It takes a second to realize that what you see on Dashwire.com's cool gray interface is content from your mobile phone. That's probably because you're not used to reading it so easily.
There on Dashwire's spacious Internet dashboard are your photos and videos, contacts, bookmarks, and SMS and call history laid out in movable AJAX tiles. There are ringtones you can click on the Web to play on your phone, and text messages you can reply to with your keyboard, and which are tagged with your identifying phone number so your friends know who sent it.
You can e-mail photo links from Dashwire, too, without your friends having to sign up to the service to view them online. Contacts you add online materialize in your mobile address book. Another groovy part: Dashwire auto-saves your content, effectively backing up your phone.
Now it's time for the secret sauce: how your content gets there. Dashwire begins as a mobile app that most users will probably download over the air. It installs, and then syncs to your personal page on Dashwire.com, which you've configured by registering your screen name and number on sign-up. The synching took a little time, and might take more if your mobile network is lagging. Photos and videos take the longest to upload, and even longer the more you've got. Have patience; the wait is worth it.
Dashwire works remarkably well, but it doesn't do everything yet. For the moment, it only supports Windows Mobile 5 and 6, and subscribers have to specify their carrier and device model when they register. Dashwire doesn't manage files or programs, or perform certain small tasks like deleting photos from the phone or reading and initiating e-mail. You can't expect perfection from early closed betas, but you can expect novel ideas.
Read mail, SMS, and back up phone content from Dashwire's dashboard.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Cell phones weren't the only items giving off heat on the CTIA conference showroom floor this week. There was also the sizzling of a virtual mobile world, a preview of Guitar Hero Mobile, and really neat motion-sensor games.
Take a look at what was new and interesting in the latest video.
It's all over
(Credit: CNET Networks/Corinne Schulze)It's a wrap! CTIA fall 2007 is officially over. As the wireless world flees San Francisco today, we bring the highlights of the show.
Though new product announcements were relatively few, we did see a handful of new smart phones. Bonnie Cha blogged about the new Samsung Blackjack II for AT&T and displayed it in all is glory in a video. She also covered the new smart phones form I-mate in a blog and in a video and she wrapped up all the glorious new smart phones in a slide show.
Nicole Lee showed us concept phones from Fastap and the new LG CU515. She also gave us a close-up look at the new LG Venus and Voyager for Verizon Wireless. Nicole also gave us a slide show of the new LG handsets.
Samsung BlackJack II
(Credit: Samusng)I didn't spy any new handsets at the show but I did get a hands on with the Venus and Voyager, the Sidekick Slide, the Sony Ericsson W910, and the Motorola Rokr E9 and the Razr2 V8 Luxury Edition. I also wrote on the changes to AT&T Music and told you about Virgin Mobile's new Studio V and when we can expect Verizon's Wireless' V Cast Mobile TV in the Bay Area. And as for video, I checked out the Slide, the W910 and K850, the Moto U9 and Razr2 V8 Luxury Edition and the Nokia 5310 and 5610 Xpress Music models. On that note, I can report that I like the new Nokia models just as much as I did the first time I saw them. I covered all the new cell phones in a slide show while CNET photographer Corinne Schulze caught the sights form the show floor.
Outside of the CNET Reviews teams, Jessica Dolcourt of Download.com blogged on a plethora of new cell phone apps including Guitar Hero Mobile and Migo's video-music-syncing software. News.com's Tom Krazit attended a session that pondered the future of the iPhone while Ina Fried covered the Microsoft news at the show. And finally, Josh Lowensohn of Webware.com told us about AOL's new mobile services.
So that's it from the CTIA fall 2007 show in San Francisco. See you next April in Las Vegas for CTIA 2008.
Talkster has been getting some buzz from fellow CTIA-goers. The new international dialing service is offering free global calls in exchange to listening to a few ads. The VoIP-based, phone-centered service feels like the perfect Skype (download) and Pincity mashup. It's free like Skype, and also relies on a VoIP backbone, but like Pincity, Talkster makes use of local numbers to initiate mobile and landline calls.
