02:11 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Apparantly AvantGo is trying hard to capture back some of the users who made the switch from AvantGo to other offline-browser alternatives. If you have an AvantGo account, you can now participate in a new beta program for the upcoming AvantGo 2005.

AvantGo 2005 includes a redesign of the user interface, improved on-device channel management and selection (you can now search, browse, and add AvantGo channels from your device), on-device Help & Alert sections, and enhanced connected/wireless features (you can now select which channels you wish to sync).

The beta software is available for Palm OS 5, Pocket PC, and Symbian OS UIQ and Symbian OS Series 60.

01:50 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

In India's news magazine Express Computer you can find an interesting overview of how electronic paper could become a usable digital alternative to real paper in the long run.

The author Sushma Naik argues that "electronic paper has a better chance of succeeding [than e-books] as it mimics the conventional medium of paper but with a significant advantage." The advantage of e-paper over paper is that it can be re-used thousands of times. Imagine this scenario:

The use of electronic ink and two-way wireless communication could lead to the creation of electronic books that renew themselves with new selections when readers are finished with the current book or newspaper; indeed, newspapers might be able to update themselves with the latest news while being read.

12:05 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Winston Chiu was able to have an exclusive interview with SnapperMail creator Will Lau. SnapperMail is the currently best mail solution available for the PalmOS platform.

The interview reveals that the next version of SnapperMail will include background comms and push capable email (similar to Blackberry's email pager). Another interesting news is that the SnapperMail team is working on a project codenamed "Triplex", a portable cross-platform mail engine that marks the expansion of SnapperMail onto other platforms (Symbian UIQ, PocketPC, MS Smartphones and a few more).

[Via PalmAddicts]

10:30 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

I am holding a new x50v in my hands and all I can say so far: it is a totally NEW experience! I am not sure about the Pros and Contras, since I haven't had much of a chance to play with it yet.

Rest assured I will post more about my new journey into the PPC realm in a couple of days!

10:24 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | Fictionwise eBookwise

Brad has one of the first hands-on reviews of the rebranded eBookwise 1150 hardware e-book reader. Nice job, Brad!

From his MR forum comment:

At first I was kind of disappointed with the low res, half VGA screen, but that quickly changed when I started to read. My reading speed went way up because of the larger screen. I could sort of scan ahead. Also even though it is lower res, I find the 1150's serif font easier to read than the default sans-serif font on my PDA.

I've always maintained that the relatively small screen size of today's PDAs is one of their biggest drawbacks - at least when it comes to reading e-books. The eBookwise's huge paperback screen size outshines conventional PDA screens. The low price ($99) plus the big screen make the eBookwise an interesting alternative to PDAs if you are looking for a dedicated e-book device.

05:44 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

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

Book Links
iPod eBook Creator

Book Reader Hardware
Report: 2005 - turning point in e-book reader technology

Emerging Technologies
Interesting Handango Decision
Movies on Your PhotoPod
RIM: Connectivity is a "must" for PDAs nowadays
Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000 mini-reviewed

General Chat
E-Books increase Global Warming, researchers say (satire)
Mobile browsers only use a small sliver of information
Tim O'Reilly Interview

General Palm Discussion
PalmOne, a devastating blow to palmSource
palmOne doesn't accept that it's lagging on the technology curve
P r i n t i s D e a d
Problems with the Treo 650s and T5s

General PPC Discussion
3D Air Combat Game Pack (Pocket PC Edition)
Intel explains why QVGA slow on Axim x50v
Linksys WCF54G - 54 Mbps WiFi card for PPC
New version of ubook available (0.9a)
PDAMill's Arvale: Journey of Illusion released

HandStory
Namo HandStory Suite V3.1 released

Non-Fiction
On intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins

Plucker
Sunrise author explains why Palm OS is unfeasable

01:56 PM by sUnShInE in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The Treo 650 and the Tungsten T5 use a new FAT based nonvolatile file system, which is causing big problems.

Not only is the new system much slower, as the data has to be loaded into a SDRAM chip before running, but in this filesystem PalmOne switched from using directly addressable storage, to storage addressed in 512 Byte blocks. This has caused many files to swell in size - up to 500% in some cases (such as the address book).

Not good for products that only offer a mere 23Mb of memory to play with. These issues are causing many users to cancel their orders to wait until the memory problems are addressed. Given that most of the people who buy new toys as soon as they're released are tech phreaks and developers, this doesn't bode well for a company who has already seen their market share dip below that of the Windows CE market.

Via Slashdot

07:05 PM by Francesco in E-Book General | Reading Recommendations

In a recent thread I got into troubles trying to explain what was "The emperor's new mind" about. Well, it seems it wasn't enough for me, as I try now to review "On intelligence", by Jeff Hawkins.
Ballistic pointed out this book to me. Before reading his post (in that same thread) I hadn't heard anything about Hawkins. This is the man behind the desing of the PalmPilot, Visor and Treo devices. That information sufficed to interest me in that book. I waited and waited until it was available in electronic format and bought it right away. This is the first eBook I ever buy, and I preferred the electronic format for one thing: IMMEDIATE delivery (beat that, paper books! LOL). This was an impulsive buy. I left the DRM concerns aside, I'll deal with that later. Just like with DVDs: as long as the bits are there, someone will find a way.
In this book, Hawkins explains his approach to the way the brain works. His approach, as he mentions right from the beginning, is built upon several previous theories. The objective is to provide a general frame to relate all the disperse works of people studying the brain from different fields in biology. His plan is to understand the brain from a biological point of view, before attempting to simulate its works artificially.
After the prologue, he moves onto explaining why he believes artificial intelligence is doomed and that no matter how fast and powerful a computer might be built, AI in its current approach will never be close to our intelligence. He call his theory "real intelligence". I admire this man.
The most important idea in this book is the concept of intelligence proposed: intelligence is not only the way the mind processes the data received by the senses, but also the ability to predict what will be perceived. The brain constructs the reality around by perceiving and predicting simultaneously. Perception and prediction are very similar phenomena going in opposite directions.
Prediction is built upon memories, or invariant representations, as he calls them. Invariant representations might be compared to Plato's ideals: abstractions of all the forms in the world (cups, staircases, etc.). Forms, situations, words, sounds, etc.
I have to say he convinced me right from chapter one that intelligence can be built. I said it couldn't be done. I guess I'm too easy.
This prediction theory has had a big influence in me, and now I relate every working of my brain to it. It's really funny.
The book is written very clearly, and you don't need any specific background to understand it. Heck, this is a book by the same guy who invented the PalmPilot! It means it's simple and straighforward.
I drifted away many times from the book, thinking about my own experiencies and hypothesis, and that talks very well about a book, I believe. It made me think a lot.
If you want more info about "On intelligence", you might want to check its site: onintelligence.org,it contains an excerpt, bios, a forum to discuss your opinions, and a form you can fill to contact the authors (the book was coauthored by Sandra Blakeslee).
On "The art of seeing", Aldous Huxley proposes an exercise consisting in looking at letters, at various distances and one at a time, trying to "memorize" the way they look. The result is not an increased chance to guess the letters you see, but an actually improved sight. This fits so well into the prediction model I had to tell the author. I did, and am still waiting a reply. Isn't Internet a sweet thing?
One last word, I was ultimately inspired by the Read/Write Web to post this review, whose author recently posted a link to his site. The concept behind Read/Write Web is that recently, the web finally became what it should be: a communication channel not only to receive information, but to publish it as well (from the point of view of the common user, of course). And that's what I just did.