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Orange very almost launch TyTN II 6.1 Update
23 Jul 2008
 Tucked away, deep down in the Orange website (oh, how we wish this whole upgrade procedure was centralised) is this, a page showing how great the new Windows Mobile 6.1 Upgrade for the HTC TyTN II will be. Unfortunately, as I type, there's no actual link to the ROM - just a page telling you what's updated in the new upgrade.
Yes, yes, we were told that this update would arrive "mid-May", and yes it's another "doah" moment from the Orange web team, but hey, at least there's a little progress. One cold pint of lager goes out to anyone who sends us the actual download link please.
Oh, and the links above will throw you into a "handset selection" screen - you need to choose the TyTN II, then choose "your phone's features", then choose "download software updates". Yes, it should be easier than this.
Update - The mighty xda-developers.com have managed to get a test build of the HTC TyTN II update (for the Orange UK network) here!
Link - orange.co.uk
Credit - Richard Haywood / Stephen Irving
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| Samsung BlackJack III Details and sneaky vid
21 Jul 2008
 Windows Mobile powered Samsung handsets tend to score well here at Coolsmartphone.com. The Samsung SCH-M480, pictured right, is rumoured to be released into the wild as the BlackJack III. wmexperts.com have managed to grab a slightly blurry video of the device in action here.
The QWERTY messaging device should be out this winter and there'll be Windows Mobile 6.1 (yep, touchscreen), 528Mhz CPU, A-GPS, WiFi, 3G and a 320x320 pixel screen. There's two cameras on this, with a 3 megapixel shooter at the back.
Mmm... Nice. Come on Samsung, get this baby out there.
Update - There's news that Korea will get this handset next week!
Link - wmexperts.com
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| Bluetooth Security - Are you being tracked?
21 Jul 2008
 There's a rather interesting article in the Guardian newspaper today. It's all about the Bluetooth ID sent by your phone. According to the story, several scanners have been hidden in offices, campuses, streets and pubs around Bath. These scanners are used by a University project called "Cityware" which will track the location of devices around the city.
Most people will leave their Bluetooth ID set to on without realising that their position could be tracked in this way. However, Cityware's Director, Eamonn O'Neill, states that the objective isn't to track people..
"We are interested in the aggregate behaviour of city dwellers as a whole. The notion that any agency would seriously consider Bluetooth scanning as a surveillance technique is ludicrous."
Umm.. Surely to determine "aggregate behaviour" you'd have to track where those people are going ? Yes?
Link - The Guardian
Credit - Jez Ash
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| Remotely control cool stuff with Windows Mobile
21 Jul 2008
 If you were watching the rather excellent TopGear last night then you probably saw James May showing how a Renault concept car could be controlled with a Samsung i600. You can see more on the video below. This reminded us of a skateboard that was featured on MoDaCo last year. The GroundSurf board is also controlled by a mobile phone and uses a front wheel motor to push you along the road.
The GroundSurf is now available to buy, production has just started and you better start saving - they cost €1900 (around £1507). Weighing in at 9Kg it has a top speed of 25 kph, with your Windows Mobile acting as an optional control system. You use the GroundSurf Mobile Remote interface to speed up or slow down by moving your thumb over the screen.
Links - GroundSurf.com - Remote control car
Credit - Johnny De'Silva
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| Nicky Boom - Excellent platform game available
18 Jul 2008
 If you're ever in need of a cool game or application, don't forget to check out our gaming and apps stores. There's something for everyone and you can sign up so you get to re-download stuff later too.
We've just spotted Nicky Boom, selling for just £7.47 (or try it for free). It's a classic platform game which received rave reviews when it first came out in 1993. You must blow up everything you see, use springs and teleporters to enhance your skills and pick up life potions on the way.
Links - Nicky Boom - Games Store - Apps Store
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| Video drivers appear for Qualcomm kit
18 Jul 2008
 Remember the video performance problems with HTC devices using Qualcomm MSM7200 and MSM7500 chipsets? The devices in question seem to ignore the hardware acceleration available on the chips and so, over the last few months, the guys at HTCClassAction and xda-developers have been working to come up with a fix.
Today the first early driver has appeared for the HTC TyTN II along with a test program to see the Direct 3D accelerated by the hardware. Run the test program on a stock TyTN II and it'll fail, but after the drivers are installed you'll get this, plus your user experience should be improved quite a bit. It's not fullscreen yet, but it's only a matter of time before that's done.
Head on over to HTCClassAction for a video of it in action plus the CAB file itself.
