The Pocket Phojo Blog

Many improvements have been made to Phojo 6 since the initial release, including testing on Windows Mobile 6.5, and the Toshiba TG01. Release 429 is currently available to download from the regular download link at idruna.com, and release 430 is just about to go out for Touch Pro 2 support. For US based customers, we are willing to setup your Eye-Fi Pro cards for free, you just pay to ship your phone and Eye-Fi Pro card to us, and pay for shipping back again, please contact me for details.

If you have been considering buying the Eye-Fi Pro card to transmit images from your camera to Phojo via WiFi, now is a great time to buy as they are currently on sale for only $100 at Amazon.com (normally $169):

They are also now shipping in the UK! For only 100 pounds, darn that incredibly strong dollar. At least your $99 Phojo 6 upgrade will be cheaper in real terms.

If you live in a country that has more than 12 trillion in government debt, you`ll want to skip to the next section, as the new top phone for Phojo is only available in Europe, and will not operate at high speeds in the US due to using the wrong HSPA frequency.

The Toshiba TG01 has a 1Ghz processor, a gorgeous 4.1″ WSVGA screen, etc. etc., all very nice, and a big improvement over practically every phone shipping. The main feature as far as Phojo is concerned though is the return of the USB Host Port. This means you can plug your phone directly into your camera. Transmitting images in real time, as you shoot, can be as simple as connecting your phone, and pushing the protect button on the back of your camera. This completely eliminates the need for a Nikon WT WiFi transmitter. If you are going to plug something in via USB and attach it to your belt, you might as well make it something that can transmit via WiFi AND 3G. Note that Phojo v6 has the ability to allow the screen on the camera to stay on for the Nikon D3 and D300, normally on Nikon cameras this turns off when connected to a computer. The TG01 has also been tested with the Eye-Fi Pro cards, so you can have one camera attached via USB, and another camera connecting via WiFi. You can also attach a USB card reader, allowing you to ingest full size CompactFlash or SD cards. The HTC HD2 appears to be the closest competitor to the TG01, but the TG01’s USB host feature adds so much flexibility and power that I don’t see why you would want to use any other phone.

If you live in the US you can start reading again now. My new recommendation here is the Verizon HTC Touch Pro 2. You can see why I specifically recommend the Verizon version in my video below. It doesn’t have USB host, but you are not likely to ever see this feature over here, if you want to connect directly to a camera via USB, you`ll want to look at IRES running on a UMPC or Netbook. It might not have a 1Ghz CPU either, but it does have a nice big screen, a nice big keyboard, and a nice big serving of upstream bandwidth, 70KB/s worth.

IRES has now been used at the World Economic Forum for the 3rd straight year, and again with great success. IRES gave Swiss Image a considerable advantage over the larger press agencies, even over the Agency That Shall Not be Named that used their own proprietary remote editing workflow.

You can read more at Swiss Image’s newly redesigned site

It seems like only 4 blog posts ago that I was wishing everyone Seasons Greetings. Ah, it was only 4 posts ago, something to add to my New Years Resolutions list. Despite the apparent lack of activity on the surface, things have been very busy here, with over 30 beta releases of Phojo/IRES released this year, including the addition of high grade encryption to meet the needs of our police and military customers, live video transmission support from DSLRs and camcorders, masses of new features in IRES, and the Wi-Pics Mobile software mentioned below. Even with the news media industry turmoil, the feedback from my trip to NYC earlier in the month was very positive, 2009 should be a very interesting year. Best wishes and all the best from everyone here at Idruna!

Canon has published a great article highlighting how Andy Mettler of Swiss Image used the advanced wireless workflows of IRES and Canon’s 1D Mark III to great effect at the World Economic Forum:
http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/technical/tethering_lan_2.do#container

Was it just the sleep deprivation, or did 2007 go by faster than 2006?

Better late than never: http://www.idruna.com/Downloads/PhojoManual.pdf

We are pleased to announce the addition of William Alexander Nolan to the team! William joined us on May 12th at 7:12am PST, weighing in at 8lb 6oz, and 21″ inches long.

Update: USB Host Support is broken on this device, with HTC being the only ones who can fix it, please see my post below with full details.

The ultimate Pocket PC Phone has arrived! The HTC Advantage, AKA TMobile Ameo, has every single feature you could wish for use with Pocket Phojo. It is only the second Pocket PC Phone available with USB Host support for connecting directly to your camera, plus it has the most RAM (128MB), the biggest screen (5” VGA), the biggest storage (8GB built-in hard drive), and the fastest uploads (UMTS/HSDPA support).

The phone supports all the frequencies necessary for it to work in both Europe and the US. The price without a cell phone contract is around $899 in the US, and subsidized price of 0-400 UK Pounds from TMobile.

HTC Advantage Site
Purchase from TMobile UK
Purchase via US Reseller

Five Members of Parliament, one Guardian political correspondent Tania Branigan, two sat phones, and a Pocket PC running Phojo recently completed a 7 day expedition to the Arctic Circle. Dan Chung of the Guardian reports that the Pocket PC faired surprisingly well in it’s ruggedised OtterBox case, although he might have been less surprised had he known in advance that Pocket Phojo has also been used to transmit from Mount Everest and Mount McKinley The two sat phones used were the Thuraya, via a CompactFlash Serial Card rather than a serial adapter cable for reliability, and the always popular Regional BGAN, which was able to lock on to a satellite closer to the Pole than the Thuraya.

Arctic Challenge Special
Slideshow