Details Of Palm OS 6 - 'Cobalt' 251
Splezunk writes "Looks like Palm has finally released some details on Palm OS 6 a k a 'Cobalt'. Palminfocenter has more on it, and I have just noticed that there are now screenshots. Highlights are a 32,000x32,000 screen support, BeOS like multitasking and threading. Currently 256MB memory, but this will be upgraded in time."
I'm glad there are.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm glad there are.... (Score:3, Funny)
Phui (Score:5, Informative)
OS X / Mac hotsync.... (Score:5, Interesting)
the link..... (Score:5, Informative)
There is an article [brighthand.com]on what Cobalt lacks...
Macrumors posted this toot hough:
Re:OS X / Mac hotsync.... (Score:5, Informative)
The iSync for Palm basically removes the Palm Desktop conduits and adds a conduit to sync with iSync.
In order to use iSync with the Sony Clie, one of which I have, you must have Palm Desktop, Missing Sync for Clie, iCal, and the iSync for Palm installed.
Missing Sync provides the Palm HotSync communication, iSync for Palm provides HotSync iCal/Address Book.
iSync alone won't touch Palms, so it is highly unlikely that Apple will be able to bypass Palm Desktop/Hotsync completely.
Re:OS X / Mac hotsync.... (Score:3, Informative)
You don't need Missing Sync. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You don't need Missing Sync. (Score:3, Interesting)
CC
Re:You don't need Missing Sync. (Score:2)
Cheers,
-Elentar
Re:Phui (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Phui (Score:2, Interesting)
What do MacOS X users prefer?
Re:Phui (Score:4, Informative)
All of the development with regards to Hotsync, the Conduit Dev Kit and Palm Desktop has been happening on the PC only. They haven't ruled out getting it working on the Mac at some point in the future, and it sounds like the engineers want to do it, but there's no timeframe for this to happen.
It's a similar story with their development tools - they have PalmOS 6 (Cobalt) dev stuff happening on the Mac, and apparantly half the engineers at the company with laptops have a Mac, but they're not complete, tested and ready for release like the Windows tools are.
Isn't 32k x 32k overkill? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill? (Score:4, Informative)
Think about the colors.. 16.. 256 - there's no such thing as "120 color support".
Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill? (Score:3, Informative)
I think the real issue here is that someone at Palm said "hey, let's not impose stupid limits on the platform for five generations from now" and everyone went "What? i can't count that high. That am be dumm. Let's guess why! It's got to be... uh... about... uh... the *machine*. Yeah."
Of course, the astute notice that 32,0
Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmm... "microscopically small" isn't usually what I'm looking for in porn star breasts.
Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill? (Score:2, Interesting)
That doesn't mean the screens themselves will support that resolution (yet). But in the article it is abundantly clear that they're really, REALLY targeting multimedia applications for this OS, and very much want to push PalmOS into the "true modern operating system" realm. So big numbers like 32,000 x 32,000 sound good to people who don't know any better. At least I'm not aware of any technology that can
OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality? (Score:2, Interesting)
What kind of dpi would I need to be looking at on a display before I couldn't tell it was a display? E.g. what is the resolving power of the typical person's eyes?
[Assume it is before beer-o'clock]
Re:OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality? (Score:2, Funny)
Unless you are in space. That makes it 2 dpi.
YRMV.
Re:OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know how many discrete imaging elements are in the eye itself, but it hardly matters because the eye moves (involuntarily) to make a smooth image out of a number of samples, or more to the point, a certain sampling duration.
The eye (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know how many discrete imaging elements are in the eye itself, but it hardly matters because the eye moves (involuntarily) to make a smooth image out of a number of samples, or more to the point, a certain sampling duration.
Where did you hear this? That isn't how the eye works at all. You can test this yourself by writing a program to flash a word on the screen for a short amount of time. (like a 30th or 60th of a second. You should still be able to read it.
Re:The eye (Score:3, Interesting)
I've heard this in a few documentaries about human sight. I was sceptical until I experimented with my own sight. I tried moving my head to a random location, while my eyes were shut and then opening them with the intention of not moving them after opening (Ha! that's funny! I think I can completely control my brain!). The image that forms seems instant and extends to my peripheral vision. I believe the eye needs to detect movement only in the p
It depends (Score:2)
Re:OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality? (Score:5, Interesting)
Whoever said "Think Angular" is right.
What this means is that it depends on distance. The farther you are for something, the less resolution it has. Try it -- have someone hold a ruler and walk away from it... pretty soon, you can't see the lines of demarcation. Yet up close, they are quite clear.
