Smartphone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

AURA stands for Advanced User Resource Annotation. Behind the fancy name is an amazing technology that enables the Windows Mobile devices to read product barcodes and pull up product information. This software is one of the many useful concepts being demonstrated and tested by Microsoft Research. It is the kind of technology that will makes our lives simpler and more productive. Every time you go shopping or you are in the library, and want to get more information on a product. Whether it is the reviews or the price in the competing stores, AURA shows how it can be done in a snap. The other big use for this prototype is that we can now record and track the products that we own. I am sure you have thought about maintaining a list of all the DVDs in your video collection, or all the books, CDs and games. If the product has a barcode then you can track it. This is something that I have always wanted to do but never had the means. Soon I will be able to do it with ease, with my handy Windows Mobile smartphone. :) In the future AURA will also be able to take advantage of other product tagging systems like RFID, but the current version is limited to barcodes.


Figure 1: Notice something weird about the Dash?

Barcode is present on pretty much every product in the store. Our Windows Mobile camera phones have the means to capture them and have the processing power to recognize them, but one of of the biggest limitations of the camera phones in the market is that they have fixed lens or fixed focal length. What it means is that they are suitable for shooting pictures of objects within a certain range, but if they are too close or too far away then the images will not be sharp. This limitation prevents the current Windows Mobile smartphones from taking sharp pictures of barcodes at a close range. Blurry pictures are not good candidates for the barcode recognition software. Microsoft Research team for AURA is providing free lens kit for folks who want to participate in the BETA testing. I signed up and got a free lens for my Dash, that is what you are looking at on my Dash. This special lens adapter enables my Dash to take sharp pictures of the barcodes. If you are interested in learning more about this helpful technology then continue reading.
Special Lens Adapter
Let's first check out the special lens kit that enables the Windows Mobile devices to take macro photographs. Without this lens adapter the camera, as mentioned earlier, will take blurry photos of the barcodes. We will see it in action shortly. In the future once the camera phones start supporting movable lens and auto focus, this special adapter will not be needed.


Figure 2: This is the lens kit adapter that I received from Microsoft Research AURA team. Click on the image for the hi-resolution version.


Figure 3: The lens adapter comes with a sticky pad. Click on the image for the hi-resolution version.


Figure 4: Another angle showing the special lens mounted on the Dash. The lens adapter can be moved out of way of the camera lens, so that we can take regular photos. Click on the image for the hi-resolution version.

Test Drive
To demonstrate the capability of Microsoft Research's AURA client for Windows Mobile, I am going to have it scan the barcode for this Sony product and see if it can identify it.


Figure 5: I am going to try scanning the barcode at the bottom of this Sony product.


Figure 6: The AURA client has a simple interface.

The Scan soft-key button launches the native camera application. The following screen shows the Dash taking a picture of the barcode. You can see that I took the photo at an angle, to make it hard for the barcode recognition software. ;-)


Figure 7: Screen shot of the camera application on my Dash taking a picture of the barcode on the Sony product.

The AURA client automatically reads the barcode from the photo and submits a request to the Microsoft site with the barcode information, to look up the product information. It then shows the product description in the pocket Internet Explorer.


Figure 8: Screen shot of the pocket IE showing my most recently scanned item at the top, the "Sony M-570V Microcassette Voice Recorder."

Clicking on the item link shows me the product details and also links for finding the product on Amazon.com and MSN Shopping. I will show that shortly. Let us take another look at the client capabilities.


Figure 9: The screen shot of the simple client interface. It shows all the items that were recently scanned.


Figure 10: The menu options.


Figure 11: The extended menu options.
Read more...

"We've just released NewsBreak 2.0, for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs and Smartphones. With NewsBreak 2.0 you can: Listen to your favorite podcasts, watch vidcasts, and view attached files and images! Schedule your podcasts to download when and how you want them - even separately from your other channels. Save your podcasts and listen to them whenever you have time for a news break. Never run out of memory - keep podcasts on a storage card or tell NewsBreak how much space to use in main memory."



