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If you don’t mind, we’re going to stop this ‘iPhone Special’ for a while, given that there still is some intelligent life outside. We’ll do so with two emergency solutions for those who can’t wait to purchase Apple’s cell phone. First, a program to ‘turn’ your Treos and other Palms into an iPhone. And then, a DIY iPhone that you can show off in vanity snapshots.

Among these days’ comments and analysis there’s a line of thought saying that the iPhone is going to make life hard for Palm and their Treos. We don’t agree, given that they are quite different platforms, one boasting to be closed for third-party applications and another that builds on the strength of such applications. Palm still has six months to promote that strength, and Jeff Hawkins’ secret product is still waiting in the wings.

Nonetheless, some iPhone envy is understandable among ‘treonauts’ when looking at Apple’s user interface. Fortunately, somebody has decided to cure it: meet the iPhony, a program that replaces the Palm OS application launcher with another one made of iPhone icons. iPhony displays a 4 x 4 grid of fixed icons that you can tap with a stylus or your finger, but also using Palm’s 5-way navigator. Each icon can be configured to start your desired application: ‘Text’ for Messages, ‘Web’ for Blazer or another browser, ‘Mail’ for Versamail and so on.

iPhony is completely free. Right now it only works on Palm devices with a 320×320-pixel screen, such as the Treo 650 and 680, the Zire 72 and the Tungsten T2, but we’re anxious to see a later version for the 320×480-pixel screens of the LifeDrive and the T|X.

A cut-out iPhone

If you own a Windows Mobile device, or you just want to hold an iPhone in your hand, you can always get the cut-out iPhone provided by the guys at Sneakmove. You just download the PDF file, print it, cut it out and assembly it, and you get an actual size iPhone mock-up. We recommend to use cardboard or photo paper, so you can handle and it looks like the real thing. From the same page you can also download an editable version in Illustrator format, just in case you want to replace the Nemo-like screen image with another one.

(iPhony via PalmInfocenter; cut-out via PCdemano).

This story is a month old, but it’s still remarkable: Emirates to allow in-flight mobile phone service. Starting next January, using cellphones will be allowed on board, both for making calls and receiving messages (and hopefully, also for accessing the Internet and e-mail).

by Xavier Caballé

The measure won’t be immediate, due to the need to install a protection system in the planes, in order to prevent interferences. The first Emirates’ airplane will be a Boeing 777, and the system will be progressively extended to the whole fleet.

However, some limitations apply:

Mobile phones will only be used at cruise altitude, like in the case of other electronic devices, while cabin crew will have full control over the system.

"The number of calls that may be made at any one time is also limited to a maximum of five or six calls, the same number as for the current in-seat phones used regularly by Emirates' passengers," the statement added.

The service will also allow passengers to send and receive text messages, with charges in line with international roaming rates.

Therefore, international rates will apply.

Related to the above, Mobile calls allowed on half of all airlines by 2008: by mid-2008, 59-percent of airlines will allow using cellphones on board. The first European ones are Air France, TAP and Ryanair.

More details on these issues is available in the Airline IT Trends Survey report, that covers how technology adoption is impacting the airline industry operations: 89-percent of carriers are already offering e-tickets, providing electronic check-in, either via ATM-style machines or websites.

(original story in Catalan)

Via YouTube we can remember this old Palm commercial, combining a classic boy meets girl situation and a PDA feature very much appreciated by seasoned users. You may call me a romantic, but I found it a delightful ad.

This commercial must be several years old, given that the displayed model is a
Palm V, that was discontinued some time ago. I suggest you to watch the ad first, and then keep reading below:

The ad looks like it was produced for the American or British market, but the environment and the flamenco music bring it very much closer to us: I may be wrong, but the trains look like the Euromeds that Renfe (the Spanish railways) are using along the Mediterranean, and the place is Barcelona’s old Estació de França (by the way, just around the corner of the auditorium where the MobileMonday powwows are held the first Monday of every month).

Regarding the infrared data transmission that makes him and her so happy, it is one of the most convenient features in a PDA, even in this current era of WiFi and Bluetooth, so some of us still appreciate that certain manufacturers, such as Palm itself, are still keeping it in their recent devices. The ad is a tribute to the swift elegance of instantly sending your own business card by pressing a single button.

You won’t find your most personal audio in your iPod, Zen, Sansa or Zune, but in your mouth: Tooth Tunes is a new toothbrush that transmits music to the ear by vibration through the user’s teeth and jawbone. It sounds for exactly two minutes, just the time that most dentists recommend to brush your teeth.

Tooth Tunes is a toothbrush that Hasbro, the American toy maker, expects to launch before Christmas for 7 pounds (13 €). It will be targeted to children, and they expect it to ‘single-handedly change children’s attitudes to brushing’.

Apparently, the brush handle contains a microchip, storing a single piece of music, and a player that transmits music to the inner ear by vibrating on the teeth and jawbone, so the user hears ‘a cross between the sound of music coming out of a stereo and the sound of humming to oneself’. Meanwhile, other people nearby only hear a buzzing noise like the one of an electric toothbrush.

