Palm Rolls Out Its Treo Pro Smartphone

Palm, Inc. today introduced Treo(TM) Pro, an effortlessly usable smartphone for businesses that want to simplify their IT infrastructures and lower costs, and for users who want to stay on top of their professional and personal lives. With its streamlined design and Palm shortcuts layered on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, Treo Pro is a unique combination of sleek simplicity and robust productivity -- including email, Wi-Fi and GPS capabilities -- that meets the needs of businesses and end users alike. Treo Pro, which will be available from Vodafone and O2 in Europe and from Telstra in Australia, also will be available in an unlocked version in the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific.

"Businesses want the control and savings that Windows Mobile affords, in an innovative and elegant package that keeps their users happy. That's where Palm comes in," said Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer, Palm, Inc. "Everything about Treo Pro -- from the hardware design to the packaging and accessories -- embodies the elegant and simplified end-to-end experience that our customers expect from Palm."

The Treo Pro smartphone lets IT managers support an increasingly mobile work force with the ease of use and robust feature set business professionals demand. Besides the benefits of lower costs and increased productivity, Treo Pro can deliver the increased security, easier device management and access to information on the corporate network that Windows Mobile 6.1 provides.

Users can quickly respond to business and personal email, access the web, stay on top of appointments and contacts, and use Wi-Fi or GPS on the go. Treo Pro's thin design blends a flush, high-resolution color touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard with a removable battery that packs up to five hours of talk time and enough strength for the business user's needs, offering a powerful yet effortless mobile experience.

"I'm really happy with Treo Pro -- it's a technology leap from a device design and capability standpoint, enhancing Palm's presence in the Windows Mobile realm," said Wasif Malik, senior systems consultant, Student Educational Services & Mobile Solutions, Ohio State University Medical Center. "It's cleverly designed for Windows Mobile, with a large touch screen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and all the productivity applications for Windows Mobile 6 in a much thinner design."

Palm Experience on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional

The Treo Pro smartphone, based on the popular Windows Mobile platform, helps optimize business processes by effortlessly mobilizing users with enhancements to the Windows Mobile 6.1 platform, including:

-- One-touch Wi-Fi button -- Easy, fast Wi-Fi connection experience (802.11b/g).

-- Today screen enhancements -- Web search directly from the Today screen.

-- Ringer switch -- Silences the device immediately.

-- Screen saver -- Lets users know at a glance -- without turning on the device -- what time it is and whether they've missed a call or have a new SMS/MMS message.

-- New voicemail indicator -- The center button flashes to let users know that a voicemail is waiting.

-- Dedicated email and calendar buttons -- Fast one-button access.

"Windows Mobile is delivering mobile solutions that help businesses address the changing competitive landscape," said Andrew Lees, senior vice president of Microsoft's Mobile Communications Business. "The Treo Pro smartphone brings together a powerful combination of Palm's feature innovations and Windows Mobile 6.1, providing access to the information people need when away from the office."

Lower Costs, Increased Productivity

With Treo Pro, businesses can quickly and easily deploy a secure, low-cost and compatible infrastructure for their mobile workforce by taking advantage of a tightly integrated Palm and Windows Mobile 6.1 solution, including:

-- Microsoft Direct Push Technology -- Direct connection to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 or 2007 gives users up-to-date email, contacts and calendars.

-- Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 -- With the deployment of Mobile Device Manager, the Treo Pro can deliver increased security, easier smartphone management, and access to information on the corporate network. IT professionals can confidently manage large Treo Pro deployments.

-- Thousands of applications available for Windows Mobile -- Businesses can extend mobility beyond email to optimize business processes.

-- World phone -- With high-speed UMTS/HSDPA network capabilities, Treo Pro is a sleek world phone that's ideal for companies with an international work force.

-- Integrated GPS -- Users can access maps, turn-by-turn directions and point-of-interest (POI) searches.

-- Support and training -- Palm shortcuts make Treo Pro so easy to use, businesses can spend less on training and support for their users. End-to-end enterprise support means companies can expand the scope of their mobile deployments without putting a strain on internal support personnel.

-- Familiar Windows experience -- Users can browse the web with built-in Internet Explorer Mobile; open, view, and edit Word and Excel compatible files; review PowerPoint presentations and PDF files; and open ZIP files remotely.

