Live video streaming from your mobile phone is probably a mobile carrier worst nightmare simply because the amount of bandwidth video consumes. And leading that nightmare is Qik.

Simply put, Qik takes your mobile phone's built in video camera and transforms it into a webcam that connects to the Qik site where it will host live feeds of your video, as it happens. That's right, people can now watch you make a fool of yourself anywhere you go.

We were able to test the Qik service on our 3G connected Windows Mobile phone. The installation was quick and only required a few SMS messages be sent back and forth to authorize our account. Once configured just launch the application and your video will automatically appear on the Qik website. Video quality is acceptable and we only experienced slight delays due in part to our mobile connection and location.

Once you end your transmission the live video is then archived to the site for later viewing. Of course like any good site, they offer 2 different privacy settings for your feeds, public and private. At least this way not everyone in the world can see that you haven't cleaned up your room.

Currently in alpha, Qik supports a handful of Windows Mobile and Symbian phones with iPhone testing starting soon. We hope that future updates to the service will also include the ability to adjust video size and image quality. They do recommend an unlimited data plan and in the few days that we used the service we would also recommend it as well.

OpenTable is a great way to make a reservation at a restaurant without having to speak to anyone. Their website is easy to use thanks in part to the drop down menus. So when it was time for OpenTable to release their mobile site we're glad they kept to the same, easy to use interface.

We tested the mobile site on Pocket Internet Explorer, Skyfire and iPhone's Safari and had no problems using the site on any of these browsers.

The mobile version is very straight forward. Pick a city, a restaurant, a date and time to make your reservation. And while it's quick and to the point the mobile version lacks any type of reviews or recommendations if you need a little help choosing a place to eat.

What would make this service even better would be the integration with sites like Yelp. Read a review of a restaurant and if it interest you, click on an OpenTable link to make the reservation right on the spot.

Still, given the lack of any reviews or recommended of places to try, the site is still a fun way to make a reservation while on the go.

Sure, Wikipedia may be one of the best places on the internet to find information on just about anything in a hurry, but what about when you're stuck in an elevator during a blackout and you can't remember who wrote The Republic? Relax! Pocket Wikipedia provides quick access to important articles offline - and on just about any kind of device.

The download includes about 24,000 images and over 14 million words covering about 5,000 articles. Each one has been carefully hand-picked from Wikipedia's massive repository of community-assembled knowledge to avoid some of the more important omissions from Wikipedia's own Cd-Rom version Pocket Wikipedia is currently available for Windows, Linux, and PocketPC only.

Want it? Keep in mind the old adage "All good things come to those who wait." None of the mirrors we found were all that fast, but it's too good a download to ignore.

[via Best Freeware and Lifehacker]

iPhone, eat your heart out.

According to early news reports Monday, Microsoft has licensed Adobe Flash Lite for Windows Mobile devices. Essentially, Flash Lite will become a plug-in for Pocket IE, so that users can view embedded Flash content on their Windows Mobile devices. Adobe claims that up to 80% of Flash pages will work using the Flash Lite plugin and Pocket IE.

This also means that future Windows Mobile devices will support both Flash and Silverlight.

Flash, Silverlight: it's starting to sound like a group of superheroes around here.

Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't yet said when it plans to support Adobe Flash Lite on Windows Mobile devices, and it hasn't given out any dates regarding support for Silverlight either. But at least they stuck their neck out and said that they would support it; which means, eventually, they'll have to deliver on that promise.

[via AppScout]

Back in November, we posted about SyncMate, a freeware (for now) alternative for syncing Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices with a Mac, especially Macs running OS X 10.5 Leopard. Well, the program looked promising, but proved to be buggy and difficult to adequately use.

However, SyncMate has continued to evolve over the last couple of months and Eltima software recently released a new release candidate build that is free to download and use. We very, very basically tested the program with a friend's T-Mobile Shadow (the HTC Juno) on our Mac running Leopard 10.5.2 and were successfully able to sync contacts and our iCal calendar. We didn't try to do anything with iTunes or iPhoto synching, nor did we play with any of the SMS management tools listed on the SyncMate feature list but synching our contacts and calendar was pretty straight forward.