I played around with these numbers with a friend of mine for a whole class period once. It worked fairly well. Best way to re-figure these numbers is to assume a straight line out of the eye of length "l", and some height, "h", where the angle inside the eye from the top to bottom of H (along the triangle is 1/2 an arcminute (1/120 degree). So, therefore...
tan (1/120 degrees) = h/l (and l is given, find h)
h = l * tan(1/120)
2h = one dot. 1/(2h) = dots per unit of h. proper unit conversions then apply.
so, at 1 foot (12 inches)
h = 12 in. * tan(1/120)
h = 0.00175
2h = 0.0035
1/2h = 286
thus, at 1 foot, the eye has (at it's center) close to 286 DPI.
More than you cared to know, I'm sure. Interesting nonetheless.
(Sorry about the English units. I guess I'm just being an insensitive clod.)
Barak Michener
Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure there are some math genius out there that can do the math for me... that reminds me I need to go study for a math test
~Z
32,000x32,000? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:32,000x32,000? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a pretty high resolution for a sheet of paper.
Or are they just forward thinking? I wouldn't be totally insane if I predicted that display resolution will take a radical turn much in the same way that RAM and HD storage did in the not too distant future. I think we're all looking forward to 1200 dpi monitors. Microsoft's already pushing in that direction. Longhorn's UI is vector based with the idea that you can scale it up to really high resolutions and still maintain the same proportions. The image just gets clearer, as opposed to getting smaller. It has even been reported that MS is working with an LCD manufacturer (I want to say Viewsonic, but I'll just have to come forward and say I don't remember too clearly which company was mentioned) to develop displays that ran up to at least 5,000 pixels wide. That's almost 300 dpi on a 19" monitor. Crank that up to 1200 dpi and you almost arrive at that 32k number.
Does it still seem excessive on a Palm sized display? Sure. Given how the numbers work in the computing world, the next digit down was probably a little too close to what is practical in the next 2-3 years. Better to be safe?
Re:32,000x32,000? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:32,000x32,000? (Score:3, Insightful)
All they are saying is that the software is less limited in what resolutions are supported, not that they expect the device to actually have a screen that size.
Screen resolution? (Score:3, Funny)
So when will I be seeing gigapixel screens in other devices?
I want to know if... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I want to know if... (Score:3, Interesting)
PalmSource also announced Palm OS Garnet, an enhanced version of the popular Palm OS 5, designed to accelerate the development of Palm Powered handhelds and smartphones.
I think that's what you can get for that...Its a good reason to upgrade your hardware!
Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Joe
dumb terminal (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
-
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Informative)
Yea! 32,000 x 32,000 pixel resolution! (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome Slashdot Visitor? (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, and I also didn't see any screenshots anywhere. Could someone direct me to them.
Re:Welcome Slashdot Visitor? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Welcome Slashdot Visitor? (Score:3, Informative)
And even on the full site, there are no pictures.
Re:Welcome Slashdot Visitor? (Score:2)
256MB memory (Score:5, Interesting)
I suppose this is a lot for a Palm, but what's the imitation? Address space/overhead? Nowadays you can fit a gig into an area that the first Palms fit 512K into, so size isn't an issue... voltage/battery life might be a consideration, but probably not a showstopper.
Eh, I suppose the design of the Palm is really not meant to handle things requiring that much memory. But guys at work are cramming 512meg memory cards on their iPaqs and watching movies; does the 256MB limitation in the OS mean that "external memory" cannot exceed that amount as well?
Re:256MB memory (Score:2, Informative)
Re:256MB memory (Score:3, Informative)
The "Chief Competitive Officer" posted to Palminfocenter on this:
Re:256MB memory (Score:2, Informative)
I have seen people cram a DVD (reformated into the screen dimensions) on an SD Card. Works great. I have my MP3's on there too. Not bad for a phone!
Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well then they're really not targetted at you. If you only make $20k/year then blowing $400 on a PDA isn't that great of a decision. These are for people that need the newest and greatest gadgets and have gads of disposable income. If you don't fit in there then stick with a paper day planner from a dollar store. I've still got a Palm M505 and hardly ever use it. Once in awhile I play Tetris on it or jot a phone number down, but I could've just bought a Game Boy and used a piece of scrap paper for the phone number (or programmed it in my cell phone like you said). I honestly don't know what people see in PDAs.. I'd prefer having a subnotebook like the old Toshiba Libretto that I can type fast on to take notes in class or something.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
Just the other day I did some troubleshooting on a network printer while standing in front of it with my PDA. I know, very geeky, but still cool.
