Playing on the Go

Obviously the iPhone could always make phone calls, but that required a contract from ATT and included luxury rates just because the user was on an iPhone. Well, for those looking for an economical alternative, look no further than Fring! Fring is a Voip application that provides instant messaging as well as voip calls.

The user can place calls to land line phones through either Skype or a SIP server. Also, if the desired party being contacted is on their computer, Skype to Skype or MSN voice chat can also come in handy.

All this boils down to, whenever the user is in a WiFi hotspot, he can call just about anyone for free or near free. The nice thing is that since the Internet knows to international boundaries, a user in Europe, Asia, or wherever can call his friends no matter where they are and still get charged the same. Skype does not function this way but SIP services usually do.

Next time I go to Rome, I’m just going to walk to my favorite hotspot and talk to all my peeps for free! After all, if it can work theoretically, why not put it into practice and profit from it!

Since the release of Apple’s Iphone/Ipod touch SDK, we really haven’t heard very much news about its developments. At least, not until this video came out. Demonstrated above is a revolution in mobile gaming. The iPhone and iPod Touch have unique hardware for a slew of purposes. Mobile gaming is one neither have ever seen. OpenGL and accelorometers working in perfect harmony deliver a mobile gaming experience second only to a console.

Could this be the start of a mobile gaming revolution? Nintendo changed the console market when it released Wii-mote. At first glance, you don’t know what the heck it is, but over time it lends to a thrilling gaming experience. The secret of the Wii-mote were the accelorometers and the advantage of the iPod Touch is, you guessed it, ACCELOROMETERS!!

I believe that looming in the ether of the not-so-distant future are hand-held gaming devices based on accelorometers. Sure the grapics might not be up to par but the experience will be unique and origional. So, kudos to the SDK for unlocking these abilities.

Years ago, nokia dazzled us with the arrival of the N-gage. Well, it was that spectacular. The half phone, half portable gaming device couldn’t find a middle ground between the two functions and decided to take the form of a bulky phone that could play second-rate games. Needless to say, such a device tanked it big time with consumers.

However, a glimmer still shone for the fanboys as Nokia decided to relaunch the N-gage a few months back. The underhanded thing is that Nokia made many of its new smart-er phones compatible with N-gage software with little notification of the buyer. It must’ve been in some basement at Nokia because no body expected any more of come out of the N-gage project. Just this week, Nokia released the N-gage service enabling users with designated phones to buy and play slightly-better-than-average cell phone games.

I guess this step by Nokia doesn’t exactly hurt anyone since most compatible phone owners will choose to ignore it and continue to use the features they know, love and trust.