The Mobile Minute 141

Software / Hardware 

• msmobiles.com brings us news that NVIDIA has announced support for Windows Mobile 5.0
• Verizon (last week)  brought the long-awaited Motorola Q to market.  Unfortunately, no AKU 2.0 (WTF?!?) and no WiFi.  IMO, the decision to not include AKU 2.0 was a boneheaded move – you have a device with a very similar form-factor to Blackberry and you want people to replace their Blackberry’s with WM5, but wait, no push email. Way to drop the ball, Verizon.  Not to mention that they plan on charging extra (TBD) if you plan on using it as a modem. 
• Here’s a Moto Q review by PhoneScoop
• HTC has announced that they will sign a MOU with Dopod and take a controlling interest in the company. Here’s the Financial Times article which PhoneScoop.com links to.
• ProtectStar has released a software firewall for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs.
• The Two Inch View. (A Windows Mobile Media & Entertainment site)  Subscribed.  Announcement on SmartphoneThoughts.com
• Interesting comparison of RIM Blackberry 4.0 vs WM5.0 w/MSFP by WiPro  SmartphoneThoughts.com announcement.

 Development

• The Microsoft Patterns & Practices group has now released the Mobile Client Software Factory (MCSF) as a CTP.  Very exciting stuff (particularly if you have been following the weekly drops)
• The OpenNETCF crew has released the details of their Extensions for Visual Studio 2005.  $50 for a single developer – very reasonable, IMO.  Chris blogs about the decision.
• Marcus Perryman gives us an update about his Time Camera Capture sample.  Check it out.
• Chris Tacke blogs about the sweet new calendar controls from OpenNETCF   ..and about a new white paper on .NET MF

In Other News . . .

• Loren is looking for a couple Firefox users to test out an ink plug-in  (Req: Firefox 1.5, TabletPC, patience)
• Jason Dunn has an article about MP3 vs WMA bit rate on The Two Inch View