Manifest Tech Blog

While you can use a satellite phone (see previous post) to keep in touch when travelling in remote areas, calling to chat does defeat the whole idea of getting away.

Especially for shorter less rugged trips, the SPOT Satellite Messenger is an inexpensive beacon that can signal your status while travelling. Press the OK or Help buttons to send a pre-determined message to a pre-selected e-mail and text message list. Or press the 911 button in a serious emergency to call out search and rescue. The transmitted message also includes your GPS coordinates.

The basic SPOT device costs $149, and requires an annual service plan of $99 a year to forward messages. Add a $49 per year Tracking option that updates your location on a shared Google Maps website. There's also a a $7.95 per year private Search and Rescue option that manages the rescue process when official emergency services are not able to respond fast enough.

The SPOT unit is palm-size and relatively lightweight (7.4 oz.), and is designed to be drop-resistant, waterproof, and to float. My SPOT worked fine in most circumstances. I received text and e-mail messages within 5 to 10 minutes of pressing the buttons, but received only 2 to 4 of the 6 messages per hour sent during a hike through light woods, or when clipped to my car's sun visor.

The SPOT is a fun and useful product at the price for some get-aways, but if you're concerned about needing to be able to call for help in an serious emergency, you can carry a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) instead. PLBs have only one function -- to broadcast a distress signal that will activate the international Search and Rescue (SAR) system to respond to a life-threatening emergency, using the same international satellite system used for marine and aircraft distress beacons to coordinates through national authorities to deploy and coordinate search and rescue.

PLBs from companies including ACR Electronics are available from outdoor and sporting supply retailers for around $500 to $700, or you can rent for around $70 a week. There are no additional costs or annual subscription fees.

PLBs typically are rugged and waterproof, and transmit the signal for 20 to 40 hours. The batteries typically have a 5 year replacement cycle.

Just don't press the big red button by accident -- unless you have a real emergency and need to call out the rescue helicopters.

See my full article on Satellite Rescue Beacons, for more on these products and services.

See my article, Trip Tech: Far and Away, in the Oct. 2008 issue of Condé Nast Traveler for summaries of these products.

    Find the ACR TerraFix PLB and ACR MicroFix PLB
    and SPOT Satellite Messenger on Amazon.com

Cell phones have become our ever-present comfort, not only carrying our contact list to stay in touch, but also storing our favorite music to soothe the journey.

And with Bluetooth wireless communications, it's really easy to connect to useful accessories to make more efficient use of the phone, or to share the experience.

Here are three examples of some of your options, courtesy of the Verizon Wireless collection of Bluetooth Accessories:

Noise-Reduction Headset -- Jawbone II

You may already have a wireless Bluetooth headset for chatting on the go. But today's noise reduction technology makes conversations much more pleasant with devices like the second-generation Jawbone II Bluetooth headset ($129)

The Jawbone provides standout voice clarity even in ridiculously noisy environments (see previous post).

    Find the Aliph Jawbone II headset on Amazon.com
    or from Verizon Wireless

In-Car Music & Hands-Free FM Transmitter -- Venturi Mini

Your car has become a great place to listen to music, with in-car entertainment systems with great speakers, and digital radios with informative displays. So until Bluetooth comes to cars, devices like the Venturi Mini FM transmitter ($129) can bridge the gap to your portable devices.

The Mini connects to your MP3 player to play music on the car speaker system (through the FM transmitter), and can switch to your cell phone as a hands-free device (with integrated microphone). With support in your devices, you also can control music playback from the Mini, search your contact list, and even display caller information on your car's digital radio display. It also has connectors for audio in (for direct connect from non-Bluetooth players) and output (for headphones) -- plus a bonus USB connector for charging your devices.

    Find the Venturi Mini FM transmitter on Amazon.com
    or from Verizon Wireless

Bluetooth Speakers -- Altec Lansing SoundBlade

A wireless headset is great for listening privately, and an in-car transmitter lets you talk hands-free and share your music on the go, but what about sharing with a group? The next step is a portable wireless speaker unit like the Altec Lansing SoundBlade stereo Bluetooth speakers ($129).

These are dual 2” full-range high output stereo speakers, with stereo headset support (Bluetooth A2DP) for playing music from mobile phones, laptops, and some MP3 players, plus two-way remote control support (AVRCP) for adjusting volume and forward/back from the speaker unit. Even better, it's also a wireless speakerphone for hands-free calling, with an echo-canceling microphone and voice-activated dialing.

    Find the Altec Lansing SoundBlade speakers on Amazon
    or from Verizon Wireless

See my Audio Accessories Gallery for details and related products

The new BlackBerry Storm from Verizon Wireless is a heretical abomination, abandoning the dedicated "crackberry" keyboard that stressed the thumbs of communications-obsessed executives in favor of focusing on multimedia features.