For Mac users, finding consistent support for Windows Mobile devices remains problematic. While programs like Missing Sync and PocketMac have improved their Leopard support considerably, each new OS update brings its own set of problems (and that's without even discussing some of the Entourage 2008 issues that some Windows Mobile users, and Blackberry users, have been facing). Obviously native support would be the best solution (ha!), but until then, it is good to have different options.

SyncMate might not be perfect, but it continues to improve and the developers are actively seeking user feedback. And at least during the continued beta, and now release candidate phase, the program is free (we're not sure what the pricing situation will be once SyncMate gets its first full release). If you have a Windows Mobile 5 o 6 device and are running OS X 10.4 or higher, give SyncMate a shot.

[via MR MOBILE]

And the rumors keep rolling in on Google's phone development. This magical device that will be host to Google's powerful services like Gmail and Search while on the go. This time a person inside HTC has confirmed the development of the device.

The rumors specify that the Gphone will be shipping from Taiwan, and is scheduled to launch Q1 of 2008. The team at Google has been going over the current 20 HTC models on the market and finalizing its handset design. Gphone will have a specially built version of Google Maps, just as the iPhone does, with built in GPS compatibility. Previous reports stated that the device would not have GPS, and that it would support both 3G and EDGE platforms. Gmail and Calendar will be present, with Google Talk becoming part of the phone in a VoIP mode. As for the operating system on the Gphone, the insider said it would use Windows Mobile 6, however some think that a Linux OS would be more realistic. As for price, there have been buzzing's that the device would stay in the range of only $100. Will it be unlocked? We will have to wait and see, but chances of that are fairly slim.

Palm was once king of the mobile landscape. The Palm Pilot made reality what a decade of electronic organizers and ill-fated Apple Newtons never could; A practical handheld computer to store the junk from your head. Once Palm established the market Microsoft stepped in with Windows CE, early versions of which were laughable in comparison to the Palm. Three name changes, infinite version numbers and the integration of the mobile phone saw Windows CE grow up into Windows Mobile, and take the lead. It's an age old story of Microsoft takeover by market-share and, now Palm is only steps away from being swallowed whole bought outright by one of a host of other industry players.

John Dvorak explains that either Nokia or Motorola are likely to drop the hammer on a buyout of Palm sometime soon, and at a price of around $20 a share. eWeek reports their could be as many as 4 bidders fighting behind the scenes, although speculation runs wild as to who the two not named Nokia or Motorola may be.

Alien6 recently released a new RSS reader for Windows Mobile, and it looks like a great little news reader for people who prefer the look and feel of a newspaper to RSS feeds. But here at DownloadSquad, we're RSS junkies, and it's hard to beat a good RSS reader for sifting through piles of information every day.

And lucky for you, while there are some great commercial feed readers for Windows Mobile, including Alien's A6 Times and Illium Software's NewBreak, there are a number of free programs that perform almost as well.

Today Jajah announced JAJAH Mobile Web, a service made especially for smartphones like the Blackberry, Treo, and Windows Mobile devices. Like Jajah's service that allows for the ability to make free local and international calls with a regular phone, Jajah's mobile service aims to do the same for mobile users. Any device that has internet access with a browser can make free or low-cost calls with a click. As long as you are a Jajah user, you can call other members for no cost, or call for a small fee to non-members. Web consumers can access the service directly from their browsers by visiting mobile.jajah.com. The Mobile Web service then ties into user's address books where calls can be placed. Simply enter the phone number of the individual or scroll down on your address book, and Jajah will make the call. Jajah has a Flickr photo tour so you can better understand the process involved. You can also check out the JAJAH Mobile Web video tour after the jump. Mobile providers watch out!

