Just downloaded the new version of Gmail Mobile and so far all I can say is “wow”! Much better than the previous versions, and I’ve tried several on my Sony Ericsson P1i. There was always something wrong with them (no full screen, loads too long, blocks in the middle of work, I couldn’t just enter an email address, but had to save it in contacts first, etc).

This new version loads in a couple of seconds (with a loading indicator - neat ), and goes full screen right away. Additionally, the interface is automatically set for my language (Serbian Cyrillic) which is also nice. The menu is much better organized, and most of all, I like the fact I can now enter an email address without having to put it in my address book first, something that annoyed me very much in the previous versions. There are some other goodies as well, such as easy search through email archive, and switching between multiple Gmail accounts (!), offline email drafting and reading of recent messages. Also there are neat shortcuts for those with a QWERTY or other similar keyboards.

If you haven’t already, switch to the new version, it’s a lot better! Here are the links for download and more information:

Download from here
More info on the Google Mobile blog

Update: just realized I forgot to mention touch scrolling. Yes, finally you can now scroll through your inbox using your finger, provided you have a touch screen mobile phone. Oh, what a joyful upgrade!

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Adaptive Path have taken things pretty far with their new initiative for designing the new browsing experience for the users of tomorrow. Aurora is indeed a magnicent site on the web horizon. The whole thing is still just a concept, being developed in association with Mozilla Labs, but the video they released, the first in a series dealing with Aurora, is quite an interesting vision of the future. The movie “Johnny Mnemonic” comes to mind, when Keanu Reeves searches for the sent fax from Japan, on a VR terminal in a computer shop in New York (okay, I like SciFi, what can I do).

Basically, Aurora allows for a browsing experience where information is organized according to time and usage. The less you use something or the older it is, the farther “downwards” it lives on the Z axis (perpendicular to screen). The words “out of sight, out of mind” truly have a literal meaning here. The interface looks very interesting, and I especially like the little touch device in the end, which helps you take the information you need or like with you.

Anyway, here’s the video:

Key components of Aurora project (from official site):

- Natural interaction: Spatial, visual, and physical engagement with the Web
- Continuity: Seamless, consistent Web and browser experience across devices
- Multi-user applications: The Web as a space for collaboration, sharing, and remixing
- Context awareness: Products that know where you are and what you’re doing, both physically and virtually

Who knows what it will eventually be like, when the time comes to introduce it as a product, but so far it’s looking very interesting.

[Via: TechCrunch]

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I’ve been sitting on this for a while, because I didn’t have time, but it’s quite current as the product has not yet been launched.

It’s a new kind of gaming platform that will allow players to participate in F1 racing side-by-side with the real drivers, while the race is happening at the circuit. Basically, through a mix of GPS, web technologies and gaming, the game will allow enthusiasts to dive into the exciting world of Formula 1 racing. Players will be able to race against real professionals during the actual race.

Game play goes even further allowing for interaction (virtual) with participants - if you crash your car into a professional driver’s car in a live race, AI especially developed for this purpose, shows a simulated crash, but after only a few seconds the real-time data from the actual driver is updated so you can continue the race.

Naturally, game players are able to compete with each other, as well as against professional drivers in the race. Formula 1 has a very large fan base, so this game should attract plenty of attention and create more web properties on the Web such as race forums, blogs, fan portals where players will be able to share their experiences, results, tips and tricks.

iOpener, the developers behind “Real-Time Racing” are using the technology used in other “Real-Time Games” products which all make use of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems).

There is plenty more going of with this, so visit their site for more details. According to their site, the game is to launch sometime in the latter part of 2008.

Being a Formula 1 fan, I’d be very interested in playing this game. Judging from what is available so far about it, it should be very exciting, if for no other reason, then because I’ll be able to overtake Kimi Raikkonen, while Lewis Hamilton is already behind me eating my dust .

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Firefox is treading into mobile browser territory, and it was about time. Although the concept (Mobile/FennecVision) of porting Firefox to the mobile platform is not that new, this is the first time I’ve seen an actual concept presented to the public. Aza Rask, head of user experience at Mozilla Labs, has posted a screencast on his blog, discussing the new concept of Firefox mobile. The actual product, once delivered to the public may end up looking quite different than this, but it shows some very interesting solutions to providing a near desktop/laptop browsing experience on a mobile phone.

Looks very interesting and promising, with some nice features as well. While Opera does a good job with Opera Mini and Opera Mobile, and Digia (which announced a beta download of their latest mobile web browser during June 2008), it’s good to have another option for mobile web browsing.

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Here’s a pic of a package containing the new 3G iPhone which has been sent to MacTalk in Australia. It says “Do not open until tuesday June 10th 2008″. Would you wait until then?

Image credit: MacTalk

So, I’m just guessing here, the new iPhone is going to be announced on June 10th!?

UPDATE: this is most probably a hoax, but unlike the other attempts, there are no actual pictures of the phone shown (the box is unopened), so there is still a small chance of authenticity.

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VIA has released the open source notebook project - the VIA OpenBook. It’s not a product you can buy at the local electronics dealer, but rather a unique approach to mobile computing. VIA has opened the architecture of its latest product design to the public, making CAD drawings available. Basically, if you’ve got the resources to manufacture the casing, and put together electronic components, you can build your own custom tailored open source notebook.

