BlackBerry, Bluetooth Miss a Shot to Move Into More Hands
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these two uses of wireless technology have remained stubbornly irrelevant to many mainstream users, despite the benefits they might offer and the hype they often get in the press.
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Apple bucked convention when it asked people to commit both hands when using the iPhone. Was that the right touch?
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Because life's isn't just a bowl of BlackBerries Workshop roundup As mobility has entered the mainstream, most of the focus to date - at least in the media and among analysts - has been on connecting up mobile professionals via BlackBerries, Windows Mobile devices and laptop data cards.â¦
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Aussie developers use secondary mics for noise suppression Adding a second microphone to a Bluetooth headset significantly improves its ability to capture speech by making it more effective at noise cancellation and suppression, according to Australian audio software developer Dynamic Hearing.â¦
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Great innovations in wireless technologies have arrived in recent years, and their effect has yet to be realized. But those innovations may be hindered by thinking that an even better innovation is just around the corner.
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Resarch In Motion has changed the shape of this BlackBerry, making it sleeker than its previous business-oriented devices. However, while usability is high, it's missing advanced features like 3G and Wi-Fi support.
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Research In Motion's    BlackBerry could lose its iconic status in the eyes of  corporate and retail subscribers alike if it doesn't manage to  stem service problems such the ones that led to two major  outages in less than a year, analysts say.
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Now head-to-head with Microsoft Mobile Workshop After dominating the enterprise mobile email space with the BlackBerry solution for so many years, RIM is no longer the only serious game in town. Despite a number of false starts, arch-rival Microsoft now appears to have closed the gap, at least in terms of forward looking commitment.â¦
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A disruption of BlackBerry cellphones in North America for several hours Monday was caused by the failure of one of its recently upgraded systems, Research in Motion said Tuesday.
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Research In Motion, the makers of the BlackBerry push email handheld device, and Symbian have announced plans to enable BlackBerry Connect on Symbian OS-based Series 80 mobile devices, such as the Nokia 9210, 9210i, 9290 and the new 9500 Communicator.
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The popular wireless technology known as Bluetooth could get a lot faster next year by taking advantage of Wi-Fi technology already built into many gadgets.
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One standard not two Nokia launched its Wibree personal area network technology in October 2006 as an extension to Bluetooth. Today, Wibree became Bluetooth. The Nokia-led Wibree Forum is to merge with the Bluetooth SIG, the body that oversees the wireless standard.â¦
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A future version of Bluetooth will allow connections to hop on Wi-Fi networks when additional bandwidth is required.
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Those business users who can't make the leap to Apple's iPhone may be happy to hear that Research in Montion has unveiled a new BlackBerry model that offers quad-band GSM support and Wi-Fi connectivity in the company's thinnest form factor yet.
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Sorry, Blackberry. Anything you can do they can do better.
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(InfoWorld) - Nokia has developed a new, short-range wireless technology that it says could improve on some of the shortcomings of Bluetooth. Called Wibree, the technology aims to be a lot more power-efficient than Bluetooth, which means it could be used in smaller and less costly devices. It can also use the same radio and antenna components as Bluetooth, helping keep costs down further, said Bob Iannucci, head of Nokia's research center, who unveiled the technology in Helsinki on Tuesday. The technology could compete with Bluetooth in the workplace as a way to link keyboards and other peripherals to computers. But it could also have more interesting applications for consumers, in devices such as wrist watches, toys, and sports equipment. Because of its low power requirements, it could be used in tiny sensors that could be worn by a jogger, for example, to collect information about his heart rate or distance travelled. The sensors could send the information to a mobile phone via Wibree, which in turn would upload the information to a Web site where the jogger could compare his performance with that of other runners or get advice from a trainer. Wibree sensors could also be placed in a gold club and used to upload data to the Internet about a player's swing, again via a mobile phone, where a golf instructor could offer advice about improving his or her game. The technology is being designed to communicate with a phone or other device within 10 meters, and can transfer data at 10Mbps, Nokia said. It can be implemented in a stand-alone chip or as a dual-mode chip that includes both Bluetooth and Wibree. More information isÂ available here.Â  Bluetooth has inherent power limitations because it includes a fixed packet-size and frequency-hopping technology, Iannucci said. Wibree uses a different modulation technique that does a better job of avoiding interference, which helps reduce its power requirements, he said. Several companies are working with Nokia to define the Wibree specification, including Broadcom, Epson, and Nordic Semiconductor, Nokia said. They hope to submit the technology to a standardization process, which could help it to gain wider support. Nokia hopes eventually to license Wibree to manufacturers that wish to use it. Wibree isn't the only contender for use in wireless sensors, however. Zigbee is an ongoing standardization project and has similar characteristics to Wibree. However, because Wibree uses the same radio as Bluetooth, the economics of deploying it are better, according to Iannucci. Bluetooth's supporters are working to lower its power consumption and reduce other drawbacks with the technology.
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Researchers in the United Kingdom have developed software that loads camera phones with mouse capabilities, allowing users to swivel a camera phone to scroll or move items on a PC screen.While the software is in its infancy, the technology could enable people to use camera phones to scroll public displays to get further information on products or to&#160;purchase items&#160;such as&#160;plane tickets.Communicating with a PC via Bluetooth wireless technology, users can either move the cell phone or use a stylus on the cell phone&#39;s screen to also scroll through a computer screen, said Patrick Olivier, an associate professor at Newcastle University. Olivier is working on developing the technology with researchers Nick Pears of York University and Dan Jackson of Newcastle University.One of the original goals was to interact with larger public displays to, for example, buy movie and train tickets and interact with advertising displays, although the applications of this technology are limitless, the researchers said.For example, users will be able to scroll through large display screens in a real-estate agency, even though there could be glass window in between, Pears said.After communicating a cell phone&#39;s field of view through a live camera feed to a computer via Bluetooth, the PC establishes the coordinates of its monitor, which&#160;are then&#160;sent to a camera phone. Once the camera phone registers the image on the cell phone and recognizes the display coordinates set by the PC through image processing technology, the computer knows exactly what the phone can see, which sets the stage to scroll a PC.Users can then move the phone or use a stylus on a touch screen to scroll a PC or move items. The PC and camera phone work together to continuously reposition a PC monitor&#39;s coordinates as the phone moves, allowing the cell phone to scroll a PC from any position in a room.The researchers have developed the software for the Symbian and Windows Mobile OSes for PDAs and camera phones, the researchers said.While the technology holds promise, it is still under development and multiple issues are being addressed, Pears said.&quot;The image capture and image processing rate on the cell phone is quite slow, and so you can not move the cell phone as quickly as you would like to. This is what we would like to address in our next prototype,&quot; Pears said.