Webware

(Credit: TryPhone)

The buying experience of cell phones has always been frustratingly full of unknowns: you don't have a good idea of what the service coverage will be like before switching plans, you don't know what reception your specific phone will get, and you are usually stuck with a dummy non-operative phone to look at in the store that gives you little idea how it will actually work.

A new Web site has come into beta that aims to plug that last hole. TryPhone provides onscreen simulations of handsets and shows how different button presses let you navigate through the user interface. Right now the phone selection is limited to four hot models (iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl, Verizon Juke, and Sprint Muziq), and not all functions can be tried out, but it's certainly a big help.

You can do your own freeform actions (within the limits of the functions simulated), including important ones like making a call, taking a photo, adding contacts, or sending text messages. You can also try out some of the customization options, but they don't (understandably) actually take effect on the phone demo itself. There are canned demos of key functions, and you can imagine how this can be used as a rich online tutorial for post-purchase. Perhaps users will also be able to generate their own walkthroughs.

In addition to these dynamic elements, the site also offers standard items like user reviews, specs lists, and the ability to buy the phones through vendors (presumably paying TryPhone a fee). I tried to buy a Pearl, which popped up a dialog box to pick between Amazon and another vendor. I chose Amazon and was presented with a page for the Sprint Muziq. Oops!

In my trial of the site, it worked fairly well, but seemed either buggy or slow at times. On the iPhone demo, I couldn't get back to the home screen after trying Yahoo mail. On one of the canned demos for the Pearl, things got out of sequence. And in general, the iPhone demo was missing much of the user interface magic that comes from its animations and gestural touch control. The Pearl demo missed the scrolling capability of the pearl "button" itself, part of the whole point of the design. Indeed, one wonders how TryPhone will simulate what are sure to be more complex interaction methods in the future.

For right now, however, kudos to TryPhone for filling a knowledge gap that the carriers and retailers themselves have sadly been slow in addressing. Let's hope they can work out the kinks during the beta period.

Hang on, we're going in.

It's no Microsoft Flight Simulator in terms of controls, flyability, or features (no sound, no weather, no autopilot, only two aircraft choices... I could go on), but since the Google flight simulator has access to Google Earth's streaming database, the visuals are awesome. In most areas, it looks fantastic when your plane is more than about 2,000 feet above ground level. Get down low and it becomes a lot less believable, except in cities with good 3D building coverage.

I used to be a flight simulator junkie, and I still have a flight controller (err, joystick), plugged into my PC. Google's flight simulator has a "use joystick" option, but I caution readers that getting the application to actually read the joystick seems to be voodoo science--sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Also, on my controller, some controls were swapped, which made the joystick unusable. On my ThinkPad, though, using the TrackPoint under mouse-control mode works well, and definitely better than trying to fly with either the keyboard or a standard mouse.

While a big step up from the "flight controls" option in Google Earth (Ctrl-G on a PC), and a really fun way to explore the scenery, Google Earth's flight simulator Easter egg is no competitor for a real flight simulator--even if it does have the best scenery in the world.

Via TechCrunch and Marco's blog.

See also: Google looks to the heavens.

As our lives get busier and we become more reliant on text messages and e-mail, voice mail is starting to seem a tad archaic (not to mention impractical if you're sitting in a business meeting or loud bar). A company called SimulScribe has come up with a technology that claims to be the answer.

The New York-based start-up uses voice recognition technology to transcribe voice mails into text. Instead of having to sit through Grandpa Bill's three-minute voice mail, you'd get a written message, via SMS or e-mail, approximately two to five minutes after the voice mail was left, with every word Grandpa said. If you want to listen to your message the old-fashioned way, you can still call your voice mail and check it.

SimulScribe seems to combine the functions of GotVoice, with its PC capabilities, and SpinVox with the SMS function. The service also claims to have over 90 percent transcription accuracy, and unlimited voice mail storage. When I tested it out with company CEO James Siminoff, my poorly voiced message was accurate enough to have meaning. During the demo, Siminoff said the company has programmed its transcription software to not clean up or correct the content of the voice mail, to maintain authenticity.

Although the service, which is free for a week to try and then costs $9.95 a month for 40 messages, will work on any cell phone, it performs optimally on smart phones. On Monday, SimulScribe plans to announce its partnership with popular VoIP service Skype, providing Skype users the capability to receive their voice messages in text. More announcements are rumored to be on the way in late spring.