Link - HTCClassAction
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| HTC Touch Diamond gets quad-band
17 Jul 2008
 A couple of HTC Touch Diamond bits for you. First up, there's been rumblings across the net about the HTC Victor. We spotted this a couple of months back - it's also being sold right now as the MDA Compact IV. It's the Diamond, but with those front keys swapped around and a smooth rear-end. Known also as the P3702 it's got the more rounded features we've about to see on the Touch Pro.
Meanwhile, for those lusting after the missing GSM 850 goodness, you can get it right now courtesy of this xda-developers.com thread. This should allow GSM and EDGE connectivity to work in the USA, although there's no 3G still. The usual warnings apply with these unofficial updates, so be safe people.
Links - HTC Victor - GSM 850 Tweak
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| Another cool time-lapse video
17 Jul 2008
 Just a few days ago I slapped my phone onto the back of a toy train and recorded the journey. Amazingly it's already received nearly 1,500 views so I thought I'd have a go at something else.
This time, instead of recording my journey to work I left the phone in the bedroom window and recorded the sunrise on my HTC TyTN II with time-lapse photography. It was simple enough, just set the free software to snap an image every minute and then leave it running all night. The resulting video is quite relaxing and shows the sun coming up over our house at about 4.30 this morning. I added the pictures into a movie and grabbed some copyright-free music, then uploaded it here.
Read on to see it, or try it yourself and point me towards your vids!
Link - Summer sunrise video - How to
More...
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| HTC Touch Diamond clone available
17 Jul 2008
 Interested in the HTC Touch Diamond but want to get a knock-off version instead? Have a look at this clone for about £80 / $160.
The "Diamond J6" features dual cameras, FM radio, MP3/MP4 playback and works on GSM 900/1800Mhz networks. The Chinese cloners have also apparently managed to squeeze a miniSD card slot into it too. The photos even show "HTC" logos everywhere - cheeky!
If you want to buy one, head on over to eemobi.cn, but hell knows what you'll be getting as an OS or what the user experience will be. :)
Link - eemobi.cn
Credit - Nick Butcher
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| Opera Mobile 9.5 Free Beta - Now available!
17 Jul 2008
 Following a slight delay Opera Mobile 9.5 is now available to download for all. The finished beta is completely free and will give you a little whiff of the excitement surrounding the HTC Touch Diamond (which features the browser as default) even if you can't get the phone itself.
A slick experience awaits you, with normal websites looking just like they do on your desktop. We urge you to download this now - it's a quick and beautiful browsing experience for all touchscreen Windows Mobile phones. To get it, download the cab file to your computer. Then copy that across to your device and execute it in File Manager to install. You should then see a new "Opera 9.5 Beta" icon on your device.
Thanks to everyone who gave us a nudge about this. Let us know what you think ;)
Update - Install this on your internal memory and not the Storage Card for best results !
Link - Opera Mobile 9.51 - Direct Download
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| HTC Touch Diamond still out of stock on Orange
16 Jul 2008
 We're hearing about delays in the HTC Touch Diamond from a few people ordering through Orange. Will Cannon said that some of the devices had to be returned because of a fault with the back of the phone. Apparently this was causing the battery to fall out. We're also hearing that more stock won't arrive until early August!
They're showing "out of stock" at the moment, but if you know more, please let us know. If you do manage to get one through Orange then you should have a look in the box. Three lucky people will find a special Diamond ticket giving you two return flights to New York, staying in the four star Waldorf Astoria with private car transfers and $500 to spend at Tiffanys plus $1000 to spend elsewhere ! Click this Orange page for more info.
Links - HTC Touch Diamond @ Orange.co.uk - Win the Diamond Experience
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| Two quick data entry solutions from Dasur
16 Jul 2008
Dasur have released to applications designed to speed up your data entry on Windows Mobile touch-screen devices. SlideIT is designed for stylus input, whilst ThumbKey is a finger-driven solution. We took a look at the ThumbKey software, which worked really well. You simply type away on the screen using this keyboard and - even if you make a mistake - it'll guess what word you wanted and piece it together. Simple.
With the stylus-driven SlideIT software you simply point to the first letter of a word and then slide the stylus to the subsequent letters. Once you've done, just release the stylus and it'll recognise the word and insert it along with a space. According to the developer you can achieve 50 words per minute.
Both products are available to download free for a trial period, you can then buy Thumbkey for $25 (£12.48) or grab SlideIT for a whacking $40 (£19.96). Blimey, is it me or is software costing more nowadays? You can also watch videos of SlideIT and Thumbkey in action below.
Links - SlideIT - ThumbKey
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| MDA Compact IV now live on T-Mobile website
15 Jul 2008
 Following our story from just a few hours back, T-Mobile have now added the MDA Compact IV onto their website here and here.
