Android on Mobile Monday

I joined the android part of the mobile monday in munich this week.

Nothing really suprising happened there, but I collected some facts from the Q/A which might be interesting for you.

• A new SDK is on the way with a complete new User Interface
• The first mobile will have a H-VGA display
• The D-BUS system will be kicked out in final release
• Applications will only be self-signed by the developer
• Minimal hardware requirements for an android platform:
• 200 Mhz ARM 9
• 64 MB RAM
• SD-Card
• QVGA or bigger
• WIFI/bluetooth

JavaFX Mobile on DevDays

Unfortunately I'm not able to join the first Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days in Santa Clara but I decided to watch the live stream of the session "Developing Applications for JavaFX Mobile" to find out a little bit more about Sun's mobile operating system.
First of all: The live stream worked really good, and there's also a chat attached to the session you're watching where you can ask questions. I took the chance to dig a bit deeper into the Web-side of the story and asked for SVG and Java PlugIn support of the WebKit based browser. Unfortunately Sun is not implementing this in their first release.... too bad. I'm wondering why they are putting so much effort on their new Java Plugin of the update N release if they don't put it into their mobile platform...
Anyway, the whole JavaFX Mobile operating system is clear competitor for android with the huge advantage that Sun is able to run 100% pure Java SE on it.
Check out the slides of that session, it's really worth it.

W910i review

I can name a SE W910i my own for some weeks now and I really like that device. I would like to show some pretty nice features I like most. First, the RSS ticker on the idle screen. Really usefull if you have a data flat fee. You can add the news or flickr (or NoseRub) feeds you like and the phone will display the latest news in a carrousel like ticker on the idle screen like this:
Nice. I really like to make more use of the idle screen, so I used the ability of the W910i to create an idle screen midlet, which you can do on many of the latest SE-Phones (most JP-7 and all JP-8 phones). My first midlet just displayed pictures from my picasa web album on the idle screen like. A bit boring over time. Now I use JSR 184 to map those pictures to a cube and do some nice 3D-transition effects like this:


I also checked out the SenseMe function, but I'm a bit disappointed especially by the horrible Windows application from Sony Ericsson. Not useable at all. The Media Player is pretty nice, it rotates the pictures and videos depending of the orientation of your phone. Cool.
Overall a cool phone with only few negative aspects: No GPS, a bit unstable firmware and a plastic cover. Hopefully the announced W760 will overcome those issues ;)

DLNA Media Server for my PS3

Do you remember this device?

Yes, it's a Linkstation and I never found a very useful job for mine... Until today :) I bought a PS3 some days ago mainly because of all the cool media features. I used my PC as a media server first, but I didn't like the idea that it has to run all day and night long. Then I remembered my Linkstation... The main problem is that it runs on MIPS architecture and it's not that easy to cross compile new software for it. After some research I found the TwonkyMediaServer which claims to support MIPS. And it's true, these guys have ported their software to a bunch of target platforms and architectures. Great! Now my Linkstation has something useful things to do, while my PC can look for more interesting stuff ;)

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