It sure sounds irresistible, and I've read a few glowing reviews, but in actuality it's a bit tricky. Talkster members enter their number and the number they're calling, and Talkster assigns a new, local number for callers on each end of the line. Say what?
If I want to call my sister in England, I enter both our phone numbers and receive a third number in my 415 area code. That's my permanent number for the phone number I just entered. My sister will get a number for me too. If I want to catch her at home, work, and on her cell phone for free, I'll need to enter each phone number and get three separate Talkster lines.
It wouldn't be so confusing if that were all, but of course it's not. Initiating a call isn't merely the result of dialing one of my Talkster-issued local numbers. There's an order to the calling system. Let's say I initiate the call to my darling sib using a Talkster phone number. I dial the appointed number in my area code and she picks up. But we can't talk yet. She first has to hang up while I stay on the line. My sister then quickly locates her local number, and while Talkster servers do some speedy math to connect our loose ends together, we both listen to an ad. Or that's the plan as soon as Talkster's ad deals are in place.... Read more
David Goldfarb's phone won't stop ringing.
The Vringo CTO is giving me a demo of Vringo's video ringtone service, now in public beta, to demonstrate how users can assign phone-formatted video clips as their outgoing ringtones. David has chosen a humorous singing cartoon of a green bear as his video calling card. He's set it up so that any phone he calls with a Vringo client will light up with his chosen video. If so desired, he could limit the output to his wife and send everyone else a much more sober video to announce his call.
Vringo reverses the conventional ringtone concept of users choosing songs to differentiate between contacts, entertain themselves with favorite songs, or make a stylistic statement. Here individuals control how they're perceived by friends, and can use "vringos" as a gift or personalized greeting. Users can upload their own clips on Vringo.com or record clips from within the Vringo phone app. It's easy to see how users could create happy birthday messages or video gifts.... Read more
Thumb open an ordinary flip or slide phone and nothing happens, except maybe the triggering of a robotic greeting (Hello to you, too, Moto.) Do it again with a phone enriched with Emdigo's 3D offering and football players might rush by.
The carrier-partnered content distributor isn't one I'd normally cover, but the offering is an example of compelling 3D software coming our way. Similar third-party, carrier-agnostic downloads are sure to follow.
NFL Team Tailgate and Hello Kitty are two such examples of these enhanced animated skins that users can purchase through Verizon and Alltel. Flipping or sliding the phone activates the characters, and clicking the OK or center button animates them further. In one mode, Hello Kitty can shred the half pipe on her cute kitty-sized skateboard. For other apps like the Spider-Man skin, dialing a number pops open a skinned window with the Marvel character protectively overseeing your progress in the background.
Candy bar and brick phone users are out of luck. Animations become motionless wallpaper, which hardly justifies the download price--about $3 during my demo.
Check back to this space and CNET TV for a video demonstration with a certain webbed superhero.
The only things you need to send a Facebook photo to any cell phone are 3Guppies' (review) Facebook app and a working U.S. or Canadian phone number. The app does a curious thing, pulling up all the photos in your friends' albums as well as your own. Grabbing the photo previews it in a mobile screen frame, though you needn't worry too much about it fitting--3Guppies Mobile automatically scales photos on the destination phone.
You can crop, title, and tag the image and choose to store a copy in the 3Guppies locker for later reference if you have or sign up for an account. Once the photo has landed on the phone, it can be downloaded or sent on its way to sunnier pastures. 3Guppies has hustled behind the scenes, striking compatibility deals with 28 carriers for 1,200 phones in North America.
MySpace users have a slightly different product, an embeddable photo album widget that's then linked to your phone number. Once associated, photo, video, and text auto-uploads from your phone to the widget, essentially creating a miniature multimedia blogging platform. You can also send MySpace photos to any phone.
