thegeekchannel.com

I will admit to being a fan of Palm.  Despite everything, I want them to succeed, because I think that they were ten years ahead of everyone else in their thinking.  Unfortunately, I also believe that they’re now years behind the competition and that sticking to their form-factor has limited their success in some senses because they haven’t gone away from the style that made them successful in the beginning.  Changing the color just wasn’t enough for most die-hard techies.

On the plus for them, though, Verizon is now carrying and marketing their 755P smartphone that will allow Verizon users to get their fix of this now aged phone.  Thanks, but no thanks.  Too little, too late in my mind.

~geek

In what may soon prove to be a sign of the times, Verizon announced Thursday that it would be using LTE (Long Term Evolution) as it’s fourth-generation wireless technology, aligning it for the first time with AT&T and European carriers.

Up until now, Verizon Wireless has been part of a different crowd, backing technologies based on Qualcomm’s CDMA standard. LTE would be a departure from this and would move Verizon to the global GSM standard.

What does this mean for you and me? In the short term, nothing. Verizon isn’t suggesting that they’re going to roll out a new GSM network and scrap their current CDMA, but instead that they will take baby-steps (think 2010, 2011) to move into the LTE standard. In the long term, this means a lot, and I’m very excited about the potential. And that potential starts with the obvious - handsets galore. Companies like Nokia, that has long been weak in CDMA and Apple could offer products on Verizon’s network without having to completely change their product-line. Considering that Nokia is the world’s #1 mobile phone manufacturer, this might leave many thinking “about time.”

~geek