“can you open multimedia applications like winamp, media player or even think of scripts programmes to run applications like opening IE, typing out URL, browsing web pages, viewing root directories, manage shutdown/suspend / hibernate your PC/Laptop Computer from your Cellphone ? Can you take control of your mobile camera from the computer- shoot pics, stream the picture, locate your phone”, no? but the answer is yes !!
Still don’t believe this, then go ahead and read.
There are some things technology has to offer everyday. In this world of digital divide, where you expect your new n cool gadget to become an absolute junk in a matter of couple of weeks, there are certain things that a technologically novice like me am often left at owe of. Every other day I read this review of new handsets appearing in the scene which the so and so company claims to be a technological marvel and a masterpiece. I will put all this claims to junk as I have in the period of my experimentation with new emerging technologies has been able to find out. What I have found out is that most of the major handset makers keeps on launching new phones which are but only an enhanced version of the old ones if not an upgraded one, with new specs thrown in and a few technological jargons for the novice users who, ultimately lap up this models. So we find phones with 3.2 megapixel cameras, Bluetooth which once was the preferred technology is a thing of passé with wi-fi sets coming into picture. Not to speak of Bluetooth, which are a must for all phones now, now you must have A2DP a technology that allows music to be streamed through your phone wirelessly to a Bluetooth enabled headset.
For all practical purpose these multi devices are no substitute for standalone devices, a camera phone is no match for a digital camera no matter they keep on enhancing the pixels (there are camera phones in Korea which boasts of 10 mp resolution). For all practical purpose you will be well off with a basic colour handset for if you stick to calls and SMSs, if you are a camera buff there are plenty of digital cameras available under 10ks or even 8k. Prices of Camcorders have come down dramatically. The only drawback, you may have to lug around with all these gadgets when on the move, while you can only do with one with as many functionalities. So what is the next best device, off course a next generation phone (what the cellphone companies now love to call a 3G or, now, even a 4G cellphone), that not only make phone calls, do SMS, MMS, but also function as a PDA, take megapixel pictures, record DVD quality movies, stream in live TV etc etc. (I am deliberately not touching the PDAs, as they are more of a personal organizer then a phone, a camera, camcorder all rolled in one, and to all practical purpose remain a PDA although they have all the capability of the most advanced smartphones available today, off course except the price. These devices are completely in a class of its own (and these includes the blackberrys, Palm Treos, iPaqs, Jasjars, O2s etc.) and are meant for a completely different league and for a different category of people -mostly business people on the move for whom it is a must have. I am not saying you stall the purchase of a Nokia N93 or the immediate rival of N93 (if it already has arrived and if not, don’t be surprised it will be a Nokia N?? by itself). If you have the bucks to spend (around 33ks) you may go ahead and buy these gadget, but how soon you will get tired off these technological marvels I am not very sure (No pun intended here for all gadget lovers !! – I don’t know if there are such possibilities with any of the phones using symbian or firmware or other OS. If there is any, readers are welcome to let me know as well as readers of this column)
Before I deviate from what I started at the beginning I may announce that I still own a old phone, a SE700i (and if you don’t know what is SE – oh c’mon man ! its Sony Ericsson). A year back I was at owe of this phone. It had everything, a camera, a phone, a gaming device, an FM radio, Bluetooth, Infra-red blah blah blah! Overall a great phone, so I thought until, the SE W series happened and Nokia N series took us by storm. I had bought the phone after much research and poring over the reviews (although unintentionally it was a SE K750i, which I could not afford during that period). After using it for a year, I am not so enthusiastic about the phone anymore but was definitely amazed to find a new capability of the phone recently.
Something the official SE makers were not forthcoming was the capability of the open ended software technology and the firmware used in all SE phones except the P900 series and the more recent M600 which use Symbian OS. What did it meant for techno-savvy people? Well they came up with all sorts of softwares to be used in tandem with the SE phones (I don’t say Symbian, and deny that Symbian is more popular with mobile software and content developers – including hackers and virus creators also!!). Open Source developers took full advantage of this technology and today it is not surprising that there are numerous open ended SE software developers forums to be found in the Net (like Esato, to name a few). Although I had a slight inkling about this at the beginning as there were so many SE forums (No other handset users have so many forums devoted to developers). I was thus amazed at finding that my old SE700i can be controlled from my PC/Laptop and also the other way round. No I am not speaking about synchronizing or even HID, DUN. Can you open multimedia applications like winamp, media player or even think of scripts programmes to run applications like opening IE, typing out URL, browsing web pages, viewing root directories, manage shutdown/suspend / hibernate your PC/Laptop Computer from your Cellphone ? OR Can you take control of your mobile camera from the computer- shoot pics, stream the picture, locate your phone”, no? but the answer is yes !!, I can do all this functions from my SE K700i. I can take control of almost all applications at my Laptop that windows scripts allow, I can take control of my playlist in winamp or media player, choose songs by category, genre etc, control volume of the PC, open file lists, open files at my Laptop/PC, open IE, type out URLs, open pages, view history, send e-mail and control the shutdown or hibernation of the Laptop/PC – all this remotely through my Cellphone. Not only this I can take control of my phone camera from my Laptop/PC – trigger the camera, shoot camera in web-cam mode i.e., take pictures in a sequence, locate my phone remotely among the clutters littering my work table etc and even simulate the cellphone keypad in my PC/Laptop. These are only a few applications to name apart from the routine synchronization of phone and SIM contacts, File Transfer, Object Push, Basic Imaging, SMSs, Outlook Synchronization etc that’s possible through this software. I could not, but marvel at the ingenuity of a few dedicated open source programmers who developed FMA or FloAt’s Mobile Agent, a small but wonderful piece of software available for free. I was amazed at the capability of the software at extracting the maximum usability of a simple Bluetooth capable handset I thought I will discard within a couple of months. Now I am happy I did not do so. Unfortunately this is available only for T610, T68i and SE700i. I firmly believe this will be extended to other phones, as this software is still at the beta testing stage. If you have programming knowledge and know a little bit about scripting, there are innumerable things you can do from your handset, which you can even fail to imagine it would have been possible to do.
So all you technologically novice people belonging to my league, my advice is don’t be taken in by all those tall claims of the cellphone manufacturers, since they don’t tell you the complete story about your phone’s capability, do cling on to your old phone (at least if it has Bluetooth or USB or Infrared connectivity). If you are interested go ahead and find out more from the following link, and discover what the developers call is “a magic” at http://fma.sourceforge.net/