If you already purchased NewsBreak 1.2 after 12/06/06 this will be a free upgrade for you. They are offering upgrades at a discount if you bought earlier. If not it is worth taking a look at. There is a trial available and you can pick it up here at our affiliate store.

"More and more mobile users are opting for HubDog as their Personal Mobile Interface to Access their Favorite Content when and wherever they want. HubDog is finally available for Windows Mobile Smartphone and again, it is totally Free. With HubDog for Smartphone, search and view Video Podcast, TV Shows, Clips, Movies, Live Radio, Music Podcasts, Pictures, News across more than 40 000 mobile channels. HubDog is FREE, registration is optional"

This sounds pretty nice, but I couldn't find any screen shots of the app running on the 320x240 device. I'm always looking for new applications and ways to stay on top of my feeds and news reader items. So it's nice to see applications like these focusing on that. Has anyone installed this? Does it offer any sort of sync?

"A6.Times for Smartphone is a user friendly electronic newspaper for your Windows Mobile Smartphone device that supports all known Web content syndication formats and versions (RSS, Atom, RDF). A6.Times sets itself apart from other similar software with a spectacular user interface that organizes information into sections, just like a traditional newspaper does."



A6.Times is a new RSS reader for your Smartphone. Like the quote says, it is very nice to look at. They must have spent a lot of time getting the visual elements just right on this. There's a 14 day trial version available on their website. If you do try it, please share your thoughts with us. I'd like to know what you think of this reader. It sure is nice to look at. :)

The 2006 Thoughts Media Reader Survey is now 100% complete, as I've randomly selected the winners from among the 1500 or so people that completed it. It took a while to process and select the winners, so my apologies for the delay. Since we didn't tie the survey into forum profiles (or anything else for that matter), the only way I can announce the winners is by their email addresses - and since I'm not going to post those, here are the winners as shown by the first part of their email addresses. A bit obscure, but at least they won't get spammed. I'm going to be sending out the email messages tonight to the winners, but if you see the first part of your email address below, you may have won a prize. ;-)HTC Blue Angel: spencersMotorola MPx220: bigray327MSN Direct Fossil SPOT Watch: jdsilver$50 Vaja Gift Certificates: mzh-public, normanp, fmcappuccio, cm.marshall, mreric2712, mbeseka, nykpike, simone, vincent, repaloutz, crussader99, smconstable, cathead35, mark.sobierajiGo Juice 70 Mobile Power Kit: tasiMemorex 512MB USB Flash Drive: jonlarmanAssorted Microlights: jgahr, jamesbe2759, caron, dan.aberg, 86fq-ywo4, garyglick, rhernani, algoisme, nick, ken.lin, rogerethek, r.coulter, cwcs, mordin_x, jkudron, pocketpcthoughts, spencerar, Toddard, prujeanfamily, trevor.leybourneCongratulations to all the winners, and thank you to everyone for your support with this survey. I promise that next one will be better organized, have better questions, and actually work on everyone's browser. ;-)

The 2006 Thoughts Media Reader Survey is now 100% complete, as I've randomly selected the winners from among the 1500 or so people that completed it. It took a while to process and select the winners, so my apologies for the delay. Since we didn't tie the survey into forum profiles (or anything else for that matter), the only way I can announce the winners is by their email addresses - and since I'm not going to post those, here are the winners as shown by the first part of their email addresses. A bit obscure, but at least they won't get spammed. I'm going to be sending out the email messages tonight to the winners, but if you see the first part of your email address below, you may have won a prize. ;-)HTC Blue Angel: spencersMotorola MPx220: bigray327MSN Direct Fossil SPOT Watch: jdsilver$50 Vaja Gift Certificates: mzh-public, normanp, fmcappuccio, cm.marshall, mreric2712, mbeseka, nykpike, simone, vincent, repaloutz, crussader99, smconstable, cathead35, mark.sobierajiGo Juice 70 Mobile Power Kit: tasiMemorex 512MB USB Flash Drive: jonlarmanAssorted Microlights: jgahr, jamesbe2759, caron, dan.aberg, 86fq-ywo4, garyglick, rhernani, algoisme, nick, ken.lin, rogerethek, r.coulter, cwcs, mordin_x, jkudron, pocketpcthoughts, spencerar, Toddard, prujeanfamily, trevor.leybourneCongratulations to all the winners, and thank you to everyone for your support with this survey. I promise that next one will be better organized, have better questions, and actually work on everyone's browser. ;-)

