October 2003

Bigger screens, more resolution, better multimedia
With Palm devices catching up (and in some instances passing) Pocket PCs, Microsoft revealed some much needed advancements to Windows Mobile at this year's Professional Developers Conference. There will be 480 x 640 screen support for Pocket PC and 240 x 320 for Smartphones. The new Toshiba e800, of course, already supports 480 x 640, but only for specially written apps. Microsoft will also make DirectX multimedia APIs available to Windows Mobile, thus adding significantly more powerful multimedia support, including 3D gaming where Palm (via Tapwave's Zodiac and others) is making inroads, and such phone-based gaming consoles as Nokia's nGage. In conjunction with Intel's supposed inclusion of MMX technology into the next generation of XScale, we may soon see handhelds that can not only hold their own in MP3 as is the case now, but also in video performance and gaming. -- Posted Wednesday, October 29, 2003 by chb