Some of the specifications are:

• Processor: 1.6GHz VIA C7®-M ULV Processor
• Chipset: VIA VX800 unified chipset
• Memory: DDR2 SO-DIMM up to 2GB
• HDD: 80GB Hard-Disk or above
• Screen: 8.9″ WVGA 1024X600 LED screen
• Graphics: VIA Chrome9 HC3 DX9 3D engine with shared system memory up to 256MB
• WiFi and Bluetooth
• webcam, and more…

Here’s the video in which Richard Brown (VIA Technologies) explains how the idea of an open source notebook came to be:

It would take a hell of an enthusiast engineer to put this together as an individual, but the project will allow small manufacturers to make some very interesting variations of the new notebook. I am guessing some pretty interesting products are about to hit the market, and for a low price as well. BTW, the new notebook can run Windows XP or Vista, and most (or all) Linux distributions.

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Just watched the videos showing how Microsoft’s latest, the Touch Wall, works in real conditions. I am very impressed with the whole thing, especially since it can be up and running for a few hundred dollars worth of hardware (and software naturally), although I doubt it will be available for so small an amount once officially released. Basically, the panel which is used as a projection area is scanned by small cameras found at the bottom of it facing upwards. Every time a user approaches the screen, they know it, and begin tracking movements and execute appropriate actions withing the interface.

Here’s a video featuring Bill Gates using the Touch Wall at their annual CEO Summit (you’ll need Silverlight to view this), and here’s another video of Michael Arrington who got a chance to test Touch Wall first hand. I’ll embed this video here, although it wouldn’t hurt to see the post on TechCrunch.

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Just looked at the new HTC Touch Diamond which has just been officially released. My first impression is that the device is a very pretty piece of hardware. The design is sleek and the interface seems to be a good implementation of something resembling the iPhone in many ways (including motion invoked portrait/landscape display change).

Comparison with iPhone is inevitable both because of the motion detection and the user interface itself, but these things are becoming the way of the future and are probably going to be included in future mobile devices, so enough with the iPhone praise.

The specs (on the HTC site) are alright, although pretty standard for a smartphone nowadays. My P1i has pretty much the same abilities (minus the design and screen implementation), although the W960 would be a much better comparison to the Touch Diamond. It has plenty of internal memory (256 MB ROM, 192 MB DDR SDRAM) and 4 GB of internal storage space. The screen is a TFT LCD flat VGA touch sensitive screen. It covers a broad range of connection speeds (HSDPA, WCDMA, GSM, GPRS, EDGE), and sports GPS/aGPS support. The camera is 3.2 Mpixels with auto focus. Connectivity wise it’s got WiFi, BT 2.0 (EDR), HTC ExtUSB (11-pin USB and jack all-in-one). It’s got Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional as the OS of choice.

Crave C|NET has a nice gallery of the HTC Touch Diamond, so check it out.

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If you were thinking about getting an ultra-portable PC or sub-notebook, you’ll have to gather information about a lot of new devices that have appeared in the last months. Brad Linder over at Liliputing.com wrote a great post which gives an overview of ultra-portable devices along with specifications. A great list that should be helpful if you’re still wondering what to get. The list includes:

• Asus Eee PC 701
• Dreambook Light IL1
• Everex Cloudbook
• HP 2133 Mini-Note (HP Mini)
• Asus Eee PC 900
• ECS G10IL
• Everex Cloudbook Max
• MSI Wind
• 2Go PC
• 3k Longitude
• ACi Ultra-mini
• Airis Kira
• Blue Digital Systems Deep Blue
• Elonex One
• Fukato Datacask
• HCL MiLeap X
• Jisus
• Kohjinsha SCC
• Medion Akoya Mini
• Noahpad
• Nohrtec Gecko
• Proview Handbook PC-81001
• Sungjut TangoX
• Gigabyte M912

So, there you go. This should you give a lot to think about before you buy.

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In the spirit of Acid tests for web browsers, now you can test your mobile web browsers for compatibility with web standards. The Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group at the W3C has published a test for mobile browsers consisting of twelve checks. The result is displayed as a twelve-square grid where each square represents a single check. If a square is green the mobile browser has passed that particular part of the test, and if a square is red or white, it hasn’t. Here is the checklist (taken from Ajaxian):

1. CSS2 min-width
2. Transparent PNG
3. GZIP support
4. HTTPS
5. iframe inclusing of XHTML-served-as-XML content
6. Static SVG
7. XMLHTTPRequest
8. CSS Media Queries
9. Dynamic SVG
10. The canvas element
11. contenteditable
12. CSS3 selectors

On the top right is a screen capture of Opera Mini (hifi ardentopium sr v.4.0.10406, 20080228) on my Sony Ericsoon P1i. The grid shows my Opera Mini doesn’t support “iframe inclusing of XHTML-served-as-XML content”, “Static SVG” and “Dynamic SVG” (I am assuming the grid layout is a standard matrix layout).

Here’s a screen shot of how FF 2.0.0.12 renders the test page:

Here’s the QR code (if you have a QR enabled phone):

or simply enter one of these URLs:
http://tinyurl.com/37e33p
http://dev.w3.org/2008/mobile-test/test.html

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