SoonR: my impressions & quick review
SoonR: Skype via Mobile Phone and remote document access (via TechCrunch)
SoonR rocks! You sign up for an account, download the software "desktop agent," load it on your PC, and login. From then on (depending on what permissions you have given the SoonR agent), from any web browser you have access to Skype, documents on your hardrive, Google Desktop search, Outlook, etc. This includes the web browser on your mobile phone. When you "call" someone via SoonR, the SoonR agent tells Skype (which is running on your PC) to do a conference call, first dialing the mobile number that you setup as your number and then, once that is connected, then dialing the other user via Skype or SkypeOut depending on the number you choose.
Since the SkypeOut rates for calling mobile phones are not super cheap (around 23 cents a minute for calling my Czech mobile number), SoonR is not about to put mobile operators out of business, but it does provide a way of cutting international long distance bills via easy access to a Skype "line" on demand. As with Skype, you can call contacts you have already loaded into Skype or any PSTN number (via SkypeOut). It is also quite a party trick, for those of you who have friends impressed by such uber-geekness. Combine that with showing someone their house from the air using Google Local satellite maps on your mobile phone and you will have them in awe (and shock?) . . .hopefully you have an unlimited 3G data plan, because finding your way around Google Local Mobile is like crawling around in the dark.
Back to SoonR… the other cool feature and one that is very handy (though it does raise a whole slew of security issues) is the remote access to documents that are stored on your PC. I used SoonR this week to read a Word document while I was on the road. You select the document that you want to open and have the option to select how you want to view it—I wanted to see it as a text file (SoonR does the format translation on the fly), but there is also an option to view it as PDF (though I am not sure how that would work on my Symbian phone without Acrobat reader). Another super cool feature is that you can instruct SoonR to email the document to the email address of your choice, meaning that you can access desktop files from any browser in the world (it worked fast when I tried it).
Overall, this is a very nifty bit of wizardry, making the mobile phone platform with its limited text input capability a much more powerful tool. The latest beta version has been stable and working without problems since its release several days ago (the earlier version was a bit unstable). Even in its early form, I’d have to give SoonR a 10 out of 10 rating. Nice work!
SoonR rocks! You sign up for an account, download the software "desktop agent," load it on your PC, and login. From then on (depending on what permissions you have given the SoonR agent), from any web browser you have access to Skype, documents on your hardrive, Google Desktop search, Outlook, etc. This includes the web browser on your mobile phone. When you "call" someone via SoonR, the SoonR agent tells Skype (which is running on your PC) to do a conference call, first dialing the mobile number that you setup as your number and then, once that is connected, then dialing the other user via Skype or SkypeOut depending on the number you choose.
Since the SkypeOut rates for calling mobile phones are not super cheap (around 23 cents a minute for calling my Czech mobile number), SoonR is not about to put mobile operators out of business, but it does provide a way of cutting international long distance bills via easy access to a Skype "line" on demand. As with Skype, you can call contacts you have already loaded into Skype or any PSTN number (via SkypeOut). It is also quite a party trick, for those of you who have friends impressed by such uber-geekness. Combine that with showing someone their house from the air using Google Local satellite maps on your mobile phone and you will have them in awe (and shock?) . . .hopefully you have an unlimited 3G data plan, because finding your way around Google Local Mobile is like crawling around in the dark.
Back to SoonR… the other cool feature and one that is very handy (though it does raise a whole slew of security issues) is the remote access to documents that are stored on your PC. I used SoonR this week to read a Word document while I was on the road. You select the document that you want to open and have the option to select how you want to view it—I wanted to see it as a text file (SoonR does the format translation on the fly), but there is also an option to view it as PDF (though I am not sure how that would work on my Symbian phone without Acrobat reader). Another super cool feature is that you can instruct SoonR to email the document to the email address of your choice, meaning that you can access desktop files from any browser in the world (it worked fast when I tried it).
Overall, this is a very nifty bit of wizardry, making the mobile phone platform with its limited text input capability a much more powerful tool. The latest beta version has been stable and working without problems since its release several days ago (the earlier version was a bit unstable). Even in its early form, I’d have to give SoonR a 10 out of 10 rating. Nice work!
posted by Thomas at
1:41 AM
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