"Thurman" <thurman@bigplanet.com> wrote in
news

R0kj.3$Pk5.0@newsfe07.lga:
> It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see the software might be
> extended to allow voice calls over Wi-Fi.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWAmxpQP0Ww
3' close enough? N810 has the GPS built in...but, unlike the
SELLphones, we can use ours without paying per month...(c;
Nokia paid big money for a couple of navigation companines so they don't
have to play proprietary BS games with mapping companies. N810 comes,
now, with Wayfinder, which you can watch work in the video from
thoughtfix driving around Phoenix.
I'm using its predecessor, which works the same except for the live
traffic reporting, in the N800 Navigation Kit. (BT GPS receiver,
mounting kit, Navicore). I just downloaded a free upgrade, now that
Nokia owns the company, that added the rest of North America to my map
catalog. It was an easy install. Instead of using the separate memory
card Navicore came with, I installed a whole new Navicore onto my
external 8GB SD card so I don't have to swap. I've since moved it all
to the 8GB internal card to free up more external card storage for more
movies/music/etc.
I have a Garmin marine GPS that someone paid nearly $1000 for. Nokia's
little BT GPS is MUCH more sensitive and just as accurate as the best
one. Using Maemo Mapper, a freeware Linux program the hackers wrote for
it that uses many different map/satellite data sets, automatically
downloading them through my SELLphone off the net, the little GPS places
you in the exact parking space on the sat photo you're sitting in. It's
uncanny.
Apple screwed up not allowing GPS BT receivers access. The external
receiver is, in my opinion, better than the internal one in the N810
because the placement of the tablet in the car matters not to the GPS
reception and you don't need to carry around more chips you're not
using. The receiver stays on my car dash, recharging its Li-Ion
SELLphone battery off the 12V cord when the car is running. It sleeps
when the tablet isn't using it and you don't really need to shut it off.
Separately powered means it doesn't load the tablet's battery at all.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dpitkin...n/photostream/
Oh, voice calls over wifi......we call it SKYPE. Works great, too, even
over the BT SELLphone internet driving down the highway. I'm not sure
why it sometimes works better.
Have you ever noticed how the phones, on any system, can get a voicemail
notification when the damned thing has too weak a signal to make a phone
call? I've had 1X data service, backpedalled from EVDO, down in the
country that would STILL make a data connection, though slower with,
probably, lots of packet retries which slows it down....when there
wasn't enough signal to make a phone call. Solution? Just boot Skype
on the BT-over-SELLphone data network and use Skype to make the call.
The crazy thing works over the data network in 2 places where Alltel has
dead spots way down in the country.....over the same ROKR Z6M!
Doesn't make any sense, but it works.....
Skype would be a natural for this wifi to have phone service, just like
the internet tablets. They wrote a special version just for it, so that
would be nothing new for them. But, as usual, we'll get some Apple
proprietary internet comm for the Mac users. It'll use Quicktime, I'm
sure...(c;