MobileViews Blog

Category: Smartphone

Windows Mobile Smartphone

  • FixMyMovie.com: Enhance Your CameraPhone Video Recordings

    FixMyMovie.com

    FixMyMovie.com uses the MotionDSP (which is funded by Q-Tel) video enhancement technology to enhance digital video. I uploaded a few seconds of video recorded by my T-Mobile Dash (Windows Mobile 6 smartphone) to see what it could do with the normally fuzzy video produced by this cameraphone. You can find my video test at: Test 1 walking. If you click on the compare button (middle of the five buttons below the video), it changes the display to full display mode and shows a side-by-side video comparison. You can also use the extracted still photo mode (like screen cap above) to compare the original and enhanced image.

    I think it did a pretty good job of enhancing my cameraphone video. Couple of things to note though. First, it took quite a while to enhance the few seconds of video I uploaded. This is not surprising considering the amount of work that goes into video enhancemnet processing. However, if you upload a longer video, be sure to allow for sometime before you are able to see the results. The system will email you a notification when it is finished. Second, the service is free in its current beta release phase. However, there is no promise that this service will remain free.

    My guess is that Google/YouTube, BiipTV, MSN Soapbox, or some other video site will buy or license this technology. It would probably help a lot of fuzzy videos like mine 🙂

  • iPhone AT&T Corporate Accounts Now Available. Windows Mobile Team: Need ActiveSync/WMDC Tools

    Just read over on Engadget that…

    AT&T rolls out iPhone plans for business customers

    Hey, I commented just yesterday that Microsoft needs to fix Windows Mobile’s Internet Explorer browser to let it render iPhone-specific sites because business customers and service providers are now looking at the iPhone as a business device. Now, they have an official mechanism to bring it into the enterprise.

    So, here’s another request. Come this November, it will be 12 years since Windows CE/Windows Mobile made its debut at Comdex 1996. Since it doesn’t look like ActiveSync or WMDC will be fixed anytime soon, how about some ActiveSync/WMDC diagnostic tools so we mere mortals can debug these bug ridden and undependable beasts?

    IMHO, competition is a good thing. Firefox brought back Internet Explorer team from the dead (it had been disbanded after IE6) and encouraged Microsoft to produce the much better IE7 (with tabs and more secure). Here’s hoping that the success of the iPhone pushes the WiMo team to make my favorite mobile OS much much better.

  • Windows Mobile 7 Request: Let IE Render iPhone Sites

    Digg.com iPhone formatted site on a Pocket PC

    There is nothing wrong with your display. This is what the Digg.com site formatted for viewing on the iPhone (digg.com/iphone) looks like when rendered on a Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition (AKA Professional Edition).

    The Windows Mobile product people always ask people to give them examples or use-cases of issues outsiders bring to them. Then, they ask to justify why resources should be spent on solving that problem rather that something else already in the queue. Ok, how about this then…

    ISSUE: Windows Mobile 6’s Internet Explorer browser for the Professional (touch screen) and Standard (non-touch screen) cannot render sites designed specifically for the Apple iPhone (or iPod touch).

    RESOLUTION: Fix Internet Explorer for Windows Mobile 7 so that it can correctly render web sites designed and optimized for the iPhone.

    JUSTIFICATION: It sure looks like lots of major sites are designing web sites specifically for the iPhone’s Safari browser. They are not building sites for WiMo IE. This means your customers (like me) are shut out of these sites (many of which are very useful and/or just plain interesting). The iPhone is making inroads to your customer base: Corporations. Even if you don’t care about individual consumers like me, you probably do care about your corporate clients who can bolt in large numbers.

  • Qipit Good! Scan Cameraphone Photos to PDF

    Original Cameraphone Photo vs. Qipit PDF

    Qipit good!… With apologies to Devo… I signed up for the free Qipit online cameraphone to PDF scanning service today. Although I’m focusing on the cameraphone aspect today, you can upload a digital photo taken with any kind of digital camera and upload it from the desktop too. For this test, I used a T-Mobile Dash (Windows Mobile 6 smartphone) to take a photo of a price sign in a local store. You can see the resized by otherwise unretouched photo on the left and a resized version of the PDF Qipit emailed to me. It also stored the image on their server for access through the web. As you can see, it seemed to do a pretty good job of focusing on the text area and cropping off the unnecessary area (I cropped it a bit more for this posting). The resulting PDF text was reasonably clear and readable.

  • Back to Basics: Soft Reset

    Have you ever found your Windows Mobile smartphone (Standard or Professional Editions) in a state best described as frozen? This can happen in several ways. The most common experience on a non-touch Standard Edition device is that it becomes so slow that I can’t seem to get any action to work on it. Can’t dial, can’t launch an application, can’t even navigate. Recently, my HTC Advantage touch screen device (Professional Edition) has refused to turn on once in a while (perhaps 3 to 4 times in the past month).

    Personally, many of my apparent freeze ups are usually related to some kind of Internet Explorer related memory management problem. The usual problem is that the cache gets large and slows the entire device down. A little patience while slowly navigating to the IE option to clear the cache usually resolves the problem. However, when my Standard Edition seems completely frozen to the point where the on/off button does not work, I usually end up pulling the battery out, put it back in, and turn on the phone. I’ve never had a problem with this procedure. But, your mileage may vary. So, proceed with caution.

    Pulling the battery out and putting it back in amounts to a kind of hardware soft reset. The difference between a soft reset and a hard reset is that a hard reset puts your device back in the state it was at the factory. Data, configuration information, and applications added after you received it will disappear. A soft reset restarts the system but leaves data, configuration, and software alone.

    Pocket PC/Professional Edition touch-screen devices have a recessed dedicated soft-reset button somewhere on its chassis. The location differs from model to model. The button is usually very small and fit to the point of the stylus that came with the device. Ballpoint pen and other larger tips will not work. Pressing the reset on the HTC Advantage has brought it back to life each time. But, I’m not a huge fan of using this button. The reset on my old Compaq iPAQ 3650 actually wore out because I had to use it so much on that box. There are free soft-reset software utilities available. But, these don’t help if your unit is completely unresponsive.

  • Book: Windows Mobile Data Synchronization with SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server Compact 3.1

    I just read Rob Tiffany’s (a Technical Product Manager in the Microsoft Windows Mobile group) blog and noticed he has a new book out (with a very long title :-)…

    Windows Mobile Data Synchronization with SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server Compact 3.1

    If you need to use SQL Server held data with your WiMo smartphone. This book might be a good place to start looking (haven’t read it myself, btw).