Thursday Windows Mobile officially launched Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) for Windows Vista. This newest version Windows Mobile Device Center is compatible with Windows Mobile 2003 devices and later and can be downloaded from the Windows Mobile website.

WMDC 6 is currently available for Vista Ultimate, Enterprise, Business, Home Premium, and Home Basic. Microsoft recommends un-installing any previous versions of Windows Mobile Device Center you may have installed on your computer and the WMDC driver update before installing the new version.

Windows Mobile Device Center is designed to sync email, photos, and calendar appointments with your computer and streamlines the transfer of documents and files between your mobile device and your PC.

Google has just released a new version of their Google Maps for Mobile application for Windows Mobile users. What is it good for?

• Checking out real-time traffic congestion sites.
• Getting detailed directions with step by step instructions.
• Saving favorite places or routes.
• Local business searches with contact information.
• Enhanced business information including more details on businesses, with hours of operation, and amenities etc.
• Interactive maps with the ability to zoom in and out, move in all directions, and switch to satellite imagery mode.
• Monitor your data consumption in real time, so you know how many kbs you're ripping through.

The Windows Mobile Device has GPS-enabled maps for Windows Mobile 2003 and higher versions. You can download the application straight from the web and sync up, or visit www.google.com/gmm. Google Maps for Mobile is also available for Palms, Blackberrys, Motorolas, Nokias, and a ton of other devices.

Now this is an idea that should have made its way into the as-yet underwhelming and upcoming update to Windows Mobile, version 6: a built-in secretary. BCross at the MSDN Windows Mobile blog has decided not to wait, releasing an app he simply calls The Mobile Secretary. It offers some clever features for auto-responding to missed calls with text messages, for example: if a contact calls from their home phone and you miss the call, The Mobile Secretary can respond to their mobile phone number with a custom text message, optionally attaching any calendar information as an excuse explanation for your absence. Contacts can also be added to custom groups, which in turn can receive their own custom text message replies.

This is a great idea, and BCross plans to post the source code soon for all to learn from, especially since it makes use of the Smartphone .Net Compact Framework v2.0 (which needs to be installed on your phone). I haven't tried this out yet as I'm still getting to know my new BlackJack, so if you give it a whirl, please share your experience with the rest of the class.

Most Pocket PC users have at one time or another found themselves frustrated that ActiveSync kicked in at just the wrong time. Maybe you wanted to charge your Pocket PC but not have to launch Outlook to synchronize it--that's the scenario that sometimes gets me. Of course, if you're feeling up to it, you can always dive into the Task Manager and kill the wcesmgr.exe and wcescomm.exe processes, which will stop ActiveSync. You can then launch it again from your Start menu.

Alternatively, there is a utility called, aptly, ActiveSync Toggle which can unload ActiveSync from memory when it is not needed. The reason the developer felt that an application was needed for this purpose turned out to be the fact that once installed, it is very difficult to set ActiveSync to not load with Windows. Each time it runs, it checks to ensure that the registry key that launches it at system start exists - and if it doesn't, it adds it in again. ActiveSync Toggle will actually permanently remove ActiveSync from starting up at all, unless you choose to re-enable it.

Yes, you read that headline right--WinMobile Torrent is a BitTorrent client for Pocket PCs. I've been an avid Pocket PC user for literally years, and I can honestly say I've never considered using one for downloading torrent files. To be fair, though, these days with the huge memory cards we can add to our Pocket PCs and modern battery life, it's really not that strange of an idea. Since Barb Dybwad first mentioned WinMobile Torrent here on Download Squad back in July of 2005, they've definitely been around for awhile. So it seems people with more imagination than me have been doing the deed - that is, downloading using their Pocket PCs.

So what's new in the new 2.1 release?

• Multiple trackers
• Selective download
• Speed setup guide (something all bittorrent clients appear to need)
• Ability to create a torrent from the mobile device
• Single-handed operation

This is one of those applications that you might not constantly need, but it sure is nice to know that it's available. At $19.99, you probably want to have a real need for it before shelling out.