The OpenMoko linux-powered mobile phone has been around for a couple of months now and, as expected, linux coders have been beavering away.
Neopwn is the first significant OpenMoko project that uses the new handset. It is a ‘pocket pentesting’ suite - essentially a collection of hacking/cracking tools that can be carried about in a mobile phone, then unleashed on an unsuspecting network using the phone’s internet connection or the USB host conection contained within the device.
Many different security and cracking apps have been ported to the device, including the packet analyser WireSHark and several password cracking tools.
“Windows Mobile”and “iPhone-like”are not two phrases you tend to see together (other than in the sentence “Windows Mobile is far from iPhone-like”).
Nevertheless, a group of ex-Apple engineers are aiming to bring a touch of the iPhone’s UI class to smartphone multimedia browsing, starting with Windows Mobile.
Kinoma Play is a tool for finding and playing multimedia on your mobile. You can aggregate RSS feeds of podcasts and other media, index your movies, music and pictures and access them all through a single interface. It’s a vit like the desktop ‘Internet TV’ player Miro but optimised for mobile and with a borader remit.
The initial beta is WInMO only, but Kimona have working code for Symbian and Linux-based phones and are explicitly aiming at people who like the idea of the iPhone’s multimedia capabilities, but aren’t sold on the iPhone itself.
“If you are going to buy an iPhone you buy an iPhone,” Kimona’s Peter Hoddie told The Register, “But there are also people who will never buy an iPhone. They have something that’s already interesting and they want to do something their browser can’t.”
Although the iPhone is effectively an mp3 player as well as a smartphone, the fact that even the most spacious model only has a measly 16GB of storage means that most serious music fans will have to think carefully about what to leave at home.
Do I really need to take that entire Can box set (that I will probably never listen to but still..)? Do I ditch those mid-period Eno ambient effforts in favour of the new Kylie? Decisions, decisions..
Simplify Media might be the answer. Load it up on your Mac or PC (Windows or Linux, which is nice) and you can stream your entire music collection directly to your iPhone.
The app integrates with iTunes - as you might expect - but also Winamp and Rythmbox (a top Linux iTunesalike). You can chat to other users and share you collection with up to 30 others. Doubtless there will be some kind of music industry meltdown when more people find out about this, but for now- Enjoy!
Its free, and fully street-legal with no Jailbreaking required, although you will of course need a working wifi connection to get the most out of it.
When we reported on Linux taking off in the mobile sector, we sort of assumed it was going to be a case of Android and other Linux-powered operating systems taking on the might of Nokia, Apple, et. al.
Now it looks like Nokia themselves might be joining in the fun.
Speaking at an investor’s conference, Nokia’s Chief Financial Officer Rick Simonson said of Linux, “It’s going to be terribly important.”
This shouldn’t be too surprising, given Nokia’s investment in TrollTech - who write the GUI code for the popular Linux KDE desktop - and it needn’t spell the end of Symbian. Nokia has a 47% stake in that OS, after all, and has never been shy about having different operating systems for different classes of handset.
Perhaps this is more a form of bet hedging. If Android takes off the way everyone seems to think it will, it would be handy to have a ready made OS that will be broadly compatible with many Android apps. Or perhaps this will just end up as another Beta Labs skunkworks project.
If anyone from Nokia is reading this and there are some decent Linux hackers near you - any chance we could have a version of PC Suite that will work on my Ubuntu PC? It’s not like the Windows one worked particularly well, but it might be a show of good faith to the Linux community, if nothing else.
Goodness, things have been getting awfully Nokia in here today (see below this post). But though Nokia and its Symbian S60 platform (which is also used in Samsung and Panasonic handsets) is pretty ubiquitous right now, it might not enjoy such a deep level of market penetration in the future.
Analyst firm ABI Research has just released a report which indicates that as much as 20-percent of mid to high-end mobile devices will be Linux-based by 2013. According to Stuart Carlaw, vice president of ABI Research, the driving factor will be cost:
“Linux OS solutions will be far more cost-effective than incumbent solutions, even when silicon requirements are taken into account, given that a fuller application layer will be included in the standard package and that the burden of customization falls mostly on the independent software vendor”
Sounds compelling from a manufacturing perspective as the low cost of software development could help to bring hardware prices down. Even so, 20% is an awful lot of phones against today’s uptake of Linux based OSs. Mind you if it’s good enough for Android…
Purple Labs has announced today at the Mobile World Congress that its Purple Magic handset is now a certified LiMo Foundation device.
Founded in January 2007 by industry leaders (Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics and Vodafone), LiMo Foundation’s aim is to become the dominant provider of Linux based operating systems for mobile phones.
