Recent Articles

If you're still looking for a mobile push e-mail solution and none of our suggestions has worked out, Microsoft itself could be coming to the rescue.

The head of Redmond's business division this morning announced a slew of new hosted services, a direct shot across the bow of Google's free apps, including hosted Exchange access for as little as $3 per user per month.

Full hosted Exchange, Sharepoint access and other goodies will cost $15 a month per user, which is still within reason, and there are referral incentives for business partners as well.

However: It's not quite spelled out whether this is a business-only deal, or if the average consumer will be able to get in on the goodies.

We've long been fans of Viigo's mobile RSS reader, and we were practically salivating when we got our first look at Project Tango on the BlackBerry.

And now, Viigo has released a free beta Project Tango application for Windows Mobile devices.

Included in the current beta is support for:

• News and RSS
• Audio and podcasts(!)
• Weather
• Sports
• Entertainment
• Stocks
• Finance

And coming up we should see airline flight info and local search. Also, if you already use Viigo, your feeds can be imported to Project Tango from your My Viigo account.

The BlackBerry edition of Project Tango teamed up with the WES conference in May, and the WinMo version is dubbed the "Microsoft Worldwide Partners Conference edition" in conjunction with this week's shindig in Houston.

Viigo Project Tango for Windows Mobile

Edit: Anyone else having problems getting to the download site on their device, or problems with the desktop installer? Let us know in the comments. From your mobile device, go to www.GetViigo.com/wpc. (The address in the text message I received was bad.)

Chalk up another contestant for Malatesta's Black Slab beauty contest, though this is probably as close as you'll get to it.

Introducing the MWg Zinc II (that'd be for Singapore's Mobile & Wireless Group), making its  U.S. debut after spending some time across the pond in Europe.

The specs aren't shabby.

• UMTS Tri-band, GSM Quad-band
• HSDPA 3.6 Mbps
• Samsung 500 Mhz
• 2.8” TFT QVGA (Touch Screen)
• Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
• Semi-automatic sliding mechanism with qwerty keypad
• WLAN (802.11 b/g) and BT v 2.0
• 2MP Camera (rear-facing)
• GPS : SirF Star III
• Dimension: 109.5 x 59 x 18 mm

But the price is hefty: Upwards of $700 from your favorite online retailer, as no U.S. carrier is offering (read: subsidizing) this one. However, MWg appears to be hoping to change that.

“MWg has established a full operation in the US focused on developing MWg as a recognized brand in the region. The Zinc II is the first new device to be released in this market and will be sold unlocked through various channels including retailers, e-tailers, corporate resellers and systems integrators.”

One neat feature that we've mentioned recently in our Podcast was Palm's unique "Maps" program and Today Plugin, which is nicely tied into the phone's aGPS system.

Palm has always done a nice job in marrying the hardware to the software and instead of just slapping some GPS on the phone, they actually made it...well, useful and easy.

Here are a couple of interesting things gleaned from past scoops and the recently released user manual...

Read on for more details on the 800w's GPS capabilities...

Features:

• Look up a contact's location directly from your Today screen (p240)
• Find people, restaurants, movies, etc. using the GPS Today plugin (p182)
• Map your current, recent, and street locations

It also appears that at least for some of these functions, it uses the much superior assisted-GPS system, meaning your current geographical location should happen within seconds, as opposed to the longer "cold start" of traditional GPS systems (read our GPS vs aGPS tutorial here). This should make it faster than the Sprint Touch, Mogul and Q9c which don't use the assistance servers out-of-the-box. Stay tuned for more details.

Basically how it works is while on the today screen, you can just type the name of your contact, hold down the center key and select the "Find" menu entry. The GPS will then map that contact's address directly on the screen.

The other unique feature involves the "Point of Interest" plugin which is sort of like having Microsoft's Live Search built right in to the Today screen. All you do is type in whatever you are looking for and hit "enter" and it will look up and map the info directly, all based on your aGPS coordinates.

That brings us finally to that last aspect. the program "Maps". Not much is currently known about this except it looks like Goolge Maps (but isn't?) and it is not Live Search, though we understand both programs will work with the device's built in GPS. This app appears to be a custom mapping program that is streamlined and tied closely to the OS, for seamless integration.

Either way, these "little features" look to be quite useful and and at this point, unique to the Palm Treo 800w.

The recent law that several states passed requiring motorists to use hands-free devices (i.e. Bluetooth headsets and speakerphones) is undoubtedly a good thing.

But if you're still on the fence, SpeakerPhone - Auto On is a freeware app that runs in the background and will, as the name suggests, automatically turn on your device's speakerphone when you receive a call.

Be sure to grab the latest version of the app, and follow the installation instructions.

[via]

Head on over to http://faceofmobile.com/ to get yourself a copy of FriendMobilizer, a 3rd party app that finally brings Windows Mobile up to par with BlackBerry and (cough) the Palm Centro on the social network scene. FriendMobilizer is a fairly full featured Facebook app, covering messages, profiles, wall posts, status updates, etc. It's not clear if it supports photo uploads, however.

It's ad-supported, it's not the prettiest thing you've ever seen, but it's a smidge better than the Facebook mobile website, eh?

[via]

It appears that T-Mobile's 3G network is about to go from a crawl to a brisk trot, with rumors flying that high-speed service will be added to a couple dozen markets on Oct. 1.

If you're a T-Mo customer in one of the following markets (besides NYC, which already has 3G), you may be in store for a treat this fall.

The other cities which were expected to get 3G coverage by the end of the year are Atlanta, Austin, Birmingham, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, Minneapolis, New England, NJ and Long Island, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa and Washington, D.C.

And if you're in a rural market, hang in there. After all, you've waited this long.