Pricing and Availability

Treo Pro will be available in September in Europe through Vodafone (from free to EUR 399 with contract) and O2 (pricing is available from O2 direct sales and online business stores), and in Australia through Telstra (from free with contract). It will be available in the United States in the fall through the Palm online store (http://www.palm.com/store) as well as select Internet, retail and enterprise resellers for a suggested retail price of $549. The U.S. version is unlocked and unsubsidized, giving end users the flexibility to simply insert their existing active SIM card and immediately start using their Treo Pro without a new contract.

Detailed regional pricing is available from local resellers and distributors. Additional Treo Pro availability is scheduled to follow worldwide.

The Treo Pro smartphone comes with an international power charger, microUSB cable and a stereo headset (3.5mm). Other accessories designed exclusively for Treo Pro (sold separately) include a vehicle power charger, leather side case, travel microUSB cable, cradle, extra battery, TTY audio adapter, and replacement styli.

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10 Most Embarrassing Situations In The History Of Technology

David Haskin

We've all had excruciatingly embarrassing moments. We say something loud and inappropriate at a party and the room abruptly falls silent and stares. Or we misbutton our shirt and it takes half a day to figure out why everybody's giving us funny looks. That sort of thing.

For most of us, these mortifying moments pass quickly. But when they occur in the relentlessly interconnected world of technology, they spread through the Internet like a bad cold that won't go away.

Here are our nominations (in no particular order) for the 10 most mortifying moments in technology history. These aren't bad business decisions or introductions of lousy products.

Rather, they're incidents in which deep, red-faced embarrassment by specific individuals and companies was -- or should have been -- the order of the day. These are the moments when the technology world stops and stares.

Let the Nominations Begin
Let's start our list with mortifying Microsoft moments. Oh, where to begin? There was the time Bill Gates obfuscated so severely at the DOJ vs. Microsoft antitrust trial that he made the judge laugh, and the time Gates, while demonstrating Windows Media Center, couldn't get a remote control to work while Conan O'Brien provided running commentary.

Or how about the photo of a very young Bill draped moony-eyed over a monitor? (Catch the embarrassing moments of two other well-known Silicon Valley figures on the same page.)

For our money, though, here are the three best Microsoft mortifiers:

Bill Gates Gets a BSOD

Windows 95 provided a much spiffier interface than its predecessor, Windows 3.1, but it was neither very feature-rich nor very stable. Microsoft promised that Windows 98 would be much more solid.

However, we should have gotten a clue about what the future of this operating system held when Gates' presentation at Comdex Spring in 1998 went seriously awry, ending in a very public BSOD (Blue Screen of Death).

Monkey Boy Runs Amok
Bill Gates might be the visionary behind Microsoft, but CEO Steve Ballmer has long been the suit behind the vision. So what got into this billionaire that made him dance around like, well, a monkey boy when coming on stage at a 2001 employee gathering?

Was he trying show he's more fun than Steve Jobs? Was it job stress? Had he joined a cult? We may never know.

Vista Has Trouble With (Peach) Speech Recognition

Bill Gates once predicted that speech recognition would someday equal the use of keyboards as a leading input technique. It seems, however, that we have a ways to go.

The technology has rarely been put in a worse light than in a nightmarish 2006 presentation of Windows Vista's speech-recognition capabilities, in which nearly every word spoken by a Microsoft executive came out wrong on-screen.

Although Gates and Co. seem to have had more than their share of embarrassing missteps, we'll stop picking on Microsoft now. To be perfectly fair, many other companies have had disastrous demos as well -- including the ultrahip Apple and its leader Steve Jobs. And demos are just the beginning -- there are plenty of other highly awkward moments in technology, as the rest of our list shows.

IBM Exec Inflates Resume

Jeff Papows' tenure as head of IBM's Lotus Development division was successful from a business standpoint, but in 1999 it emerged that he had falsified his resume and made some less-than-truthful claims to co-workers through the years. Instead of being a Marine captain and a heroic jet fighter pilot, he was a lieutenant air-traffic controller. Rather than a Ph.D. from a prestigious university, he had a degree from a correspondence school. And it turns out he wasn't really an orphan after all.