Now the total dream application for this would be to be able to stream content from my Myth system at home over a wireless network to the PDA. I think thats still out of reach of the tungsten C, but if you squint hard enough its not hard to env
Re:Hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
The beautiful thing about PDAs are their flexibility. I'm a college student and I use one, my father is a systems administrator and uses one, and my mother is in human resources and uses one. My mom has a Zire71 and uses it for keeping her meetings planned out, all of contacts for people in her office (as well as the many family and family friends), and she keeps her recipes on a mobile database.
My Dad uses his (Toshiba e755) to do remote network administration and to give presentations in meetings (yes, full-blown powerpoint presentations) among the reasons my mother uses hers.
I use mine (Sony NZ-90) to take notes in class, take pictures (2 megapixel camera built-in), email/browsing with wifi, mp3 player for walking to/from class, and keep track of my diabetes, among the other things my mom and dad both use it for.
It's all up to you what you want to do with it. I have art friends who use it to quickly sketch ideas, finance majors who keep track of every expense on there, and my sister who's a nurse and keeps her drug dictionary on there. Get a cheap Zire, see if you use it at all, and go from there. It's not for everyone, but for those of us who use them, it becomes incredibly important.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW, WTF is up with that comment? You really need to read the moderation FAQ sometime and quit using moderation as a way to censor people who have differing opinions from yourself. Fine, you use your Sony NZ-90 a lot, I don't use my Palm M505 at all.
A guy making $20k/year who can't come up with a reason on his own why he needs one certainly shouldn't be blowing a couple hundred bucks on one just to satisfy his curiosity. The fact of the
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
The first thing a paper organizer can never do is beep to tell you were to go. Also, with Palms there is an amazing amount of software out there (www.palmgear.com) which will do all kinds of stuff. My two favorites are a great shopping list program (HandyShop) and a program to keep track of all my business travel (TravelTracker).
You'd likely find other things that were very
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
My two favorites are PieceOfStringAroundFinger and AlwaysHaveMyBearings.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Money is relative I guess, but I use either a Palm or iPaq for my keeping track of my gym workouts. Yes, it's a little geeky, but I find that it works far better than paper for estimating goals and graphing history of bodyfat, weight lifted, reps, etc. They also make great places to hold grocery lists and generic shopping lists around holidays and birthdays.
Yeah, I k
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I love this question, and I'm hoping you get lots of opinion, and not modded 'offtopic'.
Here's my $0.02
For the average person, and even average geek, there is absolutely nothing to see here. I carried a PDA for years (Palms of gradually increasing fanciness). At first I would whip it out at the drop of a hat, take notes on it, etc. Kept all my calendars, addresses, the usual, even had some cool games, like a version of Galaxian with real authentic sound.
Over time - it started running out of charge more and more frequently, as i started ignoring it more and more. It was rare that I ever need to look up someones full address, and my phone has all the numbers. My calendar wasn't that busy, so I hardly ever referred to it.
I gave it to a friend - I simply didn't need another gadget weighing me down. Nowadays, I carry a good laptop in a nice backpack. The thing has decent battery life and wakes from sleep reliably, so if I really need to look something up I just open the lid. Not as convenient as the handheld, but quite a bit more powerful.
If you don't travel extensively, and work in a field where you're gonna carry a laptop and a backpack anyway (sounds like virtually every programmer I know), save the dough until you can afford a nice portable, something under 6 pounds or so, and just use it.
This works for me, as usual, your results may differ.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
Moms, salesmen, and factory floor workers need PDAs. All I really need is a bit of a thing with a bit of memory and a bit of a screen, read-only, about $20, and syncs with Linux.
Complicated schedule & poor temporal orientati (Score:2, Insightful)
Plus it plays MP3s; admittedly only a few at a time, but enough to get me home in a revised state of mind.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Informative)
Things a $100 Palm PDA can do that paper can't (Score:3, Interesting)
Check out my journal entry [slashdot.org] on what I want in a PDA. Palm OS Cobalt seems like a sideways step at best.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, I will admit to being forced to use one and that it took
text of article (Score:5, Informative)
"We believe Palm OS Cobalt will pave the way for new categories of smart mobile devices and solutions, for the communications, enterprise, education and entertainment markets," said David Nagel, president and CEO of PalmSource, Inc. "We have also reinforced our commitment to optimize our platform for wireless devices, by including wireless capabilities in both Palm OS Cobalt and Palm OS Garnet, designed to enable a wide range of smartphones and other wireless products."
