I bought a Nokia N810 from Amazon. Actually, there are not any shopping malls selling N810 in Korea so I had to buy an N810 from the oversea shopping mall. Anyway, I am very satisfied with N810. It may be my favorite toy.
N810 uses the Maemo platform that is based on Linux 2.6, GTK+, Matchbox and other open source projects. Scratchbox is used for its development environment that supports a cross-platform development environment. So the users can implement an application without knowing how to use a toolchain for specific target devices. In addition, we can easily install applications from the repositories using Debian packaging & repository system.
I think that it's a truly open mobile platform based on Linux. Because Nokia gave their governance of hildon to the GNOME community.
First, I'd like to build XUL Runner and run Fennec (Mozilla Mobile). It seems that it could run on N810 and Windows Mobile 6. So I'll check the status and give my feedback to the community.
:-)
References
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Camera Interface on Mobile Platform
Mozilla platform is trying to support device APIs for mobile environment.
Some people call them native interface
I already posted a blog on device APIs
The Mozilla community started to discuss what the device APIs should be supported through the news group and Mozilla wiki.
Christopher added some information regarding the device APIs in the wiki.
So you can find on-going issues to support the device APIs. They are not confirmed, so you can suggest your idea & opinion to them.
Actually, I'm interested in implementing a camera interface for Mozilla platform. This camera interface is not so important on desktop, but it plays a important role in mobile environment. Because the users can take a photo more easily using their phone.
That is a reason why Mozilla Mobile has been interested in implementing Camera API on Mozilla platform.
I think that implementing Camera API seems to be not difficult, because Mozilla already showed its video playback functionality through HTML5 element, which uses the GStreamer framework. So we can use a camera input instead of network stream. But, you should know how to use the camera input inside Mozilla.
Some of mobile platforms provide a way of using their camera input such as Windows Mobile5.0, Maemo platform. So I'd like to introduce the APIs as follows,
MaemoPlatform
There is an article which introduces how to use the Camera API
According to the article, applications can access the Camera interface through a kernel API called Video4Linux. The built-in camera present in Nokia N810 looks compatible with Video-4-Linux version 2 API from the article.
Fortunately, the Maemo platform delegates all multimedia handling to the GStreamer framework. It means that developers can use the Camera API if they know only how to use the GStreamer framework on Maeme platform.
Windows Mobile 5.0
Windows Mobile developers can manipulate the camera input through DirectShow. But It needs to know some prior knowledge of how to use COM interface.
Mozilla Mobile is planning to support the Camera interface through JavaScript. I'm not sure if Mozilla Mobile will expose the interface for the Web. Someday, the users would be able to upload their photos taken by the camera directly from Mobile Firefox to Flickr in any ways.
Some people call them native interface
I already posted a blog on device APIs
The Mozilla community started to discuss what the device APIs should be supported through the news group and Mozilla wiki.
Christopher added some information regarding the device APIs in the wiki.
So you can find on-going issues to support the device APIs. They are not confirmed, so you can suggest your idea & opinion to them.
Actually, I'm interested in implementing a camera interface for Mozilla platform. This camera interface is not so important on desktop, but it plays a important role in mobile environment. Because the users can take a photo more easily using their phone.
That is a reason why Mozilla Mobile has been interested in implementing Camera API on Mozilla platform.
I think that implementing Camera API seems to be not difficult, because Mozilla already showed its video playback functionality through HTML5 element, which uses the GStreamer framework. So we can use a camera input instead of network stream. But, you should know how to use the camera input inside Mozilla.
Some of mobile platforms provide a way of using their camera input such as Windows Mobile5.0, Maemo platform. So I'd like to introduce the APIs as follows,
MaemoPlatform
There is an article which introduces how to use the Camera API
According to the article, applications can access the Camera interface through a kernel API called Video4Linux. The built-in camera present in Nokia N810 looks compatible with Video-4-Linux version 2 API from the article.
Fortunately, the Maemo platform delegates all multimedia handling to the GStreamer framework. It means that developers can use the Camera API if they know only how to use the GStreamer framework on Maeme platform.
Windows Mobile 5.0
Windows Mobile developers can manipulate the camera input through DirectShow. But It needs to know some prior knowledge of how to use COM interface.
Mozilla Mobile is planning to support the Camera interface through JavaScript. I'm not sure if Mozilla Mobile will expose the interface for the Web. Someday, the users would be able to upload their photos taken by the camera directly from Mobile Firefox to Flickr in any ways.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Real Full Browsing in Korea
LG Telelcom, the smallest of three telecom operators in Korea launched mobile full browsing service with an attractive fixed-rate plan that allows unlimited data download within 6 month and 1G bytes after then for 6,000 won ($6) per month.Other telecom operators also have provided mobile full browsing service, but the rate plan is very expensive. For example, SK telecom charges about 3072Won(3$) per 1MB for data transfer.
The full browser was provided by Infraware that is a Korean company. It features Ajax and zoomo-in/out so the user can use most of features of the Web.
But there are still limitations of using the Internet. This service is only for browsing the Web. Other kinds of network access are limited by expensive rate such as on-line game, Internet accessible applications. There is also limitation of data download although 1G bytes is large size of data.
Anyway, this would be a significant change for mobile web in Korea. Therefore, many of the user will be able to experience real full browsing in mobile environment from now.
I'm looking forward to another new services which provide more open environment at an affordable price for users
* Reference
- LG Telecom Launches Open Internet for Mobiles
- LG Telelcom Releases a mobile phone "CanU" for OZ service (Korean)
- Infraware will provide a full browser for LG Telelcom (Korean)
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