With an upper lip apparently made of steel, Papows refused to be publicly embarrassed, claiming that the errors were the result of water cooler talk that took on a life of its own. Nor was IBM particularly mortified, allowing Papows to stay on the job until he resigned in 2000 to lead an Internet start-up.

iPhone Bills Kill Trees

If the iPhone had been introduced a few thousand years ago, it would have been carried into the capital city on a palanquin and those en route would have prostrated themselves until it passed.

Fortunately for those who rebel against that sort of pomp, there were also a few embarrassing moments for Apple, such as when the company eliminated its 4GB model and cut the price of the 8GB model by US$200 just two months after the devices had launched. Even ardent fanboys and girls used language that was so surprisingly sharp that Apple agreed to give early adopters a US$100 store credit.

But the most embarrassing iPhone moment came at the expense of the device's U. cellular carrier, AT&T. The company's extraordinarily detailed billing process resulted in some users receiving bills this August that ran dozens or even hundreds of pages long, as captured in blogger Justine Ezarik's video of her unwrapping a 300-page phone bill. (It came in a box.)

Without actually admitting embarrassment, AT&T said it would start sending out more svelte bills to iPhone users.

Kid Cracks Porn Filter

It goes without saying that it's a good thing to protect our children from pornography and other unsavory elements available on the Internet. So who could blame the Australian government for a project that would provide a so-called porn filter to parents?

The problem was that the software, released in August of this year, cost US$84 million -- and that a 16-year-old Melbourne boy, Tom Wood by name, cracked the filter in about 30 minutes. Young Tom's assessment: "It's a horrible waste of money."

A federal official responded by saying that the government knew all along that some kid would come along and crack the scheme and that "the vendor is investigating the matter as a priority."

Sony Hacks Its Customers' PCs

Cynics will tell you that the recording industry is paranoid and slow to enter the digital age. The industry insists it is merely trying to ensure its artists are fairly compensated.

But Sony BMG came down squarely on the side of paranoia in 2005 when, in the name of copy protection, it placed invasive rootkit software on an estimated 15 million music CDs by more than 100 artists. When a CD owner put one of these CDs in a PC drive, the software was automatically installed on the computer without the user's knowledge. Perhaps this system provided copy protection, but it also opened the user's computer to various types of spyware, malware and other nuisances.

A number of users and states sued the bejabbers out of Sony, which paid out big bucks to settle the matter. Apparently Sony wasn't too embarrassed, though -- it recently pulled the same stunt again, this time placing rootkits on USB drives it was selling.

Tech Reporter Reveals Too Much

Many of us have had nightmares about being out in public without our clothes on. So you can only feel for somebody when that really happens, as it did in a virtual sort of way to TechTV reporter Cat Schwartz in 2003.

The gist of the story is that Schwartz had a photographer take provocative pictures of her. The pictures were taken while she was topless, but she cropped the images to be more modest and posted them online.

The problem was that she didn't realize how Photoshop, or possibly the camera itself, included the original image as a viewable preview of the cropped image. Not surprisingly, this mistake spread around the Web rapidly, giving Cat Schwartz an additional 15 minutes of fame, or at least of mortification.

NSA Offspring Cripples the Internet

Let's take a trip down memory lane, back to 1988. This was a time when widespread security threats were starting to become known, but we hadn't yet reached our current hypervigilant state. That's also when a Cornell student, Robert Morris, Jr., released what many believe was the first major worm to be spread via the Internet. He claimed it was a relatively innocent exercise.

The so-called Morris worm brought down a big chunk of the Internet. Of course, in those days the Internet was a relatively small network, largely limited to academics and the military establishment, so the worm didn't do nearly as much damage as it would today. Still, it caused, by some estimates, US$15 million in damage. Morris apologized for releasing the worm, was convicted and received probation.

Now the truly embarrassing part: Morris' father, Robert Sr., was a well-known, highly regarded security expert who worked for the National Security Agency. However, while Dad was undoubtedly mortified at the time, he surely must be proud of his progeny, who is now a professor at MIT.

Just About Everybody Shines Up Their Wikipedia Write-ups

What do Microsoft, the Vatican, the FBI, Al Jazeera, Exxon Mobil and Amnesty International have in common? They -- and many other organizations with household names -- have been busted for altering Wikipedia entries that don't flatter them.