Instead of a physical keyboard, the Storm has a large 3 1/4 inch screen that covers the front surface of the device, with a new "clickable" touch-screen design -- You actually feel the screen depressing and releasing like a keyboard, with a subtle "click" sound.

So does how well does it work? Well, it's clear that David Pogue was not thrilled with the Storm, calling it "... by far the worst product Research in Motion has ever produced. I had problems with its concept, problems with its clicky touch screen, problems with its speed, and above all, problems with bugs." Ouch!

Yes, the software is sluggish, so you wait for seconds for it to switch from portrait to landscape orientation. And the clickable touch-screen can be aggravating, as you can touch gently to scroll and pan and zoom, but then need to remember to press extra hard to click icons and keys. Typing on a virtual keyboard with tiny keys is still troublesome: the screen highlights each key as you touch it, but you then still need to press firmly to actually enter it, and it's so easy to make mistakes as your larger fingertip to roll off to an adjacent key.

It's also interesting to see how the BlackBerry interface is mapped on a touch screen. For example, to save screen real estate it omits window titles to identify what you are doing, and removes OK and Cancel buttons in dialogs -- so you need to move down to the keyboard to use the Enter key to confirm, or move further to use the physical Escape (Back) key to cancel.

The bottom line is that the BlackBerry Storm is an interesting effort to create a multimedia smartphone by moving the BlackBerry interface to a touch-screen device. While it's not the answer for rabid "crackberry" communicators, it does allow other functions like Web browsing and certainly media playback to run better on the larger screen. As on the iPhone, touch-typing on the small virtual keyboard can be difficult, and it's not clear that the new "clickable" display is the answer.

So you should regard the Storm as a version 1 product with improvements to come, suitable for early adopters and technology enthusiasts, and not really for the broader mass market.

(To check for software upgrades on the Storm, use Options > Adv Options > Wireless Upgrade. On my unit, the 14 MB download for version 4.7.0.75 completed in around 7 minutes, and the upgrade process then took about half an hour.)

See full article: Much Ado: The BlackBerry Storm from Verizon Wireless

See my Mobile Communications Gallery for more on smartphones.

    Find the Verizon BlackBerry Storm on Amazon.com

The T-Mobile G1 smartphone is the first commercial implementation of the Google Android design (see previous post).

The Android platform is being developed by the Open Handset Alliance -- which just announced the addition of 14 new members interested in deploying new Android devices, contributing to the Android Open Source software project, or providing other support.

The G1 is an impressive first product, with solid hardware and interface -- but it's not for everybody. It's not intended as a full phone / PDA / Internet / multimedia device. And it doesn't sync to desktop data (like Outlook) or desktop media (like iTunes). Instead, it's clearly focused on people who live on the go, and on the Internet, accessing Gmail and Google's suite of online services from whatever system is available.

The G1's interface is clean and responsive, designed with subtle touches to help you understand what you can do in the current context. For example, the Home screen displays a tab to slide out and show all the available applications, then just click and drag favorites to the Home screen. Zoom controls automatically appear when you touch the screen in the Browser or photo viewer. And the background dims and goes out of focus behind a pop-up dialog.

Online access is improved by the built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking, which connected quickly and easily at sites like the Princeton Public Library and on the Princeton University campus to browse the Web or play YouTube clips with minimal delay.

The Google-centered focus of the G1 is shown when you first power up, as it asks you to enter your Google account information (or offers to create an account for you). This then is the profile for your phone, used by the built-in Gmail application. But you only can have one such profile, which would be an issue for people with multiple online identities.

The T-Mobile G1 is a quite solid first implementation of the Android platform. Yes, it has glaring omissions as a PDA, and huge gaps in its multimedia features (including no video support). But if you live in the Google cloud online, then this already is close to an ideal device for you. The rest of us will have to wait for other Android products, and see how Google and the developer community add new applications in the Android Market to shake out this device for more conventional use with desktop systems.

See full article: Living in the Online Cloud: The T-Mobile G1 / Google Android Smartphone

See my Mobile Communications Gallery for more on smartphones.

I'm not sure it's practical, but it sure is fun -- the LG Touch Watch Phone that brings Chester Gould's vision of the Dick Tracy 2-Way Wrist Radio to life.

At CES, LG demoed a working prototype of the Watch Phone at its press conference, and had more models under glass in its booth, in a variety of colors. The watch is actually not so big (a little more than a 1/2 inch thick, and 3 ounces) -- today's watches for men are substantial fashion statements anyway -- although I'm not sure of the market for the version in pink...

