Use your Handheld as a Touch Screen for your PC

Innobec has created some software that will let you use your Pocket PC as a touch-screen extension of your computer desktop. In their own words, "The expensive desk ornament that used to be your cradled PDA can now serve a useful purpose." Read more about it at Innobec's website.

Undercroft RPG

Version 1.14 of Undercroft was just released. It is available for Windows Mobile 2003 as well as Windows Mobile 5.0. There's also a Windows XP version. Here is what they say about its features:

• 20 hours of total play time (on the average).
• Quest based gameplay with elaborate plot and plenty of sidequests to gather extra experience
• 5 characters with unique skills and spells.
• Hundreds of items, over 60 kind of enemies.
• Enhanced interface overcoming many disadvantages of older games and keeping all the extensive functionality quickly on hand
• Sophisticated graphics with strong fantasy atmosphere
• Plastic level design with holes, bridges, roofed and opened areas and other features unseen in classic "dungeon" RPG before
• Classic, but also very untraditional weaponry (e.g. chains for assassins, sabreteeth for summoners etc.)

While it might be a bit of a fun diversion, I am unimpressed with the graphics. I am even less impressed with the poor English translation. What kind of a game has a monster called Fat Dead?

Anyway, check it out at Rake in Grass Games if you're interested. It's $19.95, but you can download a free demo.

eBook Catalog for Microsoft Reader

Here's a useful resource for all you e-book lovers out there, Microsoft maintains a catalog of all sorts of e-books in Microsoft Reader format. Check out the catalog for yourself at www.mslit.com.

DOS Emulator for Pocket PCs

It looks like some poeple have been developing a Windows Mobile port of DOSBox, which they call PocketDosBox. With it, you can emulate a 286/386/486 machine with sound, graphics, and a directory file system.

Why would you want to run a DOS emulator on your Pocket PC, you ask? So you can play your favorite classic DOS games, of course.

Hot Google Tips

Ed Hansberry at Pocket PC Thoughts has written a lovely article on Tons of Uses for Google on Your Device. Some highlights include:

1. The Google Optimizer (http://www.google.com/gwt/n), which will take a web page and reduce its size so that it will fit better on your screen and download faster;


2. Gmail for Mobile Devices (http://m.gmail.com), which cuts out a lot of the page elements you don't need, skipping straight to the good stuff;


3. Froogle for Mobile Devices (http://wml.froogle.com), which shows prices but doesn't actually contain links so you can buy any of the stuff;


4. Google Maps, specially formatted for your PDA;


5. Personalized Home Page, also formatted for your PDA;


6. And don't forget what Google does best, search. There are a number of ways to use Google search on your mobile device, depending on what kind of results you want.

Although, to use Blogger directly (instead of just e-mailing to Blogger Mobile), you might have better luck with one of these freeware programs: PocketBlog or PocketBlogger.

MyTinyTV

Along with Orb from Orb Networks and Slingbox from Sling Media, there's now a new great TV solution for the Pocket PC. From The Unwired:

You can use MyTinyTV either at home within your own LAN or you can take it with you because it also works across the Internet when you are away from home. Go to your favorite wireless hotspot, like Starbucks, at airports, at hotels and watch TV or take your WAN broadband connection (MyTinyTV recommends a Pocket PC download speed of at least 250 Kbps, so EV-DO as well as UMTS are sufficient).

For remote access you will need a wireless Internet account and a decent broadband connection at your house (at least 250Kbps), where the desktop computer with the TV tuner is located.

In addition, for each show and movie, you can also obtain detailed programming information.

MyTinyTV costs US$ 59 but a fully functional 7 days trial version is available as well which is recommended to test first before you buy it. Also make sure to check the system requirements page first.

It may be that for 2006, tiny television is in, relegating big-screen TV to "so last year" status.

Tapping into Satellite Radio on your Pocket PC

Jason Dunn talks about Pocket XM Radio:

If you haven't heard of satellite radio, here's the breakdown: for a monthly fee, you get access to a wide variety of radio content, commercial free. Unlike traditional radio, where in most markets you'd be lucky to get a dozen radio stations, you typically get access to well over a hundred radio stations. The content ranges from the usual Top 40 stations, to R&B, hip-hop, latin, and talk radio programs, including comedy.

Read the whole thing at Windows Mobile.

New Software for Windows Mobile

Here are some Pocket PC software programs that have been announced or reviewed recently:

Opera Web Browser (Beta)

Opera has released a beta version of its browser software for Windows Mobile 2003 and Windows Mobile 5. It uses the same core rendering engine as Opera’s desktop browser. It features full screen support, multiple windows, and landscape support. This beta version will expire 45 days after installation.

Link: http://www.opera.com

PocketWeather 1.2.4

PocketWeather’s main feature is a Today Screen plugin for your Windows Mobile device, which shows a six day forecast complete with weather icons and a list of current conditions. It is small, concise, and totally compatible with Windows Mobile 5 and VGA screens.

Link: www.pdabuzz.com

MobileBiz 3.0 Released

Dywer Technology has just released MobileBiz 3.0, a Pocket PC application which "allows users of QuickBooks accounting software to take QuickBooks with them on their Pocket PC to keep track of contacts and track expenses." It comes with a 30-day free trial, or you can buy it for $39.95. It requires Windows Mobile 2003 or better.

It's nice to see more applications being developed for the Pocket PC. The quality and quantity of available programs will make or break a platform—this is a large part of why I think Microsoft Windows has been so successful.

