The Red Ferret Journal

Think you’ve got a smartphone? Think again. This Fujitsu PRIME F-01B handset comes with…wait for it…

• 3.4 inch touchscreen
• 12.2 megapixel camera (with ISO 25600 and 28mm wide angle lens)
• Golf swing trainer (using internal sensors)
• Water resistant to a depth of 1.5 metres
• Fingerprint sensor for security
• Exercise monitor (measures calories burned during exercise)

Now *that’s* a smartphone.

 This application extracts body-motion data collected by sensors built into the mobile, uses it to analyze the arc of the user’s golf swing, and assesses and provides feedback based on the golf principles developed by professional golfer, Mr. Tadashi Ezure. It helps users improve their golf swing by comparing each new swing to the user’s previous best.

The good folk at Peratech have just signed a $1.4 million deal with Nissha, ‘one of the world’s largest manufacturers of touch screen technology’, to license Peratech QTC force sensitive technology in small touchscreens.

If the tech takes off we could see a raft of new phones with pressure sensitive touchscreens, offering new features such as pressure sensitive artistic capabilities on a cell phone, faster scrolling with increased finger pressure or audio loudness control based on the pressure exerted on the screen. 

The trick is done using a screen printed overlay, which is around 75 microns thick, which lowers resistance and passes more current the harder it is pressed. Cool stuff all right.

 With QTC, touch screens can be made feature rich and ultra-thin allowing for the development of even slimmer, lighter weight and lower-power portable devices. Takao Hashimoto, Director, CTO of Nissha and General Manager of Technology Research & Development, added, “QTC will be a disruptive technology for mobile phones enabling thinner phones to be designed with amazing new input interfaces.”

Sometimes only a printed photo will do. Like you’re at a wedding and Aunt Maude asks you to send her a shot of little Lucy in her bridesmaid outfit. You know you’ll never get round to it, but if you owned this Zink Pandigital Portable Photo Printer you could whip it out of your pocket with a flourish and do the deed there and then. Future guilt banished, problem solved.

The thing produces a 6 x 4 inch image in around a minute, accepts most common digicam memory cards and the prints are waterproof, tearproof and fade resistant. Which is probably more than you can say for Aunt Maude. $149.95. More here.

 You can print directly from your camera’s memory card; its memory card slot supports SD, MS, MS-Pro, MMC, and XD card formats. The 1 1/2″ LCD and simple navigation buttons allow you to preview images before printing. It can also plug into a computer via USB for printing images. The thermal printer generates pictures with vibrant colors, thanks to patented composite paper embedded with yellow, magenta, and cyan dye crystals, eliminating the bother of ink cartridges.

Lots of talk currently doing the rounds about a mythical ‘Nirvana Phone’, which is basically the marriage of a mobile phone with thin client and wireless technology . The idea is you do away with laptops, and replace the whole computing thing with a phone hooked up to a Bluetooth keyboard and large screen.

Make no mistake, this IS the future of computing. Now that we’re starting to see cell phones with the processing power needed for the task, it’s inevitable that this idea will take off massively once the economics can be worked out. By that I mean, it all needs to fit together in an affordable package which offers the same kind of utility as a laptop does today. We’re not far off.

When you think about it most people already use their smartphone for the major part of their work needs – email, voice communication and a bit of search browsing. Once the online web app market matures a little (i.e. works reliably) and 3G wireless delivers the soon to launch 40 Mbps everywhere type speeds we’ll start to see new phone computers everywhere. Will they be Citrix/PC thin client type devices? I doubt it. More likely Google will take the lead since it understands the Web-machine interface better than most companies on the planet. And with Android it is learning fast about the needs of the new generation computing platform.

Watch this stuff, it’s going to explode over the next few years.

The Red Ferret Product of the Year for 2009 has in some ways been a fairly easy pick. The Google Android operating system platform has literally punched its way out of nowhere into the public consciousness, helped of course by the massive public awareness of the search engine colossus itself.

But what interests us more than just the marketing glam of front row products like the Motorola Droid and Nexus One, is the potential for the platform to really revolutionise the way we consume, process and transmit information around the world. It’s pretty fair to say that this is the first opportunity we’ve seen for the world to break free of the desktop shackles of the PC and start to enjoy real ‘personal’ mobile computing, and that is more than exciting.

It would be easy and cheap to say that the uptake of Android is happening because of the power of Google to meld minds, but in reality there are significant forces at work in the background which are also helping the technology to gain ground at this phenomenal rate. First and probably most importantly, it is based around open standards. The lack of a manufacturer lock in means more enthusiastic adoption by the developers and designers who see opportunity over the horizon.

It’s ironic that as fast as the other modern icon Apple moves towards even more proprietary technology – the iPad is just the latest example of the arrogance of a company swimming against an open tide – the more Google removes the shackles. Linux, Java, the Open Handset Alliance, the Apache open source code license and more, all point to the fact that community involvement is a crucial part of the platform’s development. Ultimately this is great news for the consumer, in the same way that having alternative browsers like Firefox on offer ensures that Web standards remain strong and vibrant.

