As time goes on, more and more of my time is being taken up reading very interesting smartphone news. WVGA, Android, WM6.5 and Cortex are the important keywords and every time a device comes up it becomes clearer that the push towards the MID market is greater from the Smartphone manufacturers than it is from the Intel-based MID and ultra mobile PC market. With Menlow in a strange UMPC-like state (with no Moblin support now) there’s a long wait until consumer-focused MIDs come out on the Moorestown platform in 2010. […]

Nearly two years ago, Adobe announced that the Flash 9 player would support H.264. There was talk of ‘hardware acceleration’ too but event though we’re up to version 10 of the player, its still one of the most CPU-heavy video playback methods there is. Not only does it appear (in testing with many UMPCs over the last 2 years) to be CPU intensive but it still can’t hook into any H.264 hardware decoding that is available on many pc’s out there now. What are Adobe doing?

The Viliv S7 [Portal page] is still on its way out the production door, but that hasn’t stopped a Korean blog from getting their hands on one and taking plenty of good images. The same site also produced a video of the rather underwhelming Viliv Shuffle UI that comes included with the device: Check out the original article for more images of the Viliv S7. via [jkkmobile] and [ultra mobile PC Fever]

James Kendrick over at jkOnTheRun posted an interesting video showing the Viliv S5 being used with Windows XP Tablet Edition. Essentially you’ll be seeing tablet input panel usage which is neat, but the video actually also shows some of the frustrating parts of tablet computing such as poor text recognition and lengthy input times. I’d be interested to see who could input text faster, someone using Tablet Edition or someone using the default OSK. Check out the video below:

The upcoming Viliv S7 [Portal page] is currently at the #6 spot on ultra mobile PC Portal’s top 10 chart and is still on its way out the door to a consumer release. If the recently released and oft-glorified Viliv S5 [Portal page] and Viliv X70 [Portal page] are any indicator, the Viliv S7 is going to be a solid ultra mobile PC with good build quality. Setting it apart from the S5 or X70 is the fact that the S7 has a hardware keyboard while the aforementioned Viliv devices […]

Maemo is most often associated with Nokia’s N-series internet tablets such as the N810 [Portal page]. However, Chinese company Optima looks to be releasing a MID which uses the Maemo OS. It is doubtful that the device will ever leave the Chinese border, but it is definitely noteworthy for the OS choice. Head to the original story at Pocketables.net for the full device specs and some additional images. [Product page (translated)] via [Pocketables.net]

We’ve been talking about the area of mobile internet-connected devices between the smartphone and notebook for a long time now. Many companies have tried with many many different designs but in reality, none of them have been a success. OQO, Flipstart, Wibrain and Raon Digital are proof that it’s a market where many are going to fail before a winner comes along but what is it going to take to make that winner and how close are we to it? Where are we on the Mobile Internet Timeline?

Podcasts can be one of the easiest and most time-friendly ways to get a concise update on all the important stories and news items as well as being an excellent stimulator for personal thoughts on the chosen subject. Here’s a list of podcasts that you might want to tune in to. MoTR Mobile Tech Roundup with James Kendrick, Kevin Tofel and Matt Miller focuses on the mobile computing market from smartphones to tablet PCs. [RSS] Gottabemobile Warner, Xavier and other team members talk about mobile technology. Again, ranging from smartphones […]