A Tiny, Tiny VGA Screen

Korean manufacturer LG Electronics has developed a 2.4 inch VGA display, which is half the size of most Pocket PC VGA screens.

LG Electronics would like to start shipping the screen by the second or third quarter of this year. The question looming in everyone's minds, of course, is whether anyone would actually want to try to read 640 x 480 pixels on such a tiny screen.

Squashing Spam on Mobile Devices

Arne Hess wrote an interesting technique for stopping spam messages on a mobile device. The gist of it is:

1. The user's E-Mail address is for example: user@providerxyz.de. In future, all E-Mails that are sent to this address will be forwarded on straight from the mail server at provider xyz (user mailbox 1) to the user's eXpurgate account user@Spamfence.net.
2. There the E-Mails are checked to see if they contain Spam and receives an additional mail header in this process, which reports the results of the examination and classifies the E-Mails as, for example, clear, suspicious or definitely Spam.
3. eXpurgate then sends the E-Mails to the user's second E-Mail address (e.g. user@providerabc.de or E-Mail2@providerxyz.de). The user can then access his mails as normal from his second mailbox at provider abc or xyz (user mailbox 2).
   

Read it for yourself over at The Unwired.

TV Tuner for PDAs

Eopstech has been developing an SDIO analog TV tuner, compatable with both PAL and NTSC, which will be released in March.

Most SDIO-equipped Pocket PCs running Pocket PC 2002 to Windows Mobile 5.0 should be able to use it. But don't get your hopes up too high--it looks like it will require a seperate battery pack, and won't be able to route through your PDA's sound system.

Still, it's a step in the right direction, and a pretty cool idea. It looks like this could help Pocket PC's and PDA's to gain some market share in the Personal Media Device arena against Apple's video iPod.

Symbol MC70: Awesome and Awesomely Expensive

Darius Wey over at Pocket PC Thoughts announced this moring that the MC70 is now live on the Symbol web site.

This high-end model was unvailed at CES last week, and is outfitted with an Intel XScale 624MHz processor, 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, quad-band GSM/GPRS support, 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Windows Mobile 5.0.

Symbol describes it as the world's first rugged enterprise PDA, and touts its rugged engineering, high power under the hood, and fantastic wireless communications capability.

A quick check at Froogle has it listed at around $1900--way too rich for my tastes, regardless of how awesome it is.

Sprint PPC 6700

Sprint's new PPC 6700 looks like an awesome new smartphone, with its most novel feature being a slider-design that opens to reveal a QUERTY thumb-keyboard.

It's also got a mini-USB port, a camera, Bluetooth support, and a microphone. Not to mention a clean and attractive (if a bit brick-like) design.

You can read more about it here at PocketPCCity.

Phillips Rollup Display

During the 2006 International CES, Philips showed this prototype of a device continually rolling and unrolling a display for the control panel of a PocketPC.

The grayscale, non-touchscreen screen is 320 x 240 pixels, with a diagnal length of 5 inches.

Can you imagine the applications for reading gadgets? eBooks? Or even the cost savings of putting these things into a budget Pocket PC?

Anyway, don't take my word for it--have a look for yourself over at Geekzone.

The iPAQ hw6900 is the hw6700 in Disguise

HP's upcoming Pocket PC phone, the hw6900, is apparently a renamed version of their previous model, the hw6700.

Some of its specs include:

1. A 416 MHz processor
2. 802.11b wireless support
3. 128 MB of Flash ROM for storage and 64 MB or RAM for currently running applications
4. GPS support

You can read more about it over at BrightHand.

Verizon's New Pocket PC Phone

From Pocket PC Central:

Sold in other parts of the world as the HTC Apache, the XV6700 Pocket PC Phone is small and sleek, featuring a slide-to-hide QWERTY keyboard that slides out to the left, unlike many Pocket PC Phones (like the Samsung i730) which feature a downward-sliding keyboard. The left-sliding keyboard allows you to view the unit's screen in landscape mode when typing.

Loaded with almost every possible feature other than a VGA display, the XV6700 is idea for anyone who needs to stay in touch on the go. Features include a 416MHz XScale processor, a 128MB ROM, 64MB of RAM, Bluetooth 1.2, 802.11b Wi-Fi, a miniSD flash memory card slot, a 1.3MP digital camera and camcorder, and compatibility with Verizon's high-speed EV-DO wireless network.

StormLine II: the Deep Fallen 100

Here's a pretty cool looking strategy wargame for Windows Mobile 2003. It looks like it's got 24 units and you can download a free demo of it. From the source:

You are taken on to take up a responsible post of the AntiNet Corporation RBU head. Exactly your RBU is going to wage a fight with forces of confronting Corporations. The destiny of your network, your Corporation, and also the destiny of billions simple users of a network depend on you. Whether will this war be a beginning of the end or will it allow to cardinally change a correlation of the forces in the universe? That’s the question which you are to answer. In order to take “Closed sector” under your complete control, you are to seize all key planets.

Dell Axim X51v Review

Ed Hardy over at Brighthand had this to say about this newest version of Dell's flagship Pocket PC:

Without a doubt, I believe the Axim X50v was the best Pocket PC available last year. And the X51v is even better...

At $500, the Axim X51v is a pretty good value. Especially when you consider what HP is charging for the iPAQ hx4700...

However, as I said earlier, unless you really need a VGA screen, you might consider the less-expensive, mid-range version of the Axim.