Moto Q Giveaway, Weather, Best Software, More

This week we have a real miscellany, including a new site dedicated to Motorola’s Moto Q, resources related to weather information, and the Handango Champions award winners for best software.

Moto SmartZone

A popular new Windows Mobile phone device is Motorola’s  Moto Q, claimed to be the “thinnest QWERTY device in the world.” It has a camera, thumb keyboard, EV-DO support, and Bluetooth wireless. You can find a video of it on CNet.

A new site dedicated to this device, Moto SmartZone, has just launched and is offering lots of giveaways for at least the next six months, starting with a free Moto Q with a one-year subscription to MobiTV and a weekly competition for a free copy of Sensible Sudoku. New competitions will be starting on a weekly basis.

Also, in celebration of the launch of the site, there’s a 20% discount on everything sold through their store for the next month.

Other offerings on the site include news updates, games, reviews, tweaks & hacks, accessories, and media. The site has over 160 home screens available.

Free Weather Resources

Weather Watcher Mobile is a freeware application that allows you to get weather information from weather.com for over 77,000 cities worldwide. You can view current weather, hourly forecasts, daily forecast, detailed forecast, and severe weather alerts. (You’ll need to have the .NET Compact Framework on your device to run this software. The site has a link to download this for free for those with older devices.)

Also, our blogger Nate Adcock has written a review of the best free weather services for mobile devices, including the National Weather Service Mobile Weather Products. Being a former weatherman, he notes with amazement how you can instantly have in the palm of your hand information that used to take him hours to chart.

Sprint Offers Pay-Per-View Movies

Earlier this month Sprint launched Sprint Movies, the first pay-per-view service for mobile phones in the U.S. that streams full-length movies from Buena Vista VOD, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and Universal Pictures. Prices range from $4–$6 per movie.

You can find more information on Mobility Site.

Handango Champion Award Winners

Handango recently announced the results of the annual competition for the best software products in five categories. The products were nominated by customers and selected by a panel of judges.

Of course, in my biased opinion, this pales in comparison to the over 100 categories of our own annual awards, but still it’s interesting to see the results. The Pocket PC winners are Microsoft Voice Command, Spb Air Islands, eWallet,  MobiTV, and HanDBase.

The Smartphone winners are PhatNotes, Pocket Streamer, SmartVideo, and WeatherBug.

Hubdog’s Video Encoding Guide

Hubdog, which seems intent on making web content available on your device, has recently released a guide that tells how to encode video podcasts so that they’re adapted to the small screen of mobile devices. The guide tells how to create a smooth, lag-free encoding format universally compatible with all types of Windows Mobile Pocket PCs and Smartphones.

Zune Makes a Splash

Last week Microsoft released details on the Zune, a device expected to compete with Apple’s iPod. It’s not Windows Mobile but looks pretty cool. Zune Thoughts has extensive detail, and you can find a report on CNet.

Mobile Reference

The Mobile Reference site has a wide range of guides, from travel to medical to history. You can download a free trail version of each guide.

If you know of other great online resources, I invite you to post in our "What's Happening on the Web" forum or to contact me at jim_karpen [at] pocketpcmag [dot] com.