When handheld means hand held
When handheld means hand held - German company Invair has come up with yet another Linux-based handheld (PDA), the FileWalker. It's not only small enough to hold in your hand, but is actually designed to use with one hand, via a (sony inspired?) scroll-wheel and three buttons on the side of the device. With it's 32 Mb RAM and 16 Mb ROM, small greyscale display built-in e-mail and synchronization, as well as MMC (MultiMedia Card) and SD (Secure Digital) extension slots, it seems to share a number of features with certain PalmOS based computers. The fact that it's Linux based, of course, is relevant in terms of availability of 3rd party software.
2 big unanswered questions remain. Will it be extensible with 802.11b, or GPRS wireless connectivity? And what kind of battery time do you get in such a small device running an Intel StrongARM 133MHz processor, and Linux?
Well, it's due out in April, after presentation at this years CeBit in Hannover, so we'll see what kind of performance you get at the expected price of 649 Euro's.
I like the size of it though.
.An Orange future - today Orange Sweden announced a prototype Music service for 3G mobile phones. Developed in cooperation with Compaq, BMG Sweden and IBM e-business Innovation Centre, the prototype is a sort of phone based jukebox, through which users can listen to music, search for music related information, and share multimedia content with their friends.
It's hardly a revolutionary application for 3G, and I haven't actaully seen tthe servie, but in it's capacity as one of the first actual 3G services developed in Scandinavia with a broad appeal, it's interesting nevertheless. Let's hope Orange Sweden handle it better than their Danish siter has handled other technical innovations in the past.