"No question, it took a while for Google to make its Google RSS Feed Reader mobile as well but finally it happened and you can read your Google Reader feeds in the palm of your hand now since Google just released a mobile-friendly xHTML interface for Google Reader. If you use the Google Personalized Homepage and have installed the Reader Homepage Module, it'll automatically show up on your mobile homepage. Simply go to google.com on your mobile phone's browser (or google.com/xhtml if you not redirected automatically) and click the link to "Personalized Home"."



Personally I am not a big fan of much Google does other than using them for searches. Most of what they do always seems a bit primitive to me. Here now is another one of their offerings for your consideration. I haven't checked out myself. Let us know what you think if you do.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm proud to present the 2006 Thoughts Media Reader Survey! Long-time readers will remember we used to do demographic polls one at a time, but we haven't done many of those lately. As such, our demographic information is sadly out of date. Why does that matter? In order to keep running these sites, we need to sell advertising. Advertisers like to know general demographic information about the type of people visiting a site before they'll buy ads on it. And so it's time for us to get some updated information!



The survey will take you about 5 minutes to complete. Why fill it out? To help us out, but most of all, to win prizes! Here's what's up for grab in a random drawing of everyone who completes the survey:

GRAND PRIZE: an HTC Blue Angel (aka PDA2K) Pocket PC Phone Edition
SECOND PRIZE: a Motorola MPx220

Other prizes:
� 14 x $50 Vaja gift certificates ($700 total in coupons)
� a MSN Direct Fossil SPOT Watch (FX3005)
� an iGo Juice 70 Mobile Power Kit
� a Memorex 512 MB USB Flash Drive
� 20 x Microlights, assorted mix of Pocket PC Thoughts, Smartphone Thoughts, and Digital Media Thoughts branded lights

That's 39 prizes worth a total of about $2300 USD! Now for the fine print: the survey will remain open until May 19th, two weeks from now, and winners (randomly drawn from all survey submissions) will be announced early the following week. There's a limit of one prize per person. As I state in the survey, the name and email address are only used for the prize drawing - the data will be destroyed after the prize drawing, and your email address will only be used if you win a prize. Your demographic information will not be tied to your name and email address in any way - all demographic information will be compiled anonymously. I don't share my email address lightly, and take matters of privacy very seriously, so rest assured your information will not be abused in any way.

Ready to start the survey? Go for it!

UPDATE: There have been some people who weren't able to take the survey for a variety of reasons. First, the survey is not Pocket PC or Smarpthone compatible - please do the survey using your desktop computer. I just didn't have the resources to make a Windows-Mobile compatible survey. Secondly, there were some HTML errors that resulted in some people getting a blank page and no survey. I believe I've fixed these errors, so if you were one of those people, please try again. Thank you for your patience - I wasn't expecting any of these problems. ;-)

"We�re happy to announce the release of version 1.2 of NewsBreak, our award-winning portable news reader that lets you read your news wherever you are. NewsBreak 1.2 adds full Windows Mobile 5.0 support and softkeys, support for high-resolution Smartphones, support for Atom 1.0, and many other usability improvements as well."

