Do you remember your first smartphone?

What was your first smartphone? Some of you were early adopters and you may have purchased a Palm Treo 180 back in 2002. Maybe you waited until 2002 so that you could have a color screen and you bought the Palm Treo 270 or 300.  Do you remember the name of the company that made these devices? Handspring.

If you were a true early adopter, then maybe you had the Nokia 9000 Communicator.  The Nokia 9000 Communicator was used by Val Kilmer when he played Simon Templar in the 1997 remake of The Saint

My first smartphone was a Palm Treo 700wx. I had been a long-time Pocket PC user and I was migrating from an HP iPaq. Your first smartphone was probably running Palm OS, right?

There are so many young people who will remember the Apple iPhone 3GS as their first smartphone. What a difference to compare that device to some of these old devices! Wow, I used a smartphone back in the dark ages.

Motorola CHARM running Android

The Motorola CHARM is an atypical Android smartphone.Why is it atypical? It looks like a BlackBerry, it has a QWERTY keyboard, and it also has a touch screen. It's rather square and blocky, so people probably won't mistake the CHARM as a BlackBerry.

If you're thinking about an Android smartphone but you don't want to rely on the on-screen touch keyboard, then maybe you should visit your local T-Mobile store or kiosk and see what you think about the Motorola CHARM.  The CHARM runs Android and also includes MOTOBLUR.

Speak your email and your smartphone will compose it for you

Does your smartphone do this? Speak your email message and the smartphone will convert your speech to text and compose it for you.

As voice recognition capabilities improve on these mobile devices, we'll soon be speaking all of our commands and messages right into our phones. Who needs a keyboard, right? The days of those QWERTY keyboards are nearing an end as speech recognition improves.

This video shows how the new Motorola Droid X running Android will convert your speech to email:

2010 mHealth Summit Attracts Leaders in Wireless Health Research and Technology

Press Release:

2010 mHealth Summit Attracts Leaders in Wireless Health Research and Technology As Event Sponsors

Washington, D.C. (July 06, 2010) – Industry leaders Abbott, Microsoft Research, Pfizer, Qualcomm, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Skype and Verizon Wireless have joined the 2010 mHealth Summit as sponsors, the conference organizers announced today.

The 2010 mHealth Summit, a partnership of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, the National Institutes of Health and the mHealth Alliance, will connect leaders in health, government, the private sector, academia and not-for-profit organizations to advance discussion and decision-making related to the intersection of mobile technology, health practice and research, and policy in the United States and abroad. The conference will be held November 8-10 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

As the Summit date nears a diverse group of sponsors is offering their support, from leading charitable organizations, to pharmaceutical and technology companies, wireless carriers and media groups.

World Congress 2nd Annual Leadership Summit on mHealth

Just when you think you can't keep up with all the mHealth conferences this year, there's another one I'd like to highlight. This one is the "World Congress 2nd Annual Leadership Summit on mHealth" and it's in my favorite city: Boston.

Here's a description:

The World Congress is pleased to announce its 2nd Annual Leadership Summit on mHealth.  The purpose of this conference is to provide the emerging mHealth eco-system (i.e. providers, payers, policy-makers, device manufacturers and telecomm carriers) with insight into the clinical efficiencies and business opportunities for integrating mobile technologies into the care delivery model.

The technology is maturing. The infrastructure is in place. Consumer interest and demand is on the increase and the outcomes-based case for mHealth is growing.  So if widespread adoption is to occur, the current fee-for-service reimbursement system needs adjustment or new payment models must be created that incent providers toward adoption.  For some time now, the industry has identified the business model issue as the sticking point -- Who will pay for mHealth? 

You can learn more about this event here.

SearchMedica on iPhone

Have you tried SearchMedica on your Apple iPhone?   It's a free medical app that you can easily download to your iPhone or iPod touch.

On your iPhone you can:

• Target searches to journal articles, evidence-based content, guidelines, clinical trials, or patient information
• Store the last 10 searches conducted on your iPhone with the Recent Searches option
• Quickly load articles in a format designed for the iPhone
• View landscape or portrait modes with automatic rotation
• Share the SearchMedica app with a friend via email
• Update new versions of SearchMedica automatically
• Compatible with iPhone OS 3.0 or later

Click here to download SearchMedica.

The Droid 2 is coming

Although Motorola has announced the new Droid X, there are rumors of an updated version of the Motorola Droid. This new "Droid 2" will be very similar to the current Droid, but it will have a larger, friendlier keyboard. So, if you want a slider that includes a usable QWERTY keyboard, the Droid 2 could be the device for you.

All the other major Android smartphones are being designed without a physical keyboard. If you can't stand the on-screen keyboard, then the Droid (or the Droid 2) could be your device. Current rumors seem to suggest that the Droid 2 will be released in August on Verizon Wireless. It should come loaded with Android 2.2 (also known as Froyo).