MobileViews Blog

Demonstration of pinch-to-zoom gesture feature working on a U.S. Nexus One with the Android 2.1-Update1 firmware update applied.

Test post with photo using WordPress 1.0 for Android on a Nexus One

Video courtesy of Webseed

Found this item over on Engadget…

Nokia N97’s Brain Maze requires steady hand, typical mind-control equipment

But, I can’t see I see any “mind control” involved after watching the video demo. All the navigation is done through hand motion. The mind control part is supposed to be “thinking in advance” of the course. But, that is not something readily apparent just by watching a video.

I wanted to try the Intel AppUp beta for Windows 7 netbooks. So, I pointed my Google Chrome browser at…

http://www.intel.com/Consumer/Products/appup.htm

This resulted in partially rendered web page and Chrome attempting to use all available processor resources. I had to use Windows Task Manager to terminate Chrome.

Next up was Firefox. It rendered correctly and did not cause the processor to rev up. However, I could not download the AppUp EXE file using Firefox.

This forced me to use Internet Explorer 8 which takes forever to startup (why is that). The AppUp webpage rendered correctly and let me download the EXE file.

Thanks for the terrible user experience, Intel!

The overall quality of still photos and videos recorded using my Nexus One continues to impress me.

This video was recorded at 4:10pm in a a room with windows. I started the recording with the room lights turned off. Then, I turned the lights on and panned across the room to get a few different room lighting conditions including backlit. The Nexus One adjusted relatively quickly to a variety of light conditions during this brief test.

After using the Nexus One for a couple of days now, I’m convinced that its still photo and video quality is significantly better than the Motorola Droid.

Received my Google Nexus One Android phone a few hours ago. The video sample above was transcoded (by Google) from the original 3gp file recorded on the Nexus One. The video sample below is a video recorded using the Qik for Android app.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer demonstrated HP’s soon-to-be-available Notebook Slate (no physical keyboard) running Windows 7 during his CES keynote in Las Vegas last night…

Gizmodo: HP’s Windows 7 Slate Device Revealed by Steve Ballmer

Here’s the thing though… I’ve had an Asus Eee PC T91MT netbook for a couple of months now. It has an 8.9-inch multi-touch screen in a convertible configuration (physical keyboard can be used in netbook mode or hidden to use in slate mode). Windows 7 is a great operating system. I happen to like it a lot and have upgraded my desktops and netbooks to it since it release. It is not, however, tweaked for touch use based on my experience with the T91MT. The problem is that Windows 7’s touch screen feature is a combination of the old pen-centric Tablet PC and the hand/finger-centric Surface Table. The result is something neither animal nor mineral. Many, if not most, of the feature remain pen-centric. Finger-tip touch control is an afterthought at best and simply ignored at worst. I recorded a brief video demo using my T91MT in slate mode (physical keyboard hidden in back of the LCD) to demonstrate some of the small but annoying issues I’ve run into over the past few months. And, note that these are just a few of the issues. There are many more.

Google Chromium OS installed on a 2GB USB thumb drive running on a first generation Acer Aspire One. This netbook has an Atom N270 processor with 512MB RAM.

I’m always looking for voice recording apps that might help me in my podcasting projects. I tried the free Voice Recorder app for Android by Mamoru Tokashiki over the weekend. You can hear a sample of the voice recording I made using the app on my Droid in the mini-podcast embedded above.

I ran into a couple of problems using Voice recorder on my Droid:

- It crashed a couple of times
- Its home screen widget did not work
- It stops recording if the Droid is moved
- The resultng recording has a low volume. I used Audacity to increase the volume of the recording to product the mini=podcast
- I think, but am not 100% certain, that the app caused the Droid’s battery to drain rapidly. I uninstalled the app to test this possibility

The app itself has a nice simple and easy to understand interface. I like its ability to both save and email a sound recording. I’ll make a note to check on this app’s progress a few months into 2010 to see if it might make its way into my toolset.

- You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
- You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
- You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone.

In Podcast 41 I speak with Chevrolet Accessories Manager Chris Rauser about the new Chevy Mobile Wi-Fi Autonet Mobile 3G-to-WiFi vehicle router. The product has a $399 retail price but has a rebate program running through the end of the year that brings the price down to $199. A docking station lets you move the router to another vehicle. The router product is availale for 7 Chevy models: Equinox, Transverse, Silverado, Tahoe, Suburban, Avalanche, Express. You can learn more Chevy Mobile Wi-Fi at…

Wi-Fi On Four Wheels: Chevrolet Offers Dealer-Installed Wireless Internet System For SUVs, Trucks And Vans (press release)

http://gmextras.com

The podcast is 14 minutes and 43 seconds long.

- You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
- You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
- You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone.

In Podcast 40, I speak with Nuance Mobile Sr. VP & General Manager Michael Thompson about the recently released Nuance Dragon Dictation app for iPhone. This free app can record you speaking in chunks up to 30 seconds long. Multiple 30 second speech bites can be combined into a single message.

Dragon Dictation 1.1.0

One discussion item of particular note is the privacy issue. And, if you download the freshly released 1.1.0 update, you’ll note that one change is the ability to delete previously uploaded contact names from their server and to opt out of uploading contact names going forward. Nuance does not obtain any other information except the contact name. So, I feel comfortable leaving my contact names on their server to help with speech-to-text transcriptions.

Mike also mentioned that more apps are on their way from Nuance and hinted at something called Dragon Search. Keep an eye and ear out for it!

Got a Droid? Wish it supported the pinch and zoom gesture (which Android 2.0 does but is not turned on for the Droid)? If so, you might want to consider downloading and installing the free Dolphin Browser from the Android Market. As you can see in my demo, it supports the pinch and zoom gesture even on the Droid.