Formerly known as Palm OS 6, Palm OS Cobalt is a complete rewrite of Palm OS designed to maintain ease of use and software compatibility while creating a foundation for next-generation Palm Powered devices and solutions tailored to the growing needs of the communications, enterprise, education and entertainment markets. Palm OS Cobalt improves compatibility with Microsoft Windows, while offering advanced features including:
Multitasking, multithreading;
Memory protection;
Support for more memory and larger screens;
Industry standards-based security;
Extensible communication and multimedia frameworks capable of handling multiple connections simultaneously;
In addition, Palm OS Cobalt provides rich graphics and multimedia features derived from the Be OS, which Palm(R), Inc. acquired in 2001.
Also announced today, Palm OS Garnet builds on the solid foundation of Palm OS 5 and incorporates new built-in technical features such as standard support for a broad range of screen resolutions, dynamic input area, improved network communication, and Bluetooth. Palm OS Garnet is designed to enable licensees to more efficiently bring Palm Powered handhelds and smartphones to market and reduce development costs.
New Software Development Tools
PalmSource also introduced new software development tools for Palm OS Cobalt and Palm OS Garnet. A technical preview of the new Palm OS Developer Suite is now available to Palm OS developers in the Resource Pavilion in the Developer Zone. The new Palm OS Developer Suite is based on the industry-standard Eclipse environment, an open-source, Integrated Development Environment (IDE) originally developed by IBM that supports software development in a variety of languages, including C, C++, Java and COBOL. The Palm OS Developer Suite provides one set of tools designed to assist Palm OS developers to create and bring to market higher performance wireless, entertainment and enterprise-grade applications that take advantage of the advanced functionality of Palm Powered smart mobile devices. PalmSource and its partners now offer a wide variety of development tools, including Metrowerks CodeWarrior, the Eclipse environment, Borland's tool suite and the Microsoft NET compatible tools from AppForge.
More About Palm OS Cobalt
Multithreaded, Multitasking -- Palm OS Cobalt is designed to enable multiple applications to run simultaneously, so users gain more productivity and a better user experience. For example, a user can listen to MP3 files, book a calendar appointment and take an incoming phone call. A background-processing model is designed to reduce most memory problems commonly associated with multitasking in mobile devices.
Expanded, Protected Memory Architecture -- With support for up to 256MB of RAM and 256MB of ROM, Palm OS Cobalt paves the way for the creation of more sophisticated communications, enterprise, education and entertainment applications. In addition, the new protected memory architecture is designed to protect against applications "hanging" the system or causing crashes.
System Wide Security Archit
Re:text of article (Score:2)
They cut all but one of the ads out of the article and although they had a popup, everybody should have some kind of free popup blocker [google.com] by now, so nobody can complain about that. There are no pictures on the main article, so nobody can complain about them not being on the slashdot version (not that you can post article pictures on slashdot anyway). They made a slashdot version of the article so their site doesn't get slashdotted. There is no
Hairy Palms... (Score:3, Interesting)
About the 32k pixel screen. (Score:4, Informative)
Screenshots gone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
32K (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:32K (Score:2)
Re:32K (Score:5, Informative)
Though of course no Palm will have such a display.
It's simply got two 16 bit words to represent an X/Y coordinate. (15 bits + 1 for something else?) Nothing magical there.
8 bit would have left it at 256x256 max, anything between is silly given conventional device design.
version naming (Score:5, Interesting)
the CCO's reply was "As for the naming, numbers were a problem because in the PC world a higher number means the lower number is obsolete (Windows 98 immediately replaces Windows 95). Palm OS Garnet is just fine for many users and will persist a long time, so licensees asked us to move away from numbers."
so maybe the naming also implies the confidence in a product? the company sees no need for users to UPgrade unnecessarily in the future. eg Mandrake Almighty instead of Mandrake 1241.12.102
Re:version naming (Score:5, Funny)
Re:version naming (Score:2)
You are obviously new here. Welcome to slashdot!
Re:version naming (Score:2)
NVIDIA is going to enhance Cobalt devices (Score:5, Informative)
I saw this [palminfocenter.com] at the bottom of the article. NVIDIA is going to enhance the graphics for devices using Cobalt and Garnet. They're going to "bring advanced multimedia support to the OS". I thought it was pretty cool; although it makes my PDA sound so old and boring.
Was considering Palm, but now maybe linux-based? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Was considering Palm, but now maybe linux-based (Score:2)
Incidentally, as a "Linux-based PDA" advocate, I find it ironic that you haven't complained that Linux syncing isn't supported by Palm at all, nor has it ever been. Surely they've got it ten times worse?