The microchip can be replaced, so you will be able to choose which tune you hear while you are brushing. Hasbro is supposed to be negotiating music rights with Will Smith and the Black Eyed Peas. In all cases, the music piece plays for exactly two minutes, the amount of brushing time recommended by dentists every morning and every night.

We must say that all of the above comes from a Glen Owen story in the Daily Mail, and we have been unable to find anything about the Tooth Tunes in several Hasbro’s websites (should any of our readers be more lucky, please let us know by posting a comment). We were a bit dubious, but April’s Fools Day has past, so we tend to believe it. Actually, Owen refers minutiae such as Hasbro’s six years of research with the system on products that get into your mouth, such as lollipops, pens, forks and spoons, and we have found the patente of a Sound-transmitting amusement device and method that seems to be behind the Sound Bites lollipops, that we’re told never got to the market. (It seems more than fitting that after the candy comes the toothbrush, anyway).

Meanwhile, we’ve also noticed that the Tooth Tunes is not the first noise-making toothbrush. Jordan sells the Click, that makes just what it says: it clicks when you brush too strongly (aparently, 3 out of 4 people do). However, Jordan’s system is a mechanical affair.

By the way, it was our contributor David Pogue who pointed out the Tooth Tunes to us. On his NY Times blog, David collects some funny comments by readers about the device. We’re falling for these two: But remember, that’s one song per toothbrush. And you can’t transfer songs to your dental floss or toothpicks, or your friend’s toothbrush and Damned DRM! (Dental Rights Management)

News we can’t cope with, but we couldn’t let go, either:

• Apple will fork out $100 million to Creative for settling their mutual patent dispute. Apparently, the music browsing system that Apple uses in the iPod bears more than a passing resemblance to one that the Singapore-based company filed a patent for, back in January 2001. According to the joint press release, both companies are now more friends than ever.
  
• Nokia extends its 3G-cellphone range in Spain with two new models that one does not know if camera-fitted phones or phone-fitted cameras. One of them, the N93 (749 €; available today) records VGA video at 30 frames per second, while the N73 (509 €; available next week) takes 3.2-megapixel pictures with a Carl Zeiss lens and includes everything to post them on the Net.

• SanDisk challenges the iPod Nano in capacity and price with the new Sansa e280, the first MP3 player with 8 MB of Flash memory (250 €) and reduces the prices of the 2-GB (140 €), 4-GB (180 €) and 6-GB (220 €) models. There’s nothing like manufacturing your own flash memory, instead of purchasing it from third parties.
• The number of Windows Mobile licenses sold by Microsoft during its 2006 fiscal year grew by 90-percent over the previous year. The company reports WM revenues of $55 million, a 37-percent increase, so they must have been quite agressive in pricing. This was the first year in which Microsoft made some money with Windows Mobile, an still small area of its business, but also one of the fastest growing. More details on Microsoft’s Q4 FY2006 earnings report
• Mikael posts at Fosfor a gallery of the 10 most beautiful cellphones. Actually, there are fourteen of them (plus an old piece of junk), and as David Pogue writes, some of them look like ergonomic nightmares, but who cares when design is involved?

Hi, I am Sam, your nearly real weather man. Yesterday was born in Madrid the first virtual weather man, who will anchor weather information a la carte on TV, Internet and cell phones.

Many film directors are craving for virtual actors, in order to avoid the tantrums of flesh-and-blood prima donnas. Weathermen may be more reasonable people than movie stars, but nonetheless they just got digital competition: he’s called Sam and is the first virtual weatherman.

Sam, a 3D character who has his own web site, will broadcast weather information in three languages (Catalan, Spanish and English) via several TV channels, Internet sites and mobile phones. Sam has been created by Activa Multimedia, the interactive-services subsidiary of the Corporació Catalana de Ràdio i Televisió (CCRTV), in cooperation with two Barcelona universities: Pompeu Fabra (3D design) and La Salle (voice synthesis).

SAM is also the acronym of Serveis Audiovisuals de Meteorologia, another CCRTV subsidiary providing weather information services to end users and media outlets. Sam will debut indeed next Monday on the screens of the Meteo channel, carried by the Spanish Digital+ satellite platform.

Sam’s creators are already thinking about cloning him, in order to apply the concept to other information that can be automated, such as traffic reports. They also intend to give Sam a female colleague, who will add the weather touch to the ranks of virtual newscasters.

Sam is not the first virtual weatherman: a company called Oddcast has been providing Flash-animated weatherpersons to websites for two years, but those are more like two-dimensional avatars, while Sam is a 3D character with 78.000 bones, who can modulate his voice, generate movements according to the data he’s speaking and even changing clothes, for broadcasting from ski slopes or beaches.

We are quite sure that old Max Headroom would be pleased to know that his offspring can speak languages and don’t s-stutter anymore.