Press Release
Sophia Cradle Incorporated
Sophia Cradle Unveils GPS-Linked Astronomical Clock for BREW as Open Source
Calculates accurate time for Sun rise and set, Moon rise and set using Lat/Long data from GPS
Abstract
KYOTO -- July 4, 2006 -- Sophia Cradle Incorporated (Headquarter: Kyoto; CEO: Kazunori Sugiyama), an innovative developer of mobile phone software, today announced to release GPS-Linked Astronomical Clock, "pclock" for BREW [*1] which calculates accurate time for sun rise and set, moon rise and set and the moon phase. The source code for this application is open and downloadable for everyone.
The Astronomical math library for BREW is included in the open source code. Also the user interface can be customized easily by modifying the source code
Full Story
GPS embedded mobile phones are growing largely in numbers. In Japan, the government has announced that all 3 G mobile phones should be embedded with GPS. So applications linked with GPS will be booming within a year or two.
Sophia Cradle has developed a GPS linked astronomical clock that calculates accurate time for sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset with less than 1 minute of error. The error of moon phase is within 1 %. "pclock" can calculate these astronomical phenomenon anywhere around the world by inputting latitude and longitude using GPS or by manual input.
The main feature of "pclock" is that it could successfully implement floating-point operations on BREW. Floating-point operations are required for astronomical math, but since the device limitation for BREW phones are strict, it was hard to implement.
"pclock" will be released at Sophia Cradle's website the 4th of July, 2006. It is provided as open source. Customization and reuse of library for non commercial purpose is welcomed.
"pclock" Release site:
/ product/sophiaframework/pclock/
Press Release URL:
/english/news/pressrelease/2006/20060704.html
* SophiaFramework [*2] was used to develop gpclockh
Reference:
"pclock" functions
- Calculates the sun(moon)rise, sun(moon)set, moon phase of the selected area.
- Uses GPS to get the latitude and longitude of the current spot.
- Capable of calculating up to 10,000 years later.
- Works as a world clock too.
"pclock" Customized User Interface
Terms
The standard of mobile phone software developed by QUALCOMM Incorporated, released in January
2001. BREW applications work fast no matter what the underlying system software in the handset is. An user can download a compiled BREW application from the Internet and use it with any BREW-enabled handset.
The worldwide spread of BREW is so remarkable that there are currently 69 operators in 31 countries (as of June 2006) that provide BREW services, including Japan's KDDI that started offering it in February 2003.
Object-oriented development environment for BREW applications released by Sophia Cradle Incorporated in August 2002. It includes various program modules called classes that are needed to develop any kind of BREW applications, such as user interface, communication, graphic drawing and string processing.
The technology of SophiaFramework is now being used in many of the business BREW applications and official KDDI applications that are top-sellers in Japan.
To learn more about SophiaFramework, please visit
/english/products/sophiaframework/
About Sophia Cradle
Sophia Cradle Incorporated is a mobile phone software developer which currently specializes in BREW C++, GUI middleware and mobile Java. Founded in 2002, Sophia Cradle aims to render services to the improvement of everyone's quality of life by creating innovative mobile Internet technology. For more information about Sophia Cradle, please visit www.s-cradle.com/english/.
Press Contact
Natsuko Hasegawa
Marketing Center, Sophia Cradle Incorporated
Tel. +81-75-754-5155 Fax. +81-75-754-5156