This practice came to light earlier this year thanks to a program called WikiScanner. Developed by CalTech grad student Virgil Griffith, WikiScanner can discern the origins of edits made to the user-editable online encyclopedia. And, sure enough, what his program found was that many people and organizations edit Wikipedia to suit their own needs. With this one, there's plenty of mortification to go around.

A good starting list of who changed what is at MaltaStar.com. Wired also keeps an ongoing, user-contributed list of edits. And you can always try WikiScanner yourself.

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Can Apple Really Restrict The Use Of iPhones?

Anthony Doesburg

How wrong can you be? After writing optimistically that the hype surrounding Apple's iPhone would die away once it went on sale in the United States in June, there's been no let-up in the breathless coverage of the phone-cum-music player.

And despite it not being officially available in New Zealand, a mini-industry already exists here to supply iPhones and accessories.

Some of us may have been determined not to be caught up in iPhone excitement, but it seems that most of the planet has been happy to go along with it. Now, after reading the reviews and coming under the spell of a number of iPhone enthusiasts, I'm finding it increasingly hard to resist giving in to the hype.

As iPhone fans go, Aucklander John Ballinger might be the country's biggest. The software developer is thought to be the first New Zealander to hack an iPhone so it would work with Vodafone's network.

As sold in the US, the phone will operate only on AT&T's GSM network. But that hasn't stopped dozens of people around the world from devising ways to make iPhones connect to other networks. The method Ballinger used involved numerous software steps, as well as opening the iPhone case, locating a couple of tiny electrical contacts with a magnifying glass and short-circuiting them.

The hard part was prising the back off the phone. That came at the cost of a cut hand, broken fingernails and damaged tools. The good news is that within a couple of weeks of Ballinger's hack, a software-only solution was found for making the phone work. And, in fact, while Apple isn't saying when or how the iPhone will be available here, retailer Parallel Imported was this week selling phones ready to use with the Vodafone network for $1200.

That's expensive, though, compared with buying one in the US. Ballinger says the going rate in New York, including the state sales tax, is about $650 if New Zealand GST is added.

He chides anyone who questions why it's worth going to so much bother over a cellphone. "There's not much in the market that compares to what it does."

Ballinger likens it to having a computer in your pocket. "It's always on, it's ready to go, it's got a screen, a keyboard and a mouse and it interacts really well. And because it runs on Apple OS X, you have every single Apple software developer out there able to build applications for it."

Video game developers don't need to write specific versions for the iPhone, since it will run standard Apple software, although tweaking might be required for its small screen.

That gives the iPhone an advantage over devices from Nokia and Sony Ericsson, reckons Ballinger, because they have a smaller population of software developers.

Testers at the US edition of PC World magazine have been putting the iPhone through its paces since late June and have delivered a largely positive verdict. They criticise it for the costly contract US buyers must enter into with AT&T and for the fact that it isn't 3G - meaning it isn't getting the fastest available cellular network access to the internet.

But as a phone it functions well, with 10 hours of talk time (two hours longer than Apple states) and as a music player it's comparable to iPod Nano models.

But would they recommend buying it as a business tool? No, it doesn't make it into the magazine's top three personal digital assistants.

Ballinger has no such reservations. He raves about applications such as the phone's route finder, which uses Google Maps to provide directions if you enter your location and intended destination.

Another application will tell you your approximate location based on the relative signal strengths of nearby cell sites.

For those able to wait until the phone can be bought through Apple-approved channels, it's a guessing game when that will be. Apple Australia is giving nothing away and internet service provider Orcon, a rumoured possible iPhone distributor, won't divulge anything.

Orcon is, however, planning to start reselling Vodafone services, so will have a network at its disposal.

Those lucky enough to be John Ballinger's friends don't need to wait to be a part of the iPhone experience, however. He has hacked four phones already, by the much easier software-only method, which just requires the purchase of a Vodafone SIM card.

As his circle of friends expands, he is thinking what he might do with his collection of the AT&T SIM cards the iPhones come with. "Once I've got 10, I might make a little piece of art." No doubt in tribute to the geniuses at Apple.

