What better way to spend Christmas than snuggled up with your Java ME cell phone playing a couple rounds of Christmas Poker? (Just kiddin', hope you really don't plan that!)

See:

Christmas Poker

Here's a quote:

 Try your luck on three 
 different Christmas Poker 
 games: "Snowman Poker", 
 "Jacks or Better", and 
 "Deuces Wild". Snowmen 
 are wild in “Snowman 
 Poker”. Choose to bet 
 $1 - $5 on a hand from 
 a Bank of $100. Merry 
 Christmas!

Watch out, though... I hear those Snowmen really know how to bluff. Or, is it fluff?

Anyway, Happy Holidays to everyone out there and have a very Java ME filled New Year! :-)

Hinkmond

Good news for on-the-go lascivious old guys and inappropriately dressed promiscuous teens! MySpace and Cingular have teamed up to keep 40-year old lechs and their prey in touch using Java ME technology-enabled cell phones.

See:

MySpace & Cingular Team Up

Here's a quote:

 The service... will allow 
 users to read and respond 
 to mail, search for and 
 view friends and post blog 
 entries.  To use the 
 service, users will need to 
 download a Java application 
 to their mobiles. 
 Initially, about 30 phones 
 will be supported, with 
 another 20 supported in the 
 coming weeks, which will 
 then account for about 90 
 per cent of Cingular's mobile 
 user base...

Hinkmond

Here's a review of the Asia-only launch of the Moto RIZR (no, that's not a typo, it's a RIZR not a RAZR) Z3 Java ME cell phone. Note it has a slider keypad, not a clamshell style keypad. Nice mod.

See:

New Motorola RIZR Z3

Here's a quote:

 The usual gimmicky stuff 
 that 2% of the population 
 ever use is the web 
 browser, calendar, 
 calculator, alarm clock 
 and Java games and 
 applications. 

Now the Web browser, I can understand that being deadweight being carried around, but not the Java VM. Gosh...

Hinkmond

Mywaves, Inc. says you can view Internet videos (like from CNN and YouTube) on their Java ME application running on cell phones.

See:

Video on Java ME cell phones

Here's a quote:

 The company says the service, 
 which uses a Java-based software 
 program, works with most 
 video-capable mobile phones. 
 An exception would be some smart 
 phones that don't yet support 
 Java-based Web applications and 
 video streaming.

Anyone know if that hunch is correct?

If that's correct, that is one smart way of handling video content on cell phones when there is a huge array of video formats on the Internet. Make the back-end server do all the heavy-lifting (all the codec translations), then talk to your Java ME clients using just a single protocol. Smart. This approach works well for all types of Web services. Do SOAP or .NET or W3C on the back-end, then only use JSON to all your clients on the front-end.

Hinkmond

Here's a press release about how Aplix is teaming up with Nvidia to deliver a Java ME platform with integration of the NVidia GoForce mobile Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). 2 kewl. Faster 3-D graphics for your Java ME cell phone.

See:

3-D Graphics and SVG fun stuff

Here's a quote:

 Aplix will integrate its JBlend 
 Java platform with NVIDIA's 
 GoForce handheld GPUs and JSR... 
 The cooperative agreement covers 
 M3G - Mobile 3D Graphics API for 
 J2ME (JSR 184), Java bindings to 
 OpenGL ES (JSR 239) and Java 
 bindings to SVG for scalable 
 vector graphics (JSR 226).

Hinkmond

Near-field communications (NFC) is starting to show up more on Java ME technology-enabled cell phones. It is used by having a RFID chip on a cell phone that interacts with the Java ME software to allow cell phone apps to be aware of RFID readers near-by in order for 2-stage authentication to take place.

See:

RFID Java ME cell phones, so close

Here's a quote:

 Said Ng: "Mobiles are also already 
 in use for two-factor authentication 
 for Internet banking, Having NFC 
 just makes it more convenient 
 because it is much easier and 
 less error-prone to place the phone 
 near a reader than to transcribe a 
 one-time password (OTP) embedded in 
 an SMS."

Hinkmond

Do you like keeping up-to-date on your mobile device with the latest newsfeeds via RSS? Do you want to know the latest gossip from your cell phone, like what Britney Spears is "airing" this week on blog postings?

Well, so do a lot of other people as evidenced by this article on phone makers and mobile software developers updating new software on cell phones to keep up with all the hot news spinning around the blogosphere and Internet news feeds.

See:

Snatching up RSS feeds with Java ME tech

Here's a quote:

 NewsGator, one of the leaders 
 in RSS aggregation, has teamed 
 up with FreeRange to develop 
 NewsGator Go software, which 
 enables syncing of content 
 between Java mobile phones 
 and the company's desktop and 
 web-based [RSS] readers.

Hinkmond

Notice how the 800-pound gorilla, Microsoft, adheres to the mobile phone app standard and chose to write their Windows Live Search Mobile app in Java ME technology (not FlashLite, not BREW, not hype-me-up-til-I-puke mobile AJAX, and not anything else that is supposedly a Java-killer). They chose Java ME. Well, they also wrote their Windows Live Search Mobile app as a Windows Mobile 5.0 native, but can you blame them for wishful thinking? ;-) It's the Java ME port of their app that is worth noting.

See:

Microsoft chooses to program in Java ME technology

Here's a quote:

 What is especially different 
 about Windows Live Search for 
 Mobile is Microsoft's embrace 
 of mobile phone application 
 standards.  Not only is a 
 Windows Mobile 5.0 version 
 available, but a J2ME version 
 has also been produced by the 
 company.

Hinkmond