11:22 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

The news spreads quickly all over the web: Google plans to keep its highly trained personnel busy by having them soon scan an insane number of dusty paper books. The holdings of the US' leading research libraries (Harvard, U of Michigan, Stanford, New York Public Library) and of Oxford U library are to be converted into digital files that would be freely searchable over the web.

According to Stanford University's head librarian Keller, "within two decades, most of the world's knowledge will be digitized and available, one hopes for free reading on the Internet, just as there is free reading in libraries today."

When we talk about Google, don't we talk about search results that only display small excerpts of the whole? What do you guys think? Is that truly the long-predicted global virtual library that Bill Gates did envision 10 years ago?

03:38 PM by Zire in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Features:
* Turn-based, aim and fire type of game
* Full 3D environment (FASTEST VOXEL GRAPHICS ON PALM OS TO DATE)
* Destructable 3D terrain
* Fully configurable sound, graphics and controls (Including Zodiac controls!)
* Stylus or configurable key controls
* Play against a friend or CPU, with 3 difficulty levels
* Camera follow mode so that you don't miss the action
* Alpha-blended smoke and explosion effects
* Weapon shop with adjustable money reserves, from cheap rocket wars to expensive nuclear wars
* Number of Troopers from 1 to 5
* Wind setting
* 30 Maps to choose from including Earth, Volcano and Space themes
* Game saving/loading to/from external memory cards
* Sounds include explosions, screams and a full music track
* Map technology to save more than 60% storage space per map (Quality 260k maps generated from only 8k of storage data)
* Hires and Hires+ support in both Landscape and Portrait modes
* Zodiac and Tungsten C vibration effects
* Mobile map editor coming soon!

Requirements:
* Palm OS 5.0 or higher with the following:
o 8.6mb of free storage (Before installation, 6.6MB thereafter)
o Minimum 950kb of dynamic heap space (320x320 & 160x160 version)
o Minimum 1.2mb of dynamic heap space (320x480 & 480x320 version)
o Mimimum 700kb of dynamic heap space (Tungsten T & T2 version)
o Color display, 320x320 mimimum recommended
o Optional: External storage card with 1mb free for saving games
o Support for standard palm streaming audio (Sony Clie(tm) without this support will run without sound)
o Optional: Vibration alert

Review:
I have to hand it to the developer. Henco and his team made the low heap version of this game have the same game play as the original, the only difference is that the graphics are a bit pixelated to accomodate for low heap devices. With this version Henco also reduced the price of the game to $9.95 and when you buy the game you buy both versions so that you can register the original when you upgrade to a palm with higher heap memory allocation. I am simply in awe of the graphics and sound. What is surprising is that palm has come so far to support the graphics that this game has. I also give the developer five stars for accomodating us palmers with low heap devices. Frankly other developers should do as cronotech did and reduce the requirements of their high heap games and make low heap versions as well. If you like the game buy it. Its cheap but not cheaply made.

If audio doesn't work for you clie try this http://www.aibohack.com/clie/modclieaud.htm . I tried it on my sister's NX80 and it works fine.

Try it for free or buy it for $9.95!

08:23 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Mobile Sites

Skweezer is a sort of free wireless Web "gateway" that allows you display web sites in a way that's optimized for handheld devices. Images are visible and content is intelligently stacked for easier access. Looks good, give it a try for as long as it is free

04:35 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

Tokyo-based Toppan Printing, who works in collaboration with electronic paper display maker E-Ink, has demonstrated a stunning 400ppi (pixels per inch) high resolution e-paper prototype. Toppan has also manufactured the highly acclaimed 170ppi display of Sony's e-book reader LIBRIé.

Speaking of display resolution: High resolution is as good as the human eye can resolve. Going beyond it would be pointless because the average human eye could not appreciate any finer detail. In a monochromatic image at a normal reading distance, the human eye is not able to perceive more than 250-300ppi. In other words, the 400ppi display prototype easily matches the resolving power of the eye making text as sharp as it can get!

Beside featuring a high resolution, in contrast to traditional display technologies on the market today, E-Ink's e-paper technology also makes text extremely easy to read at virtually any angle and under any lighting condition - including direct sunlight.

03:53 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Yet another update of the best freeware movie player for Pocket PC. BetaPlayer V0.095 adds:

+playlist save
+aac audio codec added (libfaad)
+mp4 file format support
+opendml avi format support
+language JA updated by avi
+preliminary http support

It also has the following fixes:
-asx playlist reader fixed
-avi video timing bugfix
-cpu clock meter fix
-mpeg4 vol header parser bugfix
-mpeg4 resync support
-fixed some problems introduced in 0.094 (direct video, seeking, ati wmv slowdown)
-added missing copyright notices

If you have a Dell Axim X50v, you can download the updated Intel 2700 accelerator drivers from here.

06:23 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

In case you've missed any MobileRead news from this week, here is our usual roundup:

Announcements
Site maintenance - first phase complete

Current E-Books Trends
Digital Flip: Flip your e-book like a paper book
NYT: How e-books come to mainstream

E-Book Readers
Finally official addon software for Sony Librie
Software to convert content for Gemstar devices

E-Book Webstores
eReader "free" e-books a hoax?
eReader.com complete december promo list

General Chat
PC Mag's "Not So Top 10" gadget list

iSilo/X
iSilo/X V4.2 Beta 2 released

Other E-Book Resources
Google "e-book store"
Support Writing On Your Palm

Other Gadgets
2GB SD flash cards announced
PocketSurfer - PDA dedicated to websurfing
Sony promises more power for our mobile gadgets

Palm
palmOne Expert Guides
Palmsource to port PalmOS to Linux
Treo 650 audio quality problems

Portable Audio/Video
iPod Flash - Mini Mini?
iPods hacked with customized fonts and graphics!
Teac's new MP-2000 5Gb MP3-player

Smartphones
Sexy Xda II mini PPC Smartphone
Skype soon in every Windows-powered Smartphone?

WiFi / Bluetooth Technologies
Wireless Librarian lists library hotspots

11:32 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

Teac seems to become serious in entering the lucrative mobile MP3-player market. Only a few months ago we reported on the Teac MP-1000 player. Now with considerably more storage capacity than its predecessor, the MP-2000 can boost with a 5Gb mini harddrive, MP3-, WMA- and OGG-support, built-in FM tuner, and voice-recording capability. Specs:

- 128 x 128 display
- 18hrs playback time
- dimension: 85 x 48 x 17 mm
- weight: 70 grams

The player has already hit the stores in Europe and is available for EUR 259.00 (link).

10:57 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Japan's JNC reports that Sony has a new line-up of lithium-ion batteries, boasting the industry's highest level of energy density:

The G8 Series, a cylindrical lithium ion battery with a diameter of 18mm and height of 65mm, offers a high capacity with 2550mAh (a 6% increase from the conventional battery) while the A8 series, a a lithium ion polymer battery offers a power supply of 830mAh (a 9% increase from Sony's conventional model of the same size). Both are geared towards mobile products, and shipment will start from December 2004 onwards.

A 2550mAh definitely sounds great, but somehow it is hard to imagine a 18mm x 65mm battery inside a handheld.