The Purple Magic handset is a sub $100 3G device that is set to act as a reference point for other handset manufacturers that want to accelerate time to market for low-cost 3G Linux based handsets.
For many people the concept of the Linux phone is a somewhat nebulous one. People know Symbian because of the mass adoption of Nokia and Sony Ericsson handsets, the same goes for Windows Mobile which is a household name by virtue of Microsoft’s market penetration in the PC market.
The Purple Magic may be instrumental in propelling LiMo to similar levels of penetration though whether the public actually wants a Linux based handset is yet to be determined. Either way, packing video telephony, music playback, high-speed Internet browsing and video streaming, the Purple Magic should present a compelling argument for LiMo when it is launched later this year. Hit the Jump for more pictures.
Continue reading ‘Purple Magic handset brings LiMo’s vision of the Linux phone to MWC’
Last week we took a look at PC-based mini webserver Miniserver which made it simple to transfer files between a PC and an S60 phone. Two slight problems with Miniserver are that it is Windows-only and it will only allow access to one PC at a time (unless you install copies on several PCs). More seriously, the connection is not password protected or encrypted and so might be open to unscrupulous hackers.
SymSMB tackles the problem from the other end by effectively turning your phone into a small windows networking device. As other operating systems (e.g. Mac OS X and Linux) can also speak the same Windows networking protocol (SMB or ‘Samba’ to its friends) this means you will be able to communicate with non-windows machines as well.
SymSMB is a 3rd Edition S60 app, so you only need to install it on your phone and it will be able to connect to as many other machines as you have passwords for.
Nokia have released updates the firmware (the built-in software that runs the phone) to both the N81 and N95 8GB devices.
The N81 update provides improvements to Wi-Fi performance and management, memory handling and camera stability, while the N95 8GB receives bug fixes to Nokia Maps and the integrated web browser.
The updates can be downloaded using the Nokia Software Updater - or at least it can if you have access to a PC running either Windows 2000, XP or Vista. Mac and Linux users are out of luck, as are people who just don’t own a computer.
Aren’t Nokia always telling us that our phones are computers nowadays, anyway? As both phones have wireless internet access and 8 GB of storage, surely it should be possible to download this kind of update straight to the phone without a PC acting as middle-man?
Is it too soon to be nostalgic about the Palm Pilot?
Anyone still hankering for the glories of PalmOS (and disappointed that Palm have dumped it in favour of Windows Mobile in several recent devices) would do well to grab a Nokia N770, N800 or N810 tablet and a free copy of Garnet VM.
Garnet is essentially PalmOS decoupled from the Palm brand (the result of some rather complex license wrangling) and the Garnet VM is a vitual machine for running Garnet on top of the Nokia tablet’s flavour of Linux.
Running Garnet in this way will give you A) a glowing sense of geeky pride and - more importantly - B) access to tens of thousands of PalmOS applications and games.
Garnet comes bundled with PalmOS standards such as Addressbook and Memopad and claims 80% compatibilty with existing PalmOS apps. PalmOS has a huge shareware and freeware library and this could be a simple way to squeeze a lot more functionality out of your Nokia tablet.
Last week’s alleged leak of four ‘08 Motorola handsets caused a minor transatlantic spat across the internet, with US blog Boy Genius Report refuting Dutch site GSM Helpdesk’s original story.
Now both sides have come bouncing back into the ring, with GSM Helpdesk restating its belief (via Unwired View) that the handsets are real. The site also quotes Motorola marketing director Fergal Donovan as saying that, “the Motorola Skarven will become the new flagship of Motorola. Eight megapixel cameras and optical zoom will be the main points of Motorola in 2008. The Motorola Skarven will be a kick-slider, just as the Motorola RIZR Z8.”
But BGR has swung back with info from its ‘Motorola insider’, claiming that:
- The Z10 will be out before Christmas
- Motorola’s interfaces are shifting from Linux-based to UIQ
- There will be a 3G touch-screen and QWERTY entry-level smartphone that runs Windows Mobile 6
- There’ll be a high-end Moto with an NVIDIA graphics processor for 3D gaming and smooth video playback
- A touch-screen slider is in the works with a five-megapixel autofocus camera, GPS, QVGA 2.8″ screen, running UIQ 4.0
- Overall, Moto will release nine UIQ devices next year, two of them with 5MP cameras, and the remaining seven with 3.2MP cameras
So is the Skarven the ‘touch-screenslider with 5MP camera’? Is Genghis the ‘entry-level smartphone’? Whichever site is right, 2008 is shaping up to be a promising year for Motorola fans.
The OpenMoko linux-powered mobile phone has been around for a couple of months now and, as expected, linux coders have been beavering away.