The handset is now available in the Personal and Business sections with prices starting from absolutely nothing on selected plans. T-Mobile have also added a sprinkle of goodness with a free 7-day CoPilot trial and automatic push-email which (we presume) is provided by T-Mobile too?
If you have one on the way, or you're just unboxing yours, let us know what you think, what deal you got and what software is included!
Oh, and we've had an update on the stock situation - there's around 150 left now, so be quick!
Links - T-Mobile MDA Compact IV (Personal) - (Business)
Credit - Johnny De'Silva
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| T-Mobile MDA Compact IV on sale
15 Jul 2008
 Shh.. you've got to keep this on the down-low. We're hearing that the T-Mobile Compact IV is actually in stock on T-Mobile UK. This is pretty much the same device as the rather splendid HTC Touch Diamond - albeit with a smooth back end and slightly tweaked key arrangement. T-Mobile Germany are already selling it and we first spotted the thing back in March.
Although it's not currently showing in the Business or Personal sections of the T-Mobile website, our contacts say that there's currently around 195 in stock. You'll probably need to give their sales team a call but be quick, because apparently over 100 were sold this morning. They're priced at £229.99, however you'll definitely be able to get a heafty reduction depending on the tariff you go for. According to our details there won't be any more stock arriving before August, so make sure you keep this to yourself eh ?
Oh, and there's just a few T-Mobile Ameo 16Gb (aka the Advantage) units knocking around too - but these are quite low in stock.
Update - This is now live on the T-Mobile website too!
Link - T-Mobile MDA Compact IV Press Release
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| Opera Mobile 9.5 a little late
15 Jul 2008
 You probably all saw just how cool the Opera 9.5 browser was on the HTC Touch Diamond some weeks back. If you want to try the Opera 9.5 internet browser yourself on your Windows Mobile and you don't have the Diamond then you were probably expecting to download it today. Unfortunately there's a few little niggles which need ironing out first, so expect to grab it on July 17th instead.
If you've not seen the Opera browser in action, have a look at our video to see a live demo on the HTC Touch Diamond. It's smooth, fast and shows websites in their original format.
Building a browser that works on a large variety of phones is a little more complex than just making it work on one, so hang around until Thursday before you check out the download page.
Links - Opera Blog - Product page
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| A few forum problems
15 Jul 2008
 A few of you may have been having issues posting into our forum of late - especially new members. Usually I would blame this on my drunken PHP coding, however I'm been fairly sober during the last 6 months. Sorry about the problems, I'm going to blame tiredness and sloppy workmanship on this one. :)
The "spam detection" system should detect anything looking like a URL or image to stop spammers firing off messages showing nasty stuff and linking to their sites. Unfortunately it was being a little overzealous and blocking some good messages. This is now fixed.
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| SMS Reports Eraser - free app
14 Jul 2008
 JGUI has just released a nice free little application called SMS reports eraser. It does exactly what it says on the tin, and it's completely free. It can also announce whether your message has arrived with a special sound so you don't need to check the screen.
The application joins other utilities available from jgui.net, including MyReminder and TheLapTimer. These apps are paid-for programs, but you can download trial versions. MyReminder will remind you about answer-phone messages you have every 3 minutes, plus it'll talk to you and tell you how many missed phone calls you have and how many messages you have. TheLapTimer is a simple but very useful program to time stuff within 1/100th of a second - it'll count lap times and more.
Links - SMS Reports Eraser (Free)
Links - MyReminder (€4.99 / £3.99 / 7.94) - TheLapTimer (€14.99 / £11.97 / $23.86)
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| Touch Shell 3D coming to Touch Commander 4.0
14 Jul 2008
 Yup, you know something is successful when people begin to copy it. For everyone who watched our HTC Touch Diamond videos and drooled over the HTC TouchFLO 3D system you can now have a look at something called Touch Shell 3D. It'll form part of the Touch Commander application we saw earlier and will give you similar visual effects to those seen with HTC's TouchFLO 3D system. It's not currently available, but you can at least watch this YouTube video to see what's around the corner. Keep an eye on the touch-commander.com site for news of the version 4 beta.
Read on to watch the video ..
Links - YouTube video - touch-commander.com
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| Palm Treo 800w goes live on Sprint USA
14 Jul 2008
 The guys over at engadget have managed to get themselves a shiny new Palm Treo 800w. The device runs Windows Mobile 6.1 on a Qualcomm MSM6800A CPU with WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD card slot and 256Mb user memory plus 128Mb program memory.