Ilium has just released an update to their extremely popular NewsBreak RSS reader for Windows Mobile devices. The latest version is a free upgrade for existing users and offers improved support for QVGA screens. If you have never tried NewsBreak, you should really look into it. You can download a 30 day trial version or purchase a copy directly from the Ilium Software website. 8)

"Stuck in a long meeting? Alone on a boat? Riding a train for days? Addicted to deal shopping? Dealexec Rss Is your first choice."



The popularity of RSS is strong and growing. You can stay on top of your favourite sites ;) with ease while you're out and about. If you don't have a RSS reader, Dealexec RSS looks like a pretty nice solution and it's free! Can you ask for more than that? :D

"NewsGator Technologies, Inc., the leading RSS platform company, today announced that it has expanded its mobile portfolio with new RSS aggregators for Windows Mobile and J2ME-enabled devices. The new products accompany the NewsGator Mobile reader for HTML-enabled devices as part of the industry�s most complete mobile RSS catalog. All three mobile products synchronize with the NewsGator family of products, anchored by NewsGator Online, the company�s Web-based aggregator, allowing customers to read content and manage their subscriptions seamlessly from any device. NewsGator recently acquired the Windows Mobile reader (formerly called SmartRead) and SmartFeed, a mobile podcatching application. Kevin Cawley, creator of the products, has joined the NewsGator team to oversee the company�s mobile product development."

This is great news. I have been waiting for a solid mobile/desktop RSS synchronizing solution. The biggest problem with a most mobile readers is that they don't sync with my desktop reader - FeedDemon. FeedDemon is a great reader and I have hundreds of feeds in it. Even if I took just a subset of my feeds and loaded them into a mobile reader I would end up reading the same posts again and again as I switch between my Smartphone and my Laptop. So I, for one, am trilled to hear this news. :mrgreen:

"Checking out the Internet buzz about a DVD, book or candy while on the go will become as easy as taking a snapshot of the bar code on a product. Toshiba Corp., a Japanese electronics company that makes DVD players, laptops and nuclear power plants, has developed mobile-phone technology that searches for product reviews on up to 100 Web journals, or blogs, in 10 seconds. Just use the phone's digital camera to snap a photo of the bar code of a product you're thinking about buying. The technology can decipher if the blog chatter is positive or negative and tallies the count to show if a product is getting rave reviews or being trashed by consumers. That's useful if you're in a store about to buy an item."



This is the kind of technology I would like to see on my Smartphone, so that I can finally start using the otherwise useless camera on my cell phone. I have used the camera on my Smartphone a few times to take snapshots of the product labels so that I can carry out detailed research once I get home, but the technology demonstrated by Toshiba is the way to go. Another product that can help increase the use of the camera on the cell phones, at least for me, is the Whiteboard Photo Image Capturing software from PolyVision. I tried it recently but the quality and the resolution of the photos from the Cingular 2125 makes it tough for the otherwise awesome software.

"CHM Reader is the first and best CHM doc reader for Smartphne. It help you to view files in the most common help format - Microsoft Compiled HTML."



Here is another one of those applications that looks useful. I'm not sure if any applications that actually run on the Smartphone use the CHM file format but you can get a trial version here. [Affiliate]

"Marcus Perryman is delivering a session covering building a Windows Mobile RSS reader using Windows Mobile 5.0, Visual Studio 2005, and C# - You can get the slides and sample code from Marcus's blog and look out for the interview with Marcus being posted soon over on MSDN Channel 9."



This blog by Marcus presents the code and the slide show from the PDC presentation that demonstrates using Windows Mobile 5.0, Visual Studio 2005 and Compact Framework 2.0 to consume RSS feeds. Its good to see presentations where the code demonstration is a complete application instead of just being code snippets. 8)

"Speed Reader Plus Smartphone Edition allows you to read documents and e-Books on your Smartphone at amazing speeds using RSVP and ColorBar (patent pending) technologies (~500 WPM for new text and ~1000 WPM when flash reviewing text). A perfect solution for reading long documents on small screens. Speed Reader Plus Smartphone Edition is ideal for its productivity, entertainment and educational value."



