where you are on the planet. By recording where you are now... and now ... the computer connected to the GPS receiver can tell which direction you're moving in, and approximately how fast.

Combine speed, location, and direction with a set of good maps, and you've got a ball game.

The best way to describe the Pharos hardware and Ostia software is to say it's both absolutely amazing and an idiot savant. It's really, really smart and really, really stupid, at exactly the same time. It works quite well, but you've got to work hard, along with it. I'll tell you about that in a moment.

Want to find your way through New York traffic? Tap your mouse here to get there.

WIRELESS INFRASTRUCTURE
Understanding mobile ad-hoc networks
Humayun Bakht is an expert in mobile ad-hoc networks, studing for his doctorate at John Moores University in Liverpool. In this interesting article, the first in a series, he discusses just what a mobile ad-hoc network is, and what this technology may mean for us going into the future.

To read the full article, click here.

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COMPUTING UNPLUGGED NEWS CENTER
This week's news
Want to get the very latest mobile and wireless news? The Computing Unplugged News Center is updated every day with news of product releases, industry info, tips, techniques, and pointers to great mobile and wireless resources on the Web. Here's this week's news:

Linksys posts beta firmware
Linksys has posted a beta firmware update for the WRT54G wireless router to close a potential remote access hole in its security.

ToDo Now 1.0
PDA Performance has released ToDo Now version 1.0, a To Do list replacement for Palm OS handhelds. The software has many new features to manage your To Do records, including a revolutionary attachment/linking system.

Hotmail incinerates files
Alexandria Felton logged on to her Hotmail account last month and was shocked to find that all of her saved files were gone due to "system events," the files were gone forever, and there was nothing to be done about it. In a statement, Microsoft said "issues" have occasionally beset its Hotmail service, although the most recent case appears to have affected only Felton's free account.

Hop on the gaming bandwagon
Inspired by predictions of brisk growth in the $1 billion online game market, IBM, Sun Microsystems and other companies normally not associated with dragon-slaying adventures have launched projects recently to handle the complex infrastructure needed to run online games. IBM is one of the main backers of Butterfly.net, a growing effort to apply grid supercomputing techniques to operating online games.

Wi-Fi at Hyatt
Hyatt Hotels & Resorts announced plans to provide wireless Internet service at most of its properties in the United States. The service, to be powered by T-Mobile, will be accessible from the lobbies and other public areas at most Hyatt hotels, as well as in some guest rooms.

Double-click patent analysis
Last week we reported on the patent Microsoft received for double-click technology. This article by Joanna Glasner on Wired looks at some of the potential ramifications of the patent.

Reagan dead at 93
He was one of the truly great presidents of the 20th Century. Our best wishes go out to his family and friends.

OQO Ultra Personal Computer
OQO's Ultra Personal Computer is a 14-ounce notebook replacement that runs XP and offers full computer functionality is the promise of OQO's Ultra Personal Computer. This ZD Net webcast with OQO chief technology officer has more information and a demo of the device. You'll need to choose your player for the streaming video from the link page.

Microsoft ActiveSync 3.7.1
Microsoft ActiveSync 3.7.1 is the latest synchronization software for Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs and Smartphones. ActiveSync 3.7.1 contains fixes making synchronization more trouble free and includes all the improvements in ActiveSync 3.5, 3.6 and 3.7.

HP $500 color laser
In a bid to expand its printing business, Hewlett-Packard on Wednesday announced a slew of new products and partnerships focused on color imaging and printing. HP is targeting both consumers and businesses with the offers, which include a new $499 color laser printer in North America.

Proporta aluminum cases
Proporta announced their newest collection of aluminum cases for the new Sony TH55 and Zire 72. As the Zire 72 aluminum case is not yet available, Proporta is offering a "Neoprene While You Wait" deal. By placing an order for the Zire 72 aluminum case now, you will get a soft neoprene case immediately to protect your Palm until the aluminum cases are shipped.

Free software for schools
Through Sept. 30, schools that purchase a minimum of 30 Tungsten C wireless handhelds through the palmOne Education Purchase Program will get a free license to use a file distribution and exchange program in the classroom. LearnTracFX from the Readiness Company is designed to help teachers create a wireless classroom learning environment where they can distribute and collect assignments and study materials for an entire class, selected groups, or individual students, via a wireless network.

Candy Cruncher update
Astraware has posted an update of Candy Cruncher. The update is available free to registered users.

Amacom 300GB ez2 drive
Amacom Technologies has added a 300GB external hard drive to its ez2 range. The new device also comes with Amacom's unique disaster recovery software FlipBack to enable users to make a mirror image of their desk top in the event of theft or internal hard drive failure.

Hong Kong deploys Hornet DE
Contec Innovations, a global provider of mobile data infrastructure, announced they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Hong Kong Wireless Development Center for the deployment of Contec's Hornet DE mobile services delivery platform. The Hornet will be installed in HKWDC's facility at Cyberport in Hong Kong SAR and will be connected to all six mobile operators in Hong Kong.

Battle Dwarves
Infinite Ventures announced the worldwide release of Battle Dwarves, a strategy-action game for Microsoft Smartphones including the Motorola MPx200, Orange SPV, and Samsung i600. Players are challenged to take on the tactics and weapons of the six unique teams of Battle Dwarves.