Sprint are picking this one up in the US and we're hoping it'll be a big improvement on the Treo 500 we reviewed a short while back - especially as the Treo 750v impressed us so much.
This QWERTY messaging-style phone is CDMA and is currently available in the USA only. Head on over to engadgetmobile.com for more info.
Links - engadgetmobile.com - Sprint Datasheet
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| Crazy stuff you can record with your phone
14 Jul 2008
 If you read my blog then you'll probably realise that I can be a little nuts at times. Every now and then I like to do some weird things with my Windows Mobile. Last year I filmed a time-lapse video of my journey into work using a free application to take shots at set intervals. Yesterday I decided to do something a bit more bizarre and plonked my HTC phone onto the carriage of a toy train set.
"What?" I hear you cry. Well, I was helping my nephew with his train-set while Emily gave our son a bath, so I decided to film it because it was, quite possibly, the longest track we'd ever made. The resulting videos can be seen here and here, or you can read on !
Yes, it's a little nuts, but this is what happens when you have kids ;)
More...
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| Windows Mobile - 6 months on
13 Jul 2008
 I've been looking back at an article I posted at the end of last year. I expressed my concerns about the future of Windows Mobile. Things have moved forward somewhat since then - the HTC Touch Diamond has been released and Windows Mobile 6.1 is now on new handsets.
Now, let's ignore all the geeky "under the hood" changes, because people standing in phones shops simply don't care about those. WinMo 6.1 has a "Getting Started" application which will help you set the time, transfer your contacts and setup a Bluetooth connection plus other stuff. Let's admit it though, this is nothing but a bunch of links into the appropriate settings page or small help pages telling you how to do stuff. Someone could've put this together in a day, plus it could have been rolled out via "Windows Update" if, in fact, Windows Update ever downloaded anything. Another improvement we've seen in the last 6 months is with Internet Explorer. IE now has a zoom function. Woaha. Oh, and there's threaded SMS texting too.
But what else? What else has the Windows Mobile team brought to the end user so far this year? From what I can see, compared to the improvements made by HTC, it's not much at all. I'm worried. I'm extremely worried. In fact, I'm more worried than I was 6 months ago. The new iPhone has now appeared and it's brought with it a fantastic application store where 25% of the apps are free and, of those that aren't, 90% are less than $9.99. Better still, the iPhone applications all look gorgeous and match the OS style. It's a fluid and joint-free experience which...just....works. With Windows Mobile I don't have a single place to get applications. There's shops everywhere, plus developer websites too. Sure, I've got my lovely HTC Touch Diamond but I'll soon drop out of the sexy HTC TouchFLO 3D interface and into a world where apps which can look as bad or as good as they want. Sure, it might be the best application ever, and it may be perfect for some tech-heads like myself, but the man on the street won't enjoy grabbing the stylus and using an application which isn't finger-driven.
More...
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| HTC Touch Diamond now on Orange Upgrades
10 Jul 2008
 Following our story yesterday we can now reveal that existing Orange customers can now upgrade to the spanky new HTC Touch Diamond. You can call 343 from your handset and bag yourself one of these hot new phones right now.
Trevor Marshall managed to get a free one on a 12 month package, whilst many of you have also ordered yours through Orange Upgrades today. Get dialling and let us know how you get on :)
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| HTC Touch Diamond on sale at Vodafone too
11 Jul 2008
 Vodafone now have the HTC Touch Diamond following the launch on Orange just a couple of days back. Voda are offering the handset completely free on selected tariffs and have chosen to make it available on the very same day that the iPhone 3G makes it to shops.
Vodafone are throwing in their Vodafone Email Plus and the Vodafone Sat Nav program, plus you can get a free Bluetoooth handsfree car kit to stop you getting stopped by the police while driving.
The handset only appears to be available in the Vodafone Business Shop, which is a little disappointing for personal contract customers. Let everyone know if you've got one on Voda today in thr forum.
We're still waiting to see if T-Mobile, o2 or Three are retailing this in shops - let us know if you see or hear anything.
Link - Vodafone Business Shop
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| HTC Touch Diamond on sale at Orange
09 Jul 2008
 OK, OK! I leave the computer for 5 minutes and BLAM! I get 15 emails :) Thanks to everyone who's let us know that the HTC Touch Diamond is on the way to Orange stores right now. It should be appearing tomorrow (Tursday 10th July). Check out the larger stores first, but it's already appeared as a live product on the Orange website with prices starting from just £39.99!
Head on over to the Orange shop online or get yourself down to the big stores. Onestopphoneshop have it listed too.
Thanks to everyone who sent this in. Don't forget to let us know how your search is going, and whether your get that unlimited data package!
Link - Orange website
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