Motorola Droid, aside from some loaded software, and being GSM) and it fixes a ton of little things and add some nice new features that users have been requesting. But the moment I put it into my Droid dock (which is awesome for space savers like myself) it immediately crashed the dock/station application. Here’s the fix, which for some reason is nearly impossible to find in English. If for some reason you would rather read it in Portuguese, it is available here.

From the Home Screen go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications

Select  Menu Button > Filter -> All

Select “Base Multimedia” or “Multimedia Station” and select Clear Data.

Go back to the Home Screen and insert the handset into the dock.

Voila, no crash!

Solution by Danilo Araujo
(http://www.vivoblog.com.br/dia-21-para-os-stones.html/comment-page-2#comment-17535)

Users, also had the same problem with the dock. To resolve follow these steps.

1) Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications
2) Button Menu -> Filter -> All
3) Find the application "Base Multimedia" and find the Clear Data option.

1) Apple puts ridiculous restrictions in section 3.3.1 on what platform iPhone apps can be written on. This isn’t a platform killer, but it sure is asking for platform cancer.  Sure, the best apps usually aren’t written on the native platform, but this is really a high stakes move.

2) A college age guy finds the prototype for the next gen iPhone (left by Apple engineer Gray Powell) on the floor of a bar in Redwood City, CA, and sells it to Gizmodo (awesome tech blog) for $5,000. Not more than a week later after they post the pics, representatives from Apple show up at the house and get stopped by a room mate. Two days later, the top editor at Gizmodo Jason Chen gets his house searched and computers, cameras, mobile phones, American Express bill, bank checks and the iPhone prototype (assumed) raided by a combination of law enforcement agencies.

3) Apple bans apps that make fun of public figures. Are you kidding me? If the App Store was a news paper, there would be no political cartoons, no op eds of sarcasm and only information you were supposed to see. Wow.

4) Steve Jobs, the CEO who is known for personally emailing customers, told one person that if they wanted porn on their phone, they should get an Android phone. Well Steve, I have an Android phone and it turns out that it does have porn available. It also has EVERYTHING AN IPHONE HAS. Here’s the kicker though, Apple’s App Store is considered way to raunchy by the Parents Television Council to be for kids. Of all networks, Fox News gives you the dirt on what’s still available.

Wow, what a rough month for Apple.

Wikipedia is the obvious ‘layar’ to play with. It was easy and really fun to drive with it (passenger seat of course) and point my camera in a certain direction and get city data, local legends and other strange things that Wikipedia has. Layar also has local search and layers for bars, clubs and restaurants.

This makes it very important to be easily searchable, locatable and listable online for any business. I walked through London’s north west side with Layar and got tons of recommendations based on searches. But of course, non-tech savvy business owners were nearly impossible to find even on their door step. This isn’t Layar’s fault, it’s the business’s.

You can see more at http://www.layar.com or of course download it from Android Market and the Apple App Store.

• Smartphone with Blackberry or Android OS (check for updates on iPhone and Win Mobile). Other internet enabled phones: use the Web Based Version
• Working data plan (internet access)

1. Sign up for a Google Voice account here. Pick an area code that is close to your friends in the US or Canada.
2. Inform your stateside friends of your new number, and tell them to call or text you at that number from now on. This ensures that it is always the same price for them (standard text fee) and free for you, provided you have a working data plan.
3. In your GV Account Settings (top right hand corner) click on Voicemail and SMS. Under SMS Forwarding, check the box and add your Blackberry email or whichever e-mail notifies you immediately on your phone. Then Save. This can also be accomplished with a Gmail account or other mail apps as long as they are notifying you of new emails like an SMS. If you’re like me though, you get a lot of e-mail that is not urgent, and that’s why I recommend using another dedicated e-mail for incoming SMS.
4. Now that you’re receiving SMS from the US/Canada for free (assuming a data plan) you have to set up replying to SMS. This is where the GV App comes in. GV runs best on Android (Google), but Blackberry does well too, just with fewer features. In the GV App, go to Settings and change the Update Interval to something that is prompt enough, but not going to drain your battery too much. Then Save. I set mine to 10 minutes because if I really need to send an SMS back really fast, I will manually hit Refresh in GV and respond there.
5. To initiate an SMS, simply go to your Address Book (Blackberry) or Contacts (Android) and select SMS Using Google Voice. On a Blackberry, this option will only be displayed under the Address Book, not in recent calls or any other function.

