RedflyMobileCompanion
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Celio's Redfly smartphone dock gets real enough for a demo reel
You know, it's sort of crazy to look back at what companies did and didn't survive the Great Recession of 2009. Ugobe, Veoh, SGI, TZero and Circuit City all folded within the last year, yet Celio -- of all firms -- is still alive and well kicking. If you'll recall, we spotted a "proof of concept" smartphone dock from the outfit 13 months ago, and apparently that very device has shifted out of the R&D lab and into a working product. Now sporting the codename "Moab," the dock essentially brings a keyboard and mouse of your choosing to your smartphone, and it channels the video on your mobile's display onto a bona fide external monitor. The best use of this doohickey is when you need to bang out a long email on your phone, and reaching for a spare LCD, keyboard and mouse is easier than just plugging away on that miniaturized QWERTY. Which happens... when? Anywho, video of the completely and utterly thrilling action is just past the break.
Rejoice! BlackBerry support arrives on Celio REDFLY
We heard it'd be here in mid-Q4, and sure enough, it's here. And by "it," we mean "BlackBerry support for Celio's largely unwanted REDFLY Mobile Companion." Starting today, those looking for the Foleo's long lost cousin can snap up a REDFLY and download a free driver that adds compatibility for RIM's BlackBerry Bold 9000, Curve 8900 and Tour 9630. Granted, it's not like the BlackBerry web browser will be any less painful to use on an enlarged screen, but hey, whatever suits your fancy. [Via TestFreaks, thanks Nirckolas] %Gallery-77129%
U.S. Army ignores our advice, outfits troops with REDFLY terminals
Ah, the REDFLY Mobile Companion. We've had some laughs at its expense, sure, but never doubted that someone out there would find a use for the thing. And what do we have here? It looks like our favorite Foleo doppelgänger is among a number of portable gadgets providing the backbone of the U.S. Army's "Go Mobile" system. Based around a WinMo phone that soldiers can use to connect to the Army Knowledge Online (AKO) service for all their mission critical e-mail, calendar, contacts, tasks, and documents, the kit includes a wireless smart card reader for authenticating onto Army networks, a printer, a charging kit (including various solar options), a pico projector, VR goggles simulating a 50-inch display, and an unspecified "dumb terminal" which -- as the picture above suggest -- could only be our old friend from Celio. Which is fine, sure -- but what ever happened to those bad-ass exoskeletons we were promised all those years ago?
REDFLY Mobile Companion gets previewed
Still mourning the passing of the Foleo? You and the other couple of dozen people on earth that need something like that might find a winner in the REDFLY Mobile Companion unveiled at CES this year. The device offers external control of Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices over Bluetooth 2.0 or USB, with a full keyboard, 8-inch 800 x 480 LCD and some USB and VGA plugs for tapping into external drives and an external monitor. ZDNet's Matthew Miller got an early beta version of the device to test out, and while he admits he's in the minority of people willing to shell out $500 for something like this, he was fairly impressed by the build quality and usability of the device. The biggest drawback is that you can't use the device on its own without a phone, but if you're a heavy browser user or need to do some serious text input, but aren't doing anything serious enough to demand a real laptop, the REDFLY might just hit some sort of sweetspot for heavy Windows Mobile users. Or it could sell 12 units, it could really go either way.