The Watch Phone starts as a digital watch, with a 1.4" display. But it's also a speaker phone -- lift your arm closer to your mouth and gab away, or use a wireless Bluetooth headset to talk in a less ostentatious manner. It supports voice dialing, and text to speech to read text messages.

And it's a MP3 player, so you can play music from the speaker or through your headset. Plus, there's a tiny camera hidden in a corner of the face, so you can use it as for video phone calls, and to take photos. And it's an organizer, with phonebook and scheduler.

There's not much detail on the interface. At the booth, it was described as having three dedicated phone buttons (Send, End, Clear), so you use the touch screen for other functions -- dialing with an on-screen keypad and adjusting volume with an on-screen slider. The middle button also acts as a scroll wheel.

The initial product will be released in Europe in the second half of 2009, as a GSM quad-band "global phone" with HSDPA for high-speed data and video. No news on price or carrier or release in the U.S.

See Engadget hands-on video

See my Mobile Communications Gallery for more on smartphones.

The unveiling of the Palm Pre phone at CES in January was big news, for good reason -- It's an interesting combination of new ideas in the design of a connected PDA phone.

Of course, the announcement was just a preview of the product, which is due to be released in the first half of this year. Palm was careful to demonstrate only certain functions, and refused to discuss or demo other features, or even to allow hands-on access by others.

But what Palm did demonstrate included several interesting new refinements for a connected portable PDA / phone, based on a clear design approach that holds a lot of promise if it can deliver the full product.

In particular, the Pre's interface is designed to make it easy to move between multiple activities. And its core applications are designed to understand and manage information from multiple sources, including desktop (Outlook) and online (Google, Facebook).

See full article: Palm Pre Preview

See my Mobile Communications Gallery for more on smartphones.

Verizon Wireless has announced its own Friends & Family plan -- a calling group of phone numbers that do not count against your plan minutes. These can be landline phones, or (gasp) wireless numbers on other carriers.

The details:

If you have a Nationwide Single Line plan with 900 or more minutes (starting at $59.99 monthly), you can select up to 5 numbers for the Friends & Family plan.

Or if you have a Nationwide Family SharePlan with 1,400 or more minutes (starting at $89.99 monthly), you can select up to 10 Friends & Family numbers to share among the plan members.

Current Verizon Wireless customers can visit My Verizon to check their eligibility for Friends & Family.

See my Mobile Communications Gallery for more on wireless phones and services.

You probably have a digital camera for taking pictures at official events -- family gatherings, vacation trips -- but more and more we're using the camera in our mobile phones to shoot whenever the whim or the situation catches us. After all, there are some 2 1/2 billion (with a "B") mobile phones worldwide, and over a billion more being sold each year, so that's a lot of opportunities for camera phones.

But camera phones are a compromise for picture taking, typically with limited resolution, lower-quality fixed lenses (no focus, no zoom), no flash, and without all those great automatic features to help take better shots, for example face recognition to adjust focus and exposure.

There's only so much photo features that you can squeeze into a tiny cell phone, but each new product manages to cram more in. The Samsung Omnia smartphone from Verizon Wireless, for example, has a 5 megapixel camera, which is a step up from the 2 to 3 MP found on other devices, including the iPhone.

However, phones still are designed for their primary function, and are clumsy to use for taking photos, which is why the Samsung Flipshot from Verizon Wireless (SCH-u900) is such an interesting design.

The phone starts as a standard clamshell design, closed up with a smaller display on the one side and a substantial lens with 3 PM camera on the other. It flips open to access the keypad and larger 2.2 inch inside display. But then you can twist the display around 180 degrees and close up the phone again -- So now you have something much closer to a digital camera, with the large display on the back, the lens on the front, and controls along the top.

The Flipshot also supports camera modes including scenes (landscape, night, macro), multi-shot (panoramas), color effects, and self timer. And it has video out though a separate accessory to display on a TV or monitor.

It has has stereo Bluetooth wireless, expansion microSD memory card slot, and
It's not too tiny at 3.76 x 1.83 x .73 inches and 3.88 ounces. The Flipshot is available from Verizon for $99 with service plan and online discount.

See my Mobile Communications Gallery for more on mobile phones.

    Find the Samsung Flipshot on Amazon.com

There are clear differences in the basic philosophy behind the different smartphones on the market. All now are multi-purpose communications devices, PDAs, and media players -- with phone and e-mail connectivity, contacts and calendar synching, and music and video entertainment. But the differences are also sharp: to greatly simplify, the Apple iPhone is about synching with your desktop iTunes library, the Google Android phone is about synching with the online cloud, the Blackberry is about enterprise communications, and Palm bridges the gap between personal and business.

