Sun December 05 2004
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10:54 AM by Laurens in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones
PalmOne is under intense scrutiny these days, maybe unfairly so. However, for a phone, any serious audio issues (that did not occur with earlier models) are of course totally unacceptable. Let's see how quickly they'll respond to this. |
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10:25 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements
Sorry for the recent downtime (~24hrs). It took longer to update the forum than we had previously anticipated. Now we are back! If you visit our forums, you'll notice a new category structure. If you have suggestions or comments, now is the best time We are not done with all internal MR changes yet; so expect some more (short!) downtimes next week. A more formal announcement will follow. Thank you, |
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07:36 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 E-Book Webstores General Chat iSilo/X Other Readers Palm Pocket PC Portable Audio/Video Sunrise WiFi / Bluetooth Technologies |
Fri December 03 2004
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01:32 PM by TadW in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones
Then the bad thing happened. In an insanely long discussion thread at Aximsite, member PocketTV Team first accused Picard of breaking the terms of the GPL license (mentioned earlier at MR). After a long and heated discussion, Picard decided to take the blame on himself and continue development of the plugin. Users were so happy and excited about his work that they decided to denote him Paypal money (including myself). Then someone (could have been me However, a free mpeg2 decoder library or plugin by itself is not an MPEG-2 decoding product until it is compiled, linked to an application and actually used by the end-user - in which case it is the end-user who is infringing the patent, not the programmer. Have a look at 3.4 of the VideoLAN FAQ:
Obviously, while this sounds good, it is not an official answer by MPEG LA regarding this matter. Considering that the libmpeg2 project is several years old, used by a dozen well-known applications for MPEG2 decoding, and yet has not run into any legal trouble, I don't see how a MPEG2 plugin for BetaPlayer would make any difference. After all, it is the end-user who decides whether he wants to install and use the plugin or not. And then I stumbled over today's interview at msmobiles, where PocketTV calls Betaplayer "an illegal hack" due to a) patent infridgement and b) stolen code. It saddens me deeply to see someone like PocketTV desperately vituperating someone elses work without showing definite proof. Is it just a coincidence that user PocketTV represents MpegTV LLC, who develops PocketTV, another video player for Pocket PC, which is not freeware and lacks some of the more advanced features of BetaPlayer? |
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10:12 AM by sUnShInE in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones
Download the drivers here.
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05:16 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements
We are scheduling a maintenance work for today and tomorrow, during which we will reorganize the Mobileread forums. During this maintenance window, our site will be unavailable. Thank you, |
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Thu December 02 2004
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07:30 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones
While palmOne PalmSource is looking for a suitable replacement, Ira Cook, vice president of finance, has been appointed principal financial officer. This latest development at palmOne PalmSource comes rather like an unexpected surprise considering that the announcement was made after the CFO had already left the company. |
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06:50 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones
Connexion made its debut in May 2004 on German carrier Lufthansa. Other airlines who already ordered the system and/or showed interest were ANA, Japan Airlines, SAS, China Airlines and Korean Air (I don't see any American airlines mentioned). Aircrafts providing the system are equipped with satellite receivers and wireless networks. As a passenger you will have real-time broadband service that can be used for watching international live TV, connecting to cooperate VPNs, surfing the Internet and checking e-mails - while a friendly cabin crew serves you your meal at 35,000 feet! Prices look competitive, too. The two initial pricing plans, which will vary depending on flight length, are Flat-Rate (unlimited access, US14.95-$29.95) and Metered Pricing (US$7.95+$0.95/min or US$9.95+$0.25/min). |
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