Re:Was considering Palm, but now maybe linux-based (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if there was a Mac syncing solution for the Zaurus, I'd strongly recommend that you take a good, hard look at the Zaurus PIM apps before making a decision.
I have both a Zaurus and a Palm (a Clie, actually), and the Palm is what I use, because I need a PDA with good PIM apps. After being spoiled by DateBk5 [pimlicosoftware.com] on the Palm, there's no way I could use the Zaurus. And, I'
Re:Was considering Palm, but now maybe linux-based (Score:2, Informative)
There is a USB driver somewhere that you'll need to connect your Zaurus to a Mac.
I've synchronized an A300 (older model zaurus only so
Coments from nerd at PalmOne (Score:5, Interesting)
While currently there are few gaps in the mac developer tools, they seem comitted to remedying this situation. It's eclipse based, but the resource editor and simulator are windows only. They talked about moving the resource editor into eclipse, but I don't see the simulator getting ported any time soon.
It's also worth remembering that it's going to be some time before there is going to be any Cobalt (OS 6) devices on the shelves, so it's a little premature to complain about hotsync when there's no hardware.
On the whole, Cobalt looks awsome. The demos of the multi-media capabilities are fantastic. This is a proper growed-up operating system that bests anything else on the market for the forseeable future.
I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the new OS, but I'm totally won over now.
The transition is going to suck a little for developers, but they've put a great deal of effort into making it as easy as it can reasonably be.
OT but BeOS & Old hardware (Score:3, Interesting)
Looking at these old CPU relics, I remember how nice BeOS ran on the machines of the time. PalmOS=(PalmOS + some BeOS IP)
I think it would be a neat idea if someone made an affordable, upgradable, palm like device that could use these old CPU's. I mean, I know there must be millions of these things being used in less usefull roles, such as doorstops and monitor stands. It's a shame that all these pentium CPU's have more or less been "retired" or tossed into a landfill.
Sure a p-200 isn't that powerful of a CPU by todays standards of P4's and Athlons, but they have enough power to decode mp3's, compose e-mail, and surf the web.
I don't think it would be that expensive either to build a socketed palm device. Sure it would be a bit bulkier than new palms, but for small form factor geeks or just guys like me that have 30 years of computer crap in his garage it would be a godsend. Something the size and dimensions of a 3.5" hard drive only slightly thicker would be perfect.
Now go ahead and tell me about pc-104 devices, blah blah... Yes I know they exist, but they're not a single integrated device in sleek packaging.
Re:OT but BeOS & Old hardware (Score:4, Informative)
Besides, a dragonball cpu is probably cheaper than a ZIF socket these days.
Re:OT but BeOS & Old hardware (Score:2)
Re:OT but BeOS & Old hardware (Score:3, Funny)
Screenshots are here... (Score:2, Informative)
Coooool. (Score:2, Insightful)
32000 x 32000 -- not really (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:32000 x 32000 -- not really (Score:3, Insightful)
The cynic in me reads this statement as "The graphical subsystem on previous versions of PalmOS suffered from extreme lack of foresight and failed to allocate enough bits to device coordinates, thereby preventing PalmOS from supporting any reasonable screen resolution. We're not quite so myopic now, and we've allocated 32 bits for the same purpose."
Big whoop. By this metric, Windows (and X) are capable of supporting TWO BILLION x TWO BILLION resolution screens, because they use an entire 32-bit unsi
8Gig CF (Score:2)
MAC LOVERS! You will be OK... (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, with that said, if I have Chapura Keysite style syncing between my Palm and Entourage on the Mac, I would get rid of windows forever. Oh well.
perhaps the point of the high resolution (Score:4, Interesting)
I know third party hardware existed to allow powerpoint slides (no motion or sound) be carried and transmitted from a palmpilot.. this may have built in vga output for road warriors.
It is funny! (Score:5, Funny)
Security (Score:2, Insightful)
What's BeOS about it? (Score:2, Interesting)
Mirror of screenshots (Score:4, Informative)
Screenshots [yahoo.com]
Welcome Slashdot visitor... (Score:2)
at least they're picking up on the referrer tag... :)
POSE on Linux? (Score:2)
They're going to lose me to Linux based PDAs at this rate... I'm already p'd off at having to keep one box with windows on for running POSE and the OS5 development kit to develop OS5 apps on as it is...
Re:Rumour (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:32k x 32k with only 256 MB? (Score:2, Interesting)
Or, rather, they dont need one, but I'm sure many do to facilitate multimedia functions.