Windows Mobile 6.5 – first upgrades available (Europe only)

tomasv — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:24:00 +0000

Many Windows Mobile users are waiting eagerly for the release of updates to the 6.5 version. Unfortunately for most US based users it means waiting on their mobile operator (T-M for HTC Touch PRO2, Sprint for HTC Snap, etc.) to release the updates. It is not clear when and how are going to be released yet as mobile operators usually don’t share their plans and roadmaps. We, based in the US can just hope, call our account managers and keep the pressure on!

However if you live in Europe, where the (re) branding of your phone by mobile operator is much less prevalent you are lucky – there are 3 updates available right now. See the links below and let me know how you like the new, shine WM 6.5

HTC Touch Pro 2

HTC Snap

Toshiba TG01

Using HTC Diamond’s Accelerometer/Sensor SDK from Managed Code

kdutta — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 07:02:24 +0000

When I first got my HTC Touch Diamond a while ago, one of the first things I tried to do was reverse engineer the Sensor API found in HTCSensorSDK.dll. However, anyone who has tried to reverse engineer DLL arguments knows how tedious and painful it can be to create a dummy DLL to intercept valid arguments, parse through assembly, and inspect random memory pointers. Luckily, I did discover a registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\HTCSensor\GSensor\EventChanged which let me figure out what the general orientation of the device was; and that was good enough for what I was trying to do.

However Scott, from scottandmichelle.net, successfully reverse engineered the HTCSensorSDK.dll. This allows developers to use the g-sensor that is available on the device. Very impressive work on the part of Scott!

Anyhow, I spent a portion of today writing a managed wrapper for HTC’s Sensor API. You can download it here. The code also includes a sample Teeter-esque type application which allows you to roll a ball around the screen.

The managed API exposes the HTCGSensor class which allows you to hook to query the state of the g-sensor on the device. It exposes the following methods, properties, and events:

GetGVector
Returns a vector that desribes the direction of gravity/acceleration in relation to the device screen.

When the device is face up on a flat surface, this method would return 0, 0, -9.8. The Z value of -9.8 would mean that the acceleration in the opposite direction of the orientation of the screen.
When the device is held standing up, this method would return 0, -9.8, 0. The Y value of -9.8 would mean that the device is accelerating in the direction of the bottom of the screen.
Conversely, if the device is held upside down, this method would return 0, 9.8, 0.

The vector returned will have a length measured in the unit meters per second square.

Ideally the when the device is in a motionless state, the vector would be of length 9.8 (the gravitational constant). However, the sensor is not extremely accurate, so this almost never the case.

Orientation
Retrieves the current orientation of the device, returning one of the following enums: Landscape, ReverseLandscape, Portrait, ReversePortrait, FaceDown, FaceUp.

OrientationChanged
This event fires whenever the device’s orientation changes.

Enjoy, and let me know if you find any bugs!

Koushik Dutta
Software Engineer
www.koushikdutta.com

Enterprise Mobile » HTC

Windows Mobile 6.5 – first upgrades available (Europe only)

Using HTC Diamond’s Accelerometer/Sensor SDK from Managed Code