05:14 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

This week's Handango freebie is SplashPhoto for Pocket PC. SlashPhoto offers is a smple, fast, high quality image viewer, with and includes a desktop catalog system for further image editing. BargainPDA has reviewed Slashphoto.

While not my favorite (I prefer Resco Photo Viewer), you surely cannot beat FREE! (with a USD $29.95 value).

04:58 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Does this mark the upcoming end of the Palm platform? The folks at 1src.com decided to move away from being a Palm-dedicated forum to a "all-tech" place for basically everything tech-related such as Audio/Video, Cellphones, Digital Cameras, Gaming, Gadgets & Gizmos, Non-Palm OS PDAs, PCs/Laptops, Tech Web.

Good luck guys! I hope you are not trying to cover too much ground.

04:46 AM by Colin Dunstan in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

FlatLrf is a free Java application which allows you to recursively download Internet webpages to your Sony Librie e-book reader. Very nice!

At one time the Sony Librie e-book reader only allowed you to read a limited choice of commercial e-books available only to the Japanese market. Then in November txt2lrf came out, the first hack attempt by 'scythic' to convert your own text files to the Librie's LRF format. It was followed by MakeLFR and finally Sony's own official add-on tools allowing you to save your own reading material to the Librie.

FlatLrf is yet another valuable tool that should have been released by Sony the very first day it put the Librie on the market!

09:50 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Ever feel like paper and pencil is better than screen and stylus, but that it doesn't live up to geek status? Well, now you can get the best of both worlds with the Hipster PDA. It's simply a stack of low-tech index cards, but just for fun the author discusses settings and preferences, David Allen's Getting Things Done and gives tips on how to organize your Hipster PDA.

Technology is amazing, but good 'ole paper is pretty amazing too!

[Edit: See also this article from the USC Faculty Forum Introducing the new Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge device; trade-name: "BOOK" ]

06:03 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Welcome to another digest entry of MobileRead, where we transform the profound into the bite-sized.

Announcements
New Mobileread RSS feeds - Pick and mix!

E-Book Webstores
20% discount for books from 'Diesel eBooks'
Fictionwise Free Nebula Nominees

General Chat
6 more Gmail invites
Bill Gates -- Supports Strong Intellectual Rights Laws
Engadget Awards 2004 Winners
Gadgets are no longer just for geeks...
Praise for PalmAddicts
WM2005 better but not enough? - and other predictions

iSilo/X
iSilo/X V4.2 released

New Links
PdaMobileWeb - mobile web index

Other E-Book Resources
Metacritic Books reviews
Read e-books through RSS feeds

Other Gadgets
Another Pocketable Screen Projector
Benchmark test of new 2GB SD cards
Hi-Speed Internet For Your Car
Hitachi's "Mikey" and "Slim" miniature drives
Sony introduces Memory Stick Pro with 4GB

Pocket PC
Egress V2.01 RSS-client for PPC released
IM+ Instant Messenger for free at Handango
Microsoft ActiveSync 3.8 released
New BetaPlayer 0.095d test build available
Solitaire for Pocket PC
Windows Mobile 2005 aka Magneto insider news

Portable Audio/Video
Archos PMA400 video player debuts at CES'05
iPod Flash player days away

Smartphones
BenQ's "Treo-Killer" P50 will appear this spring
Mobile phones with Toshiba harddrives?
PDA and Phone Convergence - Consumers don't really want it
Pocket PC and Smartphones Will Merge

Sunrise
Sunrise 0.40-pre4 released
Sunrise 0.40-pre7 released - more bugfixes

10:45 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

We're always on the lookout for better ways to read on the go. Current pocket devices are much better for reading than you might think, but the idea of a full-sized page on the go from a pocket device is pretty exciting.

The latest news about portable display technology comes from the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology in Germany, where they have developed a tiny projector capable of 320 by 240 resolution. It uses a tiny micromirror with springs to draw the picture pixel by pixel. Very fast, of course. The technology will be limited to monochrome display until color lasers become cheap.

See also a previous example of this kind of technology from a US lab... Video Projection with PDAs!

(via www.gizmo.com.au)

10:24 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

You will soon be able to get satellite high-speed internet from your car. That will be handy Just in case you want to download a new ebook while riding down the highway on a family vacation.

The RaySat SpeedRay 3000 satellite antenna will be available second half of 2005 for a mere $3500 plus installation and internet service costs.

And people think it's dangerous to use a cell phone while driving. Wait till they start reading ebooks while driving!

(via Gizmodo, which is a very nice site similar to www.engadget.com)

08:16 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

BenQ announced that its P50 will be appearing this spring, with or without a mobile carrier, for somewhere between $650 and $800 street price.

You haven't heard of the P50 yet? The P50 is a quad-band GSM keyboarded smartphone, with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular networking, and a 1.3-megapixel camera. It packs an Intel Bulverde PXA272 processor and am SDIO expansion slot, too. It's a bit longer than the Treo, although the keyboard is very similar to the Treo 600's, with similar domed keys.