Digital Trends
T-Mobile has announced it will be launching its the Dash 3G smartphone beginning in July, following up on the company’s popular Dash offering. The Dash 3G—built by HTC and otherwise known as the HTC Snap—sports a full QWERTY keyboard with trackball, sports Wi-Fi and mobile 3G connectivity, offers an integrated GPS, and runs Windows Mobile 6.1 so users can tie in to Outlook, Exchange, and all sort of other enterprise goodies from the Microsoft universe.
While in-car GPS technology may have tackled basic geography by letting drivers pinpoint their locations instantly and plot out directions on the fly, gadgetry still hasn’t quite found a way of dealing with that constantly shifting nemesis of drivers everywhere: traffic. Besides the spontaneous and inconsistent reports from traffic helicopters in urban areas, the best that most drivers have to go on to find the clearest route from point A to point B is just a hunch. But a clever solution may be on the horizon.
In the middle of 2007, OpenMoko made a splash by unveiling developer kits for its Neo 1973 mobile phone. The Linux-based Neo mobile phone platform is based on free and open source technologies, and shipped with the Linux kernel, the X window system, the GNU C library, the GTK+ toolkit and an OpenMoko GUI framework. Although the mobile platform world has seen a few significant developments in the meantime—like Google Android and open network pronouncments from Verizon and (sort of) AT&T, OpenMoko hasn’t been sitting still either: today, OpenMoko announced it has set itself up as its own company, separate from motherboard maker FIC, and revealed the Internet-connected Dash Express GPS unit runs OpenMoko’s Neo platform.
Dash Navigation has opened up pre-orders for its Dash Express automotive GPS system. What sets the Dash Express apart from other vehicle-based GPS systems is that it builds in two-way Internet connectivity via Wi-Fi and GPRS networks, enabling a new set of capabilities not normally seen in GPS systems. For one thing, users can create routes and send them to their GPS wirelessly fro any Web browser. But, perhaps more intriguingly, it collects real-time traffic information from the Dash Driver Network, which includes anonymous polling of other Dash Express devices, and can calculate new routes as traffic flow information changes. Information from Dash Network can include data on sides streets and local roads, rather than just monitoring traffic on main thoroughfares and arterials.
Boutique computer maker Maingear has announced the immediate availability of its new Dash Friends and Family PC. Just in time for the end-of-year holiday buying season, the Dash hopes to bring the performance and high quality of a smaller computer maker to everyday computer users at a price which can compare with the biggest PC manufacturers. And, unlike those big computer manufactures, Maingear is certifying each system is free of bloatware and spyware.
If you haven’t heard of social networking sites, we have only one question: What type of rock have you been living under for the last couple of years? They’ve currently become the biggest of Internet businesses, with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. snapping up MySpace and Google dipping into its seemingly bottomless coffers to purchase YouTube.
Honestly, you can barely turn around without hearing about social networking. In fact, to an entire generation or two, it’s become one of the main forms of personal communication. Having your own individualized online profile is easily eclipsing instant messaging (although you can do that too on some of the sites) in popularity. But to those of a certain age, it seems a mystery. So what exactly is it, and why is it so popular?
No matter how good the components in your computer are, sooner or later you will have a major failure on your hands. Unfortunately it’s usually after such an event that people start thinking that they should have backed up their data.
We place our lives on these machines. They are essential tools for education, entertainment, and daily communications and we spend much of our time in front of them. No matter how much time you spend with your computer, make no mistake about it – these machines do not care. They can and will betray you and can and will come crashing down at the most inopportune of times.
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