Making connections

* As sold in the US, Apple's iPhone works only on AT&T's GSM network.
* But hackers have found ways to connect to other networks.
* Early hacks meant the phones had to be physically modified.
* Now the phones can be reconfigured by software changes alone.
* The iPhone isn't officially available in New Zealand, but it's already on sale here, modified for the Vodafone network.

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Teen 'Unlocks' AT&T,s iPhone And Sells On Ebay

Armed with a soldering iron and a large supply of energy drinks, a slight, curly haired teenager has developed a way to make the iPhone, arguably the gadget of the year, available to a much wider audience.

George Hotz of Glen Rock, N.J., spent his last summer before college figuring out how to "unlock" the iPhone, freeing it from being restricted to a single carrier, AT&T Inc.

The procedure, which the 17-year-old posted on his blog Thursday, raises the possibility of a cottage industry springing up to buy iPhones, unlocking them and then selling them to people who don't want AT&T service or can't get it, particularly overseas.

The phone, which combines an innovative touch-screen interface with the media-playing abilities of the iPod, is currently sold only in the U.S.

An AP reporter was able to verify that an iPhone Hotz brought to the AP's headquarters on Friday was unlocked. Hotz placed the reporter's T-Mobile SIM card, a small chip that identifies a phone to the network, in the iPhone. It then connected to T-Mobile's network and placed calls using the reporter's account.

T-Mobile is the only major U.S. carrier apart from AT&T that is compatible with the iPhone's cellular technology, but smaller carriers also use the technology, known as GSM. In Europe and Asia, GSM is the dominant network technology.

The hack is complicated and requires skill with both soldering and software, and missteps may result in the iPhone becoming useless, so few people will be able to follow the instructions.

"But that's the simplest I could make them," Hotz said.

Technology blog Engadget on Friday reported successfully unlocking an iPhone using a different method that required no tinkering with the hardware. The software was supplied by an anonymous group of hackers that apparently plans to charge for it.

AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel and Apple spokeswoman Jennifer Bowcock said their companies had no comment on Hotz' exploit. Hotz said the companies had not been in touch with him.

Apple shares rose $4.23, or 3.2 percent, to close at $135.30 on Friday. AT&T shares gained 26 cents, or 0.7 percent, to close at $40.36.

The iPhone has already been made to work on overseas networks using another method, which involves copying information from the SIM chip, or Subscriber Identity Module.

The SIM-chip method does not involve any soldering, but does require special equipment, and it doesn't unlock the phone _ each new SIM chip has to be reprogrammed for use on a particular iPhone.

Both hacks leave intact the iPhone's many functions, including a built-in camera and the ability to access Wi-Fi networks. The only thing that won't work is the "visual voicemail" feature, which lists voice messages as if they were incoming e-mail.

Since the details of both hacks are public, Apple may be able to modify the iPhone production line to make new phones invulnerable.

Analysts said it's unlikely Apple would overhaul the iPhone's wiring to thwart the new hack because the difficulty of the procedure is likely to keep it confined to hardcore hobbyists.

"I'm having a hard time figuring out where the real pain is going to come from in this," said David Chamberlain, principal analyst with market researcher In-Stat who follows mobile devices and services. "Just selling the piece of hardware, they've made a nice profit off that."

Apple has said it plans to introduce the phone in Europe this year, but it hasn't set a date or identified carriers.

There is apparently no U.S. law against unlocking cell phones. Last year, the Library of Congress specifically excluded cell-phone unlocking from coverage under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Among other things, the law has been used to prosecute people who modify game consoles to play a wider variety of games.

Hotz collaborated online with a large number of people to develop the unlocking process. Of smaller core group, two were in Russia.

"Then there are two guys who I think are somewhere U.S.-side," Hotz said. He knows them only by their online handles.

Hotz himself spent about 500 hours on the project since the iPhone went on sale. On Thursday, he put the unlocked iPhone up for sale on eBay, where the high bid was at $12,600 late Friday. The model, with 4 gigabytes of memory, sells for $499 new.

"Some of my friends think I wasted my summer but I think it was worth it," he told The Record of Bergen County, which reported Hotz's hack Friday.

Hotz heads for college on Saturday. He plans to major in neuroscience _ or "hacking the brain" as he puts it _ at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

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