In each of these cases, the form of the phone follows its function, both in its physical design and in the software interface that runs on the phone. The Apple iPhone is an integrated whole, and the Google Android phone and the Blackberry really are defined by the interface, no matter what hardware it happens to run on.

But what about Windows Mobile phones? These are amorphous -- How do you summarize the key user benefit when "a phone what runs Microsoft Windows" is the defining characteristic? Especially when these other phones work fine with Windows PCs, to interchange e-mail and Microsoft document formats.

So Windows Mobile phones from different manufacturers and carriers end up competing among themselves as well, seeking to differentiate not only in terms of the hardware design, but also by layering a custom user friendly interface on top of Windows Mobile.

Two new smartphones from Verizon Wireless show this design approach at work with a touch screen and custom enhanced interface. Both are built on Windows Mobile 6.1, with the Office Mobile Suite (i.e., Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (for viewing only) Mobile), plus Adobe Reader LE PDF viewer, and ZIP file viewing/create.

They have cameras for photo/video capture, and media playback for music and video. Both also include the Opera Mobile Browser for HTML Web browsing, and built-in Wi-Fi for fast Internet access for e-mail and surfing at wireless hotspots. And they have a microSD card slot to add up to 16 GB of external memory.

The Verizon Wireless Samsung Omnia (SCH-i910) has a large 3.2 inch touchscreen display that fills most of the font of the unit, at 240 x 480 resolution.

As a multimedia device, the Omnia features a higher-res 5.0 megapixel camera, has FM radio, and support video out to a TV display.

The home screen uses the Samsung TouchWiz interface, with customizable widgets along the left column that you can drag-and-drop as favorites on the virtual desktop. These display information and status, and then you can tap to launch the main Windows Mobile applications. It also has haptic feedback -- vibration to confirm user inputs.

The Samsung Omnia is 4.41 x 2.24 x 0.52 inches and 4.34 ounces. It's available from Verizon Wireless for $269, or $199 with service plan.

The Verizon Wireless HTC Touch Pro (XV6850) is the next generation of the HTC Touch (XV6900), which used a vertical design like the Omnia, and the iPhone. The Touch Pro has a significantly different design, with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard (like the T-Mobile G1 / Google Android phone, also from HTC, and the upcoming next-generation Palm Pre). It's clearly aimed to people who are going to be doing more texting and e-mail.

The Touch Pro 2.8 inch display is full 480 x 640 VGA resolution, and works in portrait and landscape orientation, for working though menus, browsing the Web, or viewing videos. The main screen works with the HTC TouchFLO "3D" interface -- drag your finger or stylus across the icons at the bottom of the screen, or switch between functions by swiping across the face of the device or pressing left or right on the navigation pad.

It also includes a 3.2 MP camera, with flash and auto-focus.

The HTC Touch Pro is 4.17 x 2.04 x 0.71 inches (with the smaller screen but thicker keyboard), and weighs 4.94 ounces. It's available from Verizon Wireless for $419, or $349 with service plan.

See my Mobile Communications Gallery for more on mobile phones and smartphones.

Find the Verizon Wireless Samsung Omnia
and HTC Touch Pro on Amazon.com

The new smartphones are here -- the new Apple iPhone and Palm Pre are finally ready for action.

The new Apple iPhone 3G S provides up to 2X performance improvement, plus several long-awaited features found in competitive products, including a 3 megapixel camera with autofocus (was 2 MP), video recording (was photos only), and hands free voice control (as in mobile phones).

Apple also released the iPhone OS 3.0 software, again with much-requested features including cut & paste (finally), MMS multimedia messaging, Spotlight Search, landscape keyboard, and a Find My iPhone feature for lost phones (via MobileMe) with a Remote Wipe self-destruct option.

The iPhone 3G S is available from AT&T with 16 GB for $199, and 32 GB for $299. Since iPhones are sold at discounted prices with a service plan, AT&T is charging higher prices for recent purchasers to upgrade. Apple also dramatically reduced the iPhone 3G to $99 with 8 GB (the original iPhone from two years ago was $599 for 8 GB).

And the Palm Pre is now out, with some interesting new ideas in the design of a smartphone interface, including the "Activity Card" interface to flip easily between multiple tasks, and integrated views combining from multiple sources for contacts, calendar, e-mail, and messaging.

The Palm Pre is available from Sprint for $199.99 with a two-year agreement and $100 mail-in rebate.

See Gizmodo's Smartphone Buyer's Guide: The Best of the Best, with helpful charts comparing hardware, software, and costs for the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S, Palm Pre, HTC Magic (expected T-Mobile G2), and BlackBerry Storm.

See full article: Apple iPhone: Product Summary
See full article: Palm Pre: Product Summary

Also see my Mobile Communications Gallery for more on smartphones