Linksys routers open to sniffing
Security portal SecuriTeam published an exploit that could allow hackers and other nasty people to remotely sniff traffic passing through the router, and also crash the device. The article says it all comes down to a "memory leak", causing a flaw in the way the Linksys routers' DHCP server returns BOOTP protocol packets.

Exif Untrasher updated
Cartsten Blum has released version 1.3.6 of Exif Untrasher, a Mac OS X application to unerase files from flash storage media. The new version fixes a bug which caused the list of volume names to hide the vertical scroll bar, making it appear as if some volumes were missing.

New Microsoft DRM technology
Microsoft is set to offer for download a "public preview" beta release of its Windows Media Player 10 technology. The biggest enhancement will be the new DRM (digital-rights-management) technology, code-named "Janus," that will be embedded inside.

ATP 512MB miniSD
ATP Electronics announced that it will introduce the first 512MB miniSD at Computex 2004. ATP miniSD cards mainly target the next-generation smart mobile phones with built-in cameras, video recorders, MP3 players, video games, personal information management (PIM), email and voicemail functions that require intensive storage.

Clie says goodbye to US
Sony announced that it will no longer develop and sell Clie handheld models to the United States market, primarily due to flat overall sales in handhelds for the past two years. Brighthand has more complete information on Sony's announcement.

Clie says goodbye to US
Sony announced that it will no longer develop and sell Clie handheld models to the United States market, primarily due to flat overall sales in handhelds for the past two years. Brighthand has more complete information on Sony's announcement.

Wireless networks lack security
While Wi-Fi is hot, security is not. Experts say that while Wi-Fi hardware makers have made initial setup easy, the enabling of security is anything but.

NEC Power Handheld
NEC is showing its entry into the lightweight but powerful portable computing category with a hybrid phone and personal digital assistant. Power Handheld, developed by Bsquare, is about to be released in the United Kingdom bundled with a wireless phone and Internet service from a wireless carrier.

World's Fastest Memory Card
Pretec Electronics is demonstrating the world's first USB card reader supporting MMC 4.0 4-bit mode, which can possibly reach the access speed of up to 26MB/s, the highest speed flash memory card reader in the world today.

ProBackup MMC/SD card
Proporta's ProBackup software is now available on a 128 Mb card to keep in line with the needs of newer Palm and PPC models.

Proporta GPS Solution
Proporta has released Bluetooth and Serial GPS Navigation for PalmOS and Pocket PC with plans for a Symbian version soon. Proporta is also offering a bundle deal on its new Crystal Cases. By using the following promotion code, GPSCR20, you will receive an automatic 20% discount off all Crystal cases when purchasing GPS.

Mounties charge virus suspect
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have charged a teenager in connection with a worm that could be used to create an army of zombie computers for delivering spam. The 16-year-old from the Mississauga, Ontario, area faces several charges, including mischief against data and fraudulent use of a computer.

Spammer legal questions
It might be difficult to convict spammers under the Can Spam Act and other state and local antispam laws, because to hold someone criminally responsible for a crime, there needs to what is known as "minimum contacts." This means that the accused has to have some kind of presence in the state in which they are convicted, and mass emails to people in a particular state might not be enough to show minimum contacts.

Flux Challenge alpha
PDAmill has made the alpha version of their Pocket PC 3D racer called Flux Challenge available to the public. weekly updated versions are planned as finalization of the game progresses.

Handhelds for Rio Grande
The addition of 1,000 Zire 71 and Tungsten E handhelds from palmOne to the Rio Grande City Consolidated Independent School District at Fort Ringgold brings the total to more than 2,700 handheld computers in second through fifth grades, to motivating students and helping prepare them for the demanding Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills test administered by the state annually.

Astraware Summer Sale
Astraware has kicked off their Hot Summer Sale, knocking $5 off a broad range of 13 titles including the recently released Toucan Tango. The sale runs for the entire month of June.

Nokia Light-Up Camera Phone
Nokia announced the 3220 camera phone and a new Xpress-on Fun Shell accessory. The 3220 is a tri-band GSM phone with pulsating light effects, custom cut-out covers, and a VGA camera that records video clips.

Nokia Light-Up Camera Phone
Nokia announced the 3220 camera phone and a new Xpress-on Fun Shell accessory. The 3220 is a tri-band GSM phone with pulsating light effects, custom cut-out covers, and a VGA camera that records your video clips.

Dual port USB Host CF card
Twin Paradox and Cypress Semiconductor announced a unique new CompactFlash USB host adapter card that enables mobile professionals to connect multiple USB devices such as USB mini Flash hard drives, full-size USB keyboards, and USB printers to their Pocket PCs.

GapiDraw 3.0
Develant Technologies has released an update to their game development platform GapiDraw 3.0, adding Palm OS 5 and Tapwave Zodiac support to the GapiDraw platform.

Abidia Wireless version 2.2
Abidia announced the release of Abidia Wireless version 2.2 for Windows Mobile Pocket PC, the latest version of their cellular phone application that brings eBay to wireless devices.

XtremePower
XtremePower from the MAC Group is a rechargeable portable power solution for digital cameras, portable flash, laptops, handhelds, portable printers and more. Available in two sizes, the 10x and 20x, XtremePower is designed to provide the correct voltage for whatever device you power using internal regulation components and device specific cables.

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