Posted on June 11, 2008
One of the questions we’re asked most frequently in our forums is how to use Devicescape with Truphone on a Nokia S60 device like the N95. There are a couple of ways you can use Truphone with Devicescape on the N95, which you choose is really down to your personal preference: 1. Using the TruWizard, you can set up Devicescape to be one of your automatic connection networks, and prioritise it above or below any other networks as you want. This allows you to use Wi-Fi when you’re in range of a network that you can connect to, even a hotspot one, but fall back on your 3G network when you don’t have Wi-Fi coverage. 2. Or, if you live in an area without 3G coverage like I do, you can ignore the TruWizard completely and just use the Nokia’s built in VoIP tools for connecting via Wi-Fi whenever it is available, using Devicescape to aggregate all your Wi-Fi networks into a single Wi-Fi IAP. The Truphone installation process will set up a standard Nokia VoIP connection (a combination of SIP settings and Internet telephony settings). Once installed, the standard Nokia VoIP tools can be used to connect and disconnect…
Posted on June 10, 2008
As with all technology – its what it does for us and not what it is that matters. In an effort to focus on what it does, this month we will be examining mobile VoIP – or voice over Internet protocol. In this installment, we’ll look at what Mobile VoIP is and a provide a quick overview of the industry and environment. Future installments will review how you can use mobile VoIP on your devices. What it is: Mobile VoIP is simply VoIP access via a mobile device. The power of VoIP is that it allows inexpensive or even free calls to be made over the internet. Now with Mobile VoIP, you can take the freedom and flexibility of VoIP with you wherever you go. There are numerous VoIP clients for mobile devices including ones from Skype, fring, Gizmo and Truphone. There are many other VoIP providers, but all of these mentioned have clients for smartphones and/or Internet Tablets. Four technologies are required for mobile VoIP: a device, client software, a wireless network and a VoIP service. Industry and Environment: VoIP itself first came on the market in the early 1970’s (pre-history I know ;-). According to VoIP Monitor, revenue…
Posted on June 9, 2008
The importance of the iPhone to next generation devices is profound and therefore the importance of this device to us at Devicescape is likewise monumental. By all accounts, the iPhone recorded sales of 5.4 million devices in its first 10 months. Some say this is equal to the number of devices Nokia sells in a week, so why all the hub-bub about iPhone and not Nokia? The iPhone isn’t just a mobile phone. It’s in a special category of “smartphone” – and it charged out of the gate and captured 28% of the smartphone market within 6 months of launch. That’s a pretty spectacular market share for a new entrant into a fairly well established market. And the iPhone isn’t just stealing away existing marketshare – its expanding the market for smartphones and increasing demand. This smartphone market had been largely aimed at business and enterprise users and the iPhone is really aimed at traditional Apple markets – cools and creatives. This has opened up the smartphone market to new audiences that have not previously been targets. Called the “iPhone Effect” by industry analysts, ABI Research now predicts that the smartphone market will grow from around 10 per cent of…
Posted on June 5, 2008
Sometimes with advances in technology, people assume the use patterns of a previous system on the new. This happened with cars – which were referred to as the horseless carriage (and we still talk about horse power in our cars today). It happened with films – which were originally shot only in the framing of the proscenium arch. (It took DW Griffith’s Birth of a Nation to shift to shots of close ups, jump cuts, and tracking.) And it’s happened again and again in the tech industry. It makes sense why this happens. People look for patterns and always want to compare something new to something known. But understanding the true value of new technologies often requires breaking free from the paradigms of the past. Today’s Wi-Fi and internet enabled devices are an excellent example. Today’s devices have more processing power than the Nasa computers that originally put men on the moon – but they are not computers. What a consumer wants from their handset or smartphone isn’t a computer. They don’t want to have to wait while it boots up, they don’t want to have to log in and enter passwords and they certainly don’t want to have maneuver…
Posted on June 3, 2008
For those who have registered their Starbucks card and signed up for the 2 hours of free access and got your AT&T username, here’s how you can get your Devicescape account set up to use it automatically: From the My Wi-Fi page, choose AT&T Wi-Fi as the account type to add. Enter your new AT&T Wi-Fi user name with @attwifi.com added after it (so, for example, mine would be devicescape_john@attwifi.com the user name AT&T had assigned me was devicescape_john). Enter the password for your Starbucks account. Check the roaming box, and add the account. And that’s it. You should be able to log in automatically next time you visit a Starbucks location. Note: if you have another account type that works on the AT&T Wi-Fi network, such as Boingo Mobile or an AT&T DSL account, you will be better off using that and not adding a Starbucks AT&T Wi-Fi account since you are limited to just a single two-hour session each day with the Starbucks account (and remember you need to use the Starbucks card at least once every 30 days for it to stay active).