Like many of the products showcased at the CTIA Wireless Conference, 3Guppies plans to invite ad support, but that's a good three months out and CEO John Dearborn isn't entirely sure how traditional or creative the ads will end up. They may surface as small banners on a WAP site or as a simple link, or could manifest as more interesting sponsored skins surrounding an activity window.
3Guppies Mobile app sends any friend's Facebook photo to any phone.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Cellfire is smart. The free mobile coupons company knows three things it needs to entice users to use its digital chits instead of stuffing paper cutouts into wallets, purses, and pockets.
1. Provide multiple ways to get the product. Cellfire is a downloadable PC-to-mobile app for BlackBerry, Symbian, and Windows Mobile, but it also offloads into the phone via WAP (point browsers to www.cellfire.com/) and through some carrier agreements.
2. Offer compelling brands. In addition to dozens of national chains, like TGIF and 1.800.Flowers, Cellfire's service gets local, offering discounts for hundreds of neighborhood merchants and regional chains in metro areas to total 10,000 merchant partners across the U.S.
3. Make coupons easy to redeem. The coupon for San Francisco's North Beach Pizza gave me two ways to collect savings. I could select "in-store" to get a coupon code to flash the cashier, or click to call the vendor and read back the code. I could also clearly see how many more offers I could collect and (2) how many more days I had before each coupon expired (5).
Cellfire's coupons update every two weeks. Although the service itself is free, users will get slapped with the cell phone carrier's data charges. Better stick with those paper coupons if you don't have a data plan.
Conference-goers flocked around the Guitar Hero station at Motorola's mammoth tent on the CTIA Wireless conference floor, but it was Hands-On Mobile's modest booth where Guitar Hero Mobile is best experienced. There the game's product manager, JJ Leichleiter, walked me through the mobile version of the popular console game.
Let me dispel all doubt by assuring you that this is the real thing, deputized by Activision, Guitar Hero's console publisher. Loosely based on Guitar Hero 3, the 3D mobile version offers two characters (Axel Steel and Judy Nails), four guitars, and 15 songs. Subscription holders will receive three more songs every month.
Playing virtual guitar has gotten easier with a reduction from five keys on the console game's peripheral guitar to three on the phone. Users can choose whichever keypad row feels best.
This game has a lot going for it--easy fretting, satisfying animation, and killer sound quality. Guitar Hero Mobile uses PMD audio for the BREW platform, which preserves the melody, harmony, vocals, and cacophonous ding every time you miss. Stay tuned for a video demonstration on this space and on CNET TV.
Guitar Hero Mobile will be available for purchase for Verizon Wireless users in December 2007. After that, more networks on the BREW platform will join the fray, followed by J2ME phones.
Second Life may have nudged its Grid onto the mobile screen, but it's Gemini's EXplo platform for enabling mini virtual worlds that earned a spot on Deloitte's Wireless Fast 50 list at the CTIA Wireless conference (coverage).
(Credit:
Gemini Mobile)
In S'town, a game built on the EXplo platform, users can chat on screen, buy products, stare at advertising billboards, and meet up with online friends, even whooshing to a meeting point on the other end of the expansive world. That's in Japan, where impressive phones on the Softbank network are already attracting a demographic of "young, active, and 'fun'" 18 to 24 year-old women who don't mind expressing themselves in one of 11 rudimentary avatars.
North America's S'town is apparently a much different world. This audience will be able to integrate with services like YouTube and Facebook. In a demo, Stephen Sims, Gemini's Director of Product Management for EXplo, walked a bouncy, pig-tailed avatar into a Facebook gallery whose virtual walls were decked with album images. In another view, pressing the phone's soft key button reeled through images vertically as if on a giant turbine, from the far "wall."
North American carriers will begin marketing games like S'town using Gemini's platform "sometime in 2008," Sims assured me. Europeans will likely get them much sooner; carrier talks are underway.
