Monthly Archives: October 2007

New Windows Mobile Site: The Wow Stops Now?

Microsoft launched a new Windows Mobile site that apparently has the slogan Start Doing More.

Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 Start Doing More

However, this heavily flash-based site seems to be about less instead of more. The initial page with its three tiny thematic buttons sitting in the middle of the screen looks lonely on the nausea inducing full motion video sitting in back of it. Clicking a button results in another long Flash site load that takes a long long time even on a broadband connection. This is not a sticky site design and offers little useful information. All flash, no substance.

Google Mobile Phone: T-Mobile or Verizon Wireless?

RCR Wireless News reports that T-Mobile may be the US carrier that launches the Google mobile phone.  Information Week reports that Verizon Wireless may be the lucky carrier. If Google uses Apple’s one carrier strategy for a mobile rollout, VZW seems like the more likely candidate since it has a much larger presence than the far smaller T-Mobile USA.

My guess, ok wishful thinking, is that Google has more clout than Apple (though that may be hard to believe) and is able to avoid the whole exclusive carrier agreement and roll out both a CDMA (VZW) and a GSM (T-Mobile) solution. VZW would give it the US footprint to compete effectively with the Apple/AT&T Wireless iPhone product. The T-Mobile GSM solution would give it worldwide roaming. The combined rollout would also have a larger customer population than AT&T Wireless.

I guess we’ll see how things shake out in the next couple of weeks if we believe the various reports and rumors published in the past few weeks.

T-Mobile Shadow: Here Come the Custom Interfaces

The T-Mobile Shadow has been generating a lot of interest (not as much as the iPhone did, but quite a lot in the scheme of things). Like most HTC designs, the slide-out keyboard design for a Windows Mobile 6 smartphone (Standard Edition) looks good. The odd thing (to me anyway) is that the Shadow is being marketed as a cool hip lifestyle music playing phone.

The issue is that Windows Mobile 6 is not designed for cool hip consumers. It is designed for uncool, unhip enterprises with Microsoft Exchange Server (which actually does some cool stuff with Windows Mobile but not in the sense of young people cool). Does putting an easier to use Today screen really make that much of a difference? Probably not IMHO. And, unless some significant enhancement was done to Windows Media Player for Windows Mobile, it does not have a good non-techie end-user story to tell as a media player.

The Shadow looks like a good solid Windows Mobile 6 smartphone. Its lack of a QWERTY keyboard probably takes it out of the e-mail focused crowd. It will be interesting to see which market segment actually gravitates towards these green and brown (brown?) phones.

Mailbag Q&A: Using a Mobile Phone for Heart Attack Care

Reader D.S. has an interesting question. I usually post interesting questions because I think the question and my response might be of general interest. This time, however, I’m posting it because I think the question needs a better response than I can provide. D.S. asks…

We are in the midst of setting up a system to improve the care for patients who are suffering a heart attack in the city and county of […]

One significant issue is how to to allow the cardiologist to see the electrocardiogram. This is important for the cardiologist to make a decision as to whether an emergent cardiac catheterization should take place.

Obviously if it is during business hours or if the cardiologist is at home and has a fax machine, this is not as much of an issue.

However, we need to address the possibility that the cardiologist on call is out and about. Hence the question about how a cardiologist might be able to view the electrocardiogram in the field.

One thought is for the cardiologists to have mobile devices. In my research of the topic, there do appear to be ways for a fax of the electrocardiogram to be sent to a mobile device. However, the worry is that there is still a delay, especially with a fax to email solution. In acute heart attack care, seconds and minutes count, so the image would need to be available in real time.

In your experience, what would you recommend as a way to get an image of the electrocardiogram to the cardiologist. Some way for the emergency room to send a fax of the electrocardiogram to the phone? Could it be send via MMS messenging?

First, here’s a caveat/disclaimer: My response here should not be considered as advice, recommendation, or consultation. It is merely a response to an interesting question. (Sorry for the weasel words :-).

Couple of thoughts…

1. First, before starting on the technical aspects of the project, be sure to consult with an authority in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). You may need to encrypt the electrocardiogram image for transmission.

2. As you point out both SMS and email are subject to potential delays. And, sending images may be problematic depending on how email is configured, the storage capacity of the receiver’s mail server, and other factors. It may be worth investigating the possibility of keeping multiple resolutions of individual images (low, medium, high) on the server and sending alerts to the cardiologist via simultaneous multiple channels: E.g., automated voice call, SMS, email. This message would point the receiver to a password protected site where the image could be called up on a mobile device for viewing.

3. Don’t rule out the possibility of an old-style client-server application where coded alphanumeric data is sent from the server to the client (mobile device) instead of a graphic image. An electrocardiogram image could be rebuilt from this smaller coded data. This could greatly reduce the amount of data that is sent compared to an image file and thus speed up the process of receiving and viewing the electrocardiogram image.

Here are links to two mobile technology sites that may provide more information than I can provide.

MedicalPocketPC.com

Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine has an M.D. as a regular contributing author

Finally, if anyone has other information links that might be useful to D.S., please post it in a comment to this blog entry.

Concerned About Asustek Eee PC Math

Asustek Eee PC press release

The October 18 Asustek press release title for the eagerly anticipated (at least by me) ultra compact Eee PC reads…

An Eee PC Sold Every 2 Seconds

However, the text of the release says…

…with 200 pieces snapped up in 20 mins on Taiwan’s shopping channel, ETTV Shopping – averaging an Eee PC sold every 2 seconds!

Um, hmm, so 200 / 20 = 10 per minute = an Eee PC sold every 6 seconds. Still impressive but off by 3x. Not very good math. Hope it wasn’t calculated on an Eee PC 🙂

Addendum: Here’s a link to CNET UK’s Asus EeePC 701 Full Review.

Google Gmail IMAP4 Works Fine with Windows Mobile

My Google Gmail IMAP4 feature was turned on earlier today (Oct. 25, Thursday). The first thing I did was test it with a T-Mobile Dash (Smartphone AKA Standard Edition) running Windows Mobile 6. And, yep, WiMo’s Messaging (email) works fine with the new Gmail feature.

Google provides step-by-step instructions to configure Windows Mobile 6 to work with Gmail and IMAP4.

Google Mail Help IMAP Windows Mobile 6

However, experienced WiMo users may find the less eye-glazing generic help page faster to go through.

Google Mail Help IMAP Configuring Other Mail Clients

Google’s IMAP service seems a lot slower than service on other IMAP servers I use. However, it may simply be because of all the new clients being configured and downloading email. I’m hoping this will clear up (speed up) within a couple of days or weeks.

Addendum: Hey, I just noticed my Gmail storage is up to 4.3GB. When did that happen?