There you have it, free SMS to and from the USA with only minor changes in the way you text. And of course, you can always text like you used to. Feel free to post questions below. ]]> http://www.benjaminroyce.com/2010/01/how-to-sms-text-your-friends-in-the-usa-free/feed/ 4 http://www.benjaminroyce.com/2010/01/the-10-technologies-that-will-rock-2010-or-fizzle/ http://www.benjaminroyce.com/2010/01/the-10-technologies-that-will-rock-2010-or-fizzle/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:47:50 +0000 Benjamin http://benjaminroyce.com/?p=5 TechCrunch just posted an article about the next 10 technologies that are supposed to rock ’10. The list is:

1. The Tablet PC
2. Geo
3. Realtime Search
4. Chrome OS
5. HTML5
6. Mobile Video
7. Augmented Reality
8. Mobile Transactions
9. Android
10. Social CRM

I’ll give Erick Schonfeld credit for coming up with a good list, and a great title too (which I completely stole) but there are a few emerging on this list that won’t rock 2010, in fact they’ll probably flop and be found on eBay shortly.

First, the Tablet PC has been around for a while and hasn’t blown up in a good way yet. They are still too heavy for ease of use and the term tablet doesn’t help any. I’m thinking of the Flintstones… Let’s also remember that thinner tablets are improvements, but that doesn’t always mean much lighter. Think of the weight of the iPhone 3GS at 135 grams, and the new Apple iSlate tablet is reported to have a 10 or 11 inch screen. Assuming similar technology, and let’s hope that it is more than a glorified iPhone, at 16:9 aspect ratio this will make it at least (with generous assumptions) double the weight of the iPhone. With a screen that won’t be very productive due to size and the obvious laptop competition it seems like a good idea in theory, but in practice will suffer the same fate as the Segway. UPDATE: Lenovo may have a hybrid laptop/tablet that might defy my prediction.

Geo is great, useful and the infrastructure is already there, and definitely will ‘Rock 2010′.

Realtime Search – Already underway and if search providers can manage to rank them like normal search results perhaps by scanning the included links to prevent erroneous Twitter keyword stuffing then we will see the true live web come to life.

Chrome OS is slated to be a huge deal, but not everything Google touches turns to gold; remember Google Radio Ads? Chrome Browser has done well and recently surpassed Safari, Apple’s browser that made a splash a few years ago. Some issues with Windows 7 and Adobe Flash have plagued it but they tend not be widespread.

Safari vs Chrome Market Share

HTML5? Look, I am a bona fide computer nerd, but even I find this stuff boring. It may perform well, but no one is going to jump up and down about how great HTML5 is. I doubt it will rock 2010, but will merely go as planned.

Mobile Video – Verizon Wireless (US) has been trying to push this for years and it has done OK, but doubtful it will rock 2010. Mobile screens are too small to enjoy worthwhile content (and ad space) and coupled with poor sound quality it is less likely to engage users/viewers with the intensity of their new 50 inch flat screens.

Augmented Reality will be huge. Couple this with Google Maps and their famous Street View, you have a whole new platform. Much like Second Life was hyped for a while, Augmented Reality will be your first life, digitized and layered with more information that you ever need to know. Add Geo into the mix and it’s barely virtual reality, it’s just better reality.

Mobile Transactions are close, but I’m guessing 2011. It must be remembered that anyone that has worked the phone banks at a successful dot com will tell you over and over again that people use their mobile phones to call to order a product they see on the internet right in front of them. Credit card fraud is an issue and the same psychology will apply to their phones. Just a note to those that do this: Every order that is placed over the phone gets processed online anyway. Do you think they mail in their credit card requests?

Android – I personally LOVE Google’s mobile phone OS, Android. Why will it rock 2010? It has an open platform, great interface and it is light years ahead of Blackberry and Palm. It beats iPhone in most user tests (once the branding aspect is removed), and it is on the same path as Windows to beat Apple again.

Social CRM – Customer Relationship Management is hard enough already, but the disambiguation effect makes it harder to please someone. Helping customers on Twitter is great, but it is the equivalent of yelling across the room to help someone with a private problem. There is a right way and a wrong way to do it. This will be the future of CRM, but 2010 is a bit early to call it rockin‘.

So the 5 Technologies That Will Rock 2010?

1. Geo
2. Realtime Search
3. Chrome OS
4. Augmented Reality
5. Android

The others? Nah….