The second driver for the technology is the rise and rise of the Web ecosystem. Massive advances in browser technology and web server power have created a fertile arena for sophisticated web applications, location based hybrid services and a huge number of other opportunities to leverage the power of the network and its global community. Google knows this ground intimately, and this is one of the reasons why we expect the search giant to extend its reach into the delivery of vital, valuable online and offline services for the individual over the coming few years.

We’re hugely bullish on Android here at Ferret Towers. It feels right, the development momentum has already proved to be stupendous and we suspect that by the end of 2010 we will see the kind of hardware adoption across a huge range of devices and industry sectors that signals a real paradigm shift in global computing.

 Android is a mobile operating system running on the Linux kernel.[3] It was initially developed by Android Inc., a firm later purchased by Google, and lately by the Open Handset Alliance.[4] It allows developers to write managed code in the Java language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries.

This SciPhone N19 is an Android smartphone with a 2.8 inch touchscreen, WiFi, quadband, Bluetooth, 2 megapixel camera, microSD slot and 128MB of RAM. Price? $135.00 unlocked (including a 1GB memory card).

Mobilewitch is a free program that converts any mobile phone into a universal PC remote control. The software is Java based and so should run on most conventional handsets, and uses Bluetooth which means your laptop or desktop should be Bluetooth enabled or you’ll need a USB Bluetooth dongle ($1.35).

Once installed you’ll be able to do all sorts of cool things like control your PC music or video player, surf on your PC connected TV from 10 feet away (there’s a keyboard mode included) and even write that sick note email for the boss from the comfy couch. Very neato.

 The main purpose of this software is to turn your mobile phone into a universal PC remote control. The application is perfect for business as well as for your own enjoyment. Now you can easily remote control your PowerPoint presentations, Mouse Cursor or simply explore the content of your computer directly from your mobile phone.

Watch in open mouthed astonishment as a company’s total marketing position disintegrates in under 20 seconds courtesy of Dan Simmons from the BBC.

The company, Sonim, markets itself as makers of ‘the world’s toughest mobile phones’. Watch the video and make up your own mind where they go from here.

Dude, if you must wear a mobile phone on your wrist, at least wear one with a bit of style, like this Special Ops Quad Band Watch Phone. Not only is it…ooh…Ninja black, but it comes with touchscreen, Bluetooth, on-board MP3 and video player, camera and microSD slot. Woooweee! £89.56.

 The Special Ops. watchphone is also provided with a Bluetooth headset and a pair of earphones, and also includes two lithium-ion rechargeable batteries, making this a complete communication tool for use as soon as you open the box. The Special Ops. watchphone comes fully unlocked, meaning you can you use it with the network of your choice. Let’s not forget, this is still a fully functioning digital watch with time, date and day display with programmable alarms and to do lists for keeping you on schedule and in style.

The Yogen Universal Mobile Charger works via people power. To be more precise you pull a string to recharge the device and in turn it delivers that power to your phone, player or other small portable gadget. As with all these products don’t expect too much electricity without a lot of huffing and puffing, but if you’re stranded on a desert island, hey, sweat it out. $39.99 (including suitable adaptor tips). A foot pedal version called Yogen Max is also on its way. [Thanks Matthew]

  Power is generated with the first pull. # Charges devices with only a few minutes of pull/release time. # Yogen’s patented technology charges most mobile devices. # Yogen’s ‘charge/time ratio’ is similar to standard AC wall chargers.

The Pinphone 3GS 16GB. King of the hill. For now. $219.00.

• 3.5 inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen with multi-touch? Check.
• WiFi, EDGE, quadband, Bluetooth? Check. 
• Compass, accelerometer and G-Sensor? Check.
• Flash video playback, 2.0 megapixel camera with video and FM radio? Check. 
• 16 GB memory (with 1 GB RAM)? Check.
• Copy/Paste function? Check.
• 3.5 inch headphone port? Check.
• Shake Control for music tracks and images? Check.
• World clock, games, ebook reader etc. Yep!

This Chinese Sunno S880 mobile phone looks to be pretty conventional, but hidden inside is a deep meaningful secret. It is designed to run both Windows Mobile and the Android operating system. It will ship this month with Windows 6.5 installed, and customers can update the firmware for free in a few weeks to run Android as well. Not sure whether it’s one or the other, or if the two can co-exist, but either way it’s a pretty awesome feature.

The specs aren’t too shabby either, with a 5.0 megapixel camera with flash, 3.6 inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen, quadband and EDGE support, 806Mhz processor, WiFi, GPS voice navigation on-board, compass, FM radio, 18 languages and Bluetooth. Oh and it comes with two 1500 mAh batteries.

Here’s a video showing off the handset functionality (in Chinese with touches of Avril Lavigne).