Common Paradox Tech Blog

Qik is a service built on the premise of being able to stream videos from your mobile device to the web as they’re happening live. But many videos that get streamed are short (1 to 2 minute average), and if you’re sending them out over a service like Twitter, their APIs can be slow. This is obviously a problem. So Qik came up with a faster solution.

Their answer is Qik-in-Touch, a new desktop application that runs on Adobe Air. Once you start this app, it resides in the background until one of your Qik contacts starts recording a live video. When that happens, Qik-in-Touch pops up on your screen to show you the video as it’s happening live. It’s a much more direct, and more importantly, faster way of connecting you with live Qik videos.

Irvine-based mobile phone app developer Rock Software is launching an iPhone app called Mark Cuban’s Puzzle Palace. The app, designed for adults, is $0.99 and lets users turn images into puzzles.

Cuban’s image is on the home screen of the app, and users can choose to turn some of his personal pictures into puzzles, or use your own. The app is available now at rockapp.com/cuban (redirects to iTunes).

You compete for fastest time to put a puzzle together.

If I had an iPhone I’d definitely buy this just to make fun of Mark the next time I run into him. Alas, I’m on a Droid, so I’m safe for now.

It’s a big night for Bump Technologies, the mobile software startup that recently landed a round of funding led by Sequoia Capital. The company makes mobile apps that let users share their contact information (and other data) simply by tapping their phones together. Up until now the app has been available for the iPhone only, where it’s developed quite a following, and tonight it’s launching on Android as well. The iPhone is getting some love too, as Bump’s 1.2 update was just approved by Apple (you can grab it here).

The updated iPhone app includes a ‘Friend Compare’ feature that looks at the address book and Facebook profiles of you and the person you’re bumping with to see if you have any mutual friends, which can be a good way to break the ice if you’re meeting someone for the first time.

Yesterday’s nationwide T-mobile service outage may have been due to a system software error according to a statement from a T-Mobile spokesperson:

On Tuesday, some T-Mobile customers may have experienced service disruptions impacting voice and messaging services. We restored full service to all affected customers later in the day. After investigating the cause, we have determined that a backend system software error had generated abnormal congestion on the network. T-Mobile has since implemented additional measures to help prevent this from happening in the future. We again apologize to those customers who were affected and may have been inconvenienced.

Basically, everything should be back to normal, but if you’re still experiencing service issues outside of the ordinary, please let us know in the comments.

It wasn’t a huge leap to take RIM’s purchase of Torch Mobile, a software company known exclusively for making a WebKit mobile browser, as a sign that the company was considering taking the dive. Today, though, we can be sure.

BlackBerry just put out a call for WebKit developers, for a very specific reason:

Utilizing their knowledge in C++ programming, the successful candidate will be working in a fast-paced, dynamic development environment to develop a WebKit-based browser for the BlackBerry Platform.

Ok! The only question now is, when? Normally the initial hiring of a core developer could be taken to mean that the project is embryonic, and the final product still months away, but keep in mind: In Torch Mobile’s Iris, RIM bought an entire, complete browser. In other words, this may just be an optimization project, not a full-on browser development, so decent browsing on BlackBerry could be closer than we thought. [CareerBeacon via Engadget]

 "October 19th, 2009 – SBSH Mobile Software is excited to announce today the Facade for Windows Mobile Standard major update to version 2! SBSH Facade 2 for Smartphone is the ultimate front-end solution for WM Smartphones! Combining vital phone features and agenda, all in one professionally designed display, visible and accessible each time you power on your phone!"

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In 2006, Access bought the rights to Palm OS, and licensed the code to Palm. Access spent plenty of time and money developing a next-gen OS, which Palm totally ignored for their own. Things looked grim! Until this thing.

The Else Intuition, aside from being one of the first phones to use Access’ Linux Platform v3.0 OS, is a 3.47-inch 480×854 slab of handset, with an OMAP 3430 processor, 16GB of internal memory, a five-megapixel camera, A-GPS, and 3.5mm headphone jack. It’s capable hardware to start with, and the Palmy (an honestly, kind of sleepy) v3.0 OS has been slapped with a completely new OpenGL-accelerated interface, codeveloped by Access and Emblaze, who had promised an “ultimate holistic device,” whatever that means, late last year.

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It’s a lot to process, and there’s not a ton of info to run with here: There’s no hands-on to indicate if this left-field software is any good, and the companies won’t get any more specific than “[worldwide] operator evaluations are currently underway” as far as potential release dates go. That said, this looks like decent hardware, albeit seriously bricklike, and newness counts for a lot in mobile software. (Pre, anyone?) Maybe this whole Access fiasco wasn’t so crazy after all? [Access via Impress]

We’ve covered a couple of Distimo reports in the past because they provide us with some valuable insights on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market based on the startup’s in-depth analysis of publicly available data. Now the company has added RIM’s Blackberry App World store to the fray, which gives us even more data points to compare the rivals’ app pricing and whatnot.

In the latest report (September 2009), Distimo notes software programs for Blackberry devices are considerably more expensive than comparable apps for competing devices/platforms.

In fact, the average price for apps is more than three times higher than the one for similar apps in the App Store and Android Market, which is sort of unbelievable. There’s not a single category where the average price of an app is lower than its equivalent on the latter two application storefronts, and the more serious, business-related tools are definitely much more expensive. (chart after the jump)

Microsoft today takes the wrappers off their latest generation of mobile software and services, and our good friend George Ponder from sibling site WMExpert.com gives us the details in his complete Windows Mobile 6.5 review. The pre-amble sums things up well from an iPhone point of view:

For some, the launch of Windows Mobile [...]

"Taipei, September 30th, 2009 – SPB Software, a leading mobile software developer and a holder of numerous globally recognized mobile application awards, officially announced the release of SPB Mobile Shell 3.5 for Windows Mobile today at a press event in Taipei, Taiwan. SPB Mobile Shell has been publicly recognized as the best-selling mobile application across all smartphone platforms for three consecutive years: 2007, 2008 and 2009.

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