Recently I had mentioned a Java based Rapid Serial Visualization Presentation (RSVP) application called BuddyBuzz. Unlike BuddyBuzz, Speed Reader Plus from MobileDynamo is written for Windows Mobile Smartphone and uses its own ColorBar technology. The ColorBar will gradually change color as each word in the sentence is displayed, giving you a sense of the word's location in the sentence. 8) So if you love e-books then you must download this application and give it a try. Speed Reader Plus can be purchased for $19.99 and the trial version can be downloaded from here.

"Inbox Speed Reader allows you to read your inbox items (eMail, SMS) on your Smartphone at amazing speeds using RSVP and ColorBar (patent pending) technologies (~500 WPM for new text and ~1000 WPM when flash reviewing text). A perfect solution for reading long messages on small screens. Inbox Speed Reader is ideal for its productivity value."



Recently while talking about Rapid Serial Visualization Presentation (RSVP) based e-book application called BuddyBuzz, I had expressed the desire to have a similar application for reading the E-Mails on my Smartphone. Our reader diar pointed out MobileDynamo's Inbox Speed Reader application. Using this Smartphone application we can speed read our E-Mails. I tried the application out and once I got used to reading the flashing words, I found that I could indeed speed read. :) Now I wish this application was integrated as a menu option in the Smartphone's Pocket Outlook Inbox, rather than having its own inbox view. I believe that is something the Windows Mobile 5.0 based version of this application will be able to do. :wink: Inbox Speed Reader can be purchased for $29.99 and the trial version can be downloaded from here.

BeetzStream has just released a RSS reader for Windows Mobile Smartphones. It's built on the .NET CF 1.1, so if you don't have a Windows Mobile 2003 based phone, then you won't be able to use this reader. There is a trial version available, which is limited to 5 feeds, and can be found here. If you like what you see, you can buy a license from the developers site for $9.99. :)

"Geekzone and Ilium Software teamed to offer an incredible offer: a free NewsBreak Lite RSS feed reader for your Windows Mobile Pocket PC or Smartphone. RSS is a technology that allows web site publishers to make their content available through a syndicated �feed� that users can elect to receive. Users can then view the feed with the help of a RSS feed reader, like NewsBreak Lite. Using RSS, users can receive the most up-to-date information, delivered to them in their RSS reader."

Now who can argue with free? We have talked about this software before here and now you can have a lite version. It is limited to 5 feeds but if you have been thinking about trying this now you can.

"Smart Book is the useful and practical electronic reading application. You can read the selection of ebooks downloaded from website or the ebook exchanged from your friend. With its multi-language supported, you can operate it in either Chinese or English optionally. The view of characters is absolutely clear which enables you study your work without any difficulties. The most impressive function is Underline which helps your reading viewed row by row regularly, but it will not let you get lost where you�ve studied. If you have the difficulty to read the small characters, try Smart Book! Change the font or size freely and enjoy a pleasant reading. This is the one you don�t wanna miss."



Unfortunately, there is no trial version for this application. :( It costs $19.95, and should work on all Windows Mobile 2003 based Smartphones. If you've been looking for a eBook reader, then you might want to read up on this one, and also check out Tiny Reader - the only other eBook reader on our Affiliate store.

"Imagine how convenient it would be to quickly scan your latest news feeds, topic radars and other RSS content while waiting in line at a store or during your daily commute. Now this has become reality with FreeNews, a mobile news reader recently launched for public preview. FreeNews is a Java-based application that runs right off your cell phone. According to the FreeNews product information page most current cell phone models from the major brands (Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG etc) and wireless devices like the PalmOne Treo, BlackBerry and devices running the Windows Mobile operating system are capable of running FreeNews."



I haven't tested this myself. In theory it should work on Smartphones with the Java client but on the developers website it says "except Verizon". Must be a problem with the "worry free guarantee" or something. Anyone willing to try it out (except Verizon), and report back? There is a trial version available here.